brighthouse does it again

ever since the move, just like the last time we moved a few years ago, brighthouse internet has been intermittent anywhere but in the same room as the router... it took several home visits and changing routers and changing the wall connection and changing the external connection to get the service to produce a strong enough signal to actually provide internet through the 1200 square foot space... way too much of my time was taken up by the crappy brighthouse fixes... and here we are again... i've got to set up a service call... the green light on the router that is supposed to stay on steady is constantly blinking... the internet connection is intermittent... and cable is down again...

brighthouse is terrible service... the cable continues to have the same problems over and over and over and over (and those are just some of the records of the complaints) ... we need the internet for our jobs and it will not work consistently... i so do not want to spend hours working for brighthouse for nothing like i did after the last move and other times... we shall see if the compensation for my time, inconvenience, and frustration is worth my time or if i finally give up on brighthouse and try a different cable and internet service...

brighthouse roadrunner broadband turbo internet (updated 3/18/13, trending downward):

working near perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

5% of the time 5% of the time 85% of the time 5% of the time

no problems slow downs intermittent connection, reboot requires a call to tech support or repair visit

brighthouse digital hd cable tv (table updated 3/18/13, still trending downward):

working perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

0% of the time 0% of the time 85% of the time 15% of the time

no problems delays, box/channels reset occasionally, software does not adjust aspect ratio and picture size automatically sound does not go on at start, box resets/blinks every 60 seconds, aspect ratio and picture size are off box/channel resets every 10-15 seconds or other issue requires reboot, call to tech support, or visit

brighthouse shut me down again

and once again i am in the middle of working on internet research and in the middle of watching something on tv and the crappy brighthouse service that i pay $130 a month for decides i can not do what i want to do and will i be compensated for my time?... the reboot started automatically about ten minutes ago and it continues... does brighthouse really care?... is brighthouse really a friend?... don't believe the bullshit commercials, they do not care and are not your friend... they continue to tell me that this should not be happening and continue to ask me for my time and my services without compensation - and they continue to provide a mediocre product with ineffective service...

and during the last service call, just two weeks ago, i told the tech what was going on and he suggested getting the new box... in other words, call for service again... and talking to two csrs on the phone to set up the service call (the first one was "disconnected" somehow), i explained all the issues and what happened?... nothing... the service tech had no clue...

so now this latest brighthouse-initiated reboot that interrupted my service took fifteen minutes and turned off my tv twice and now my tv will not go on... whatever signal was sent to the tv apparently rebooted my tv as well... and of course it turned off the cable box so the channel was reset... so now, twenty minutes later the tv is trying to connect to the but and on comes what?... not the channel i was watching (not that i want to watch a show after brighthouse forced me to miss 20 minutes of it), but the first-on channel and, of course, without sound... worst of all, the internet service has gone downhill since the move and it was the internet that was keeping me... the neighbor's dishes are looking more attractive once again...

brighthouse is amazing

after waking to no internet again and giving my unpaid time and service to brighthouse, i decided to ignore the meaningless complain it might have been and just mention it as i mention most everything in my daily blog where i mention most everything just to mention most everything for whatever reasons i might have at the time (and brighthouse will not alter my good mood this time)... but now, just a couple of hours later, the cable box decides it's time for yet another reboot - as if it doesn't matter that i pay for the box and the service, it and brighthouse arrogantly believe it is ok to control it in my home... no respect... no is it ok if we interrupt your activities in your home right now and shove yet another reboot up your ... tv?)... ... the lack of customer consideration remains amazing... astounding...

ridiculous...

to brighthouse techs, csrs, and management: click here and read this before you comment if you are not just SPAM commenting... simply, if you want more of my time and energy, pay me...

most consistent complaint: no sound at start up... random re-boots...

only acceptable solutions: service that works... pay me for my time...

brighthouse digital hd cable tv (table updated 2/5/13):

working perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

0% of the time 0% of the time 95% of the time 5% of the time

no problems delays, box/channels reset occasionally, software does not adjust aspect ratio and picture size automatically sound does not go on at start, box resets/blinks every 60 seconds, aspect ratio and picture size are off box/channel resets every 10-15 seconds or other issue requires reboot, call to tech support, or visit

the tech who installed our service here last week suggested getting the other brand of cable box, samsung again... other techs have suggested this sysco cable box when we had the other brand... their answer is always just give us more of your time (without compensation) and try something else (that won't work)... we watched the superbowl at a friends on century link and it worked fine... most neighbors here in our new place have satellite dishes so we'll be talking to them about service and reception as we meet them... brighthouse just does not seem to get the message...

