Contact Us

...or not.

Had to call Comcast this morning. While details aren't particularly important, finding their number was a bit of a hassle.

Now do you think that going to their website would supply the necessary information? Probably, except I couldn't get to their website; the cable modem was doing weird things and I couldn't get onto the internet in the first place.

No problem, I'll just grab an old bill and get the number from that.

1-800-COMCAST is of no use - the phone I was using has only numbers - no letters. Businesses who generally realize this fact will also supply the numbers for those who either haven't a clue or a phone without letters.

And though I no longer use a BlackBerry, this keypad makes things even worse:


That telephones prior to the digital age even had letters may be a mystery to some of you whippersnappers. Old Man Talk indeed. For those of you who have forgotten the golden age or didn't live through it, telephones had letters associated with numbers so as to remember what your exchange was, or to call someone else's exchange. Don't believe me? Consider the following image:

Those aren't pushbuttons, sonny. The image is from 1931 at a secretarial school in which the instructor is demonstrating how a rotary dial telephone works.

And what are these exchanges I referred to? I found a neat reference that shows the phone company's "Officially Recommended Exchange Names" here. From that list, maybe you'll recognize your old phone number from childhood.

And what of Comcast's number?

While there's no exchange number involved, the letters on the "dial" correspond to the numbers you "dial".

And I'm filing this one away for posterity: Comcast's toll-free number is 800-266-2278.