It's always funny to see threads like this. I've had Comcast for almost 4 years now. In that time, I can count on one hand the number of times my cable or internet has gone out. And every time our internet has gotten slow (from the neighborhood growing, and more homes jumping on the line), they are out to fix it within a day or two. I've only had to call Comcast twice in four years, and never had to have a tech come over. Also, I pay only $45 a month for internet on top of a much larger bill for cable. In four years, that internet has gone from about 4mb up/? down to over 20mb up/6mb down. And the price has never increased. I have no problem with them.
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I HATE Comcast....
- Thread starter Wild-Bill
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aaaahh....
READ BELOW V...
And I've had no problem with outages. Or billing or prompt service. I only use them for cable though. I have a problem with cable in general. If I'm going to pay money for tv I think I should be able to pick exactly what I want. I'm almost certain cable companies can do that they just won't. John McCain was trying to get this type of thing sorted out a while ago. I have no idea if he still is or not.
Comcast > the ridiculously terrible Dial-up/satellite/3G I'm stuck with. I'd kill for Comcast.
E: Also, I'm always hearing people complain about their 250GB a month bandwidth limit. WHO THE HELL USES THAT MUCH BANDWIDTH? I couldn't even use half that much if I tried.
E: Also, I'm always hearing people complain about their 250GB a month bandwidth limit. WHO THE HELL USES THAT MUCH BANDWIDTH? I couldn't even use half that much if I tried.
Yeah, I griped about then until I actually started monitoring my bandwidth. Before I got my sat service turned on, I was watching all my TV/movies online, through services like Hulu, and I still didn't hit 250GB in a month. Granted, I wasn't watching HD stuff, so that could have pushed me over the limit.
As far as Comcast, I think I am going to switch to their service. I know several people in the are who use the service, and they haven't had many problems with it. My biggest gripe is that they charge you an extra $15/month if you don't have TV service with them. I don't want to change my TV service, since they are more expensive than DirectTV.
U-verse and DSL are different. When you have U-Verse installed, the very first thing the installer will do is check your phone line. If the line cannot sustain a bare minimum of ~25mbps (overhead plus bandwidth for TV leaves you with around 12mbps for internet) they will not install U-verse, so rest assured that if you have it installed, you'll get 12mbps or pretty darn close to it. I have U-verse with 12mbps, and always see at least 10 in speed tests. They will also replace inside wiring if neccesary, or, if your house is wired up for cable or satellite, they can use existing coax, which they did for me, as I already had coax running to all of the TVs.
My favorite comca$t complaint: The tech called me two days AFTER the appointment to tell me he wasn't going to make it to the scheduled time
Also, it seems everytime I remove something from my service to lower my bill, it goes right back up to the same, if not more, amount it was the month previous. I remove HBO, and about a month later, the bill is back up to the same rate. I remove Showtime and it goes back up to the same rate about a month later.
Seems it's impossible to save any money with them.
If my bill so much as increases one more US penny, I'm dropping them for AT&T.
Also, it seems everytime I remove something from my service to lower my bill, it goes right back up to the same, if not more, amount it was the month previous. I remove HBO, and about a month later, the bill is back up to the same rate. I remove Showtime and it goes back up to the same rate about a month later.
Seems it's impossible to save any money with them.
If my bill so much as increases one more US penny, I'm dropping them for AT&T.
Forgot about that. Oh man what I would download with a 12mb/s connection...
250GB? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!
Yeah my download speed tests at approx 35 mb/s down and 8 mb/s up. Their internet speed isn't my problem, their tech support and incompetence is my problem. Took 3 different techs to come out to my apt just to setup my internet and cable service. Then when they installed service to the apt next to me they completely cut off my service. I wasn't home that day so I didn't notice until the evening, so it took two more visits from 2 more techs to restore my service after 5 days of nothing.
The most I've gotten from them is "unplug your modem....now replug it back in".
This could just as easily have been a "I Hate Time-Warner" thread. No provider is perfect. Here's my rant:
Ive had issues with slow internet speed and bad cable TV reception for some time. Six weeks ago, I called Time-Warner about it.
They sent Cable Dude #1 out, who informed me that I needed two Flex cables buried instead of the one I currently had, so that I could have a dedicated line for TV and another for internet. He put in a work order for the cables to be buried. After a few days I called TW, who was unable to find any such work order, so they sent out Cable Dude #2, who had to start from scratch. He put a few boosters on the coax jacks that had cable boxes on them, which didnt improve anything at all. Again, the call was made to bury cables.
After a few days I called TW, who was unable to find any such work order, so they sent out Cable Dude #3, who had to start from scratch (sensing a pattern, here?). He said my Flex should be fine, as it was roughly 400 feet from the pole to the house, but the junction on the utility pole should be checked. He put in a work order for that, and rescheduled burying the two Flex cables, just in case.
After a few days I called TW, who was unable to find any such work order, so they sent out Cable Dude #4, who ran a temporary cable on the ground, to test the signal. He put in a work order to bury two Flex cables.
I was beginning to think that all of those calls I had placed, protesting the proposed consumption-based billing model, had blacklisted me in TWs database. For the record, though consumption-based billing was abandoned due to customer dissatisfaction, I blew through their their proposed Pro tier of 50 GB/month in under four days.
