f13.net

I haven't had to pay attention to US telecom monopolies since 2004, but I've found that in my area there are very few choices for broadband internet access -- Comcast owns everything. Even the smaller ISPs I've looked at are actually just brokers for Comcast.

So how bad is Comcast? Bad enough that I should consider satellite broadband instead?

(Ah, it's good to be back in the US, where a monopoly is considered "free enterprise." But remember, it's Canada that's "communist!" God I miss Shaw Cable...)

I will jump right in and hijack (Sorry, Stormy, I don't have comcast!), since this is going to be a broadband provider topic.

Time Warner just jacked my monthly bill to $200/mo, which is where it hits 'fucking ludicrous' levels imo. I hate to lose that email address and also be stuck with 3Mbps service (Whar's my FIOS Ched!). At $140/mo (intro year rate, vs TW's $160 intro), I get pretty much everything TW offered except the 10Mbps service...plus I would get Sunday Ticket (vs Time Warner dropping the ESPN signal all the fucking time, including the Vikings game with Favre we wanted to mock watch).

So if you will excuse the intrusion, how bad is verizon? Also, would Time Warner forward my old email address to my new verizon address? My old ISP did that to my TW address, but it seems way to customer friendly for those motherfucking assholes at TW.

Comcast is just fine. Certainly better than any satellite connection you could get (for the money).

If you don't have another option (DSL, etc) then Comcast should work out just fine. (I use Comcast even though I could get DSL).

Edit:

You could look at http://www.broadbandreports.com/ for a comparison of ISPs in your area.

I've been using Comcast for both digital voice phone and broadband Internet for over a year now. The service itself is mostly good, but the CUSTOMER service... well, it's Comcast and it's shit. They took almost a year to bury the line from my street to the house - it took my wife bitching about it on Twitter before it got done, and that was after MULTIPLE calls to their phone support where it was promised someone would be coming out. We also had interior jack issues (2 jacks just stopped working one day) and again, took multiple calls and bitching on Twitter before anything was done. Finally, we ordered an unlisted number when we got the service. Our first number was apparently the crack whore of the telemarketing network, so we got it changed. That one worked fine until we got the new phone books this year and our unlisted number was very very listed. The final bitching on that caused us to change numbers AGAIN, and got us $450 in credit - free service for about 4 months or more. As I said, the actual service is fine, but God help you if you need ANYTHING from them. Bitch on Twitter before trying to call their phone support.

Unfortunately, I can't use their search engine because it only keys by phone number. We don't have a local phone number yet. I was able to search through some other sites that allowed me to go by street address or zip code, and they had the results I mentioned above (i.e., everything that's not Comcast is secretly renting lines from Comcast).

Haemish, thanks for the info.

Satellite is almost guaranteed to be shittier under most circumstances.

I don't have Comcast but I can share that every few months we have to cancel a raid because the Comcast people all lose their connection for a few hours. It isn't super frequent, but frequent enough that I remember it and know it is a "Comcast thing".

Comcast is pretty damn shitty, but satellite is even shittier.  Grab your ankles.

I haven't had any real issues with them in about...9 years.  

When I bought my first house, it took getting the local Comcast manager's name and email as well as their regional manager's name and email to get things sorted.  Which is surprisingly easy to get if you ask the receptionist that answers the phone nicely.  In my old house, my speeds were up and down (huge neighborhood).  Since moving, my speed stays consistent and pretty damn fast (for what I'm used to, anyway, smaller neighborhood a bit off the main path).

That said, I'm not a power user (i.e. pirating bajillions of GB of data a month).  But it works when I want it to, and generally any downtime is pretty quick to fix itself.  I think the only time I've had to call them about anything was getting my service moved and upgraded.  

I'll backup Haemish's comments. I've had no problems with Comcast's service, although the equipment they provide for tuners is pretty shitty, but it was relatively easy enough to get a cablecard and bypass all that. Caller ID seems a bit outdated for this area. It shows calls from my mom as being from my dad, even though he passed in 2000 and she got the service changed over soon after.

Customer service is Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber. Every once in a while you get someone who really knows their shit, will knock out something pretty quickly and will stay in touch so you can really pin down when they'll be there, but otherwise it's horrid.

Speeds are pretty good in a fairly dense neighborhood with a ton of subscribers. I think there's only a few real power users. And Any serious downloading I'll do as batches after I'm done for the evening. I can stream a show on Hulu, do a patch update, stream a cartoon on Netflix while I'm watching a MLS game on an 800K stream, so I'd say I'm satisfied.

Had Comcast for close to 10 years, no problems what so ever.

You can do the same with this site, though I can't find the speed reports by zip/address (or phone) anywhere - I guess they only show up through their Flash speed testing app. But you'd probably find the same thing. Look at their reviews by zipcode if you want to find written reviews.

I'd avoided them for years as I've heard plenty of horror stories about cable.

However, my new place lacks a telco demarc box (no clue what the previous owners did to it -- guess it got scrapped in the remodel), AT&T won't install a new one without a billing relationship, my DSL provider (speakeasy) doesn't directly deal with AT&T, etc -- it was looking like it could take weeks to months to get DSL, might require me to order a land phoneline (to get a relationship with AT&T so they could charge me to replace the box), then cancel it, etc.  I decided now was a good time to try out cable internet -- worst case I can go back to DSL later if it's horrible.

Called comcast on a monday.  They had an installer out that wednesday morning.  Took him about 45 minutes to run the cable to the house and get the modem provisioned.  I'm paying $36/mo for 16-20megabits and $3/mo for rental of the cablemodem.  So far (about 3 weeks in), it's been fast and reliable, about 2MB/s transfers from fast sites (grabbing a ubuntu iso, etc).

EDIT: One annoyance was that the modem apparently "bonded" to the MAC address of the laptop I used to test it when the installer provisioned it.  It refused to talk to anything else.  Thankfully my firewall is quite happy to spoof whatever MAC I want, but I wasted a few minutes trying to figure out why the hell it couldn't get a dhcp address from the network...

To continue Sky's derail:


I've had more or less the exact opposite reaction to Time Warner, Sky.  I don't have cable tv, but my phone + internet through them is only $60.  I think AT&T and Direct are violating them in some nasty ways in my area, because the package deals are getting insanely low near me.

For fuck's sake, what are you getting with that package?  When I was using Cox Cable back in college, we paid $100 a month for Internet (forgot the speeds, but much faster than DSL was), Phone, and a nice cable package that came with over 100 channels.

As to the original topic, never ever ever get Satellite.  It sucks dick, and is impossible to do any online gaming with.  If you don't like Comcast, then just get whatever DSL options are available.  It should work fine for all your needs (unless you torrent a lot of shit, then the extra upload bandwidth that Cable provides is a big boon).

My experience with Comcast was not good.  At all.  Caveat this was...oh geeze like 4-5 years ago in central California area.  But as others have mentioned I would still choose Comcast over a satellite ISP.  Lesser of two evils in this case bro, sorry.

