Delta Cable (Eastlink / Persona Company in BC) Discussion

[stampeder]

As I have said earlier (post #432)...

Originally Posted by stampeder

I'm getting irritated by the lack of notification from Eastlink regarding the recent Delta Cable email and channel line up changes

This time it was Eastlink summarily dropping all FM Radio stations from Delta Cable all of a sudden, with no warning to customers. I was one of those people running Delta Cable signals to my FM tuners, and so was one of my neighbours. Now the only way to listen to our favourite non-local stations is over the Internet, which unfortunately doesn't always have the audio quality to which we've been accustomed. I already have the means to do so, but for my neighbour it will now require a cash outlay with no compensatory savings from Delta Cable for a product no longer provided. After all of the above disappointments and with the general sourness here in Delta about what was once a great company, he has cancelled his service and is switching to another provider.

Anyways, I already know the argument from cable companies that they need the bandwidth for other uses, so really I'm just sour about Eastlink's lackadaisical approach to informing its customers on changes.

[Spud387]

Long time Ladner resident here.

Shaw isn't in Ladner or Tsawwassen. The only place where Delta Cable & Shaw overlap is North Delta.

In South Delta (Ladner\Tsawwassen) your options are Delta Cable or Telus on old ADSL lines with a max of 15Mbps. We have Delta 40 and it is working out great.

While TV does encounter issues, channels not working, pixelation, etc. they aren't horrendous. Internet has been incredibly stable for me with no issues.

[deanesfield]

Has anyone experienced an unusual amount of lock-ups and audio sync issues on Channel 602 (delta), isn't this a Shaw entity. The Eastlink CSR says he is not aware of the problem but reboot all three of my PVRs with no success. I've had the lock-ups most of today, and audio sync delays most of last week on all of my three PVRs (2xDCX3400 and a DCT6416). Otherwise, I have little to complain about with Eastlink except the new webmail server.
Cheers!

[hawks]

up here in the North, channel 602 locks and freezes as you describe on all of 4 of my digital boxes.

[NewsyL]

Ditto for me in North Delta. Not only does 602 have its issues, but the analog channel 11 has been showing the same Simpsons or Family Guy "TweenLit Inc" truck scene since at least 5:30 PM Sunday.

Also, I recorded the "The Walking Dead" marathon and the first show of the 2nd season has the sound delayed by about a 0.5 to 0.75 second. The rest may be as well.... have to check. This was broadcast on channel 669 AMCCHD.

I chatted online with a CSR and they mentioned that the Global feed is coming via Rogers (yes, not Shaw), it is a known issue and they are looking into it.

[filmgoerjuan]

Just a belated follow-up to Spud387's mention of Telus speeds in Ladner/Tsawwassen; it seems to depend on the address. I have a friend in Beach Grove (16 Avenue area) who qualified for the 3HD 1SD line, which would mean he had a higher speed than 15Mbps. Most everyone else I know who has Telus is on the 15Mbps, though. Myself, I am near the library and seem to be in some special internet dead zone; can't get even the lowest level of Optik and there's no sign of that changing anytime soon.

[filmgoerjuan]

Also, I've seen the Shaw logo on some cable poles out here in Tsawwassen (near the golf course by Imperial Village) identifying some new lines. They've been there for quite a while now, actually. As well, if you enter your location as Tsawwassen on Shaw's site, it accepts it as a location (non-Shaw cities won't list), so it seems we're in the system and perhaps they've completed the over-build but now are waiting for something before launching the service here?

There's certainly been no mailers and the full page ads in the community papers advertising "We're Coming to Delta/Ladner/Tsawwassen" haven't been around in quite some time. No idea what the hold up (they told me back in the day they were aiming for Q1/2 2011 to launch).

[Buzzcut]

Eastlink has some serious control centre issues. My issue lies with unwarranted simultaneous substitution. This is now the fourth year Delta Cable/Eastlink has erroneously substituted Global TV coverage of PGA Golf for CBS Seattle coverage of the Sea Fair hydroplane races. Normally, on most weekends in the golf season, substitution is warranted as Global is in fact carrying the same programming as CBS Seattle.
This year I took the initiative to contact Eastlink (July 30/31) and advised them CBS Seattle was not carrying PGA Golf on August 5th, 2012. This was correctly indicated in the iGuide.
I asked customer service to escalate and verify that if Global requests substitution, Eastlink take appropriate action to provide its customers with complete service, that is if the scheduled programming is different to not substitute. Eastlink it would appear took no action whatsoever.
Although Global erroneously requested substitution, it is interesting to note that both TELUS and SHAW (verified by calls to friends and family) ignored this request and provided the correct programming. Eastlink could not get it right even when a long term customer brought it to their attention well before the error occurred.

There is no excuse for this to have occurred other than a lack of customer care on Eastlink's part. This has happened before with sporting events that run over. SHAW and TELUS seem to have control centres that monitor these things, Eastlink does not. Perhaps it is time for a change.

The following is excerpt of the e-mail Eastlink customer service on July 31.

My name is Vanessa, and I will be assisting you today.

I have just sent this information to my senior level, we are looking into this further for you. We are just waiting on further updates, and will be getting back to you when these are received. I apologize again for the inconvenience.


Thank you for contacting Eastlink, we appreciate your Business.

