They dropped my service twice yesterday and so far once today.
For some reason, traffic just stops flowing and nothing short of rebooting both the cable modem and the server will resolve it. The cable modem seems unable to re-establish the flow of bits to the external interface and using dhclient(8) to try dropping and requesting networking configuration information seems to fail.
Time to look into DSL, perhaps.
<update @ 2240> I hate Comcast even more. Service just went out again.
Customer Care sez they’ll swap me a new modem if I bring this one in. After four years, I suppose it’s likely to be past it’s sell-by date. DSL is still a possibility, if I can get a good deal. Speakeasy, beloved as they are, cost even more than Comcast and I’ll never be able to sell a more expensive service to the Powers That Be.
24 Comments
I use to hate Comcast. I thought it was too much money and that I would get more with a dish but my condo would not let me have a dish. Then I moved where there was no cable and I was so happy to get a dish. Ugh . . nightmare! Dish fade, talk about poor service. I called once and was on hold for 3 hours . . .3 HOURS. Then I use to dream about Comcast and moved again .. and one of the main reasons so I could get cable again. I have Charter now. Meh. . . it is not as good as Comcast was but thank GOD it is not as bad as having a dish was!
I’ve been working with ComCast for over a year now. I work in a call center. When your pissed off, and nothing’s working, i’m the guy who gets the brunt of it. The service you recieve from any given agent is like a doctor. They may word things differently, may have interpreted policy differently (we ARE human) and may have more working experience than others, but we do the best we can. Unfortunalty we don’t have individual extentsions (or else i’d give you mine).
Try to kind of see things from our side. Of the 50+ calls you take in any given shift, 40 of which are incredibly pissed off, and occasionally ignorant, are itching to rip your head off. So unfortunately, if you call toward the end of any given shift, we may not be in the best of moods, but we do our job. Which is exactly what it is.
And last of all, its a free call. Which is why its sometimes a long wait to get through. In front of you is a grandmother who bought her first pc, wants to know how to work her email, but can’t exactly see the monitor, and panics over everything. We are patient. We try to be thorough. And if its not a Comcast product, we can’t help you. Internet problems? Unplug mdm for 20 seconds, restore power. You should be good to go. I’ll post basic Trouble Shooting Tactics later. Hope yaw’ll enjoy it, and spread the free advice. Or wait on the phone :)
well, I dropped Comcast some time back, but I appreciate the comment. I may have been premature in my decision, as the modem was replaceable (I thought we owned it and I wasn’t going to buy a replacement) and I think that was where the problem was.
A bigger issue was the increase in the rates each year. yes, I know we got more bandwidth but I would have been happy with less for less $$$. Giving something I neither want nor can use and charging me for it isn’t all that helpful.
Comcast has serious intermittent problems. Ever since i moved in to the Bellingham WA network, the comcast internet is completely instable.
I have been a computer consultant for 6 years and i could give you a print screen of the INTERMITTENT PACKET LOSS on a variety of tests. THE MODEM IS NOT THE PROBLEM. I have verified it with using many different forms of hardware (PC’s to laptops, hardwired to wireless). COMCAST IS MESSED UP. At first the tech’s admitted they could ping test and see the problem, now 8 #$)(*#($*)(U#$ months later its WORSE THAN EVER. The engineers did a locate, they ran new cabling they tried everything, for a while a temporary above ground line worked pretty damn close to perfect, only lose a signal once every couple hours for only ten seconds at a time, now since putting it back in the ground, its back to twice or three times complete signal loss lasting thirty or more seconds every TEN mins. COMCAST IS THE PROBLEM. i have used all hardware at WWU’s network and my hardware and internet connection there is fine.
I respect where your coming with the end user computer consultant & technician position, the ignorant people, the stupid menial waste of my time problems, i work there, i am there, but recognize it or not but comcast is the problem-and they refuse to fix mine.
