Ever seen those cable commercials where someone is complaining that their satellite service goes out when it rains?  I’ve seen them and they really are exaggerated.  We’ve had DirecTV (with TiVo, of course) for going on four years now and I can count on one hand the number of times our service has gone out.  Most of those times, it was during tornadic conditions and our electricity went out too.

We have satellite tv, but we have cable internet.  This has given us the unique opportunity to compare the two services to some extent as far as weather and “uptime” is concerned.  Four years ago our main cable line was cut while the house behind us was being built.  They installed a temporary cable and hung it along our back fence.  Four years later and we’re on our third temp cable.  They’ve never come and replaced it with another main cable.  Nor have they buried the temp.  Both of which they said they would do on numerous occassions.  Every year the temp cable becomes so worn from the elements that our service will cease with any rain or temperature changes (snow and high winds do it too).  It starts going out for short periods of time and then one day it just doesn’t come back up after the line dries out.  So, we end up calling, yet again.

Despite our attempts to get the right crew out here to fix this correctly, they always send the guys who can only install temp lines and so we get another one and the process begins all over again.  It’s frustrating really.  Our track record is that our cable goes down with weather far more often than our dish.  And the differences in customer service – well, that’s like night and day too.

As I type this post, our service is down and I know it's weather related (been raining all day).  I can't get e-mail so maybe I should watch a little television instead while the kids take their nap.  Afterall, satellite isn't out.