I have been a customer of White County Video, also called White County Cable TV at one time, for the better part of yearsIn the mid 90's, when they only offered cable services, they did a fairly good jobAs technology advanced and services became more complex and diverse their ability to distribute and maintain that service fell further and further behindSatellite and DSL competition in this area did very little to encourage them to change due largely to the area being rural so performance and distance restraints on these competitors left WCV still having the lions share of the customersThe failure of healthy competition which tends to encourage a company to emphasize quality of service to maintain it's customers loyalty and the deterioration of an infrastructure which has been poorly maintained means the current situation is the worst it has ever beenThe quality of signal, with few exceptions, is inadequate to maintain digital reception, inadequate to maintain signal lock by a digital modem for internet service and at best barely reaches the advertised capabilities of the services that we are paying forCustomer service is out sourced to what is essentially nothing more than an answering serviceScheduling service calls is dictated to you as to when you should be there, with very little regard for your schedule and I've had appointments which I had to leave work to be there for and they never showed upI was told they had no record of a service call being scheduled, so that's what you could get when you call the after hours help lineWhatever it takes to get you off the phone and out of their hair it seemsDuring business hours a call or visit about service problems is met with indifference at best and in most cases they seem clearly aggravated that your even bothering them with your problemsThe technicians are inadequately trained and obviously instructed to blame your equipment, sometimes before even diagnosing the system in order to install WCV equipment which will show up on your bill, prorated down to the day if in the middle of the billing cycleIn the last months I've had to have them come out or more times and not once has a tech went to the trunk and checked signal quality or noise/interference levelsMy last service call in October, months ago the tech came out while my teen aged son was homeHe asked for a description of the problem and immediately said the modem had to be bad without testing anything, Replaced the modem, with one of theirs($per month) pronounced the problem solved and took the old modem with him( which belonged to me) and leftWhen I came home from work the same problem still existed as if nothing had been done and I had to drive miles to retrieve my modemI have had months where to days of the month I was unable to use the internet and could only watch a few scattered channels of TV and still was refused any credit or discount for lack of functional service.The sales reps/clerks which ever they call them misrepresent the services, are less than honest about cost (at the very least through deliberate omission) and are dismissive or downright rude if called on this practice.The only time I've received a pleasant and courteous experience there is when I go in to pay my bill and don't have an issue with serviceI like many more here have learned to live with some of the shortcomings of our only cable provider but that doesn't make it any less frustrating to shell out over a thousand dollars a year for less than whats promised when you sign up.If any one of us bought a new car that only worked out of days, that would of course be unacceptable wouldn't itWhy is this any different?I just want what I pay for, nothing more and I think I should be able to expect nothing lessIn defense of the techs, these guys are sometimes college students working their way through college or just young men with no experience of any kind and have only a crash course in telecommunications.Well I hope this review will be helpful to someone even if it's to show you your not alone in your frustrations with poor service and lack of a viable alternativeIn a strange way I think maybe even WCV itself is a victim of the unusual situation they've found themselves operating under for the last three decadesThat being said doesn't in any way excuse the decadence and poor customer relations that I, as a long time/pay on time customer, have experienced first hand I could hardly believe it when I came to this page and saw that they had no reviews yet they rated WCV with an A+ ratingYou can go to their own website and every, literally every review is negativeI still today and always will believe in a fair days work/service for a fair days pay and in that respect the citizens of White County Arkansas and the city of Searcy are not receiving our fair end of the deal
I have been a customer of White County Video, also called White County Cable TV at one time, for the better part of yearsIn the mid 90's, when they only offered cable services, they did a fairly good jobAs technology advanced and services became more complex and diverse their ability to distribute and maintain that service fell further and further behindSatellite and DSL competition in this area did very little to encourage them to change due largely to the area being rural so performance and distance restraints on these competitors left WCV still having the lions share of the customersThe failure of healthy competition which tends to encourage a company to emphasize quality of service to maintain it's customers loyalty and the deterioration of an infrastructure which has been poorly maintained means the current situation is the worst it has ever beenThe quality of signal, with few exceptions, is inadequate to maintain digital reception, inadequate to maintain signal lock by a digital modem for internet service and at best barely reaches the advertised capabilities of the services that we are paying forCustomer service is out sourced to what is essentially nothing more than an answering serviceScheduling service calls is dictated to you as to when you should be there, with very little regard for your schedule and I've had appointments which I had to leave work to be there for and they never showed upI was told they had no record of a service call being scheduled, so that's what you could get when you call the after hours help lineWhatever it takes to get you off the phone and out of their hair it seemsDuring business hours a call or visit about service problems is met with indifference at best and in most cases they seem clearly aggravated that your even bothering them with your problemsThe technicians are inadequately trained and obviously instructed to blame your equipment, sometimes before even diagnosing the system in order to install WCV equipment which will show up on your bill, prorated down to the day if in the middle of the billing cycleIn the last months I've had to have them come out or more times and not once has a tech went to the trunk and checked signal quality or noise/interference levelsMy last service call in October, months ago the tech came out while my teen aged son was homeHe asked for a description of the problem and immediately said the modem had to be bad without testing anything, Replaced the modem, with one of theirs($per month) pronounced the problem solved and took the old modem with him( which belonged to me) and leftWhen I came home from work the same problem still existed as if nothing had been done and I had to drive miles to retrieve my modemI have had months where to days of the month I was unable to use the internet and could only watch a few scattered channels of TV and still was refused any credit or discount for lack of functional service.The sales reps/clerks which ever they call them misrepresent the services, are less than honest about cost (at the very least through deliberate omission) and are dismissive or downright rude if called on this practice.The only time I've received a pleasant and courteous experience there is when I go in to pay my bill and don't have an issue with serviceI like many more here have learned to live with some of the shortcomings of our only cable provider but that doesn't make it any less frustrating to shell out over a thousand dollars a year for less than whats promised when you sign up.If any one of us bought a new car that only worked out of days, that would of course be unacceptable wouldn't itWhy is this any different?I just want what I pay for, nothing more and I think I should be able to expect nothing lessIn defense of the techs, these guys are sometimes college students working their way through college or just young men with no experience of any kind and have only a crash course in telecommunications.Well I hope this review will be helpful to someone even if it's to show you your not alone in your frustrations with poor service and lack of a viable alternativeIn a strange way I think maybe even WCV itself is a victim of the unusual situation they've found themselves operating under for the last three decadesThat being said doesn't in any way excuse the decadence and poor customer relations that I, as a long time/pay on time customer, have experienced first hand I could hardly believe it when I came to this page and saw that they had no reviews yet they rated WCV with an A+ ratingYou can go to their own website and every, literally every review is negativeI still today and always will believe in a fair days work/service for a fair days pay and in that respect the citizens of White County Arkansas and the city of Searcy are not receiving our fair end of the deal