How bad is Comcast?

[JWIV]

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.

[Stormwaltz]

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). 

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).

[JWIV]

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). 

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).

[Cheddar]

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.

[Khaldun]

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.

[Rasix]

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.

[Stormwaltz]

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.

[chargerrich]

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?

[JWIV]

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

[Stormwaltz]

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. >.<

[Pennilenko]

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 I said I pay twice as much!

Fuck comcast in their empty rotten head holes!

[Pennilenko]

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.

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.

[Pennilenko]

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).

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.

[Pennilenko]

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?

Gonna need one of these to get into this discussion.

[slog]

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?

[Samwise]

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.   

[dusematic]

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.

[Cheddar]

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.

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.

[Segoris]

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.

[Cheddar]

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.

[WayAbvPar]

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

[Segoris]

Not gonna happen, hombre.

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

[Cheddar]

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

Bad news.

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

[Selby]

Why would you need an installer?

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.

[slog]

Why would you need an installer?

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.

[Sheepherder]

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.

[Chimpy]

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.

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).

[Hoax]

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.

[Engels]

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

Bad news.

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

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?

[Broughden]

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.

[Cheddar]

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?

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_13256179

Over the next four months, the Washington Utility and Transportation Commission will consider whether state ratepayers would benefit from the transaction, part of an $8.6 billion bid by Frontier to acquire 4.8 million Verizon phone lines in 14 states. Verizon will hold on to its wireless services and hand over its high-speed Internet, local and long-distance telephone, directTV and FiOS customers to Frontier.

[JWIV]

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.

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.

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.)

[Cheddar]

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.

[Engels]

Thanks for the clarification, Cheddar.

[Cheddar]

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.