I’ve had intermittent problems since november including both modems and tv’s in the house. They’ve rewired the whole house, changed the modems, and still cant figure it out. When we call to get someone to check the phonepole for problems (as suggested by the last technician that came) they said we have to wait for THEM to call US. Some technical superviser was supposed to call today and help us. No call yet. I’m getting fed up with this. Even the technical rep said “you’ve gotta be lucky with the technicians comcast hires to come out. good luck.”
The only time they actually show interest is when we request credit for the month. If this technical supervisor doesnt call by tomorrow, i’m going to lose my mind.
SOME PEOPLE RUN A BUSINESS ONLINE DAMNIT!
Allow me to share my Comcast, ahem…experience:
I have had ComCast for about 2 years. I have my own D-Link DCM-202 modem. I refuse to ‘rent’ something that I can pay for once. The first year and a half, everything was wonderful. But these last 6 months have been nothing short of Hell. It seems that I get about a week or 2 of good connectivity, but then several days or a week of intermittent connectivity. As an online gamer, I require constant connectivity. Even if the problem only manifests itself for a minute or 2 once every hour or so, I cannot efffectively participate in online games. It results in me getting kicked off of the game server. Any progress I had made in the game is lost.
Repeated calls to Customer Service usually go something like this:
CC: This is Comcast how can I help you.
ME: I’m having intermittent connectivity
CC: Are you using a router?
ME: Not now. I connected the modem directly to my PC, because I knew that the router would be the first culprit you would blame, and yes I am still having the same problem.
CC: Have you tried power-cycling your modem for 20 seconds
ME: Yes, for the umpteenth time actually
CC: Well let’s go ahead and unplug the modem for at least 20 seconds
ME: Ok
CC: Ok, now reconnect the power to the modem. Can you tell me what lights are on?
ME: Three green lights
CC: Ok, open Internet Explorer and type in http://www.comcast.com
ME: Ok
CC: Do you see the page?
ME: Yes, but…
CC: So you have a good internet connection now, great! Is there anything else I can help you with today?
ME: Well, yes actually there is. You can start by not trying to steamroll me into some useless excercise and address the actual complaint I called in with. That was, in case you forgot, that my connectivity was INTERMITTENT! Simply because I was able to pull up a webpage at this moment doesn’t resolve my problem. I keep getting kicked off every hour or so. I have been running traceroutes to major sites like Google and Yahoo. I have found that one of the backbone providers, Level3.net, shows abnormally high rates of packet loss and this might indicate a problem.
CC: Hmm, I dont know about that. It’s probably your modem
ME: My modem is fine, trust me!
CC: We can schedule a technician visit. Will you be availiable on (date) from (time) to (time)?
ME: Yes I will
CC: If the problem is not on our end, you will be charged $75.00 for the visit
ME: Wonderful
CC: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
ME: I doubt it
I too have had the same experience. Comcast loses connectivity for short bursts at the rate of about once an hour. They can’t help me, and I’ve complained about everything. I also took out my router so they couldn’t blame that. They hardly acknowledge that there is a problem, because they don’t see one on their end.
Just a few minutes ago, for kicks, I was using the Comcast Live Chat feature. It got interrupted because my internet went down during the chat!
I used to hate Comcast now I despise them. They raised prices left and right over the years for their overpriced and low quality service.
In my area they took the NFL network from the basic package and set it up as a premium channel. That was the last straw.
I canceled my service on July 23. They have now billed me for August, September and October saying that, although they see the disconnection request, it has not been disconnected from the pole. I don’t know what to do. I don’t us their service but they keep billing me. They even sent a collection agency after me for money I do not owe.
I will watch nothing before I use them again.
I now use DirectTv and I am very happy.
@Jeanette
Unless you are a business-class customer with Comcast, you’re little online business doesn’t mean anything to Comcast. If you had actually read your End User License Agreement with Comcast that YOU signed, you would understand that running a home business on a RESIDENTIAL account is ILLEGAL!!
