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When a Comcast Internet outage can mean life or death
By adamg on Tue, 09/02/2008 - 9:09pm
Not everybody uses their broadband just to download porn. Sometimes on-call social workers need access to Google Maps to find out how to get to emergency locations in the middle of the night. And sometimes, Comcast just doesn't care, John Greiner-Ferris explains.
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Comments
Streets and Trips
Back in the day, Microsoft had a product called Streets and Trips. Allowed one to do address searches without needing the internet.
I can't even remember using it in years.
Called Microsoft MapPoint
This is a great application, and yes, it does still exist. The latest version came out last fall. DH and I used it for our 7 week cross-country odyssey and it was excellent. It allows for creating turn by turn directions and can give information such as hotels, hospitals and restaurants if you tick the option. It also can be used as part of a GPS setup, but that gets a little involved, truthfully, for the average user.
helpless, hysterical, and self-aggrandizing
Could this woman and her husband be any more helpless? I see no attempts to seek alternative solutions (over the course of "five days") of which there are many that are painfully obvious (like, say, a MAP BOOK?), just a lot of hysterical bitching at Comcast about how their home cable internet isn't reliable enough for "life or death" situations. And, I see a vast over-estimation of self-importance (DSS isn't even remotely a "first responder"- they clean up the mess after everyone has gone to jail or the hospital.)
Paper maps are still published
I don't drive (or bike, or even walk) into unfamiliar areas without printed maps. The kind you buy at a store, not just the kind you print out from Google or Mapquest. Doesn't every gas station and CVS and 7-Eleven still sell maps?
maps
yeah, you're absolutely right...but maps are still hard to read at night and when you're driving...technology does make it easier...it's just a heckuva lot more expensive...
Reading at night
So that internet is easier to read at night in your car? Oh, wait, no, the paper map you print out from your computer is what you take in your car.
Which is easier to read than the map book you could buy at the gas station how?
The most remarkable thing about your story is how it demonstrates the depths of personal helplessness to which some people fall when older, more reliable technologies are forgotten.
Really, you've done a remarkable job. Everybody here hates Comcast, and loves the internet. And yet you've succeeded in having nobody sympathize with you at all. That's whining above and beyond the call of duty. However did you manage it?
Oh, that's how. Help! I can't read a map! It's a police emergency!
I'm trying to imagine how you would communicate with somebody if your cell phone battery ran down. Would you put a quarter in a pay phone or just stare at it in disbelief and then go home and blog a nastygram about how Nokia has failed you personally?
And what on earth would you do if you had to use a card catalog? I'm imagining you'd approach it like the monolith in 2001.
How do you drive to the local police department ...
without a map to show you where it is?
Map Books
We used to use an atlas, but being able to look at a satellite photo and street view has a lot of added value. Particularly in New England, where one has to navigate by landmarks instead of grid locations, and at night when it is impossible to dead reckon by the sun's position in the sky.
Map books are often out of date, miss important details, oversimplify the configuration of complex intersections (Ruble Bike Maps are particularly bad on this account, IMHE), etc. Furthermore, they are organized by community, which leaves you flipping around to find the right map every time you cross a town line, and then trying to find where you are on the new map. Larger maps lack the necessary detail. Bicycle maps tend to be more locally detailed, but have similar disadvantages to any paper map. GPS can get out of date too, but can be updated with a new pack or download.
It cost us all of $10 a month to add internet functionality to my husband's phone (Blackberry Pearl), and it can be used as a modem for his laptop. Cheaper than Comcast and much more reliable and not really all that slow - AND it functions anywhere it can get a signal, like, in your car.
reading at night...
oh please, your attempt at humor is what's ridiculous...it's a new situation that we had to deal with and turned to a technology that should be reliable...the bigger issue, to spell it out for you, is the importance the internet has taken in our lives, from getting directions to keeping in touch with friends around the world...we've learned to depend and rely on it, and comcast is not serving its customers....you tell me what's easier to read: a street map of side streets in boston without house addresses or a printout with turn by turn directions...we're not helpless...
what would you do without your level of sarcasm?...you might actually have to take a hard look at yourself...
fail
After you grow some competence, grow yourself a sense of humor to go with it. Oh... and "take a hard look at yourself while you're at it." But not too hard (not that there's anything wrong with that).
The bigger issue, as you say, is that if you've "learned to depend and rely on" something to the extent that you are lost and desperate without it, then you aren't really using your whole tool set very well. That doesn't have any great social significance. It's just 21-st century witlessness.
Hi - with all due respect...
In no particular order:
1. Yes, Comcast is often unresponsive. I have several personal stories of annoying interactions with them; they're sometimes slow, but I will say that in each case they eventually got it right and were extremely pleasant and friendly people to deal with.
2. It's always annoying when a service you rely on in your home/job doesn't work. If one's livelihood is dependent upon something, I'd suggest having a backup plan. I mean that without "heat" - it just doesn't make sense to have one broken thing render you "helpless".
3. To answer your question: a street map-book should be easier to read than turn-by-turn directions.
If it's not for you or your partner, I'd say (sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine!) it's because you have been ruined by the turn-by-turn directions to which you are clinging.
If you look at a map, you can see your destination and its context within surrounding streets, and you come up with your own turn-by-turn steps in order to get there. This results in a far better, and IMHO safer, driving experience because you're not just a robot out there. If you miss a turn in the turn-by-turn, you are now screwed. She may need to develop her sense of direction, and
4. If a GPS is too expensive/bulky, etc, I can offer a practical backup to the (admittedly excellent) Google Maps via your home Net:
buy a less-expensive smartphone with a good screen & wirelessly download free Goggle Maps mobile app. For nearly TWO YEARS now, I have had a Palm Treo 680 (nice touchscreen) with Google Maps. It was like $250, new, back then. It is invaluable, and I have used it many, many times as a mini-GPS/directions provider.
