Well, it sure wasn’t a pleasant way to see my point proven with regard to cable TV’s susceptibility to weather when compared to satellite, but our experience here during the ice storm of 2008 reveals the truth regarding cable TV’s susceptibility to weather-related outages.
On Friday, December 12 at around 10:00 PM we lost the power at our house. It was something that was expected since a serious ice storm had moved in. It turned out to be a lot more serious than we expected.
Our power was restored on December 23, making for 11 days and 12 nights without power. Fortunately, we have a wood stove and enough dead wood around our heavily-wooded lot to keep it going, so we were able to hold down the fort here at home while others had to resort to shelters to avoid freezing to death in their own homes.
The cable TV line from the telephone pole to the house had been ripped down by fallen trees and broken in two places. In case your wondering why a DISH Network fan like me has a cable TV line running to his house, it’s because we use it for high-speed internet only. Unfortunately, cable TV offers the only high-speed internet service in our area.
Although I called Comcast the day after the storm – hoping to secure a top spot in line among many other customers who would be calling in to have lines repaired – I did not expect them to be out the next day as the Comcast customer service guy told me. Due to the seriousness of the storm, I expected it would be a while before they could come fix the line. What I didn’t expect was to be completely forgotten.
After power was restored and I still had not seen any sign of Comcast, I called again only to find that they seemed to have no record of my earlier call at all! Adding insult to injury, they informed me that the earliest date they could send a technician to my house was January 22 – a full month away. I was not happy, but I accepted my fate and hung up the phone.
The next day I got to thinking a bit and I realized the situation was not acceptable. I had called within a day of the storm’s end to secure an early spot in line and now they are telling me January 22?
I called Comcast again and explained the situation to them and told them that January 22 was not good enough. After some discussion with a supervisor or manager, the customer service rep told me he could have someone out at my house on December 24, which was the very next day. I found that much more acceptable than waiting a whole month.
Looking down our driveway away from the front of our house
Well, December 24 came and went and nobody from Comcast ever showed up. Big surprise. I knew I would not see them on Christmas, and hoped they would have someone out soon after the holiday.
Sure enough, a contractor for Comcast showed up on December 26 but told me that the wire running from the pole to my house was a heavier type than he had with him and would not work as well. He said someone would be out with the correct wire as soon as possible.
A couple of days later another contractor showed up and our service was finally restored.
OK, I guess that may have been kind of a long way to get to the point of my story.
During the 11 days we were without power we were also without internet, and would have been without cable TV if we subscribed to it. During this time I also had a generator that I would run periodically during the day to keep the food in the refrigerator from spoiling and at night for a few hours so we could watch TV.
Unlike cable, which was out for more than the 11 days of the power outage, we were able to use our DISH Network service the day after the storm when the ice melted off the dish.
I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty: That approximate two-week period when our cable was out of service was a longer period of time than all the weather-related outages we have experienced with DISH Network over the last 11 years or so. Much, much longer.
While our cable TV line lie broken in front of our house for two weeks or so, we were able to watch all the TV programming we usually watch because we have DISH Network service. Ice storms, blizzards, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and volcanoes don’t disturb orbiting satellites very much at all.
Now what was it that the cable companies were saying about how the weather disrupts satellite TV?
Tags: Cable TV, ice storm, Satellite TV
February 10th, 2009 - 8:45 am
this issues can generally be fixed by burying the line from the street to your house.
you can contact the cable company -locally- and usually figure out who they use to do their buries. Contact them and ask for a price.
Then..the next bit of bad weather, no matter what it is, flood-storm-ice, you line will be as snug as a bug in a rug, 8-10″ underground.
I’m sure the investement will be worth the 11 days of no service.
btw—cable companies don’t bury cable when POWER is run Airal. they have to follow power. When power is burried, they generally bury for the customer at no charge. ALSO..people who bury usually are prepare to bore under sidewalks, drive ways, and streets.
February 10th, 2009 - 9:33 am
Thanks for the suggestion beuferd, but actually, my cable is already underground. I hesitate to go into a lot of detail here, but what I will say is that our electric and telephone has been underground from the pole to the house from the beginning, but when our previous cable company (Adelphia) installed our cable drop here a number of years ago they refused to run it underground inside the existing conduit that had the telephone line in it. There was plenty of room for other cables but I was told by the installer that it was their “policy” was to avoid putting underground lines in the same conduit with other services.
Anyway, that’s changed thanks to some cooperative and reasonable contractors that Comcast sent out to repair our line. However, with the severity of this storm, there were an astounding number of cables completely brought down all over the region, so the underground run would not have spared us a lengthy cable outage in this instance.
I do feel much better now that the line is underground though. At least I know I am not subject to outages that result from our drop being taken out by a tree or limb now. In the photo above, you can’t see it, but the broken drop is on the left side of the driveway on the ground.
February 14th, 2009 - 10:45 pm
The truth is that with cable there are entire areas that where cable can’t be laid due to the terrain, etc. And with cable, little critters can and do nibble away at the cables underground. Also there is often problems with water getting into the cable which makes the picture pixelate. You don’t have any of these problems with satellite TV. My wife and I have Dish Network satellite programming and have been very happy with the reception and all.
July 19th, 2011 - 4:22 pm
I used to have Comcast for broadband internet. It ran on the same line as the cable TV. After Hurricane Ike, we were without power for a week or so. Comcast was negligent in their disaster preparedness and as such, no internet service was available even though all the lines are buried and not on utility poles that might have been damaged by the storms. Apparently, their power backup systems are minimal to non-existent. I was prepared for for the disaster and I had battery backups and a generator for my home. I am a software engineer and I often work from home instead of traveling to the client’s site. Even though I had power for my house (thanks to *my* disaster preparedness), I did not have internet, so I could not work. Those who had cable TV via Comcast were also without TV service. On the other hand, my DishNetwork antenna survived the storm without any problem. Even if it had been damaged, it would have been something that I could have more likely fixed / replaced on my own as compared to being able to do nothing if cable was out of service. If you live somewhere that might be subject to extended power outages, from my experience, I would highly suggest going with satellite instead of cable.
July 19th, 2011 - 7:40 pm
Thanks for that information, Collin.
Thankfully, we now have DSL service available in our area and I was able to cancel my Comcast high-speed internet service. I don’t know if DSL is an option in your area, but I can say with certainty that the service is more reliable than Comcast was. We’ve sacrificed a little speed, but it’s worth it for the reliability that DSL has provided us with here. I know the quality of service for DSL will probably vary from location to location, but for us it’s a win.
I can’t really speak with any authority on how quickly our DSL provider would have brought their routers and servers back online after the ice storm here, but if memory serves, our telephone (POTS) was back well before the power was even restored to our home. I strongly suspect the DSL would have come back a lot sooner than Comcast did.