Hi Melissa - thanks for the response.
The issue is quite simple, Global is the Canadian network that carries PGA golf, they have the Canadian rights due to an agreement with CBS. Almost every weekend Global west simply requests that Eastlink (Delta Cable) substitute their signal, HD 602, in place of HD 621 CBS west, KIRO Seattle. Normally, KIRO HD621carries PGA golf so Global HD 602 is within its rights to request and Eastlink is obligated to substitute the Canadian signal for the American one. The problem is always with the Seafair weekend (around the August long weekend). KIRO does not carry CBS network PGA golf, it has the exclusive rights to carry the Ranier Cup hydroplane races from Lake Washington. Global west, never seems to check and simply files its weekly request to substitute HD 602 in the HD 621 slot for PGA golf regardless of what HD 621 is scheduled to broadcast. (the current iGuide is correct) Eastlink does not seem to check either Globals request or the scheduled programming and for the past three years we have had to go to a neighbours house (one SHAW one TELUS) to watch the races. Please note that prior to Eastlink, Delta Cable often made the same error, the difference was we could contact the local office and the error was fixed very quickly. Last year I called at 10:00 AM and four hours later nothing had happened. We returned to the races at 3:30PM when the Global substitution request expired. This year I thought I might give you a heads up and allow you to get it right. Perhaps with the new centre in Barrie it might be different this year. If your folks cannot advise if the "switch settings" are correct, please let me know and our family will make arrangements to go elsewhere for the day as Eastlink (my cable company) provides substitution when none should be provided. In other words, I would like you to get it right to provide better customer service.

Thanks again!

Good luck passing on the request, perhaps you can get results I couldn't seem to get. If it is more appropriate to talk, please call 604-594-XXXX

Take Care

[Buzzcut]

Further to my previous post, I received the following regarding the erroneous substitution of Global for CBS Seattle when the programming was completely different. The Eastlink advised me the guide was wrong, the programming was the same because Global said so. Unbelievable! This is what Eastlink said....

Dear Larry,

As we previously informed you the error was with the guide at the time. We do apologize about that. We have contacted our Network of Operations Centre and they advised us that this decision was made by Global and we are not able to make any changes to this decision. Once again we do apologize for the inconvenience with the misinformation provided by the guide. As you are aware we have credited your account to compensate for this situation.

If we can assist you further, please reply to this email.

[excatvdude]

I would complain to the CAB or the CRTC! I believe Global is a member of the CAB.

[NewsyL]

Hi Buzz, I noticed the races were missing as well and my guide, Zap2It, said it would be on. Was really looking forward to watching it.

[The Stew]

Since Wednesday, the internet has been screwing up, where every minute, the internet disconnects than reconnects. It's impossible to go to sites like YouTube (where thanks to their annoying update where you must stay connected to watch the video, but that's a complaint for another time), and other sites that require a constant connection.

It's become a pain, and it's still going on today! I would've hoped that the situation would've improved, but it hasn't. I'm so sick and tired of this, and it's making me miss Shaw more and more. Unfortunately, Eastlink must piss off everybody by not allowing Shaw or Telus to connect to Delta. (And yes, I've contacted both of them, and they don't connect to this neighborhood.)

Okay, before I continue ranting, has anyone else in Delta experienced the internet acting up these last couple of days?

[hejda]

It's become a pain, and it's still going on today! I would've hoped that the situation would've improved, but it hasn't.

Call them and tell them, and get them to fix it. If it's an issue that's only affecting you, or you and a few of your neighbours, it likely won't go away on its own. If you're having a problem, call them up and ask them to fix it. If they send someone out and it's still not fixed, call them again. Repeat until you get acceptable results.

Eastlink must piss off everybody by not allowing Shaw or Telus to connect to Delta

It's not up to Eastlink to "allow" Shaw or Telus to service Delta.

If Shaw or Telus aren't serving your area, it's because they don't want to invest the money to do so. If they wanted to, there is nothing Eastlink could do to stop them.

Shaw started laying infrastructure in Delta 3 years ago. If they aren't in your area yet it's because they don't think it's worth it. They've cherry picked a number of high density (aka high profit) areas in North Delta, and a few new developments in South Delta, but other than that they don't seem to be trying to cover the whole area.

[denben73]

hejda is 100% correct about everything. Call them and get them to fix it.

[filmgoerjuan]

Last week I received (what I consider) a deceptive sales call from Delta Cable. I was taken aback as I've had otherwise positive interactions with their call centers. The gist of the call was that some TV stations were no longer going to provide Delta Cable with an analog signal and that this might possibly happen as soon as December (i.e. within a month or so). As an analog customer, I was being given the opportunity to upgrade to digital so that I didn't lose any channels, etc. The loss of the Detroit PBS station from the analog lineup was cited as evidence of this trend.

This all seemed really fishy to me and like a hard sell for upgrading to digital. That they wouldn't give a specific cut off date for when analog service was no longer going to be available was the first clue. The second was the vague explanation of why analog service would no longer be available. Delta relies on receiving analog signals from the TV stations themselves? Give me a break. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd assume that Delta Cable itself is responsible for pumping out the analog signal they provide and convert from whatever source they receive at their end. God knows I've experienced enough digital noise and (multiple) channels where the picture is frozen for hours on end despite being on analog service that this just didn't sound credible.

A chat session with a rep from Delta the next day led to the news that they are in the process of phasing out analog service but a) hadn't set a date and b) would give customers several months notice once they had. I lodged a complaint about the sales call I received and was told he would pass it on; however, when I pressed to receive follow up on the outcome of the complaint I was told that they couldn't do that as it was an internal disciplinary matter. I pressed further and said that I didn't want to know anything about internal staff issues, just to receive confirmation from the person handling the complaint that it had been addressed and, who knows, maybe an apology if they determined they were in the wrong. Yeah, that wasn't happening either.

I'm very disappointed with Delta Cable, both for the b.s. sales call and for the way that my complaint about it was not dealt with in a satisfying way. I've had my ups and downs with them in the past, but had been mostly happen with them until this incident.