Being Botted...

On August 29th I did a short post, because my internet provider was being crappy due to some minor bad weather.  A sneeze is enough to knock out my cable internet.  I unfortunately am a Suddenlink user, it's all that's available in my area that isn't DSL.  A person my roomie chats with lives in the path Hurricane Irene took into New Jersey & not once did she lose here internet connection.  The gist of my original post was that her connection stayed on during a hurricane & mine died out due to some thunder.  I cut my post short that day because the net kept flickering in & out.

It's a done deal or so I thought.  Come Friday, September 2nd this comment arrived:

Suddenlink Ashley said...

Hi – my name is Ashley, and I’m with Suddenlink. I’m sorry to hear about your recent issues with your high speed internet. I’d be happy to work with management in your area to resolve. Please feel free to contact me directly at: ashley-AT-suddenlink-DOT-com. Thank you.

At first I thought OK, then it hit me, Suddenlink Ashley isn't one of my followers.   How did she find my post in the first place.  So, I googled  words & concepts from my short post.  I crossed them with the word Suddenlink & still nothing.  I kept searching & then it hit me that I had used another name for my provider in the post, a common put-down from Suddenlink is Suddenstink.  Believe me in my area, the ladder is far more applicable. 

Then I thought, they have people or bots running searches on the word suddenstink & then react to them.   They probably think they're trying to do some damage control, but actually it was just sort of creepy. I may get another comment from Ashley or another Suddenlink searcher, but I won't bother replying to them.

The reason is simple.  I have spent hours over the years talking to Suddenlink's tech people.  This has solved nothing.  If my net goes out & I call them, my town & the surrounding areas are always on the list of affected areas.  However, there are about three other areas that are almost always on that list as well & they are no where near me.  The problem with the cable internet in my area & most likely those other areas is simple.  The cable the net runs on was installed somewhere in the 1980's.  It's 25+ frickin' years old & they won't replace the cable or the outside boxes.  When something screws up, they do some form of patch job on the issue & cross their fingers it holds for more than a week.

Suddenlink's problem is easy, they're too cheap to fix the cables in my area.  These cables have been owned by at least four different cable providers & only the first one installed new cable.  If this company wants my area to be happy with it, then replace the lines.

Hope you guys have a better cable company than I do.

Cya