Why do 20% of my calls drop unexpectedly?
Q: About 20% of our phone calls result in a failure status and get dropped for whatever reason. I have discussed (or tried to) this with Comcast, Vonage and Vtech and progress is absent. I am ready to go back to my old dial-up modem and hand crank phone system. Any help? Thx – Jim from Indianapolis, Indiana
A: Jim, I feel your pain. Truly I do. About a year ago, I started having problems with my Internet connection from Comcast. For no apparent reason, it would periodically disconnect and reset my cable modem. It got to the point where it would do this about 10-15 times per day.
This caused me all kinds of grief, especially when it happened while streaming a Netflix video or smack dab in the middle of a credit card transaction (did it charge my card or not?)
My repeated attempts to notify Comcast of the problem always fell short. It was always a problem on my end or some new piece of equipment I didn’t have that would magically make the problem disappear. But I knew better than that.
Persistence pays off
So I decided I would call every single time it happened. And guess what? I finally got through to a Comcast tech who heard my sob story and simply said, “Well that’s just not right. I’m going to send a tech out immediately.”
That tech came out the same day and ran a signal power test on my outside line and concluded instantly that my line was severely under-powered. He also told me that I had older cable running from their box to my house and that he would replace it with a newer type of cable that is better suited for underground runs.
Problem solved
Since that new cable was put in, I haven’t had a single problem with my Internet connection.
This is a long way of telling you to be persistent. And while I’m not qualified to diagnose your connection problem, I can definitely tell you that you have one. That’s why calls (which in your case run over your Internet connection) just unexpectedly drop out.
So do yourself a favor and call Comcast every single time you experience a dropout. And write each occurrence down in a log so you can prove how many times it has happened.
Hopefully you’ll eventually luck out and get a tech like I did who is willing to actually help you.
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