I get so sick of answering calls from people like you, who complain about “losing hundreds of dollars because of Comcast”. As a residential tech, I don’t care if you are losing money…if you were smart, you would of went with the BUSINESS service to begin with. But let’s be honest, you really aren’t losing “hundreds of dollars”, you’re just mad because you can’t check the status of that item you put on E-Bay.
I heard the same complaints when @Home became AT&T became Comcast, that people had used their @home or @attbi email addresses for business and now were going to be be forced to spend money to re-publicize themselves. But do we know that Jeanette above isn’t paying for more than residential service? If they re-wired her house, it sounds like she is paying for more service than I was. All I wanted was a steady signal: she’s contracted for a dialtone as well, it sounds like, and that just reinforces my decision not to have the cable company provide my phone service.
Comcast has enough issues with unreliable equipment, lying to customers about their “unlimited” bandwidth, etc.
I miss the higher speeds sometimes, but I don’t miss the outages, and I sure don’t miss the clueless tech support people. The guy who told me I was stealing bandwidth because I had more than one computer behind my firewall was beyond clueless . . . .
@Paul
Oh yes, there are some truly clueless people doing support for Comcast. Unfortunately, most of them are just outsourced call centers that don’t get anywhere near the training they need. I know this all too well.
Also, if Jeanette really were a business-class customer, then she wouldn’t be here complaining about it. Residential service through Comcast might be crap, but, Comcast knows where their bread is butter, and makes damn sure that their business network is up and running at all times. That is why Comcast offers the 24 hours or less guarantee for bushinesses and not for residential.
I hear it all the time, about how some person is losing all this money because they are too cheap to spring for the business service that won’t have all the problems that residential has. What amazes me is that NOBODY ever reads the End User License Agreement, which specifically states that running a business on a residential account is a BIG no-no…and yet people who do it anyways, AND expect Comcast to make up for it when they lose money…read your agreement people.
I would share my ongoing saga of Comcast incompetence, but it would simply be to repeat the many other stories already posted. The most startling, or perhaps brilliant (if you are Comcast and you have just signed a monopolistic contract with a city - like Houston) aspect of their “customer service” is that it is set up so that there is absolutely no accountability. You can never speak to the same person twice, and as a result, the clock punchers at the call centers just do what they can to placate you and move on to the next irate customer
Rather than continue to vent, or change to ATT, there needs to be some organized opposition. Class action lawsuits usually get a company’s attention, and Comcast is certainly primed for one or more, but I think people are pining for some more immediate attention. If you are like me, you simply want your internet and/or cable to work. I would gladly pay my bill each month in exchange for an internet connection that actually functions. So, how do we get there?
My thinking is to fight them at their own game - advertising.
In that regard, I am curious as to whether there is enough support among us to gather a fund to purchase newspaper advertising, get the attention of Comcast, and force them to put up or shut up.
If I set up a website to accept donations for advertising to get Comcast’s attention, would there be contributors?
I am not asking for anything now, just trying to measure the interest out there.
Let me know by emailing wakeupcallcmcsa@gmail.com
Also, if you know of any other organizations, groups, persons or others who are engaged in the same effort, or if you have any ideas, email them to this address as well. My intent is to start a website and compile all this information and make something happen.
Let’s stop complaining and DO SOMETHING constructive!!!
same problem here. Lets rip their heads off.
I made an appoitment at the local office in Aspen, Colorado. Was told the service installer would be able to do the install the next day from 1:00pm to 5:oopm. He never showed. I called the 800 number and was told the person who took my order gave me the wrong date. So I just took a half day off work for nothing and you want me to do it again.. FORGET IT! The saying that a happy customer tells one other person and an unhappy one tells ten, I will be telling everyone that will listen about the poor service I got from Comcast.
COmcast’s problem is training and lack of experience in upper management. They don’t train anyone, which leads to low paying jobs and Upper mngmnt has no clue what there doing. I worked for them I know. However I was not some retard at the call center, I was a Network Engineer, so trust me I know how bad there isssue’s are, I am glad I left to a better paying competitor.