I pay just over $180 for FIOS.  I get the Extreme HD package with all channels except premiums, DVR service, phone service plus a $4.99 international option, and internet 25/15.  There also seems to be a never ending free movie promotion so I haven't bothered buying one for ages.  This latest one will last me until mid November and then I'll probably get the option that gives me Showtime for a ten bucks.  Comcast has better On Demand stuff.  That's about the only thing I've found to be better so far.

Comcast, 50 dollar tier whatever.

Last Result:
Download Speed: 28179 kbps (3522.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 3162 kbps (395.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

::shrug::
I like it.  :awesome_for_real:

\

The thing is you have competition for cable in your area.  Where TW is a monopoly they begin to rape you on prices, unless the cities have laws enacted that specifically address cable gouging.  When I was living in the TW-only area of Cincinnati 7 years ago my bill was $90 per month for Basic + "Family Tier" (For Disney and Nickelodeon ) + the learning tier for History/ TLC and Discovery + $40 for Roadrunner Access.  No movie channels.  No digital, no HD which were just being added when we moved, both for additional fees.  (And internet phone meant Skype, not your cable provider.)   I know they continued to raise prices after that because my sister still lived in the area.

Sky;  I don't think that Roadrunner offers e-mail forwarding at all, no.  I could be wrong though since it was years ago and I didn't much care about getting e-mail forwarded back then, since I wasn't doing online bill pay.

I'd love to get the FIOS.  But Verizon basically says "In Alabama?  HA HA.  Sometime between now and never" on their website.

I've had Comcast for a year. Decent service, bad support. Still better than my old dsl provider (TDS) that refused to fix problems, and kept increasing the price.

Occasional issues occur for me with comcast, mostly dns server problems. Use a third party one and you're fine.

Will never happen.  Sorry.  


edit.  Also, keep in mind with Verizon FiOS/DSL you can now get free wireless internet (5,000 hotspots from coast to coast and growing) for the mid to upper tiers.  I am looking forward to testing this out.

AT&T offers the same thing (Verizon copied AT&T, I believe).

Service is pretty flaky here in Cupertino, California. Things were okay for about 8 months but I then I had a host of problems with my Internet connection that lasted for about 3 months. Things seemed to have settled down again. I've raged elsewhere about the ineptitude of their customer service as well.

Its possible.  I imagine a large part of the plan has to do with cell tower placement - I dunno, I avoid speculating on specifics.

I dreaded Comcast too.  Called up the recommended "install requester" service that the power company has you use up here.  They said they could get out to install it in about 11 working days.  Absolutely nothing sooner, no way, no how.  I accepted, and a few days later called back to inquire and called Comcast directly and the guy said "they told you that?"  He scheduled me for 2 days from then and was more than accomodating to me.  At least that part went smoothly.  Haven't had any technical issues in the 2 months I've been using them...

Used Comcast cable internet for 10 years at two different addresses without major problems. A couple of hiccups here and there that were fixed reasonably quickly and responsively.

What everyone has been telling me recently is that as long as you never have to call customer support for any reason, comcast is great...

It really depends on where you live. I overall had good luck with Comcast's service over the years I had them (though I never had them in an area that was not a buy-out or franchise swap of another company's buiildout). Their customer service is somewhat abyssmal but meh.

It also really depends on the size of your node and the saturation level. Apparently the congestion so bad around the college campus here that Comcast is losing customers to the company I work for who has had notoriously bad word of mouth for a couple of years.  :ye_gods: Of course, this area is an older DOCSIS 2.0 buildout with no plans for DOCSIS 3 this decade. AT&T rolling out their FTTN U-Verse product in town is probably the only thing that will eventually break the Comcast monopoly on internet >5mb .

Comcast almost always has 19.99 a month for 6 months intro rate, and you can always sucker a free install out of some CSR, so for the price it is probably worth at least trying. I don't currently own a TV so my DSL with AT&T keeps me happy enough.

The price wars have definitely been nice here in the midwest. Comcast and Mediacom are constantly trying to one up each other. I've been with Mediacom for... over a decade and it's been stellar for both service and support. Currently paying 60 bucks a month for a 20 down 2 up line whose downtime has been almost non existant.

Satellite is only a choice when your other choice is dial up. Even fixed wireless is better than satellite.

FIOS is  :heart:

I think it really depends on where you live, what the legacy cable company was, and how long Comcast has owned them.

Here in Southern New Hampshire, it started out as a mom and pop outfit called Harron Cable.  The cable modem was slower then a 33k dialup.  Then Adelphia bought them and it got worse.Finally, about 5 years ago, Comcast bought Adelphia here.  For the first year, nothing changed.  Then in year 2, things slowly got better.  Ever since, it's been very stable.

Last month, they doubled all the speeds here at no additional charge.  Last week, I downloaded Season 1 and 2 of Torchwood via Bit-torrent, about 8 gigs  Download speed varied from 400 to 700 kb/thingies.  Upload could hit 280 kb/thingies, but I capped the upload at 200. (note: I'm not on the fast tier for internets)

Pings in TF2 are good.  I have 5 regular servers that I plan on that my ping is under 30 ms/thingies.  (can you tell I'm not tech?)

Cable TV seems fine.  It's only gone down when we lost power for a week in the big storm last year.  I think I pay 145 dollars a month for HD, 2 cable boxes, Cable Modem rental, and internets.  If you want, I can download my bill off the internets and post it for you.

PS, you can do all your billing online, including PDFs of your past statments)

Overall, I do recommend Comcast.  Are you signing up to do business with Corporate Behometh?  Yes.  Is it worth the cost?  Only if you make decent money.

PS2:  Who the hell cares about landlines?

At least in my experience with Comcast, this is generally fixed by powering down the modem for about 30 seconds to a minute.  There must be some sort of short term battery in there.  After about a minute, it forgets and is happy to connect to anything.

Nice ninja edit there.

If you game (in any capacity) then sat is absolutely the last resort before POTS dial up.

Basic math tells the story, the Sats are 22-25k miles up in earths orbit, even at the speed of light (300k KM/s or 186k Miles/s) this translates into 800ms ping times (if you are lucky) to make the round trip plus all earth based relays. Any app that requires shorter packet bursts and asynchronous communication will suffer greatly from sat based systems. Despite all their claims of speed improvement, they cannot change physics and even the speed of light acts as a severe limit to any app that sends and receives a lot of packets (i.e. twitch fps gaming and even MMOs).

Now if all you are going to do is browse and stream movies then Sat is better, but beware their militant "fair use" policies.

All in all, I was with Comcast for 13 years and loved them for 12, but the last year was a nightmare. I am now with embarq and then are steady if not spectacular.

We've had them for nine years without a problem. I find them quite reliable. When I have had to deal with one problem or another, I have found that their phone lines are staffed by idiots with very long wait times. However, they have a chat portal and I have gotten very fast very high quality support from it.

I had a lot of problems with losing data/voice with them in Baltimore (usually a few times a month for over an hour each time).  Support was useless and after having my bill raised to 200+ for voice, 6Mbs, and their expanded digital package (no movie channels), I canceled and went with DSL/DirecTV.

I'm in Pikesville (NW Baltimore suburb).  :ye_gods:

Thanks for all the feedback, folks. I'll definitely write off the satellite unless we end up needing it (hoping to move to rural York County, PA in a year).

