comcast1It’s one of the worst parts of being a cable customer: Giant windows of time for installation and service, keeping you pinned to your house for hours, waiting for a technician to show up.

Relief is on the way. Comcast announced this morning that it’s testing a new technology — starting outside of Boston — that will let customers with appointments track their cable technicians on a map in real time, starting when the technician is about 30 minutes away.

It’s similar to technology used by Uber, Postmates and other services that let customers track drivers and deliveries.

“We’re hoping this will prevent our customers from just needing to sit at home and wait,” writes Charlie Herrin, Comcast’s senior vice president for customer experience, in a post today.

He explains, “They can check the app from the office, or wherever they are, and head home when they see we’re on our way.  If we are running late, which can happen if our tech gets tied up at someone else’s house, we will let folks know that too, and provide real-time status updates so they can plan accordingly.”

Although the trial is taking place outside of Boston for now, Herrin writes that the company is hoping to roll it out to more customers next year.

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