Anyone here work for Comcast?

[NiX]

I haven't had cable for almost 4 years and haven't missed a thing.

[luckton]

We switched from Comcast to CenturyLink a couple months ago for their Prism service (high-speed internet + TV via fiber/DSL).  Haven't looked back since.  The Xfinity upgrade was a joke...if I wanted to watch banner ads as I'm browsing the TV guide, I'd just plain go to TVguide.com and watch shit on Hulu 

[Thrawn]

You follow one sport right? Soccer? Something?

I don't really care what guys watch as long as they follow a sport. A dislike of all sports to me is just odd as a dude.

Do e-sports count?  I kinda follow competitive LoL and DotA 2. 

[Paelos]

 

[HaemishM]

Unfortunately, there are blocks of the US where Comcast is pretty much it. I have a choice for TV - Comcast, AT&T Uverse (with the shitty CS experiences I've had with AT&T, not really a good alternative) and satellite which I can't get because I don't own this house and there's huge trees blocking my sky. I'd drop Comcast in a second if there was something like Verizon FIOS. Their customer service is bad enough to give me an aneurysm. We ordered a second HD DVR for the upstairs bedroom, the box got shipped and I go to install it. Call in the number it tells me to call to activate it, their shitty voice recognition bot asks for the serial number on the box.

Now, the label on the machine has a shitton of numbers on it, none of which are labeled as a serial number. So I pick the one that looks most likely but the bot reads it back wrong. So I tell it "NO" and read it again. It tells me it can't find that serial number. So I press buttons to talk to a rep, who tries it, is unsuccessful and has to transfer me to a higher tech level. I'm transferred, the phone rings, is answered by a machine that says the place is closed. Then it hangs up.

Rage... building...

Call back. Talk to an actual person, who tries to input the serial number again (we've made sure it's the right number) but is unsuccessful. She finally says that she can't add this DVR to my account but to fix it, she'll OVERNIGHT me a new box and a return kit for this box. How shittastic is your customer account database that you can't just add a box to it at that level? And think about how much they just pissed away in shipping costs to get not just this box to me, but the old box back and a new box overnighted? How does this company continue to survive?

Oh right, overcharging, under-delivering and buying up all the local competitors.

[Thrawn]

**Terrible Comcast support stuff.**

Sounds exactly like my area, except we have Charter as our local monopoly.  If you want anything faster than 6mb AT&T DSL you get Charter, no other options.  I could write pages on just one issue I had with them a year or two ago.  It was BAD, even at one point had a tech come out and say "Hey, this is the problem in the area - blah, blah, we're aware of this.  I should have it fixed, but if you still have the problem give us another call."  only to call the next day with the same issue and have the guy on the phone tell me "We have no issues, it must be a problem on your end, would you like me to send a tech out?  You will be charged a fee for the visit if it's found to not be a Charter issue."

(It's been my experience with Charter in our area that the techs that come to the house are very knowledgeable, friendly guys who are great help.  The phone support is someone overseas and their entire script is just "Have they reset the modem?" repeated 10 times.)

Every time in 7 years that I've made any change to our service such as dropping HD or lowering our cable tier they continue to bill me at the old rate until I call and complain multiple times.

[KallDrexx]

I remember way back when I had comcast.   I got access to some of their internal systems by using the username "tag" and the password of "florida" 

[Draegan]

I can't wait to move into my house and get fios.  Fuck Comcast.

[Evildrider]

I know Comcast isn't the greatest, but I must be the lucky one cuz I've been with them for like 9 years with no serious issues.  I wonder if it's more about the area you are in as well.

I also have no options beyond Comcast for my service, since I live amongst cornfields.

[ShenMolo]

Unfortunately, there are blocks of the US where Comcast is pretty much it. I have a choice for TV - Comcast, AT&T Uverse (with the shitty CS experiences I've had with AT&T, not really a good alternative) and satellite which I can't get because I don't own this house and there's huge trees blocking my sky. I'd drop Comcast in a second if there was something like Verizon FIOS. Their customer service is bad enough to give me an aneurysm. We ordered a second HD DVR for the upstairs bedroom, the box got shipped and I go to install it. Call in the number it tells me to call to activate it, their shitty voice recognition bot asks for the serial number on the box.

