Comcast craps in your house but X1 is awesome

So my install window for my Xfinity X1 upgrade was from 3PM to 5PM.  I left work around 2PM to make sure I was home on time although I knew the odds of Comcast arriving at the front end of the install window was slim to none.  I am pretty sure I have NEVER had a Comcast tech arrive within their scheduled window.

So 4:45 arrives and nobody has shown up and nobody has called me to say they are running late.  I hop on a web chat session with someone from Comcast and ask if I can still expect someone to show up for my install.  I also asked the rep why installers are not instructed to use common courtesy and let customers know they are running late?  The rep apologized and said they put a note on my account.  They said the rep is on their way and should be calling me shortly.  I put little stock in that promise. As expected no one ever called but the installer truck finally pulled into the driveway somewhere around 5:35.

The beat up old Chevy truck had a magnetic sticker indicating the two people inside were not actually Comcast employees, they were authorized contractors, RWL communications.  The two installers were a black man and woman, it became clear very early the woman was the supervisor and the guy was a new hire trying to learn the ropes.

The woman didn’t offer any apologies for being late and just asked where the new boxes were going.  I found the  guy that was with her to be annoying pretty much immediately. As he was outside with the woman he was on his cell phone catching up with someone on a personal call.  His head that was shaved on the sides with an island of hair up top made an interesting style statement.

At first I was watching the woman work outside.  She cut out the perfectly good cable that was in the termination box along with the splitter that was used to separate the line for the internet versus TV.  She was instead combining it into one line which I thought was odd.  After getting bored watching her mess around outside I told them to knock on the door when they were ready to get into the attic where the coax lines for the house are terminated.

After what seemed like a very long time she was ready to move to the attic.  I told her I had taken the steps to label all of the incoming lines as well as the two lines that would be getting X1 service.    I figured the time needed in the attic would be minimal as all that should need to be done is disconnect two lines from one splitter and move it to a new splitter, a 5 minute task.  Wow was I wrong.  She was up in the attic for at least a half hour, probably closer to 45 minutes.

Evidently regardless of the condition of the cable ends, the installer is supposed to redo every connection they touch.  Plus she wound up redoing the two way split outside the house after realizing it was necessary after she undid it.  While I was inside waiting for her to get finished in the attic I heard a crash from the garage.  I head out, half expecting to see a leg hanging out through the ceiling drywall.  I see no holes but ask if everything is ok.  The annoying guy says everything is fine, just “one beam wasn’t as strong as she thought”, whatever the f that means.

Both of the installers seemed to be suffering from some sort of ailment/illness.  The guy was making all sorts of disgusting noises with his throat.  The woman seemed to be suffering from severe allergies and was sniffling and snorting non-stop.

While they were out there the annoying guy, whom got a whole lot more annoying later, asked me about the SSR.  He says “yea, how fast will that thing go?” .  I said “pretty fast, it has a Corvette motor in it”.  He comes back with “yea, but how fast will it go”.  I didn’t quite understand why the guy was so interested in a top end speed for the truck and I certainly wasn’t going to go hop on my computer to look up a SSR’s top speed.  I simply said “fast enough” and headed inside since I had no interest in continuing the conversation thread.

So finally they were ready to move inside with the X1 hardware.  I had already pulled out the Tivo so the X1 DVR could slide in it’s place.  The woman was working out in the great room, she gave the second box to the guy and tasked him with setting it up in the bedroom.  It was during this process that the guys lack of any technical background or skill was really apparent.  He had no clue what to do despite me showing him the coax cable, the HDMI cable and location of AC power.  The woman had to go in and walk him through it.

When the woman came back out in the great room she put the signal meter on the line.  She was perplexed that she showed zero signal.  I told her that made no sense since the line worked fine for HDTV via my antenna.  I went out to the garage and looked at the splitter.  Despite my efforts to clearly label the lines and my instructions to her pointing out exactly what had to be moved, she hooked up the wrong line.  I called her out and told her the wrong line was connected to the splitter.  Once she flipped it signal returned, imagine that.

The signal level was not at an optimal level so she decided to put a powered splitter in the attic.  I had to hunt down an extension cord she could use to tap into the plug adapter I have in the light bulb socket up there.  After installing the booster signal level was good and she returned to working on the DVR.

Sometime around then the guy asks if we have a guest bathroom he could use?  Hmm I guess the guy really has to pee, I directed him to the bathroom by the guest room.  Well as the minutes passed by and the bathroom door remained closed a horrible reality set in on me.  The installer was taking a massive dump in my bathroom.  In total he was in there 10-15 minutes, unbelievable.  When he exited he left the fan on, how nice of him.  I could not believe it.   I was hoping to make eye contact with Cindy when he came out so we could exchange disgusted eye rolls but she kept working in the kitchen.

I later found out she was disgusted as I was.  As soon as they left she was in there bleaching everything and pulling out all of the towels.  It just wasn’t cool.  I can only imagine what went on in there.

So once the X1 DVR was up the guy said he was going to do me a favor and program the X1 remote to control the TV.  He told me I should read off the possible codes for Mitsubishi TV’s to him.  Even though I didn’t need this functionality since I have the Harmony smart remote, I played along.  He acted like he was an experienced tech as he punched in the codes.

After entering one of the codes the screen went black but I immediately identified it as the X1 just doing some sort of update.  The TV itself didn’t actually turn off.  Mr Crap declared he found the code and the remote was now configured.  I told him the tv didn’t actually turn off but he assured me it was working.  Knowing I was going to be setting everything up myself anyway I let him think he actually accomplished something.  Fine dude, just get out of my house.

Both of the boxes finally finished registering and updating themselves on the Comcast network.  After a very brief “training” session from the woman they were finally done, not leaving the premises until after 7:30PM.  Obviously the install experience was not good.  They were late, slow and the guy dropped a deuce in my bathroom. However after playing with the X1 equipment for a little bit the sour taste in my mouth started to sweeten.

The X1 interface is very good, rivaling if not exceeding what I have come to expect from my Tivo.  It looks slick, it’s fast, intuitive and powerful.  Setting up programs to record on a season pass was actually easier than it was on my Tivo.  The integration of the bedroom X1 box with the main DVR is seamless.  A show that recorded last night on the DVR was immediately available on the bedroom X1 without any sort of configuration, it just works.

With X1 in the house my Xbox 360 will be needed much less for watching programming.  With the X1 I can either record or watch most programming easily using On Demand.  We used On Demand to watch Game of Thrones last night and it was a piece of cake.  I installed the Iphone app which allows my smartphone to be utilized as a remote control for the X1 box, including voice commands which I have yet to test.

X1 – A+, install experience – D