+1, -1 for Wide Open West

In the last few weeks we've had some interesting experiences with our cable ISP/TV provider, WideOpenWest, or WOW.

+1 
The good news first. WOW gave everybody a free download speed bump; we went from 8Mbps (megabits per second) to 15, and it's really there:

Our upload speed is still limited to 1 Mbps, which sometimes is a pain, especially when I'm uploading videos for this blog. A bump to even 2Mbps would be lovely.

-1

A couple of Mondays ago we recorded Eureka, on the SyFy channel. However, WOW had its channels mixed up, and the first 37 minutes or so of the recording was the Animal Planet channel, not SyFy. There wasn't much use in keeping only the last 21 minutes of the Eureka episode, so we deleted it. I double-checked the recording settings and the channel assignments, and I'm convinced WOW had its "wires crossed" for some unknown length of time -- but at least 37 minutes.

Derecho
We were in the path of the "super derecho" that swept from Indiana to the East Coast on June 29th. Our electrical power was knocked out for about 6½ hours, but when it came back, we were pleasantly surprised to see our service from WOW still up and running. We got to bed well after midnight, and when we arose at 7am, the cable was out. No Internet or TV. WOW's backup batteries/generators weren't designed for a prolonged power outage at their various distribution points, and although our house had power, obviously much of WOW did not.

The cable came back early Tuesday, after about 3 days of outage. We were ecstatic, prematurely. Over the next couple of days the cable service would be up for several hours and then down for several hours as both the electrical company (AEP) and WOW worked on their respective networks. But it's been up for 48 hours now, and we've still got the 15Mbps service.

That wasn't the only effect of the derecho. We also discovered that our battery backups (UPS, or universal power supply) for the house alarm and the DVR had aged and were not up to the task of a 6½ hour outage, even with minimal loads. The DVR, which had about 25 entries in its programming schedule, had lost them all. (Many of those entries are because the same show is being broadcast at different times each week, a very annoying network habit. We like to record during the repeats, mostly, and they are not constrained to a rational schedule like the first broadcasts are.)

Two new, larger UPS units are on order, as well as a larger replacement battery for inside the alarm system panel.