I will say that a friend of mine about a block over didn't have any of the issues I had with Comcast (but is looking to cancel because they've raised their rates yet again).

Do not confuse satellite internet with them re-bundling DSL.  For example - My sister in law cannot get DSL here due to franchise agreements.  She COULD get "Satellite" internet though - turned out to be DSL re-bundled through some legal loophole I will never understand.

We switched to Verizon FIOS from Comcast as soon as we could because of several issues. One was the customer service issue that Haemish mentioned. If you have a problem of any kind, expect Comcast to ignore it, stall on it, misdiagnose or misunderstand it, or to actively fuck it up and make it worse. When the Comcast technician came to our new house five years ago to install digital cable service + cable modem, he looked at our television set, a wholly unexceptional Sony rear-projection 55" TV, he said, "I've never seen TVs like that, I can't hook this service up." I said, give me the fucking box and I'll tell you when to flip the switch outside. He said, "Ok", sat down on our couch and took a nap. I hooked up the box in five minutes, he activated the service, and that was pretty much it. In general, their service people who actually show up know almost nothing about the tech they're dealing with, and the calls are pretty much straight-to-India where someone reads a script to you. We also had a fairly high level of outages and interruptions, and suspicious episodes where speeds slowed a lot (the most bandwidth consuming thing I do is play MMOs: I don't do any peer-to-peer stuff at all). I also just do not like the way Comcast operates as a company, especially in this area where they're accustomed to market dominance.

Verizon doesn't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy, but so far their techs know what they're doing, the customer service on the two occasions where we've had an issue has been great, and the service level is very consistent.

Comcast at least in Tucson here is a mixed bag.  The internet is fast and there is very little outages/downtime.  I can remember only one multi-hour downtime in the past year.  Most of the outages could be likely be contributed to extreme weather (flooding) or construction.  

The TV is fine but fucking expensive.  I think the TV portion of my bill is 120 alone. HBO eats up $20 of that.  The rest is box rental, DVR, and "digital preferred".  

Their service is for the most part terrible and they will charge you for everything they can.  I had a guy come out because I need a cable outlet put in a certain wall.  This was going to be a $30 charge, which was OK for me. Between the scheduled visit and his arrival we decided we didn't need the additional outlet but needed one just put on the other side of an interior wall.  The tech said that was no problem and this wouldn't be a charge.  He gave me no papers to sign and finished it in minutes.  Comcast billed me the $30 and $4 for a "change of service".  After arguing with a service rep about the charge, I got nowhere.  They wouldn't even refund the "change of service" charge, because there was no goddamn change of service.   This is the only time I've hung up on someone in anger.  It's $34 for them.  $34 to ensure that I won't bolt the second there's a comparable service available.  

If it's your only option, it's not a terrible one.  I don't think satellite TV is a viable option for me at this point.  The internet is good. The company is terrible.  I really dislike these money grubbing assholes.

When I checked FIOS availability on Verizon's site, they offered me bundles with lower connection speeds than Comcast -- 7.1 Mbps/768 Kbps vs. Comcast's 16 Mbps/2 Mbps.

Am I correct in assuming this is Verizon offering me their stock broadband and hoping I don't notice that it isn't FIOS? Seems to me fiber optic should be a hell of a lot faster than that.

Not to derail the conversation but what ever happened to anti-trust laws as they pertain to telecom monopolies? Didn't we decide in what 1984, that Ma Bell and monopolies are bad? I truly believe that Comcast would have 1/2 of their customers leave the first year a comparable service was ALLOWED in each and every one of their markets. What is the legal explanation for why we still allow, in most markets, obvious monopolies of cable/internet service?

HSI is Vz's fancy way of saying DSL.  7 meg down is the top tier DSL offering, not FIOS.

That's what I thought. >.<

In response to the OP, I wont get started on those dirty cheating thieving pieces of shit. Their service is the shittiest shit service I've ever had, during the summer(offpeak season) I randomly lose my internet service for hours at a shot. They always refuse a service credit( I filed a complaint with the BBB recently and its going in my favor). There is a housing development behind my condo/apartment complex, some customers of mine live right in there behind me. Because there is satellite competition in their development their comcast is cheap. They pay exactly 80 for their service package with comcast. Where I live cable is the only option. I have the same exact (for the slow people this means identical, with no changes) plan as my customers and I pay 160! Did I stutter :uhrr: I said I pay twice as much! :mob:

Fuck comcast in their empty rotten head holes!

Comcast doesnt actually have full on 16 out to their customers.....its really 8 with a thing they call powerboost, the first 21 megs worth of data moves at 16 then downspeeds when you hit that threshold, I was told by a pissed off technition that depending on the market they dont even turn on the powerboost for account that pay for it.

They have been such a truly horrible company here I find it hard to beleive that is the truth. Where do you live? Cause i'm moving there.

Gonna need one of these :tinfoil: to get into this discussion.

I'm totally confused on the installation part.  I just drove down to the local comcast branch (about 2 miles from where I work) and picked up the boxes myself. Why would you need an installer?

So my mom's Comcast TV service has been on the fritz for the past couple of months, and repeated calls to them haven't resolved it.  Today she got fed up and called them to cancel the service.  They're crediting her account for the past two months and sending someone out to fix it this weekend.   :awesome_for_real:

I had Comcast throughout law school, but I have Verizon FiOs now.  FiOs kicks major motherfucking ass.  750kb download speeds?  Yes please!  Still, I never experienced all the horrible problems with Comcast you guys did.  Not sure how an ISP could be "shitty" unless it disconnected a lot or the speed wasn't as advertised.  The only shitty thing about Comcast (as already noted) is that the customer service is pure shit.  I'm not sure that's unusual or cable industry specific though.

Its DSL.  Couple of things:

1. We have a deal with Direct TV.  Direct TV is not too shabby (ask around).

2.  DSL is not like it used to be.  Also, when you get 7M you GET 7M, and its reliable.  Also look into the free netbook deal.

edit. Also, if you shoot me your address via PM I can get with engineering and check when/if FiOS will be available.  Did you say you were in MD?  If so there is a chance you could get it within the next couple years.

I've had comcast for 6 out of 9 years in the Chicago market (only reason I haven't had them for 9 out of 9 was due to living in Seattle and dealing with Qwest, who can suck my god damn ass). To date, the only times I had problems the customer service was fucking clueless. They weren't dumb enough to be dipshits towards me and did give credits many times over, but they were all full on retarded outside of issuing credits. The whole issue is the power boost thing, and somehow the way they hook up the internet, they didn't do it right. That was the whole problem, the installers were dumb. They sent out one of their contracted people and he fixed it (a problem that lasted about a year) in about 15 minutes. Other then that, I have no issues with them besides them being a little on the expensive side.



Cheddar, any idea on when fios will be in the far NW Burbs of Chicago? We're considered Northern Illinois region, and depending on the company, the Chicago market.

Not gonna happen, hombre.

How about the greater Seattle area? I am probably 20 miles from downtown as the crow flies.