waiting for the brighthouse connection

i occasionally get a message here or by phone from brighthouse sales or technicians that appear to be efforts to resolve the on-going service interruptions i frequently experience, a few of which have been chronicled in this blog... today i am brought here due to continued poor service preventing me from enjoying cable programming... in this entry, i will also address why i have stopped responding to the brighthouse calls... the bottom line is this - if the solution brighthouse is offering does not start with a monthly discount for my time, energy, and interrupted service, i am not interested in wasting more of my time trying to fix the continuing brighthouse problems...

now to today's issue...

first, should it take 3-5 minutes to use the remote to use the search feature to find a specific show you want?... when you press your remote, does nothing happen for ten seconds or longer?... when scrolling through channels, does the scrolling freeze and take sixty seconds to get through the first 100 channels?...

when you want to find out when specific shows are on, for instance, which football games are being broadcast on which channels at what time, can you do that in less than 5 minutes without loosing your feed to the game you are currently watching?...

if you can do these things with brighthouse, then you are getting better service than i am... i do not know if it is the converter box or the line conditions or something at the brighthouse connections or bandwidth or something else, but the delays in receiving signals simply switching stations or scrolling through the stations is unacceptably long...

let's look at the solutions and customer satisfaction...

the first solution is change the batteries in the remote... i do that monthly, even more often at times... i do not use the remote daily... the batteries i remove from the remote are still very effective in any other electronic product and testing shows they are still good batteries... i have changed the remote several times... the remote does not seem to be the primary problem...

the next solution is reboot the box (again, a weekly activity which is ridiculous inconvenience and lowers my customer satisfaction a lot)... i do not work for brighthouse... i pay brighthouse for service...

it is as simple as this...

i should not have to provide service for brighthouse equipment unless brighthouse pays me to provide service... to resolve this customer dissatisfaction, i should be paid for each service i provide for brighthouse equipment... my time and energy has value... a $5 discount for each required reboot would be appropriate...

as i manually reboot on average weekly due to lagging service or other issues, a $20 discount monthly is required for customer satisfaction as much as the reboot is required just to use the service i pay for...

this does not include the auto-reboots that the box does when i am in the middle of watching a show - that is an intrusion that is not acceptable and a dollar amount will not provide satisfaction, however a punitive dollar amount might encourage brighthouse to not randomly interrupt the service i am paying for... $50 would be fair, considering the level of customer dissatisfaction and the profit margin brighthouse currently provides... the risk of a $50 refund should be incentive enough for brighthouse technicians to stop randomly interrupting the service i pay for... might as well have satellite...

the next solution to any issue is to call brighthouse... that averages more than 30 minutes and takes me away from work or life activities that of my choosing... essentially, it puts me in the position of working for brighthouse... i should be compensated at $15 an hour for my time when i am required to call brighthouse just to use the service i am paying for...

the next solution is a home service call... that requires a change in my schedule and anywhere 2-4 hours of down time waiting for the service technician... i have experienced at least two no-shows and may have forgotten more... again, a minimum of $15 per hour for the time i give to brighthouse required to use the service i pay for... since the best they do is a 2-hour window, a minimum $30 refund of my money is fair for each service call...

these are very fair wage compensations for my time as i could be earning much more per hour if i chose not to give brighthouse my time... this is also an excellent performance improvement incentive for brighthouse to improve their product and customer service as the responsibility for not paying me would be set directly on brighthouse - provide the service i pay for without glitches and interruptions and you refund me nothing, you get more than $1,000 a year from me...

so, to the brighthouse techs and csrs and managers who may read this, if your proposed resolutions to the issues i have been reporting for the last few years does not include monetary compensation for my time, energy, troubleshooting, and inconvenience... then please do not offer the appearance of a blank check "let me help you" in my comments here or on the phone... your "help" costs me time and money... and the dozens of calls and home service calls i've given you over the years has has not resolved the issues...

keep in mind that what brings me here today is the same thing that has brought me to write every blog entry about brighthouse service, dissatisfaction with the brighthouse product... if there was not an issue preventing me from using the product today, i would not be writing this... i am not looking for money, i am looking for the service in pay for... at this point however; i have given enough time and energy to brighthouse without fair compensation and propose the refund plan in this entry as a last effort to keep me as a brighthouse customer...

as a quality manager myself, understanding the customer's dissatisfaction and needs is an essential aspect of customer satisfaction... hopefully this writing has provided you with the specific information you need to satisfy this customer...

i am likely not the only customer who would approve of this plan...

UPDATE: why should today have only one issue, it's brighthouse service, after all...