I've had very good CS from Uverse. After 3 months of TV+Internet service, my bill doubled for no apparent reason. I called CS, and after about 30 minutes of polite whining, got them to drop it to an introductory rate on a permanent basis. At least until they decide to arbitrarily double it again. But the CS was helpful.

[Tmon]

I know Comcast isn't the greatest, but I must be the lucky one cuz I've been with them for like 9 years with no serious issues.  I wonder if it's more about the area you are in as well.

I also have no options beyond Comcast for my service, since I live amongst cornfields.

I've had Comcast for 12 years and haven't had a problem.  I suspect that part of it is due to living in the burbs where the infrastructure is new and living within driving distance of their local office rather than trying to use their CS group.  It hasn't all been puppies, unicorns and rainbows (there was the night I lost internet 5 minutes before I was due to log in to a customer system and start an 8 hour upgrade) but I have decent upload/download speed and have only had a couple service outages (none of which lasted more than an hour or two) over the years.  That said, I'm working on weaning the family off cable since I'm not a fan of having to buy channel packages full of crap we never watch in order to get the few channels we actually watch.

[bhodi]

I don't really care what guys watch as long as they follow a sport. A dislike of all sports to me is just odd as a dude.

It's ok, I find worshiping an invisible sky-god odd as well so you've got me twice.

[Sky]

How dare you not be obsessed with sweaty men in tights?

[proudft]

Sports generally just take too damn long to hold my interest.  Something that lasts about 45 minutes would be just fine.  Three hours, no thanks.  I could watch a movie or read a book or do any number of other things in that time.

The first hockey game I ever saw was in college and I was all excited that it was over in a reasonable amount of time.  Then it turned out there was another quarter (third?) or period or whatever.   

At least football is relatively DVR-friendly, to bring this back to Comcast.  If you DVR the game and fast forward through the huddles and maybe watch the last five minutes at live speed it's not too terribly long.

And speaking of Comcast, ours had a long stretch from about 2008-2011 of being really horrible with the DVR.  It would not record things we told it to, would record a black screen (and we were watching that channel live at the time as well so we knew there was a picture), and would reboot and lose all the guide data about once a day.  I swapped it out twice to no avail, which to their credit was pretty hassle-free, and the problem eventually just went away this year (at least so far...)

The cable modem has been pretty good though, had that since 1999 with them and aside from a couple days when WoW first came out (that's how I remember the date, because I couldn't play it graaaa, and they eventually replaced some lines in front of the house) it's been pretty solid.  The price keeps rising, though.

[Sheepherder]

I have a choice for TV - Comcast, AT&T Uverse (with the shitty CS experiences I've had with AT&T, not really a good alternative) and satellite which I can't get because I don't own this house and there's huge trees blocking my sky.

There is no service on the face of the earth quite so bad as satellite internet.  Stay the fuck away.

[HaemishM]

Oh there's no way I'd do satellite internet in a million years. I was speaking of satellite for TV. I loved my DirecTV when I had it and miss it greatly.

[Paelos]

I don't really care what guys watch as long as they follow a sport. A dislike of all sports to me is just odd as a dude.

It's ok, I find worshiping an invisible sky-god odd as well so you've got me twice.

112 million Americans watched the Super Bowl.

While "odd" is relative, I find most of you odd around here. It's half the reason I tend to stick around. If I wanted to be around people who all thought the same stuff, I'd go to my church.

Thanks for the sky-god troll, btw. Quality moderation. 

[Sheepherder]

Oh there's no way I'd do satellite internet in a million years. I was speaking of satellite for TV. I loved my DirecTV when I had it and miss it greatly.

Oh, okay, that's understandable.  Satellite TV isn't a shitshow run by assclowns who oversell their bandwidth until their service is worse than dial-up.

[Chimpy]

No, it is just a shitshow run by a bunch of evil assclowns. DirecTV is at least as evil as Comcast.