I was afraid that was the reality, especially since I actually liked dealing with Verizon's home services :heartbreak:

Bad news. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_(company))

It makes me sad; my secret dream was to transfer to WA.

Comcast puts filters on the lines.  No biggie, right?  The filter is in the line box... on the telephone pole outside.  Someone has to go up there with a special tool and remove it.

I must have had the cable tv turned on before I moved in my house or something.

That's my old record.  My new is ~32k.  Last week I got lucky and had 60 kbps downloads during the day.  That new wireless pt2pt service is going to be sweet.

This has absolutely ZERO to do with the modem having a battery. It is all in the CMTS. Residential rate cable modems almost always have a maximum number of 1 CPE (Customer-premises Equipment - aka devices) that will be allowed DHCP through the modem, and there is usually a timeout before the MAC address of the device that is allowed is cleared off. All the Comcast employee (or any cable company) does when you ask them to change your device is usually send a reset CPE command through their provisioning system, the system will then lock onto the first device that hooks in next time. If I recall correctly, Comcast's CPE timeout is really really short (less than 5 minutes).

Comcast is an awful evil fucking piece of shit monopoly.  You will get passable speeds but you will always know in the back of your mind you are getting fucked.  Not just on the service but on the price, the speeds and in some other way its hard to put your finger on.  Installation ranges from wonderfully painless to, they reschedule with no reason given 4 times and give you an 8 hour window each time.  It totally fucking depends on god knows what.  I've had Comcast in SF & several Marin addresses for years each time I move I cross my fingers when I make the Comcast call.  They totally will throttle you if you use "too much" bandwidth, I've had houses with 3 heavy users get to the point where we would have to reset the modem every other day at around prime time during the later half of each month.  This was before they got caught red handed twice for shit like that but I doubt its changed, just less obvious now.  You'll never get the speeds you pay for when it matters, you can get good late night download speed but the whole powerboost thing is a crock of shit.

Calling them is a waste of time unless you are willing to threaten leaving them, otherwise you'll never talk to anyone who can or wants to do anything for you.

Hate Comcast with a passion, haven't heard of any faster/cheaper alternatives, use them every time.

I don't understand the reference. Can you clarify a bit, Cheddar? I see that Frontier Communications is buying Verizon leased land lines in Washington state, but how does that affect FIOS implementation again?

Had Time Warner in NYC.
We have been living in Louisville, KY for a year now and using Insight Communications.

So far no complaints.
$100 for the everything digital cable (minus movie channels) and the top speed broadband service.
Last year we had a huge ice storm and THEN a month or so later a hurricane. Both times the line from the street to the house as taken out by falling branches. Both times despite power out all over the city and chaos reigning, they had a repair crew to my house and service restored within 24 hours or less.

Best part of the story....
They kept sending me marketing stuff trying to get me to sign up for their digital phone service. I was getting stuff nearly daily in the mail. I wrote a pretty angry later explaining to them that after a year they should really give up, as a dedicated environmentalist I was angry at the death of all the trees (to produce the mailers), as a customer I was angry that my bill could have been lower if I wasnt helping pay for all these stupid mailers, and that their VP of marketing should be fired. No shit, three people wrote back telling me I would be removed from all mailing lists and apologizing. The last one was the VP who I said should be fired.

I highly recommend them if you are in their coverage area.

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_13256179

Basically he's just waiting for them to come down his street.  It's already available in parts of Pikesville (Baltimore County signed a franchise agreement last year.)

It would probably be soon, then.  With an address I can submit an engineering request then make some calls.

Thanks for the clarification, Cheddar.

Basically, if you want FiOS you need to participate in your Government.  Write a letter to your Senator, lookup when meetings are concerning the sale, etc.  It is technically possible to block the FiOS portion of this due to franchise agreements and whatnot.

So there is no chance of getting it?  I'm not sure if I'd be considered far NW suburbs or not (Crystal Lake/Lake in the Hills/Algonquin), but for a chance of getting FIOS, I'd switch from my AT&T DSL.

The upper midwest in general is probably not going to get Verizon FiOS ever. This was Ameritech land, and Ameritech is part of SBC AT&T now so you will have to settle for U-Verse if/when AT&T spends the money to deploy fiber to your node and allow you to purchase it. (Though I know people who have it here in Champaign in the one neighborhood it is live and they like it a lot. Not nearly the top end speed potential of Fiber to the home FiOS, but it is still better than Comcast speeds here)

There are plans to address the cost of deploying to rural areas; due to my position with the company I cannot discuss it, though. 

Rule of thumb: if you have AT&T locally you WILL NOT get FiOS.  If you are in an area that falls under the Frontier deal you WILL NOT get FiOS.  Sorry.

Man what I would pay to have FIOS in my area!

Had comcast for over a decade when I lived in the suburbs, generally very reliable service provided you never have to call them. Seriously... worst customer service on the planet, bar none.

But I recently bought a house and 11 acres out in the country (40 miles outside of Kansas City) and am damn lucky to have DSL from Embarq. Going from 16mbps to 6mbps kinda sucks, but I have not really noticed unless I am streaming HULU while all my kids are too (and my wife is playing farmville on facebook)... which happens regularly  :grin:

Hoping FIOS or ATT UVerse gets here someday, until then I am told I should have access to 10mbps DSL next year when they install a new DSLAM.

It's interesting. The standards for customer service in IT/telcom businesses are incredibly bad in general. I can think of only a few genuinely good experiences involving tech support or customer service for any kind of product or service of this kind, compared to the kinds of customer service I've seen in lots of other consumer-products businesses. But Comcast really stands out for me and it appears others as achieving a special kind of shit service. That's an accomplishment. It must take effort to be worse than the crappy industry standard.

So, a buddy of mine that lives in Redmond WA says he has FIOS from Verizon. Something about it piggy-backing the Microsoft line?

Did you read anything in this thread?

Also, we do not share "lines" with MS.

Yeah, I read the articles. I thought it was all about the infrastructure already existing. I imagine FiOS is a name for a type of infrastructure (fiber?) and if its already in place in Redmond, then it being purchased by Frontier wouldn't mean that it goes away, just that it goes by another name. If that's wrong, its not because I didn't read the article, I just don't know enough about the issue. So, like, chill.

I ditched Comcast because they were jacking my bill up every year, continued to charge me for phone service that hadn't worked after the first month for the next 2 years (because it was part of the installation bundle and the computer said it worked perfectly), and had oversold the local loop so that the internet connection went to shit promptly at 6:45 every night, give or take 10 minutes.  I switched to AT&T for DSL and phone service ($50 combined after the intro), and DirecTV ($108, but that's with two movie packages and 7 receivers, including one HDTV DVR with 100 hours of HD capacity, nearly half my bill is equipment rental because I need a TV in every bedroom, plus the living room and a separate kid's TV area, because a few extra bucks to keep them from squabbling is worth it).  That's more than $100 less than I was paying for Comcast, and with the sole exception of download speed (which I could fix by coughing up another $20/month for high-grade DSL, or $50 more for business grade) the service is superior in every way (I've lost TV reception exactly three times in heavy thunderstorms, all less than an hour, I had multiple hour outages every couple of months with Comcast).

