If you have been following my blog for the last few months, thank you. I really appreciate your taking the time to read my posts and share your comments and criticisms.

And, if you’ve been following my blog you should be familiar with my unsuccessful efforts to have cable Internet service installed in my house. Well, I decided to try again this morning. I have been wanting to contact the Cable One corporate office in Tucson, Arizona, but their website only lists a mailing address – no e-mail address or phone number (the number they do publish routes you to their local office). But, as it turns out, Cable One has a Facebook page, and being a Facebook user myself I decided I would try to post a note on their Wall and see if they would provide a response.

Because of Facebook’s text limitations, I had to post my note in two parts – an initial posting on their Wall, and then a comment attached to the posting. Here are the two parts of the note.

First, the Wall posting:

I’d like to ask Cable ONE to give me a REAL reason why my local office (Sherman, TX) will not provide service to my home. I’ve been trying for 10 YEARS to get service, my latest attempt a couple of months ago. I have neighbors 350 feet away from my house and a large subdivision bordering my property who’ve had service for several years, but when I ask for service I’m denied. The excuses I was given this time included “your house is set back too far from the street” (but not my neighbors), “we only construct cable where there is a housing density of at least 25 homes per square mile” (there’s a subdivision next door), and my favorite: “well, the cable has to end somewhere” (it ends on a pole in front of my property). They promised a technician would contact me and give me a detailed explanation… and I’m still waiting for that call. I don’t think I’ll ever hear from them, since there isn’t any technical reason preventing them from installing service.

And then, the comment I added on below the posting:

I wanted to e-mail or call someone at the corporate office to calmly discuss this matter, but they do not publish an e-mail address or a direct phone number — the only numbers they list point to local offices, and I’m through dealing with the one in Sherman (they do list a mailing address in Arizona, but since they’re pushing their Internet service you’d think they would at least have some sort of generic e-mail address?). So, I’m using the only other online outlet I can find.

I highly doubt this posting will stay up on FB very long; the last thing any company wants is someone ranting on a social network about their unsuccessful attempts to obtain service and the ridiculous excuses they were given for being denied.

At this point, if there’s anyone at Cable ONE who really cares about my request, I will be genuinely surprised. In the meantime, I guess I’ll stick with my AT&T satellite Internet service (crappy as it is, it’s still better than dialup).

As I had said in the comment, the complete posting did not stay up on their Wall for very long. Within an hour, the add-on comment had been deleted by their page moderator, and with it a response from another Facebook user (which I received via e-mail before it was deleted). Curiously, the original post stayed up… and even more curiously, someone from Cable ONE actually posted a response to it, asking me to send them a direct e-mail with contact information so they can follow up on my issue.

I sent an e-mail to the address they gave me, briefly detailing what I’ve been through over the past 10 years or so. A short time later I received the following response (I have removed the sender’s name):

Hi Michael,

Thank you for the detailed response and I am glad you contacted us on Facebook! We want to have another outlet for customers to talk to us, even if it isn’t always good news.

In addition, I am sorry if we deleted a post. It wasn’t intentional.  It’s only two of us that have administrative privileges and we rarely delete posts.  We have done it a couple times; let’s just say the posts and posters were memorable. Again, please accept our apologies.

I am forwarding your email to our Technical Operations Manager in Sherman with a request to contact you. If anyone can answer your question, he can. I hope we can work something out for you. We would love to have you as a customer.

Thank you. Please let me know if you have additional concerns.

That was certainly unexpected. Of course, now I have to wait and see if this local manager will actually contact me. Based on their previous track record, I’m not very hopeful. But, I’m willing to give them a chance… just like I have over and over again for the past 10 years.

And so the saga continues…

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Tags: cable, Cable One, Facebook, Internet, service