I owe comcast over $100 because I only wanted the six month deal. I drove to their office and talked to them and they reduced my total from over $200 down to what I owe now. We agreed that I would pay monthly on this bill. Well I started paying on the bill and they sent it to a collection agency. Is that legal?
Here in Memphis Cumcast has a nice little racket. They install crap cable boxes and then charge for replacements. I can confirm that their customer service people are worthless. A class action suit is the only way to get rid of these scum, who undoubtedly pay off all the right politicians. They aren’t capable of running a bait shop, much less a cable company. Don’t wait your money on newspaper ads, hire lawyers.
Well after six months of a special Comcast jacked the price up without notifying me. I got a bill for over $200. I was so angry. I took the bill down to their office and talked to the customer service person who lowered my bill somewhat and then I promised to pay monthly until it was paid off.
COMCAST SENT MY BILL TO A COLLECTION AGENCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Would it be that difficult to let their customers know that their six months of a special are up?
Don’t worry, it gets worse. Comcast is geared to collecting personal information about their clients such that they can force more and more ads upon you. They monitor your usage of both your TV watching and your web usage. When I was paying for their service they also installed spyware on your computer to search your hard drives and report back to their servers. I had to reinstall my system to get rid of it. Never install any software they give you. There is no reason that you need to install anything on your computer. You can set up a connection to their service without installing anything (even if they tell you that you must install it, IT’S A LIE—they just want to dump a bunch of spyware on your computer).
Eventually, as you start to use bandwidth Comcast will threaten you. It won’t be their tech support or customer service that threatens you (they will be clueless as usual). Rather, Comcast has this branch of “Secrete police” that monitor your usage and if you use” too much” bandwidth they will start threatening you and will cancel your service. However, since Comcast sells their service by claiming to be an unlimited usage service (which is exactly what the person told me when signed up) it gets you interested in arguing the point with them. Don’t do it!!! Just cancel their service and save yourself the headache (they will boot you anyways so save yourself the frustration). Here, I can tell you how that conversation would go. “You are using too much bandwidth, but since we have no limit on bandwidth usage we can’t tell you how much is too much, but you are still using too much, and we can’t even tell you how much you are using since that would imply that we have a some limit on usage which we do not, so you either use less or we will cancel your service, but we can’t tell you how much less to use because we don’t have any such limit on usage, but you are still using too much…and 1+1=5 and snails can fly and the moon is made of cheese and the Earth is flat and is at the center of the Universe…etc”. There, now you know what you are in for. Save yourself the frustration and cancel their service if you ever get this group of idiot “Secrete Police” on your case.
You know it is unbelievably stupid of them to do this. What they are doing is targeting the top 10% (or so) of their power user clients. But that group is the group that most people go to when they want computer advice. And that group is the group that knows how to get the word out how much they hate Comcast. I have gotten over 30 people to dump Comcast directly, and I take every effort to post informed messages about how bad a company they are on the web and elsewhere. And I’m just one of the many power users that they got mad. So, it just doesn’t make any sense for them to be such jerks about this. Even if you completely ignore the sheer idiocy of their reasoning (“We have no usage limit, but don’t go over our usage limit or we will cancel you”).
As far as the quality of their service is concerned I was quite disappointed. Because they are so geared to pushing advertisements upon their clients they intrude upon you by monitor your usage of their service (for advertisement reasons). Ok, I figured I could live with that, but what irked me was that they put up ads every time I changed channels and that slowed down my channel changing to about 2-3 seconds per channel. It was crazy. It would take me an hour to surf around to find something good to watch and by the time I decided what I wanted to watch, it was over. It was so painful that I disconnected my cable box and just watched the analog signal (and I don’t even know if you can do that anymore). I didn’t get all the channels, but at least it didn’t take me all day to find something to watch. Plus the picture was never clear. It was a bit grainy, but more importantly you would get these blocks popping up frequently and sometimes the picture would freeze though the sound was still coming through.