If I had taken the DishTV/AT&T bundle deal, I'd be paying about $30 less, but I didn't like their stock dish (smaller, so more weather interruptions) or the DVR, and I couldn't upgrade the DSL service separately without losing the bundle price.  On major WoW patch days, when 3 different computers are trying to download half a gig, it's a pain, otherwise I find the equivalent of an old-school T1 perfectly adequate even if the other geeks do poke fun at me for it.

--Dave

EDIT: To be fair, AT&T did just try to fuck me by upgrading the firmware on the DSL modem to be incompatible with any of the four home gateway routers I had (something involving DHCP), trying to force me to buy their home networking package.  But one old POS Dell the kids used to use and a download of Ubuntu fixed that, the modem has absolutely no way of knowing how many computers are behind the one it can see because they're on a different network.  Probably a lot of less tech-savvy people in my neighborhood are cursing under their breath and coughing up for the upgrade.

That's another damn fine point about Comcast, the price you pay is always going up.  Always.  They fuck about with pricing and bundles and changing which channels you get and what you need to do to get the channels you had back all the goddamn time.  Fuck I hate Comcast.

Comcast has not really raised their internet rates at all since I was last an actual paying customer (my name on the bill), but their TV rates have gone up considerably. In fact, I think their internet rate has gone down a couple bucks since I last had it.

But their customer service aparrently is still on a whole abyssmal. I had a customer thank me for calling him back to verify his connection was working 6 days after his original call because he had never had such a response from a "big company like AT&T or Comcast".  :ye_gods:  Of course, I had to then tell him we are by no means "big" having less than 100,000 total customers nationwide.

Ahh the joys of working for an ISP.

Download it once and share it over your local network.

What company doesn't jack rates? I finally went with Time-Warner's phone package because Verizon wouldn't stop jacking up my basic rate (just landline, no long-distance package, since I don't call long distance but maybe a couple times a year). But Time-Warner also has rate creep, for the tv stuff. The internet and phone are actually very competitive.

At this point I'm just going through my TW emails to figure out who I need to notify when I drop those fuckers. ESPNHD went out again Sunday. Again. Should I stick with that or save $60/mo for a year and get Sunday Ticket....hmm...

I don't think I've ever had my rates for DSL jacked up on me.  No download caps either.

Of course with my cheapo DSL plan I don't get nearly the bandwidth I'd have with cable, but I'd rather have 1MB/s and be able to use all of it all month than 100MB/s and get cut off or surcharged after a couple of hefty Steam purchases.

I've never run into any surcharges on my cable internet. I download games a few times a year, so maybe that doesn't mean much. I *have* redownloaded most of my steam games over the course of a weekend, but didn't see anything extra on the bill for that.

I think you'd have to be consistently excessive to garner any attention from the bandwidth cops.

But then again, I can't find many download sites that let me download at 1MB/s or faster anyways!

Not entirely applicable, but Shaw Cable in Edmonton never raised its prices in five years of service. Further, they increased everyone's bandwidth from 6 to 9 Mbps for free the year before we left.

See how that dirty socialism destroys capitalism?

It's every companies god-given right to screw its consumers as hard as they possibly can.

Shaw was nice, while I was still in Winnipeg.

Comcast never raised my internet rates. They did raise my cable rates about once a quarter though.

My understanding is that in practice, most ISPs don't actually surcharge you for going over their limits, but in their Terms of Service they reserve the right to start doing so at any point.  This seems to get buried in the fine print, along with the limits themselves.  Even if they don't ever use it, I don't like the idea of having the sword of Damocles hanging over my head constantly.

Hilariously not offered to Verizon's cellular users because they're scared of people using WiFi to cut phone bills. However, they don't object if you use the WiFi service to reduce your AT&T T-Mobile bill. Result? Verizon get billed by Boingo so that their customers can surf and VOIP on iPhones and Androids.


Verizon will get the Frontier lines back fully when they have to take over the bankrupt Frontier who they will have a 68 percent share of. Around three years is what I give it.

 :awesome_for_real:

So ESPN was blacked out again last night. I called TW and bitched, they said it was an NFL blackout (goddamned Bills anyway). I mentioned that it was a regular thing, she checks and of course there's a problem with my line. I ask if that means I have to take an afternoon off work to sit around waiting for their subcontractor to show and she says they can narrow it down to two hours. I tell her to make a note about the problem in my file and go ahead and get a hold of me when they can narrow it down to a precise time, when I'm not at work.

I wish I could act like some of these corporations, tell my boss....yeah, I'll try to get to that problem on your computer. Let me give you a two-hour window when I might be there in a couple weeks.

I could be wrong, but I don't think they can force Verizon to do that.

Comcast's TV rate shenanigans is why I have switched to being an Internet only customer with them and now watch all my TV through online sources (Hulu, Netflix, network sites, the occasional torrent).  I'm just glad I've never cared for watching sports on TV, so I don't mind being a day behind the broadcast for my entertainment.

To get the best rates from Comcast (and many service companies these days) you need to cancel, or at least threaten to.  They will almost always offer you a better "retention" rate to keep you on, or you just go without for a month and come back on one of their specials.

Got a 401k?

No.  :sad_panda:

Screw 401K's.  You'll get sucked dry by the fund manager's fees and their supposed great returns don't add up to much.  If your company offers one contribute just enough to hit their maximum matching (if they have such a scheme), and open up your own IRA.  I like Vanguard's funds, particularly their index funds.

This is exactly what I do.  The free money from the company match is good, but my IRA's overall performance has been quite solid.

I work at a relatively small library, there is no match. Also, as a non-profit, we have to run through 403(b), which at least was changed to allow things other than annuities.

The Government can.  This exact scenerio is playing out even as we speak...

Google/Wiki "Fairpoint"

This.  But I love sports, I still don't own a tv though, bars + myp2p.eu are how I get my live sports fixes.  That and friends who have tv.


Yeah matching funds is the only reason to play.  Its not even that good of a reason.

No, it's a great reason. Your money is making an instant +100%, what other investment pays that much up front?

It really depends, some companies force you to do some pretty whack shit to get matching funds or only let you keep them if you meet xyz criteria.  You are right though I probably overspoke but I've seen and heard of some stupid conditions to get/keep matching funds.

 :awesome_for_real:

So I call Comcast yesterday they offer me 16mbs for 12 months @ $29.99 no contract w/ only a $25 install fee and + $3 to rent the modem.  I say wow that is a great deal your sure that is the deal etc?  They say yes.  I make an appointment for this morning at 8am to install.  I'm so pleased that she didn't try to force me to bundle this and that that I offer to leave a voice mail to the sales rep's supervisor telling him how she was great and not painful to deal with.  So the tech arrives, he reeks of cigarettes but he knows his shit and isn't some lazy fatass so I'll take it.  He gets his job done without it taking too long and at least he showed up within the one hour window.  In SF they charge you $100 and there is a good chance they wont show and the window is four hours plus. 

