How bad is Comcast?

[Stormwaltz]

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...)

[Sky]

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.

[Viin]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

[Stormwaltz]

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

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.

[Ingmar]

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".

[Samwise]

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

[SnakeCharmer]

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.  

[sigil]

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.

[Evildrider]

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

[Viin]

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

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).

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.

[Quinton]

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...

[Ard]

To continue Sky's derail:

Time Warner just jacked my monthly bill to $200/mo, which is where it hits 'fucking ludicrous' levels imo.

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.

[Teleku]

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).

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).

[Flood]

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.

[Signe]

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.

[waffel]

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.  

[Merusk]

To continue Sky's derail:

Time Warner just jacked my monthly bill to $200/mo, which is where it hits 'fucking ludicrous' levels imo.

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.

\

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.

[SnakeCharmer]

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.

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

[rattran]

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.

[Cheddar]

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

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.

[Trippy]

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).

[Trippy]

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.

[Cheddar]

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

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

[Selby]

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...

[Abagadro]

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.

[Quinton]

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...

[Chimpy]

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.  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.

[Falwell]

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.

[Grimwell]

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

FIOS is 

[slog]

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?

[dd0029]

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...

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.

[Trippy]

Nice ninja edit there.

[chargerrich]

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...)

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.

[Numtini]

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.