Good luck.
This is classic
It's always classic to find a thread where the most sarcastic person (in this case jgreinerferris) accuses someone else of being sarcastic. In fact, the inability of a person to state their feelings without being ripped into by some anonymous douche is probably the worst thing about the Internet all-around.
My advice is to NEVER post a complaint, too many jgreinerferris' are waiting to point out why it's really your fault when you do, and they will not stop. They do not see that they are really the one with the problem and they will never concede that if they were having a conversation with you in person their tone would change dramatically (hat in hand with all cordialities that are due.) The Internet gives these worms the power to be argumentative without worrying about needing that “first response” themselves.
But really...buy a GPS device. It does not have to hand on your windshield, mine works just fine sitting on my center console. It's way better than Google maps, there is nothing to print and you are not relying on Comcast.
The Comcast users that I feel sorry for are the ones that use their crappy VOIP phone service. Every time they call me to try and get me to switch I always say the same thing: “Well, in my forty years of life I’ve never lived anywhere where my POTS line ever failed, never.” And then I ask, “Tell me, my Internet occasionally goes down, what would that do to my phone service?” Of course the sales person always has to admit that the phone service will also go out (duh, but I still like to hear them say it.) At that point I will ask, “Tell me, if you had a service that was inexpensive and had never failed, would you switch to one that costs about the same but is known to fail quite frequently?” The answer after that will usually vary but they get the point. Sometimes they like to remind me of how much I could save on long distance service, but I simply point out that for me it’s not about cost it’s about reliability, after all we’re talking about a telephone.
Anyway, I look forward to jgreinerferris ripping into this post. Oh the sarcasim, oh how wrong I am. Maybe jgreinerferris is willing to come to my house and crack wise to my face? I’m more than willing to give out my address if so. Really.
If you would not say it to someone’s face you should not post it on the Internet.
helpless, hysterical, and self-aggrandizing
you make a lot of assumptions starting with thinking we're married...anyway...of course we've thought of other solutions including maps...she just started this aspect of this job..we're also looking into gps because they're reliable and fast, but social workers don't make a lot of money and the state requires they carry and use their own cell phones, too...
the point that you seem to be missing is how the internet is intertwined in our lives to the point where it's replaced everything from the post office and the bank to the shopping mall...the times aren't just a-changing, they have changed...
Intertwined?
The internet is a tool (you seem like one too). There are many tools. Instead of whining to Comcast about how your life is in a shambles because you don't have access to the internet to save lives and do your job, you should have been using other tools at your disposal.
what YOU'RE missing
the point that you seem to be missing is how the internet is intertwined in our lives to the point where it's replaced everything from the post office and the bank to the shopping mall
That's pretty stupid, given half the country doesn't have broadband at home. Maybe your life, but not my life- or most other people's. You're extrapolating your personal dependence to try and justify a far-reaching position on how society has become as a whole.
Replacing the bank? Uh, no. As for the USPS- that's an eight year old argument, and last I checked, the USPS was doing just fine. It has adapted to the change in its business, and it is probably the most competent organizations of its size in the world.
no, sorry, maybe even more
no, sorry, maybe even more than half the country doesn't have broadband, and maybe you don't, but stand aside because the world is changing, and if you don't adapt (like your excellent point about the post office) you'll be left behind...
yeah, i probably use the internet and technology more than most (and less than some), but if comcast doesn't get on the ball somebody else will come in and do it for them...
Adaptation
Adaptation means using technology to get what you need to the point of being completely dependent on a single way of getting things done?
What adaptation means in my mind is to be "adaptable" - that is, to be able to use all available resources and have multiple ways of doing things.
An analogy: most people drive cars to get to work. I have multiple different options for getting to work, only two of which involve a car.
Your comments about the internet are analogous to "but you have to drive to get to work - you adapt to it because things change and technology, etc.". That isn't adaptation - that is getting stuck and becoming unable to adapt. I see myself as having adapted to commuting because I have several other ways to accomplish the same goal - getting to work -, and am thus not trapped without options if there is a car fail, weather fail, bike fail, T fail ...
Adaptation doesn't mean getting trapped. Perhaps there is a better term you could use to describe your dependence?
but
that's funny, because in this situation, you seem to be the only one left behind. if you were just a little more flexible, maybe you wouldn't be so helpless.
they haven't heard of GPSs,
they haven't heard of GPSs, have they?
gps
yes...see my response above...
they're not expensive
GPS on a verizon phone is $10/month
they sell them at Costco for $199
Bonus
Most people's car insurance pays for glass, so you won't be out any money for the new side window when somebody sees the ring on your windshield and breaks into your car.
Sheesh!! Get out of that dangerous situation...fast!!
Sorry that the woman and her kids were assaulted. Domestic violence is all too common.
It seems, however, that the internet isn't an especially dependable way of finding directions to a hospital in a dire emergency like that. Phoning and then going to a neighbor's, friends, or family member's house and phoning the pollce or ambulance from there to take them to the closest hospital would've been the safest, sanest and most sensible route to take, imo, whether one's Internet service is working or not. Inotherwords, get out of that dangerous situation as fast as possible!
*forehead slap*
Please go and re-read the article...the victim wasn't the one using Google maps.
What I'm trying to say, Brett,
is that while I'm aware that the victim wasn't the one using the "google map, the internet isn't necessarily the best thing to rely on in an emergency. The; comcast lady sounds like she really didn't know what she was doing, which could've made things a whole lot worse.
The telephone is the most sensible tool to use in that situation.