So I look at the bill and the tech says "dont ask me" I call Comcast because the numbers don't look right, the bill says $43 for the month.  I call in and the automated system tells me to expect to be billed for two months.  I think, well $30 + just under half a month would be $43 so looks like they got it right.  But I still don't trust the fuckers because they are Comcast and they have always screwed me.  So I can't figure out how to talk to a human, its literally not an option I'm being given.  Eventually I just hit * 0 * 0000 * 000 until it finally shuts up and rings to a human, fucking Comcast, I have no idea how I was supposed to get to a human being following the prompts.

Me:  So I uh wanted to double check what you guys think your charging me per month, since I was told $30 and if $43 is for this month + October that looks good, but I wanted to be sure you know how it is.
Tech: Let me look you up....   oh no you say you were told what now?  $43 is your monthly fee.
M: Wtf, $43 is for 1 month your system just got done warning me you were going to charge me for 2 months that doesn't even make sense.  What about the fact this month is half done?
T: $43, yup you have the 16mbs that is your monthly fee.
M: I was told $30 for first 12 months w/ no contract!
T: Well I'll give you $35 how's that?
M: What do you mean you'll give me 35?  That's $60 more then I was told I'd have to pay!
T: Well sorry.
M: Sorry?
T: Yeah sorry, that isn't the deal.
M: Can you explain how exactly this got messed up because it seems like bait and switch, want to offer a plausible explanation for how someone got this wrong not 24 hours ago?
T: No idea, we have no deal for the 16mbs for $30.  The deal is $35.
M: Ok so maybe she got it wrong what is the 12mbs (since the speed #'s they quote are bs anyways) price w/ the first year deal?
T: 12mbs would be $25.
M: Well wtf then
T: Sorry sorry but you can only get it for $35, but I'll give you $5 credit since you were miss quoted.

This conversation continued for some time, eventually he offered me a $10 credit, fuck me very much, I'm just going to call back later and try to get someone who isn't a complete fucking retard on the line.  This is classic fucking Comcast.

Yeah, as much as I bag on Comcast, Charter is so much worse.  My brother is stuck using them and he had a lightning strike at his house that blew out his cable modem.  When he called in for service they gave him an appointment that was three weeks away.  He asked if they would credit his billing for the three weeks without service and they said no.  He asked for a list of modems they supported so he could buy his own, they said they didn't support modems they didn't provide.  Finally he bullied them into letting him bring the modem to their local office and switch it out.  When he gets there, they give him the new modem and then set up an "activation appointment" for ... yep, three weeks away.  He spent two hours at the office badgering people until finally they agreed to activate the modem's MAC "on faith" and allow him to install the modem himself.

Signed up for Verizon DSL tonight ("We'll mail you a self-installation kit within 5 business days!"), and was struck by their superior grammar:

Comcast hates foreigners. <edit> meant Verizon. Screwed up my own attempted joke. </edit>

They've quoted me several different prices, pretty much every time you call you get a different drone with a different script. I've found when you get someone reasonable, get their # and extention.

Oh snap.  I will get this fixed.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0909/gallery.highest_paid_worst_CEOs/3.html

 Comcast Corp. is in talks to purchase NBC Universal, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.

Citing unidentified people familiar with the situation, the nation's largest cable company and NBC Universal which includes a broadcast network, movie studio, and big cable channels like CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo and USA, have been in talks for some time, according to the Times.

General Electric, the parent company of NBC, has in the past denied reports they want to sell their entertainment holdings, but the Times reports Comcast is known for making unwanted offers.

They made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Walt Disney Co. for $54 billion five years ago, according to the newspaper.

For several years, Comcast has reportedly been looking to increase their content holdings, the Times reported.

Comcast denied a Web site report that it had a deal to buy NBC Universal, but it declined to elaborate on any other talks it may be having with NBC Universal, in a statement.

NBC declined to comment to the Times.

I LOLed.

The Verizon FiOS techs are out front splicing in my hub RIGHT NOW.  Talk about the ultimate birthday present; I should have live fiber by end of today (according to them). 

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting on the Comcast/NBC stuff too. Link (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125438284720055575.html)

If it happens, you can probably say goodbye to NBC content on Hulu.

Fiber is good for the digestion. 

Birthday cake and boobies !  (http://www.cosgan.de/images/smilie/musik/n035.gif) Happy Birthday!

FiOS ordered.  WOOT!   :awesome_for_real:

I  :heart: my FiOS. It was a fairly interesting, long installation (old building), but this shit works great, and for a reasonable price.

fun... i just got comcast, was quoted at 29 buck as a monthe, and received a bill for 40 some odd bucks... haven't taken the time yet to make this call... guess I am in for some fun eh :P

If they're jerking you around, next time you call get as much info as you can and let them know you'll be passing it along to your local Cable Franchise Authority (http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/complain.html) with a formal complaint. You'll need to track down the franchise authority first; it's often a city, county, or state utilities commission/department/etc. As part of granting franchise rights, the franchise authority usually holds or reserves the rights to impose fines if there are too many complaints. It's sort of like a non-corrupt version of the BBB, but with some teeth too.

Back when I had DSL with Qwest, the one time they'd really screwed up something badly enough and started dragging their feet about fixing it, I just mentioned the local utilities commission and they sent out a tech the next day, to fix the issue entirely at their expense.  :grin:

This.  Many states also have an informal process you can lodge - they will escalate to the company and it will end up to a special group for that company.  Part of my new job is dealing with these.

I'll try to remember to make that call.  I ended up paying $35/month and they gave me a $10 credit.  I told them I thought they were dirty fucking shmucks.  The next bill I get (I've had service for 1.5months at this point).  They up the rental fee for the modem from $3 to $5, which no big deal but again its just so fucking shady that these things always change right after you sign up.

I hate Comcast so goddamn much, also their speeds are unreliable but overall its still better then anything else I've had or tried unless you can get small tech savvy high speed dsl from a small local provider whch is pretty much a major metro area option only.

Comcast is so fucking horrible that I have started believing in hell just so there is a place for them to fucking go to.

 :heart: I knew I was have issues with comcast, but in central New Mexico they kinda have you over a barrel... it is either comcast, Qwest, dialup or embracing my inner luddite.

My gf and I just picked out a new apartment about a week and a half ago and called Atlantic Broadband on the morning of our move. We said we'd be free by mid-afternoon and their tech actually showed up early that same day. So far, so good. I'm kinda astonished considering how awful any type of service can be in Miami.

I'm being pushed in this direction by the way Time-Warner runs its service calls. I don't have time to sit around my house for half a day, burning my scant time off to wait for a guy to show up for ten minutes. It's the most ridiculous service model. Hey, numbnuts, give me a call, I live five minutes from work. This is how most local repairmen work, and why I've been moving away from national franchise companies that can't think, just stick to a script For Dummies™.

I really hate to be negative, but... Unless I lived next door to qwest's CEO I would never use them again. I was getting bills for services I had cancelled two years later. I think paypal is about the only other company I have that much disdain for.

I'd go with comcast before them for sure.

I absolutely agree, Qwest was complete shit.

