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Mediacom or Mediacon? | The Tale of Terrible Service

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Update 3/11/2011

A service tech finally arrived. He told us that indeed our internet and cable was not working properly. He also said that there were 3 techs in our neighborhood that day. Later that day, I found out that MediaCon indeed knows about the problems that everyone is having, but they refuse to fix them properly. Instead they continue to try and put a band-aid on the issue and let their customers suffer, lose money, waste their time, and so on. I have officially sent the link to this article directly to MediaCom as well. Time to make it viral.

Mediacom or MediaCON? | MediaCom Review: The Tale of Terrible Service

If Mediacom is your only local internet service provider, then buckle in for the ride. You’re going to experience what our grandparents once did… life before the internet.

If you’re tired of always having internet and cable services, and you wish you could spend more time restarting computers, unplugging routers, and rebooting modems to try and fix the problem, only to find out it’s nothing you can fix… then Mediacom in Columbus, Georgia is your answer.

I don’t often do this, unless I truly feel that the situation warrants it. In this case I have no choice to express my extreme disappointment in service (or lack of) that we have received from Mediacom in Columbus, Georgia, which I have recently dubbed, MediaCON. The current economic situation has brought most families to the point of budgeting and wisely spending every penny. Any company that doesn’t have enough respect for their customers to provide them honest, quality services deserves to be ousted.

Consistent internet service is an essential part of my life, and is the engine that financially supports my family, otherwise I would not spend my time on this topic.

While I cannot speak from experience (unfortunately) I would suggest giving Knology a try if you have a choice in the matter. If Knology isn’t in your area, then go with a DSL provider (Direct TV, Dish Network, etc.). If you don’t have DSL, then you’d seriously be better off with dial-up internet. Even slow service is better than no service.

Mediacon’s most recognized features are inconsistent and unreliable internet service. So far, that has been the highlight of what they offer. In this day in age, service like this is just not an option. It’s 100% unacceptable. One of the reasons that good internet service is essential is because I attend an online university. On top of that, I run a small part-time business from home, I manage several websites, and I frequently need internet access to fulfill my responsibilities as a United States Marine. Therefore, not having 24/7 access to sites like MyPay, Marine Net, and Marine Online greatly restrict my ability to communicate as a Squad Leader and take care of my week-to-week administrative duties.

In the last 12 months, I can’t remember a full week in which Mediacom service was not interrupted, turned off, or not working altogether. I’ve searched high and low for Mediacom reviews, and it appears this is not an isolated incident.

Mediacom Service in a Nutshell

The reason I have finally opted to take the time and write a Mediacom review, is because… well our internet is down as I type this… so I can’t do the things that I need to really be doing right now, like managing my business, finishing up my online classes, and completing my military duties. I even thought about getting a type writer out. I figured I my as well remove the rest of the technologies that are supposed to make life easier. Who needs internet and computers, right?

For the last 3 nights (2011 February 25th, 26th and 27th) our internet has been down from around 8pm to about 1am. In the last 2 months, we’ve had several days, in which the internet was down for almost the entire day. After several calls, we’ve gotten excuse after excuse as to why this is happening.

Mediacon’s Ongoing Excuses for Their Terrible Service

I’ve heard a lot of excuses from Mediacom as to why their service is consistently down. They’ve even spent some time blaming us, our modems, our routers, our computers, and so on. I’m pretty savvy when it comes to computers, so I can easily troubleshoot issues that lie within our modems, routers and computer configurations. Mediacom could save a lot of money in their technical support department if they just started answering the phone and instantly saying “we suck at life and we’re not willing to fix it.” My time wouldn’t be wasted. Their time wouldn’t be wasted. It might make for at least one positive highlight in this review.

Mediacom’s Commercials of Ongoing Excuses

In December, Mediacom started airing commercials… presenting yet more excuses for their terrible phone, cable and internet services. This time they were blaming people illegally using their cable services for the reason why paying customers were not able to receive consistent, quality internet services in Columbus, GA.

They even tried to summon the help of their customers in “catching” these illegal service users. Really? Not only do customers have to pay for terrible internet services, now they have to buy a samurai sword, dress up as ninjas and patrol the neighborhood looking for rogue cable lines strung through people’s screened-in second floor windows?

