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Be reasonable with the cable guy
October 25th, 2025
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Today at work I got a proper troublecall from a customer who waves me
down anytime I am working nearby and she happens to see me... Typically
she claims that my nearby work has caused her internet to cut off . . .
Invariably I investigate and find that she has attached multiple
ethernet cables from her router to her modem (which is in bridge mode
because she's only paying for one IPv4 address and one v6 prefix)
resulting in an ethernet loop. I break the loop and advise the customer
not to do this, and that if she ever puts a troublecall in for this
issue she would be charged a massive truck roll fee for wasting my time.

Imagine my surprise today when I see she is actually on my route with a
HSD troublecall for "intermittent internet" and a ridiculous workorder
note saying that the modem MUST be changed out*... Before rolling on it,
I do a short investigation to see if the troublecall is even warranted;
check the modem history and see absolutely nothing out of the ordinary,
but I do note that the particular DOCSIS 3.1 modem she has is moderately
old and is a model noted for failing to accurately log and report code-
word errors... Immediately noticed that the particular modem has ZERO
code-word errors, ever, in several years of signal history. Weird, and
impossible... I proceed to check the router log and note that the
service has indeed been dropping out, so the troublecall is justified.
I also note that the customer is not paying for triple-play, she is only
paying for internet, but her inventory has FIFTEEN obsolete RF cable
boxes (DTAs) on her account, holy crap!  I send an en route text message
and email to the customer letting her know I will be on the way, a few
minutes later while driving towards her house I call her on the phone
also, but it goes straight to voicemail...
I continue driving...

Eventually when I am approximately 9 minutes out from her house she
calls back and is extremely rude on the phone.
STRIKE ONE... (don't be rude)

Arrive at the house and begin investigating the problem inside,
immediately notice a DTA attached to a PVR system (effectively making it
a DVR) and that the modem has the coax pushed into it, but no attempt to
actually thread it onto the barrel has been made. Inform the customer
straight away that the coax MUST be fully seated onto the modem at all
times or she will run into the exact issue she called the troublecall in
for...
STRIKE TWO... (don't waste my time)

I ask the lady if she has our TV service and if she enjoys her DTA
receivers... She dodges the two questions by acting like I have not
asked them at all.
STRIKE THREE... (don't lie to me. And lying by omission counts.)

At this point it's useful to know that older RF-based cable and
satellite receivers on an all-encrypted system (like ours) do support a
"feature" which we have nicknamed "Zero Key" from the DigiCipher II
days.  Essentially as long as the receiver has a CABLECARD, smart card,
or any built-in decryption capability whatsoever, there can be static
keys stored in it, depending on the encryption system in use, they could
even be laughably simple (all nulls or all zeros, lol)... These static
keys can even be combined with dynamic keys to provide less (or even
ZERO, often in the case of "barker" channels) protection to lower tiered
channels (which get the static keys), and more protection for premium
channels (which would get the dynamic keys)... What happens in the case
of customers failing to pay their bill is that the receivers will
quickly lose access to the premium channels because they will no longer
be receiving key updates, but... In the case of the more basic channels
which are using the static keys, the box will happily continue playing
them until they receive a "collections" signal advising the box to
remove those static keys. The collections signal isn't continually
broadcast, some customers, either through intentionally unplugging the
receivers, or through dumb luck and letting their account lapse while
there is a signal outage, are able to keep these boxes playing the
basic channels FOREVER without paying.

This lady definitely had multiple zero key'd cable boxes, and knew about
it, wasted my time by placing the troublecall at all (her issue was 100%
caused by her tampering with the coax on the back of the modem and
failing to tighten it back) and was rude on the pre-call.

I proceeded to send collection hits to all 15 DTA cable boxes on her
account, and removed them from her account so that customer service
can't add them back... The petiness doesn't end there, since it was a
troublecall, I did have to check the wiring from the tap at the road all
the way to the modem, when I found a splitter, amplifier, and
two more splitters, I proceeded to remove the amplifier and all but the
first splitter... And I used a tamper resistant terminating seal on the
unused ports on the first splitter as well. Even if her DTAs somehow
managed to miss the collection hits, there is no way she's going to be
able to get enough signal to them now without the amplifier. lol.

I'm a generally nice guy, if you're stealing cable, I generally do not
care as long as your cable theft isn't interfering with other customers.
But... Don't be rude, don't waste my time, don't lie to me, and if you
can't do those three simple things, DON'T FORGET TO PAY YOUR FUCKING TV
BILL. 😂🤣😆

*p.s. I did change the modem out to a model without a built-in switch,
 because I am going to totally lose my shit if she runs multiple
 ethernet cables from a modem to a router again. Workorder comments be
 damned.
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179 channels are Zero-Keyed today. Argh.

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