While I'm normally barely content with Comcast, I must give credit where it is due. I just moved at the end of October. I didn't call Comcast to cancel until the Wednesday before, so the 28th I believe it was. They asked when I needed the installation to be put in, they offered Friday and I told them Sunday. They then gave me the normal window of 1-5. That by itself is extraordinary with today's service providers to be able to be there within 1-2 days, but the fact that the install guy called me at 10am and was done by 11 (2 hours before the start of my 4 hour window...) and wasn't a complete fuckhead is just solid.

well got my comcast bill  :oh_i_see:

customer owned modem = $0.00
Performance Service = $15.00
High - speed tubes = $42.95
Service Discount = -$12.98

Tube install = $ $29.95
Taxes = $ $5.15
___________________

hmmm 42.95 minus 12.98 well close enough to 29.99.  However, when I called to set things up I was told I would be billed $29.99 a month. Period.  Now I wasn't too surprised to see they did an installation charge although they failed to ever mention that, but performance service, what the hell is that.

So before I gave them I call I went to their website and "oh, hello" 6 months high-speed internet, no contract, for $19.99, lets see if my area is covered... yep it is.

So I called up Comcast, first person I spoke with was polite, his explanation of what the fifteen dollar hit for Performance Service is because I have a "faster internets".  I informed him that I never asked for an upgrade, just the basic package at 29.99 a month.  His reply was he can strike the charge from my bill but he can't change my plan, but he "would be happy to connect" me to someone who could.

Next person:  I ask her that apparently I have been signed up for a better dl/upload package, above and beyond what I actually signed up for.  And of course she had no idea what I was talking about.  When I asked "isn't that what the 15 dollar Performance service charge is for" her response was that that had nothing to do with my internet, rather it is a charge they tack on when you don't have comcast (TV) cable.

Ok there you go, I knew at some point there would be something completely random they would fuck me with.  I explained to her, well that is interesting as no mention of that has ever been made to me prior to this conversation.  Then she asked me why I didn't have (TV) cable.  I politely explained to her that I don't even own a TV and thus have zero use for their cable tv package.  She had the grace to apologize that nobody ever told me I would be dinged 15 bucks surcharge for not have tv cable.  At this point I was rather steamed.  I asked her "so I was told as a promo I would have 6 months of internet with no contract at $29.99, after 6 months it will revert to ~$43.00 a month... now what are you currently billing me for?"

Her: "well about $45 dollars a month sir"
Me: "uh-huh, do you see why i might be a bit annoyed?"
Her: "yes I am sorry ......

good god throw in a chart or two and I have a sir bruce post.

Long story short:  she pointed out that i could sign up for basic cable tv, for 12 bucks a month, removing the 15 dollar charge and saving me 3 dollars a month...I asked if they would charge me again for another "installation charge" if we went this route, she waived that fee. 

Then I popped her with the fact that comcast was offering internet for $19.99 for 6 months no contract and will they honor that or do I need to cancel my no contract service and re-up it to get this rate.... she thought about that for a bit and said they would honor this new special.

So:  get basic tv cable 12 bucks a month, saves me 3 dollars, get the new promo saves me 10 bucks... as of now I will be paying ~$32 a month.

At the end of all this she asked when I would like to schedule the site visit to attach my cable tv... I explained to her again that I do not actually own a tv and have no intentions of buying one, and I have no need for someone to come out.  She said ok, np and we hung up.

.
.
.

10 minutes later I get an email from comcast telling me to be at my apt between 1-5 on thursday because they are connecting my tv service  /facepalm


Summary: after some dickbeating and haggling I am paying 2 dollars more a month than what I was originaly quoted.

5 years of sbc/at&t DSL in northern California and I never had to deal with anything even remotely close to this.... sigh.

Yep, that sounds about right. Comcast phone service seems to be an ever-encircling swirling sirocco of ignorant charge-happy bliss.

For some odd reason, if you TWITTER about it, your problems are resolved instantly. I guess they have some sort of twitter spider bot and a staffed action team to resolve those new age complaints before it becomes a movement. Or something.

All I know is a friend of mine complained on her personal twitter and then got an email and phone call 30m later and some sort of prioritized resolution queue.

*makes a note to make a twitter account upon moving*

Funny thing...

Went home early yesterday, found the HD TV cable box to not be working and my internet out - all the other TVs in the house worked fine.  Called the Comcast number, from my cell phone no less, and was advised there was an outtage in the area.  Thought 'Hmm...How do they know what area I'm calling from...'.  Anyway, two hours went by, called back and went through all the prompts for technical assistance since my kid was mashing buttons on the HD box earlier in the day.  Thought it a bit strange that a 3 year old could disable my HD box and my internet by getting button happy, but yeah, stranger things have happened.

Turns out our service was disconnected because we owed one dollar and two cents.  After some choice words with the manager that I had the issue escalated to, service was restored and one month free is getting credited to our bill.

And probably 2 months worth of charges added on to your next bill  :awesome_for_real:.

"How Bad is Comcast?"

So bad, we have a client that has decided to cancel their Comcast contract and attempt to run all their Credit Card transactions through dial-up instead.  Which is forcing us to figure out a way to make the integrated CC software not shit all over itself since it usually requires a constant internet connection.  We're charging them for all this.

They hate Comcast that much.

One of their customer service mid-level exec types started that Twitter thing on a lark, and now has a staff of 2 or 3 or more who do nothing but respond to Twitter searches on Comcast complaints. I can attest to their effectiveness - my wife has had multiple horrible interactions with their phone people, but 140 bitchy characters on Twitter and you'll get a personal response that is actually responsive. It would drive me fucking apeshit as a Comcast exec to know that the millions I've spent over the years on setting up and maintaining phone support can be more effectively managed on a free web service.

More likely it fills their hearts with glee when they think about all the jobs they can slash because of it.

This.

If 3 people on Twitter can do the job of a 20-person call center, more power to them, I say.  The reason you get shitty technical support from most companies is that rather than hire competent people they throw an infinite number of low-paid monkeys into a call center with a flowchart.

My father mentioned this to me, apparently there was an NPR story about this.  I can't figure out if it is sad or 10 flavors of awesome that yelling out into the cybor void on a blog is actually effective for something.

I will point out that Verizon FIOS gave us a price that we could lock in for two years, and so far, one year later, there has been zero dicking around with bullshit surcharges or invented jiggery-pokery to get around that.

My past experience using Verizon cable and cell phones has been good.  Can't really think of anything to complain about.

A couple of years after switching from Comcast to FIOS, I still have my Comcast email address.  Strange.  One thing I like about both, is they're willing to give me whatever deal is going on, even most of the ones for new customers.  The difference is, I don't have to ask FIOS.  Everytime I call, for whatever reason, they check to see if I have all the deals they offer.  I call every couple of months just so they can check.  I have yet to go a month without some sort of deal, whether it's three months free for some premium movie channels or a hunk off the internet or something.  The one thing is, though, I do have to call.  It doesn't seem to work via their website.

Its a tiered system.  Also, being friendly can do wonders!

Absolutely, but the high school dropouts on the other end almost certainly need a lesson in understanding that if the customer is calling, they've already been inconvenienced so you don't get to be a dick EVER.