Good thing my internet is down, and I have all this spare time to go around my neighborhood and play ninja. Thank you, Mediacom, for allowing my childhood dreams to come true.

I remember one week when our internet was down for nearly 4 complete days. Yes, no internet service for 4 days. They did refund us some money, but that is a far cry of a trade when business cannot be conducted and my school work cannot be completed as required. I’m stuck having to go to the library, which I didn’t even know still existed. Then I find out that I don’t even have a library card. You see, they came out with this thing called the internet, and ever since then I haven’t needed a library card.

That week they sent some trucks out to our neighborhood as well. I did some recon while they were in our neighborhood, and they did a lot of nothing. I should have recorded it, but I wasn’t expecting it to turn into such a massive problem.

One day they had a truck in our neighborhood, and I’m pretty sure they just dropped it off on the side of the road and left it there so that it appeared they had been working for hours. I never saw any people; just a lonely Mediacon truck. It was there when I left for work, there when I came home for lunch, and there when I returned home from work at the end of the day. But no people.

For the benefit of the doubt, they could have left it parked there to “scare” whoever might have been using their services illegally. But I’m pretty sure me dressed up as a ninja is all the scare my neighborhood can take.

Mediacom and the Catch Twenty-Two | No Other Internet Providers in our Area

The most frustrating part of all of this is that Mediacom is the only communications company that services our Columbus neighborhood, which I’m sure it makes it much easier for them to provide inadequate and inferior services. Knology provides cable and internet services in Columbus, GA as well, but they do not offer services in our particular part of town. There’s no competition, so Mediacom isn’t held to any level of quality assurance. There is nothing that is forcing them to provide honest communication services to us.

As I type (in Microsoft Word because we currently have no internet service), I’m going on 4 hours with no internet, and it has been down consistently all weekend, which is the prime time for me to catch up on business and school-related tasks.

Update: I was told by a former employee that Medicom purposefully offers services mainly in areas that have no other cable internet providers so that they don’t have to deal with the competition.

My Mediacom Conclusion

If you hate technology and would prefer to go back to buying stamps, or you find it more convenient to never have access to Google again, then get Mediacom. But if you like being able to do CRAZY things like check email and read the news at the simple click of a button, then absolutely DO NOT GET MEDIACOM. They seem to have an up time of 50%, which is terrible in this day in age. Most internet companies promise an up time in the high 90’s, while Mediacom can only hope to provide internet services not seen SINCE the 90’s.

I’ve never experienced a company that sucks so badly at what they do. I could understand if they were an ice cream vendor that provided terrible internet service, or a movie theater that didn’t provide quality vehicles. But they’re not. Mediacom is an internet service provider that sucks at what they do. That is the bottom line.

Hopefully our terrible Columbus, GA Mediacom internet services will work sometime this week so that I can actually post this online.

I hope that this website’s 15,000+ monthly visitors will take note of my frustration in this post, and take heed to the warning and honesty about Mediacom services.

Other Mediacom Reviews

DSLreports.com seemed just as unimpressed as I am with Mediacom’s service. There review concluded that “Mediacom will do the absolute least to give you the bare minimum, in my biased opinion.” They also report that “High employee turnover plus apathetic management means mediocre service.”

I couldn’t agree more.

DSLreports.com also noted that the only thing Mediacom has going for them is the fact that they target markets with little to no cable internet competition (as seen in my situation as well), thus putting you at the mercy of their terrible service.

I did find some other reviews, even a positive one here, but all the nice things and good features in the world won’t help the fact that service is not reliable. Features are only good if you can use them.

