NEWS
100,000 hit by cable outage
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by Andriy Pazuniak
Monday, February 12, 2007
Charter Communications said vandalism was the cause of a cable outage that affected 100,000 customers in the Madison area Sunday night.
As of press time, 50,000 customers had their cable and Internet services restored, according to Jessie Guzman, supervisor for Charter Communications, and Charter technicians were working to restore all services by Monday morning.
Guzman said the outage began after Charter cable lines in Fitchburg were cut by apparent vandals.
"The reason there's an outage in [the Madison] area is because vandalism happened," Guzman said. "Someone cut the fibers in [the Madison] area."
As of press time, neither the Fitchburg Police Department nor the Madison Police Department received any reports of the alleged case of vandalism.
However, according to Guzman, the outage began at approximately 6 p.m., when the cable lines were allegedly cut and, at its peak, affected thousands of Madison-area customers.
Guzman added that there was "no reason to worry," because all Charter cable and Internet services were expected to be restored by 1:30 a.m. Monday.
"We're hoping this issue will be resolved as soon as possible," Guzman said.
Though Charter Communications supplies Internet and cable television to the University of Wisconsin public dormitories, numerous residents said the outage did not affect them.
According to its website, Charter, a broadband communications company, serves 232,000 customers in southern Wisconsin and more than 5.4 million nationwide.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 7:30am):
Fishy that the local police hadn't heard anything yet. Even if Charter isn't directly at fault for this one, they're still a shitty company with a shitty product for shitty prices backed by shitty customer service.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 7:36am):
This company is, bar-none, the WORST and most monopolistic cable company in the country. Excuse me if I'm the least bit skeptical of blaming this on "vandals," considering our cable modem mysteriously loses its connection ROUTINELY, requiring a restart.
The saddest part is that there's no competition to set Charter straight, so we just have to live with it.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 8:04am):
How convenient that this happens one hour before the Grammy's, during Obama's interview, and ruined my tivoed ABC television shows. What do they think I'm going to do, read?!
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 8:23am):
Newsflash: 8am and internet still doesn't work. I hate you Charter.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 8:54am):
I think this is a little convenient that after there is special on the local news about ,allowing AT&T digital cable compete with Charter, that the cables are cut. Conspiracy to sky-rocket the demand for competition or not?? Just something to think about, but I really do hate Charter too, but if this really is At&T's tactic, I don't if I want to switch to a company that vandalizes to gain access to a market...
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 10:10am):
is anyone else pursuing a refund or pro-rating for Sunday night? I hate that I even care that my cable was out (but so was my internet). But you had the Grammy's, Obama, Desperate Housewives, Battlestar Galactica, and the Dresedn Files. Just about the only shows I watch religiously, and they were gone. If I miss a little bit of my payment I sure as heck hear about it. They shouldn't be able to take away an evening of service without some consequences.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 12:12pm):
"Supervisor for Charter" seems like an awfully vague title.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 12:14pm):
Charter burn in hell.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 12:22pm):
I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but Time Warner consistently has better service. "Charter burn in hell" seconded.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 12:53pm):
An inside source points out that:
- Many Charter employees jobs were recently outsourced.
- Network diagrams are easily obtained from inside the company.
- Access to this would enable 'vandals' to maximize the effects of their 'vandalism'.
If so, I say good for them. Teach those corporate monopolist bastards a lesson.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 12:56pm):
A couple of additional comments and questions:
1. Congrats to the Badger Herald for actually assigning a reporter to a story impacting thousands of people in the Madison area. The State Journal provided its typically pitiful Monday morning coverage -- just an AP dispatch that that had no more initiative than an Internet chat session for a news story known by 7:15 pm Sunday evening and long before the SJ went to press. Apparently the SJ editor-in-chief (from the Philadelphia Daily News tabloid) doesn't assign reporters to stories like this breaking over the weekend.
2. Why would anyone bundle their telephone service with Charter cable TV and Internet?
3. Charter's response seemed to be a busy telephone line, which, when finally reached, could offer no more than "we know there is a disruption in your area." No reason, no idea when service would resume.