GE and Comcast have come to an agreement about selling NBC to Comcast (http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/03/news/companies/comcast_nbc/index.htm).  Next step is Congressional antitrust hearing...

[Insert obvious joke about the scheduling of the new season here.]

--Dave

Comcast has quietly jacked rates on me again. $141/mo for interweb and tv now. Fuckers.

Also, anyone have a reliable/definitive Verizon number/website about dsl service? My boss lives in SW Michigan, and can't get an answer from Verizon about dsl, his neighbor has it, but everytime he calls, they say they'll check and call back, but never do. And he lives right inbetween 2 Comcast franchises, that both claim the other will service him.

Our Comcast woes continue. Our Internet connection will drop for no reason at random times with no discernible pattern whatsoever. Our phone sometimes completely fucks up - sometimes calling in will send the caller straight to voicemail, sometimes it'll tell the caller that "The Cellular South customer is not available" (Cellular South is a cell phone carrier - yeah, figure that one out), sometimes you can't call out. We've had a tech out this past weekend, who offered no help other than claiming that "signal strength into the house was a little high, so I turned it down" (whatever the fuck that means) and to call immediately if it fucks up again so they can diagnose the problem when it's happening.

The good news is we have at least 3 months service free, maybe more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Communications

You can check www.verizon.com, but Frontier is about to pwn the entire kit and kaboodle.  Good luck.

     Verizon doesn't seem to want to sell dsl in the areas that Frontier is buying.  I have talked to more than 1 person that has attempted to order dsl to their home with little or no luck.  Even better is when ordering for a business. On a side note it seems like they are not doing much work in rural areas and letting hardware get old and fail.  Al ot of customers in the North Idaho are have horror stories on getting Verizon to repair lines. (soon to be a Frontier area)  Originally they were going to upgrade equipment to support ADSL2 in many areas but that fell through.  They are following through with the fios builds but I have heard from Verizon personal that the build outs in Portland / Seattle area has slowed down to a crawl. The Verizon field personal are also scared to death of this deal and are afraid of losing all of their benefits and probably their jobs. 
     What cracks me up is they are going to dump the worst performing areas (rural) and keep the profitable ones which is California and the east coast.  The company will most likely fail and go bankrupt. During that time Verizon will turn around and gain a ton of customers that using cell phone cards to access the internet and to drop the home phone lines(people that cannot dsl in their area). Smart business tactic but consumers will again be the ones screwed.  Meh telecom sucks all the way around. Fun technology to work with but all the companies suck. Its just a matter of which one sucks less.

And oh yea apparently comcast is consistently at the top of the list of sucky companies. Number 2 behind AOL yea go team.
One of many articles.   http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/06/08/daily51.html

What?  Sorry?

He asked why he coudln't get a call back from a verizon rep.  I replied because most likely they didn't care.  Then went off on a tangent why the verizon + frontier deal is a bad one.  Sorry to much telco information not enough on topic.

 :why_so_serious:

So Comcast went digital in my area.  For me, I dumped them and have gone with internet sources (Hulu, Netflix, etc) for TV.  My father, on the other hand, was using a 6 tuner PVR I built him to watch/record TV, so we upgraded his analog tuners to digital, maps the QAM channels and kept on chugging.  Until last week.  Over the past few months of digital, Comcast has occasionally made line up changes, moved a channel, dropped one, added one, whatever.  When that happens we just rescan, remap and move on.  In the last week however, Comcast has moved all the networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, etc) from one channel to another (so like 80-201 becomes 84-201, etc) and then the next day they moved them all back (84-201 goes back to 80-201).  Of course, when they do the move, they push out a network update to fix all their set top boxes nearly instantly, but anyone using a PC with a digital tuner has to rescan and remap.  They do this change every day at about 7:30pm.

We call them up to ask what the hell is going on and they immediately offer to upgrade us (charge us more) for a DVR.  It goes like this:
Them: We can upgrade you for a nominal monthly fee to one of our DVRs and you'll never miss a show again!
Me: Can your DVR record 6 shows at once?
Them: Our state of the art DVRs can record two shows at once!
Me: Unfortunately, networks enjoy competing with each other and it is quite common for their to be anywhere from four to six shows on at the same time.  Can your DVR record 6 shows at once?  Or can I easily hook 3 DVRs to the same TV?
Them: In cases like that, I would recommend you check out our OnDemand service where you will find many of your favorite shows!
Me: Are they free?
Them: They are reasonably priced!
Me: So, you are telling me that you are intentionally messing with the channels to prevent my ability to use a digital TV tuner in a PC, and as an alternative you offer me the ability to record less shows and to pay per episode for any that I miss?
Them: When you say it like that, it sounds awful... which is why I didn't say it like that!
Me: How about I cancel instead?
Them: But if you cancel, you'll miss all your shows!
Me: ... you mean, the shows you are already preventing me from watching?
Them: Sir, please stop being logical.  If you would just pay us more money, all your problems will be solved!

After several levels of escalations I finally got a manager who assured me that there had been no channel switching done and even if there had, it would stop.  So, we'll see tonight at 7:30pm if all the local channels vanish again...

They've been doing a similar thing here, which also breaks the 'favorite channels' on their own dvr. I have about 20 channels set up, which every few days will be different channels at the old number. Then a few days later will be back. Mostly effecting the 'basic digital' stuff, the HD numbers remain constant.

I've been with comcast for many years now living in Sacramento, CA.  Comcast has had decent service for both cable and internet.  I found customer service to be a slightly mix bag, but in general the repairmen are ok, its the phone op's you need to worry about.

So what do the people here who give up the major TV providers do about sports?  Or maybe you just have to give that up too?  I'm not entirely sure I could unless I was in some sort of extreme dire financial circumstance.

There's always the interweb.

But I do not watch sports. Used to catch some hockey and rugby, but don't anymore.

I like going to sporting events, but I hate watching sports on TV, so I don't really have that problem.  Anything really important, like the Superbowl or whatever, there are friends, family, or sports bars.

But you can find some stuff on the net.  I know there are a few sources for getting games, but I can't find them right now, but I did find ESPN360 (http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/).

As a follow-up... Comcast didn't mess with the channels last night, but I have no confidence in that remaining the case, and fully expect the channels to change again before the weekend.

I miss MNF and that is about it, Sunday Night Football is on the internet, espn360 gives you NCAA basketball and football as well as a smattering of unamerican football.  Beyond that you can "acquire" any sporting event you want just for a little bit less quality and a little more effort then you might like.  For bigtime sporting events I usually want to watch with friend's or at a bar anyways so no loss there either.

hmm well if you haven't had problems then kudos to you.   When I was living in Sack-o-tomatos  I had Sbc->At&t and my service for 6 years was flawless.  Comcast in NM has repeatedly drilled me sans lube.

And tonight they moved the channels again... I called, "No sir, we've made no line up changes."  "But these channels were on different channels yesterday."  "Yes, but we haven't changed the line up, only moved the channels." *bangs head on desk*  He then offered to upgrade me to one of their HD DVRs that can record 2 channels at one, for a nominal monthly fee.