I get home and find the show guide is suddenly changed to ridiculously huge letters so the stations can't be read and only the first word for any show name is visible... why am i not surprised that the box reset itself again and now does not provide a useable guide to what is on...

it's not like we have only one issue each day... we have several on-going issues every day... like the cable box still turns on and switches to mute for some reason and we have to change channels a certain way with the remote to get sound... if we actually watched tv daily we'd have a different service...

what baffles me most is how people who actually watch tv daily put up with brighthouse... i know what keeps me is the internet, not the best but the fastest around here... and also the fact that i get a discount some months i spend time trying to get the service fixed... but the fix has not worked in the past few years since i've had the service... we plan on moving early next year and moving with brighthouse does not look likely...

brighthouse continues to suck

so after a wonderful day out playing softball with friends and a wonderful evening home enjoying dinner with friends i decide to give up sleep tonight to watch something i was looking forward to for weeks, a 10 year reunion show for firefly and five minutes into the show for reasons only the intrusive people and computers at brighthouse know, the cable box turns off and goes into some sort of countdown followed by another countdown followed by a reboot and twenty minutes later i am still wondering why i don't just cancel this crap brighthouse service because the show will not go on...

so i will not get back the time or sleep i gave up tonight and i still do not get to watch the show i wanted to watch and brigthouse still charges more than they charged last year for service that gets worse every month... yes, besides exploring alternbative tv services and in spite of offers to help which do nothing to stop the deteriorating service and continuing service interruptions... in fact just it continues to get worse... i started keeping track and the current stats are:

brighthouse digital hd cable tv (table updated 12/14/12, still trending downward):

working perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

0% of the time 0% of the time 90% of the time 10% of the time

no problems delays, box/channels reset occasionally, software does not adjust aspect ratio and picture size automatically sound does not go on at start, box resets/blinks every 60 seconds, aspect ratio and picture size are off box/channel resets every 10-15 seconds or other issue requires reboot, call to tech support, or visit

cable and internet search

the box once again is acting up, flicking the picture and sound on and off and preventing the signal from reaching the tv... shutting it off a few times and waiting did not help this time... a manual reboot is next... and since the brighthouse service will not work and not allow me to watch tv, it is time to invest some time in research for better service - so let's see what else is available at my address...

comcast... $40 cable and $30 internet from road runner (same company brighthouse uses)... the $30 internet is without taxes and without internet speed boosts... and is a time-limited offer, 6 months and then it goes to $50... a package for $80 sounds very similar to what i am currently getting from brighthouse for at least $20 more, so there is a draw for comcast... the site does not make comparison shopping easy and does not offer any comparison to brighthouse... a prime example can be found here on this page where they have the starter tv and the internet package for $30 each and then the combo of those two services for $70... simple math suggests this company has some serious math problems (and i should trust their tech knowledge?)...

even more unfortunately, it looks like a 2 year commitment is required, which is a big turn off for me as i might find major flaws in the service in the first few months and be stuck for two years... the lack of required commitments still keeps brighthouse ahead in spite of the horrible service lately...

still, saving $20-$30 a month is a major draw so i will explore comcast further... reviews show just as many complaints about comcast as there are for brighthouse, so the switch would have to be based on the details of costs, channels, internet speed, and the roll of the dice that the service may be a bit better... sometimes, after continuous dissatisfaction, any change is better than continued poor service... ultimately, the comcast experience may be better or worse than the brighthouse experience, but i will not know unless i try it...

centurylink (orlando)... sounds similar in cost, though i have not explored the details of the services and packages offered yet...

cleartv offers a bundle of tv and internet for $65, almost half the price i currently pay per month plus one month free, so it's worth a look as i continue searching... the page, however, gives the feel of a scam (not suggesting it is, it just lacks depth and detailed information and requests contact info immediately, before providing any shopping experience)... also appears to be a 4G at best internet, much slower than high-speed cable...

att u-verse presented challenging to find in this internet search and appears to require $91 to get HDTV, which is unacceptable pricing... also, the complicated internet presence presents a lot of scam-like "authorized representatives" so finding the source provider is not easy... at&t also requires a log-in to shop "build-your own" bundles on their site, definitely marketing that borders on the spam sites...

so after jumping through a few hoops i found that max internet is $63 and 300 channels is $87 and after rebates or whatever promo offers, it's $115 a month including a dvr and an additional $100 rebate for signing up for a year... still, i do not believe this includes HDTV, so not acceptable... bundling wireless service reduces the monthly bill to $110... knowing att, there is some hoop-jumping involved, as their complicated website showed...

