谈到康卡斯特的技术支持，坚持是关键

我和妻子最近搬进了一所新房子，作为协议的一部分，我买了一台新的高清电视和一台Tivo高清电视(我是Tivo的超级粉丝)。Tivo HD很酷的一点是它支持有线电视卡(CableCard)，这意味着我不需要从我的有线电视供应商康卡斯特(Comcast)购买额外的机顶盒。这款电视和TivoHD是上周上市的，但直到周日，康卡斯特才派出技术人员来安装CableCard。技术很棒，尽管是我亲自安装的。他只是向指挥中心读了一些数字，并再次检查了屋里的电缆，以确保信号强度良好。安装过程的一部分是等待CableCard获得授权，并下载正确数量的授权管理消息(Entitlement Management Messages, EMMs)，这些消息告诉卡，我被授权接收哪个通道。授权部分进行得很顺利，但emm并没有马上到位。现场的技术人员告诉我，可能需要一天左右的时间，至少要等到我今天(周一)下班回家后才打电话给康卡斯特技术支持。我到家了，还是没做电磁检查。所以我打电话给800-COMCAST，第一个代表似乎对CableCard一无所知。 She insisted that I needed to have a tech come out to the house and the first available appointment was Thursday - 3 days away. That didn't work for me, so we settled on a Saturday appointment. The installing tech told me that I may just have to talk to engineering again to have them check the authorization and host numbers on my CableCard. So I ask the woman on the phone if I can talk to the engineering team. She said she had sent them an e-mail and they will be working on the problem in the background, but it is good to setup a house-call just in case. The only thing I could do is to check the Tivo/CableCards once in a while to see if they updated. Grrr. I was not happy to have the same reception on an HD Tivo and 1080p tv that I got on my 13" analog set. My wife said, "Call back." After a little more griping, I called back and got a different rep. After going through the problem I was having and saying, "it could be just a bad host number," the rep said, might be, but check again, I just sent a signal to the system. Bingo! 39 EMMs processed and all my channels active. Yay, Celtics in HD! Can't wait for the Red Sox season to start. The bottom line: If you feel you're getting short changed by the phone rep's lack of expertise, call back! My second rep (regrettably, I didn't get her name) was excellent. The first should go back to taking orders at the local house of pizza.