Many Albany residents still waiting for Mediacom services

ALBANY — As recovery continues throughout Albany following the severe storm that tore through the city more than two weeks ago, several residents are expressing concern over what they perceive as a lackluster response from area cable and internet provider Mediacom, despite reports from the company that progress is being made.

Multiple residents have contacted The Albany Herald to voice their frustration about lack of cable service, and the “Albany GA Storm/Tornado Recovery 2017 Help Page” on Facebook is littered with comments from posters saying they feel the company has not shown a sense of urgency in trying to get people’s cable and internet services restored.

“Mediacom is taking far too long,” said one post. “They seem to have no sense of urgency. We got our line reconnected from the alley to the house today, but the guy said it would be at least another week for my small block to get internet.”

A lot of similar comments on that page and comments received by The Herald stand in contradiction to information provided by a Mediacom representative last week who said services would be reconnected and credit issued for the time customers were without service, automatically without customers having to call the company.

In an interview with the Herald, Phil Skinner, Mediacom’s director of operations in Southwest Georgia, said company technicians and independent contractors had arrived in Albany the day after the storm to start the process of restoring the 28 miles of company hard line that was damaged and begin reconnecting the drops from the utility poles to customers’ homes and businesses.

“There’s so many homes that have been damaged and people affected,” Skinner said. “Folks have been through an awful lot. We want to get their cable and internet restored as quickly as possible and let them get back to some sense of normalcy. They don’t need to call us. We have an active list of customers.”

Despite Skinner’s assurance that things would happen automatically, several customers who have reached out to the paper say they’ve had to call the company to schedule an appointment to have service restored. Many also say that customer service representatives they’ve spoken to know nothing about issuing credits due to the storm.

“The people I have dealt with didn’t seem to know anything about those credits that were supposed to be issued automatically,” said one email. “No one I have spoken to in Albany has received a credit on their bill.”

When informed of those comments Monday, Skinner was apologetic and said he would inform company higher-ups about the apparent disconnect.

“We’ll communicate that,” he said. “There should be notes on the accounts.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Skinner reported that he had spoken with someone in the company’s corporate offices about the customer service feedback and was told the company was making strides throughout its nationwide network of call centers to make sure customer service representatives understand the situation in Albany.

“I did reach out to one of our corporate persons,” said Skinner. “He said he’s doing some things today to try to improve that situation.”

In addition to addressing the communication issues, Skinner also provided an update on the progress Mediacom crews have made in reconnecting customers in the aftermath of the storm. He said that the best measure the company has found to track their progress is by monitoring internet modems, which the company can locate once service has been restored.

“One of the numbers we’re looking at is the number of modems showing offline,” he said. “That’s a real, measurable number. It’s tangible. The modem is a good number to use as most of cable customers have a modem in the house.”

The day after the storm, Skinner said 9,200 modems were offline. As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, Skinner that number stood a little below 2,000 following the reconnection of a sizable residential area earlier in the day.

“We’ve made huge strides in the last two weeks,” he said. “We’re getting there. We’ve got crews working seven days a week. We’re hoping to see that number continue to go down.”

In addressing customers who have cable service only with the company, and therefore no modem, Skinner said the company knows where those customers are located and crews will hook them up as soon as the technicians are able. He also said the company does not have a target date for when it will have service restored to all customers, but he did reiterate comments he made last week saying that the company is working diligently to restore service as quickly as possible.

“It’s really hard to throw a target date on it,” Skinner said. “We have done a complete assessment, and we know where the problem areas are. We’re going to be working as quickly as we can to get services restored.”

Skinner also encouraged customers not to hesitate in reaching out to the company to inform service representatives of any problems they are having and for business owners who rely on Mediacom to operate to contact customer service and let the company know.