“I am paying for the Ultra 50. Lately I have been lucky to get 20. My norm is between 3-5. I have had a total of 8 techs out in a year. Several of them tested from the pole and had the same terrible speed then closed the ticket no trouble found. One of them called his boss on speaker phone and his boss said “If they have internet get out of there” I have no other alternative for internet where i’m at and it sucks!” -Matt

“I have been having issues with Mediacom for a total of two years. This past year the problem has been that the modem will reset it self when I am using the internet, I have had 4 techs come out in the past six months and have had 3 new modems in the past three months. Each time the new modem will be fine for a week and then it will start reseting itself over and over. I called in about two months ago and talked to a “tech” and they said my modem has reset itself over 1000 times since June. I decided to talk to a “customer service rep” who then proceeded to tell me that after the second time of having the same problem I should have had a hook up supervisor of sorts come out and look at my home, happily I decided to wait and see what happened when this supervisor arrived to fix the problem…. They said he would call me a month ago… Problem is still persistent, the modem reseting itself once or twice per day!” -Jeremy

“This will stay my status update for a while–I started this page because- Obviously — I am having MAJOR issues with Mediacom.. I pay for 20mbs of download speed- I get, on a good day, 0.8.. Terrible- on my 9th tech as well.. Have anyone you know with Mediacom trouble friend this.. And post your troubles too. May as well use this internet thing for something.” -Mediacom IsCrap

What Mediacom Employees Are Saying?

I was surprised when I stumbled upon a website full of past and present Mediacom employees speaking their mind about the Mediacom workplace. There were a few positive annotations, but the vast majority of them were pretty condemning.

One Mediacom employee write “Poor salary, HR doesn’t listen, Upper-Level management will not speak to lower-level employees, Tagline “People First, Better Results” is not practiced, Promotions are non-existant, Poor Team environment.”

Below are some more of the comments that I found to be worth reading:

“Don’t hold your breath waiting to get time off with family even if you are a top performer in the company.”

“Great money if you don’t mind working 60+ hours per week. Great benefits including health insurance and free cable as a one of the perks.”

“An almost complete and utter lack of professionalism that seems to be spread throughout the company. People in various management positions are not held responsible for repeatedly making major mistakes; there is very little accountability for either exceptional or mediocre performance at work. They seem to be perfectly willing to pay exorbitant rates for outside contractors, but are unwilling to provide any where close to competitive benefits for employees. There is very little communication within the company about ongoing projects, which sometimes leads to a “continual state of emergency” where everything needs to be done right now, in addition to your regular ongoing responsibilities.”

“Depending on the area of the country the supplies and equipment required to do a job are consistently lacking. Wages are a fraction of other cable providers. Some of the most expensive areas to live are the least paid. Not enough support or technicians in maintenance dept. No respect shown workers and no positive reinforcement.”

In this day in age, people just need to be happy that they have a job, but I the ability to do your job with a good attitude can be demoralized by a poor work environment. I hope the upper management is taking notes.

Mediacom Rip Off Report

Mediacom has also scored a total of 64 Rip Off Reports that have been filed on the Rip Off Report website. You can view the Mediacom Rip Off Reports by visiting this link.

Service Down Dates & Times

List coming soon

Update 3/07/2011

Had an appointment schedule for yesterday and the tech didn’t show. Rescheduled for today… tech didn’t show again. Mediacom is whittling away at my patience.

Update 3/10/2011

Our internet is still down, going on week 3. We schedule an appointment for a service tech to come out, and we had no-shows 2 days in a row. We reschedule and they gave us a 4-hour window for when they might arrive this time. Not expecting anything different though.

Update 3/11/2011

A service tech finally arrived. He told us that indeed our internet and cable was not working properly. He also said that there were 3 techs in our neighborhood that day. Later that day, I found out that MediaCon indeed knows about the problems that everyone is having, but they refuse to fix them properly. Instead they continue to try and put a band-aid on the issue and let their customers suffer, lose money, waste their time, and so on.

Update 3/15/2011

Our internet is down, going on the 7th straight day. It worked last night for about 5 minutes – enough time for me to… well do pretty much nothing. We called to let them know (for the hundredth time), and the response simply amazed me. After describing to the support guy thoroughly what was happening with our internet over the last month, he responded by saying “I’ll have to check with dispatch to confirm that.”

Huh? What does that even mean?

He then returned to the phone and said “Okay, I have credited your account and I will let them know about the problem.” What? REALLY?! That was literally the end of the conversation. You have to be completely inadequate as a human being to think that the situation is not justified or cleared up by such great support like that. Simply amazing.

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