[Numtini]

Other than the DVR's interface from 1995, our Comcast experience has been stellar on the product side. More basic channels in HD than DirecTV had, clean picture on SD channels, reliable service, installers showed up on time, and I laugh when people tell me the internet isn't actually 12mb, it's not it's 15.

However, the price is just not sustainable. $125 for the video portion and we don't even have any pay channels, just the top level of basic in HD with a DVR. I went through our season passes and if we'd bought all the new stuff from amazon a la carte that we've watched since January 1, it comes to about $100 for all three months.

[Lantyssa]

112 million Americans watched the Super Bowl.

200 million Americans didn't, Mr. Accountant.

[Paelos]

112 million Americans watched the Super Bowl.

200 million Americans didn't, Mr. Accountant.

Well TECHNICALLY 177 million watched 6 minutes of it. 

[NiX]

Well TECHNICALLY 177 million watched 6 minutes of it. 

Well, at least more Americans were smart enough to know they were watching shit and change the channel.

[schild]

If the world brought back gladiator fights to the death, I'd watch sports.

Unfortunately sports as they are is simply some of the worst shit on TV.

Next to televangelism of course.

Though televised baseball may be worse than a preacher convincing white trash to hand over money.

[01101010]

If the world brought back gladiator fights to the death, I'd watch sports.

Unfortunately sports as they are is simply some of the worst shit on TV.

Next to televangelism of course.

Though televised baseball may be worse than a preacher convincing white trash to hand over money.

Yes but back in college, nothing beat getting high as a kite and watching Benny Hinn. 

[bhodi]

You can be entertained by grass growing and paint drying while high. That isn't really relevant.

[HaemishM]

No, it is just a shitshow run by a bunch of evil assclowns. DirecTV is at least as evil as Comcast.

In a world of evil, I'll take the evil that doesn't make me want to stab a motherfucker through the phone lines every time I call customer service for anything. In the 7 years I had DirecTV, I had less problems (that includes outages due to weather) than I've had in the less than 1 year I've had Comcast for TV.

[Xanthippe]

How is it that this thread has 2014 dates on responses?

Dredging it up because my beloved TiVo is malfunctioning, and I've resorted to using a Comcast DVR.

Putting it nicely, Comcast's DVR is completely inadequate. I thought TiVo suing Comcast meant that Comcast had copied TiVo's interface but obviously Comcast has not. It has a terrible interface. 4th year college students could design a better interface. The program guide shows 4 channels at a time, and only shows the next 24 hours.

We've used TiVo for over a decade, and we're used to it. I think when we got our first TiVo, the cost was $6/month for the TiVo service; now it's $15. If the alternative is this shit Comcast DVR, it's well worth it. Why Comcast doesn't buy TiVo or make a deal with them to use their service is beyond me.

Now I have motivation to find out how to get my TiVo fixed. It just started to turn itself off and on again and cycling through that. I suspect it might need a hard disc, although we tried to Spinrite it and it just hung, so maybe it's more than that. I don't know.

Watching without a dvr is not worth watching at all. Maybe it is time to cut the cord.

[Trippy]

Posting from the future!

(This was because the server had the wrong clock for a while a while back).

[MahrinSkel]

Comcast had infringed on some TiVo patents, which were basically "basic things people expect a DVR to do" like sorting the recorded programs into folders when they were different episodes of the same program.  Essentially, the Comcast DVR sucks because nearly everything people expect a DVR to do when it comes to menus and organization is under patent by somebody, and Comcast either won't or can't license the patents.

TiVo, and Dish (bought ReplayTV back in the day) own most of those patents and have cross-licensing with each other, and they mostly won't let the cable companies have a decent DVR.

--Dave

[Hawkbit]

There's a lot of places that Comcast services in which they're the only service available.  For as large as Seattle is, Comcast is most people's only choice.  Unless you're 'lucky' to have the Century Link areas, but that adds another shitty service to the mix.

For as long as there's no direct competition, Comcast has no reason to spend the money to upgrade.

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, there's a lot more "won't" than "can't" in the suckitude that is Comcast DVR's.  There's a few things Dish/TiVo won't license, but they're mostly minor stuff.  Comcast just looks at it and feels that the DVR quality is not a deciding factor in whether people go with a Satellite provider rather than them, and except for a handful of markets they don't have to worry about competing with other cable companies.

