Phone Home!

When I went to the movie theater, I turned off my phone -- and lost my service. This morning, after trying to figure out the "why" by myself, I called AT&T. Darcy explained that sometimes the phone loses service when it's turned off, but she reregistered the phone and voila! it works.

Interesting, however, that a phone can lose service if/when it's turned off! Does this mean that each time I turn it off, I'm going to have to call tech services so I can turn it back on? In all the years I've had a mobile phone, this is a first for me, and I'm really hoping it's a last, too.

My on-going dissatisfaction with Time Warner continues as, once again, the corp has made arbitrary changes to "improve customer satisfaction" with their service. The changes, however, do anything but improve customer satisfaction as they are now requiring a digital cable box for everyone who uses their service if the customer wants to continue to receive the full array of available channels. In addition, they are again switching channels, so customers who are used to finding the ABC Family channel on 43 will have to remember that it's now channel 67.

The last change involves switching other channels, so the ABC Family HD channel is going from 647 to 667, along with moves for both Bravo and Bravo HD, AMC, FX, and FX HD. So not only does the customer have to remember the channel change, but also has to remember whether they are watching "regular" TV or HD TV.

And, at the end of the first year of "free" HD TV, customers will begin paying a monthly fee to have the mandatory HD digital cable box!! Accompanied, of course, with an increase in basic cable service due to all the upgrades to improve customer satisfaction.

All kinds of little sayings pop into mind, including cutting off one's corporate nose to spite one's customer service base. Dish TV is going to see a boom in business as a result of all this latest tatic to improve customer satisfaction from T-W.