4. Why no comment yet from the City of Madison's Cable TV Coordinator? Does this position actually do anything?
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 1:46pm):
When I called their customer service asking for a refund, the woman informed me I would have to call back for that as she could not handle that sort of thing. I then asked her if she could just transfer my call to whomever was able to provide the refund, and she hung up on me. Actually cut off what I was saying and hung up on me. AT&T please please please come to madison!
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 2:27pm):
If you ever want to get an actual, Fond du Lac WI based human being on the phone at Charter, just go through their automated prompts and select the "disconnect service" option, you will get a human being on the phone within minutes who is capable of providing any level of customer service you require, it's unfortunate that I had to sit on hold for 40 minutes (on my cell phone, of course, because I am stupid enough to have bundled services through Charter) and speak to a person from India first in order to be let in on this little secret, but the very helpful woman from Charter explained that this is the method for getting a US based human being on the phone. It's unfortunate that they are only willing to give you a real customer service person when you are at the end of your rope enough to want to disconnect, but as already mentioned, Charter does in fact suck really, really badly.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 3:11pm):
I especially liked calling Charter just to have them ask, "How can I help you?" Geez, am I the first one to call about my cable outage? After saying that I should "wait for a couple of hours" (this was at 9:30pm), then the rep ask me, "is there anything else I can do for you?" Duh...
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 4:12pm):
Finally - a reason why! And I too, would like a rebate for all the time that Charter is down, but you know that won't happen.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 4:22pm):
I got charter to issue me a credit for the full day.
I had to briefly argue with them because they said only the telephone service had an outage.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 5:28pm):
By the way, this isn't the Badger Herald assigning a reporter to this story, its the Chief News Editor himself (Andriy) taking responsibility for doing an informative and somewhat timely story. Eat your heart out, State Journal, Daily Cardinal (who didn't even have a story on this), and Cap Times.
Yes, you DID just get upstaged by a student newspaper.
HOW CAN CHARTER BE WRONG WHEN THEY ARE SO BIG?!?!
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 5:54pm):
Well...chances are folks aren't going to believe me, because, well, they hate Charter.
(Can't say I blame them, though - their customer services SUCKS!!!! I have cable and internet through them myself and have spent hours on the phone trying to get simple problems resolved.)
But having "inside information" - yes - the cable was cut by vandals, and no - the police didn't get any reports. Do you honestly think if your mother didn't know everything you were doing in high school that the police (who often rely on "concerned citizens") know EVERYTHING that happens in a given neighborhood?
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 5:57pm):
By law, Charter has to give you refund credit for a day when service is down for at least four hours, but that only applies to cable TV and you have to ask for the refund. You should still ask for a refund for your internet and phone service, too, though. When you do, remind them that when the weather is as bad as it has been here lately, their sucky service resulting in cutting off your phone service means you don't have access to 911, which could result in getting someone killed in an emergency.
Anonymous (February 12, 2007 @ 7:18pm):
The length and magnitude of down time should be enough to start a major legal case. Imagine how many businesses rely on Charter's service who could not conduct business. In that case, luckily it was a Sunday night and not a work day.
Why don't they have fiber redundancy (multiple sources of fiber in case one fails)? Maybe I am not well-informed about the technology. Sounds like a cover up.
Anonymous (February 13, 2007 @ 11:17am):
FYI, Charter provides cable TV service to the UW Madison residence halls, but does not provide Internet service. This was incorrectly stated in the 2nd to last paragraph.
Anonymous (February 13, 2007 @ 5:06pm):
Go to www.wewantchoicewi.com to register and help lobby for competition. Charter is not the only solution!
Anonymous (February 14, 2007 @ 11:55pm):
I was so happy to dump all my stuff on Charter's counter. TDS was more than grateful for my business and their service is great! I have a super-fast connection that never fails. And, it's much cheaper.
Anonymous (May 14, 2007 @ 9:11am):
I think the cable companies in Wisconsin are totally outrageous in their prices. Every month my bill goes up and that is ridiculous. I pay more for my cable now and have no premium channels than I when I had three premium channels. There was a tine when TV channel waves were free !!! sure there were less channels but everyone got along just fine with only a few options. Who decided that they could charge for these waves anyway??????
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