Comcast is in the business of lobbying local utilities commissions to give them or let them keep monopolies.  Uptime and service delays are the only things that seem to have an effect on that, followed distantly by cost to the customers (actually, they can easily push through rate increases just by cutting the relevant authority in for a chunk).  Feature-completeness of their DVR functionality?  Not even on the map, from their POV.

Me, I would rather pay Hulu and Netflix $8/month each, and use *cough* other methods *cough* to fill out whatever that leaves out, over the wireless broadband I pay Clear.com $50/month for.

--Dave

[Soln]

Also try the BBB.   I've had terrific luck using them.  They've scored 3/3 times I've used them.

[Numtini]

Comcast is in the business of lobbying local utilities commissions to give them or let them keep monopolies.  Uptime and service delays are the only things that seem to have an effect on that, followed distantly by cost to the customers (actually, they can easily push through rate increases just by cutting the relevant authority in for a chunk).

Hello. Local government employee and former negotiator for a cable franchise license.

Actually, no. Not whatsoever. You have not a single clue and have no idea what you're talking about.

Per federal law there are no cable tv monopolies. NONE. Zip. Zero. Nil. Nada. Zed. Most municipalities would love to have a second "overbuilder" come in, but the realities of the market are that in very few cases can a company make a profit doing so.

There are no kickbacks, we are limited to 1% franchise fee and anything in excess of that must be put into "PEG TV production costs" ie, putting your local yahoos on tv. But we can't pay for other things with it. God, if we could, we'd love to. But we can't. Period. And if we let a second carrier in, we'd ding them and we'd get MORE money, not less, so the economic incentives are that we want more more more cable TV companies, not a single one.

My selectmen would kneel down and suck Verizon's cock if they would even consider wiring us, nevermind the idiotic stereotype that we'd somehow "protect" comcast. My God. No. We're stuck with them and there's nothing we can do about it. As long as they run a system, we have no authority to not renew their franchise because, after all, any other company is free to come in and compete. Except they don't and they can't.

Basically a cable franchise is "awarded" on the basis of "is there a cable tv company" and other than that a local licensing authority has zippety do da to say. No history channel. Not relevant. $1,000,000 ONE MILLION DOLLARS per month for HBO? Not legal for us to even bring up. The only thing we can negotiate on is whether or not you provide some form of CATV and what % you give us as a franchise fee, which is dedicated to putting the local chuckleheads on TV. We can't use it to pay for a park. We can't use it to pay for my salary. We can use it for PEG (public, educational, government") channels only. Period.

We can't bitch if they have only 10 channels and they decide to charge thousands for them. We have absolutely no power. Our legal ability is only that if the local franchise sucks, we can't do shit, but we can award another one.

But in reality when you have a second cable franchise, most people don't switch. Cable is a "natural monopoly" not a legal one. That makes it very hard for the situation to get better and we in local government can do absolutely nothing to fix it. If we deny a license, they just got to federal court and appeal and your taxes go up and they still get a license because legally they are entitled to one according to federal law.

The reality of cable costs is that it's driven by programming--the networks not the local franchise or Comcast/Warner/Fios/DISH/whatever. It sure as hell isn't local government. It's ESPN, Disney, etc. who are the big costs.

(If this is incoherent or hyperbolic I'm sorry. It's a long holiday weekend and it's rained the whole time. 've had more than the normal share of martinis. But I spent an idiotic amount of time talking to attorneys and trying to fix this and there's jack shit we at the local government can do and it's a pet peeve that we're the first ones blamed.

Also I have a TIVO and it not only works, but it even gets COMCAST "on demand" stuff. If your TIVO isn't working get it fixed or get a new one. It's the best way to push things to change.)

[MahrinSkel]

Well, I guess I learned something.  Putting aside the issue of how Comcast keeps their monopolies, I stand by the part about why their DVR sucks: Because it works well enough to keep people from switching to satellite, and that's the only reason they offer it.

--Dave