Oh, and what started me ranting again was that I sent an email to a friend that still has Comcast (FIOS not available in his area yet) and I got it bounced back saying that it is spam. But when I went to their website (as the bounce told me) to try to get my IP off the block list they asked me for all sorts of personal information that they could not possible need. Now if it was any other company I would suspect that they are just trying to resolve the problem, but since it is Comcast I suspect that they are trying to compile information about the clients of other providers (like FIOS). You get a bounced email and you go to the Comcast site and you give them all your personal information so they can then target you for their advertisements. I have to hand it to them they know how to squeeze every bit of information out of not only their clients, but also the clients of other providers. Still, I took the opportunity to send them a message thanking them for alerting me to a friend of mine that I have not yet gotten to dump Comcast. Of course that particular friend has no other choice as of yet, but it reminds me to check to see if any new choices exist. So, in a sense this bounce of my email is helpful to me. It’s just one more person that I might directly help out by getting them to dump Comcast.
I could go on about their service and billing problems, but you all seem to know about those. I’m just giving you the additional problems that you might not know about (like the idiot “Secrete Police”). Luckily for me FIOS became available in my area just as the Comcast “Secrete Police” were cutting off my service. I don’t like Verizon much as a company, but so far FIOS has be pretty great. I get a constant download speed of 19.7mbps where I would be lucky to get a fluctuating 5mbps from Comcast, my FIOS upload speeds are better than that (and Comcast’s upload speeds were less then 700kbps—very slow). My TV looks like I bought a new one. The picture is so much better then Comcast and I have no problems with it at all. My phone is about the same, but I had a different phone company that charged me a lot so I saved a lot switching mainly due to the phone (I save over $130 a month switching to the FIOS package). There are probably cheaper and better phone providers, but not by much so I am happy about that. I get unlimited calling throughout the U.S. (so no more long distance carrier like I used to have, thus the savings).
I have some other horror stories related to the initial installation (drilling holes in my house other then the spot I told them too, I had to drill my own hole after they left and run the wire into my basement where I already had all the cable wires connected up, instead they drilled holes around my house and ran wires up the outside site walls, it was ugly, but more importantly I told them not to do it and they did it anyways) and related to billing when I cancelled their service (they billed me for stuff I never had and didn’t cancel the service when I asked them too and a mess of other things that made me quite angry). Still, I will leave that for another day.
@ OregonTech
We have comcast business and we experience 10 second outages CONSTANTLY. So where’s the difference in Business versus Residential reliability? There is none. Your claims as such are bogus.
We got Comcast/Insight cable after having horrible problems with Verizon tech support. Very few of thier custumer service representation can speak understandable English.
However ever since getting comcast we have intermitent signal loss. It apepars that any time another wireless network is activated in the area we lose our signal and have to refresh the list of wireless networks, of course, often losing work.
Any thoughts????
I’ve been using comcast for a year and a half now. Only one time within that year and a half has the internet ever failed to work. That same day tornadoes were tearing through my county. Understandble reasons for internet to fail - extreme weather conditions. I haven’t had a single problem stated and will continue to use comcast and also continue to recommend comcast to friends and family. It is simply the best. Did not mind waiting on hold when I called about our cable box outside being vandalized. Customer service representative was very informative and polite. I suggest all you naysayers move to illinois where comcast is leet! :P or would that be a bit extreme? hehe
comcast=1337(leet)
xD
Ben
This is what comcast speeds really look like. I have comacast and every night it drops. See for your self.
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Download Connection is:: 2746 Kbps about 2.7 Mbps (tested with 4096 kB)
Download Speed is:: 335 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/08/12 - 9:02pm
Bottom Line:: 48X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 3.06 sec
Tested from a 4096 kB file and took 12.218 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 44.1 % of your hosts average (comcast.net)
D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-NQI7AW4D1
User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) [!]
Well, I would expect Comcast speeds to drop as the day wears on, since your packets on their network pass every single house on the way to the Intertubes. Of course, 2.7 megabits is nothing to sneeze at ;-) even if it’s not all you’re paying for.
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