YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES
Comcast cable service challenged by Minnesota winter
Posted on December 16th, 2008 – 3:28 PMBy James Shiffer
A “small” number of Comcast’s 560,000 customers in the Twin Cities area have experienced troubles with their cable service because of the plunging temperatures, a Comcast spokesman told me today. It’s enough of a problem that the company’s recorded message on its customer service line alerts callers that they might have to wait a while, due to a high volume of weather-related service complaints.
David Nyberg, senior manager of corporate affairs in Comcast’s St. Paul office, said the problems are “primarily isolated to a few neighborhoods scattered around the Twin Cities.” Rapid changes in temperature, like the region experienced over the past few days, can affect different pieces of the network, such as the fitting that connects the cable to the side of someone’s house. That can shrink as the temperature drops and the contact could be lost, Nyberg said.
Despite my efforts to get him to estimate the number of outages, just as power companies typically do, Nyberg declined to be specific. He explained that it’s hard to estimate when technicians are solving problems sometimes before the customer even notices.
“Any time you deal with extreme changes in weather, and particularly rapid drops in cold weather, that can precipitate a small bump in these issues,” he said.
If you’re having trouble with your service that you think is weather-related , you can contact Comcast here. Also, let us know about it by posting a comment.
62 Responses to “Comcast cable service challenged by Minnesota winter”
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December 16th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
down since yesterday morning. Comcast will promptly get to us on Friday!!!!
December 16th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Cable is working at my place, but for the past few days, all of my HD channels have a weird bar at the top, and it seems like the color and clarity is off. Maybe due to the cold? Let me know if anyone else has the same problem…..could be my equipment, but all the other channels are fine.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
How would I know if the service was bad? Isn’t it always bad?
December 16th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
My Comcast internet was on and off yesterday, I had the same problem last year when it was really cold. We cancelled the cable TV part when they couldn’t fix the problem after dozens (literally) of service calls.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
This isn’t the first time it’s below zero in this state. C’mon Comcast.. My service (cable/broadband)was out all day yesterday. I do not have the issue wth the “wierd bar” at the top oof my HD channels when they came back online.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Not a fan of Comcast, but the weather this week has
been awful. I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused problems.
If cable problems are your only worry, consider yourself
lucky. There are people who might have frozen pipes right now!
December 16th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Do people really call comcast with their reception problems? I was out on Monday morning, and fuzzy last night. I don’t ever bother to call because I always know it’s them and not me. But as I am weaned slowly off tv by their lack of offerings, I will then be able to cancel. That day is coming soon.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Our DSL was out from about 8 p.m. until this a.m., sometime. We had no problem with our TV at all. Frustrating for the computer though as we have a high school student who needed to get some homework done. Nancy
December 16th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
That’s funny, according to their commercials, satellite customers are the only ones who ever have their service interupted by the weather.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Yep, our internet went down in Afton for about 4 hours last night.