and ah, i believe (again, the site is not simple to navigate) i found HD and it is an extra $10 a month, so $120 now... this plan includes a movie package for $20... unfortunately, it does not appear possible to remove the movie package and still get HDTV as HDTV is not available with lower priced packages... the $100 rebate brings the monthly cost down about for the initial year, so $112 a month, about the same as the current brighthouse we pay without the two dvrs and more channels...

the catch may be that after the 12 month required contract, the $46 per month discount ends and the monthly cost is $166, are they nuts?... i'd have to speak with them before ordering, but the $112 for more channels, 2 dvr boxes (one wireless), and more sounds appealing...

directv... $40 cable for equivalent station lineup to what i have now and a dvr... regular price $70... requires a 2 year contract and goes up to $50 the second year... while the website makes comparing packages simpler than the cable providers sites, the discounts appear complicated as they are rebates requiring online submission and the risk of not getting the rebates if you do not do it correctly, typical pain-in-the-ass marketing technique)... also, auto-payment is required... again, road runner is the separate company that is bundled for high-speed internet access... the free nfl package makes directv a very serious draw in spite of the hoop-jumping required, however the time-sensitive rebate hoops make it a fourth choice for now behind the two cable providers bh and cc and att...

without the hoop-jumping, directv sounds pretty good... but the hoop-jumping suggest to me that dealing with this company will not be a simple or happy consumer experience...

brighthouse (central florida) currently charges us $120 for the cable internet (roadrunner) package (this includes taxes) for one cable box and this does not include a dvr... definitely the most expensive of the lot...

going to their bundles page i see an offer for $110 that includes phone... and $100 for the service i currently get (and why do i pay more for this, probably because i am not a new subscriber which adds to the price appeal of comcast and directv)... though the directv page makes it much easier to find prices, channel lineup details, and compare packages, the simplicity of no contract and no rebates makes this the simplest and most attractive front-end package i've found so far, yet the add-on packs can become confusing and the price difference combined with the actual experience of the poor quality of service brighthouse provides still leaves me a very dissatisfied customer looking for another provider...

it is interesting to note that brighthouse does not show up on the first search page doing a google search for "tv and internet costs orlando florida"... no charge for the marketing information, brighthouse...

wow, that was a long few hours to find all this information (and there are plenty of details i would dig deeper for before a final decision) and in fact, while this started out as a complaint, it may just be edited and become a consumer blog entry... but for this place, ultimately, i am leaning toward switching to providers unless brighthouse either improves service or meets a competitive monthly price... why pay $110+ a month for crap service when i can try an alternative with the same channels and internet speed and includes a dvr and more tvs for a lower price...

good question, aye?

not brighthouse

so once again i sit here with a lost internet connection and a lost tv cable connection in the middle of working and right at the beginning of a show so watching brighthouse cable tv is pointless and the job search i was in the middle of is not just pointless, but possibly a waste of the last hour or more since websites might not let me continue filling out their pages when the connection finally returns... how many ways can brighthouse suck...

and what will wasting more time on the phone with the tech department or wasting even more time rearranging my schedule for home visits really do that has not been done in the dozens of hours i've already wasted, really... as i said in a previous entry

there comes a time after speaking with a dozen different representatives and having a half dozen house calls over a couple of months that i run out of patience and more, i run out of belief that the brighthouse reps can fix the problem and need to take a break...

i have probably never been more ready for a sales pitch from dish or direct or u-verse or anyone but brighthouse...

... 18 MINUTES LATER... and now that the box FINALLY reset, i turn it back on (because it does not reset to the channel and show it interrupted, of course) and i return to the show i was watching and the box is blinking on and off, resetting every ten seconds or so... brighthouse decided i should not watch this show, obviously...

what kind of CRAP SERVICE is this - BRIGHTHOUSE SUCKS...

.... and now a few minutes later after turning off the box and tv and waiting and turning both on again, there is no sound... this happens at least 80% of the time we turn on the box and tv and the solution is switching stations, sometimes a few times, sometimes using the FAV button on the remote... this usually bring sound on most of the time...

i don't even mention the no sound and don't come here to record every box reset or glitch in service because this is just the kind of crap service brighthouse provides, but at least i found a fix for the no-sound problem... perhaps brighhouse sucks needs a blog all it's own because brighthouse is definitely spoiling the tongue-in-cheek tone this blog was intended to maintain because BRIGHTHOUSE SUCKS too much to laugh about it...

at least not all the time (though i should laugh at myself for capitalizations when i finally stop being angry at this latest brighthouse service failure...

sheesh...