Days later, out comes Cable Dude #5, who was to bury the cable. A pity that he wasnt told to bring Flex cable, so he left. After a few days I called TW, who assured me that Cable Dudes #6 and #7 would arrive in a few days, to bury the cables.
A few rainy days later, Cable Dudes #6 and #7 buried two Flex cables, inadvertently cutting through the temporary cable that Cable Dude #4 had laid. Of course it was not their job to hook up the cable, only to bury it, so they put in a call to have a technician come out and fix the cable that same day, as the regular technician was coming the next day to hook up the new Flex cables.
At 6:10pm (they close at 6pm) I called TW to ask where the technician was. I called four times, speaking with countless operators, before a technician was dispatched. Cable Dude #8 came out at 10pm, to fix the temporary cable.
The next day, Cable Dude #8 returned, to hook up the two Flex cables. Three different supervisors showed up that day, to insure the work had been completed.
The following day, having noticed no improvement in my internet speed or TV reception, I examined the closet where the cable feeders run from the side of the house to the interior. There are two Flex cables running to the house, now. The house has four Feeder cables running from the cable box on the side of the house to the media closet inside the house. Each Flex cable should have been connected to an independent Feeder cable, one for internet, one for television. Alas, one feeder cable was hooked to a splitter, split between the cable modem and a powered 8-way coax amplifier. The remaining 3 Feeder cables, (inputs, two of which are unused) were hooked into the powered 8-way amplifier outputs with 2-way and 3-way splitters. Ouch.
I noticed a marked improvement in internet speed, however, when I plugged a laptop directly into the cable modem. I got a much slower speed through the Airport WiFi. A bit of experimenting, involving moving my Mac Pro physically to five or six different locations, revealed that I had placed the desktop Macs in the one dead zone in my house; presumably blocked by interference from nearby HVAC ductwork. By moving my Mac Pro two feet to the left, I improved my internet speed threefold.
On my own initiative, I ordered a 1x16 powered bi-directional coax amplifier. Now I have to find the time to connect one feeder cable to the cable modem and the other to the new amplifier. Granted, none of the cables are labeled, so Ill have to test each one, to see which room it goes to.
Thanks loads, Time-Warner. During the past six weeks, spurred by a recent 20% rate hike by TW, I looked at a few alternatives; DirecTV for television and Clearwire for internet. Verizon FIOS and AT&T U-Verse are not available in my area (just outside of Greensboro, NC) and the local DSL is too slow. One problem is that Clearwire only gives me 2 out of 5 bars of signal, though they said a new tower going up next month should fix that. Another problem is that DirecTV does not support standalone TiVo units and my wife likes her TiVo. DirecTV has been attempting to get back together with TiVo for some time, now, but there is no timetable set in stone. I'm sure by the time they work out a deal, Apple would have purchased TiVo.
Ive had issues with slow internet speed and bad cable TV reception for some time. Six weeks ago, I called Time-Warner about it.
They sent Cable Dude #1 out, who informed me that I needed two Flex cables buried instead of the one I currently had, so that I could have a dedicated line for TV and another for internet. He put in a work order for the cables to be buried. After a few days I called TW, who was unable to find any such work order, so they sent out Cable Dude #2, who had to start from scratch. He put a few boosters on the coax jacks that had cable boxes on them, which didnt improve anything at all. Again, the call was made to bury cables.
After a few days I called TW, who was unable to find any such work order, so they sent out Cable Dude #3, who had to start from scratch (sensing a pattern, here?). He said my Flex should be fine, as it was roughly 400 feet from the pole to the house, but the junction on the utility pole should be checked. He put in a work order for that, and rescheduled burying the two Flex cables, just in case.
After a few days I called TW, who was unable to find any such work order, so they sent out Cable Dude #4, who ran a temporary cable on the ground, to test the signal. He put in a work order to bury two Flex cables.
I was beginning to think that all of those calls I had placed, protesting the proposed consumption-based billing model, had blacklisted me in TWs database. For the record, though consumption-based billing was abandoned due to customer dissatisfaction, I blew through their their proposed Pro tier of 50 GB/month in under four days.
Days later, out comes Cable Dude #5, who was to bury the cable. A pity that he wasnt told to bring Flex cable, so he left. After a few days I called TW, who assured me that Cable Dudes #6 and #7 would arrive in a few days, to bury the cables.
A few rainy days later, Cable Dudes #6 and #7 buried two Flex cables, inadvertently cutting through the temporary cable that Cable Dude #4 had laid. Of course it was not their job to hook up the cable, only to bury it, so they put in a call to have a technician come out and fix the cable that same day, as the regular technician was coming the next day to hook up the new Flex cables.
At 6:10pm (they close at 6pm) I called TW to ask where the technician was. I called four times, speaking with countless operators, before a technician was dispatched. Cable Dude #8 came out at 10pm, to fix the temporary cable.
The next day, Cable Dude #8 returned, to hook up the two Flex cables. Three different supervisors showed up that day, to insure the work had been completed.
The following day, having noticed no improvement in my internet speed or TV reception, I examined the closet where the cable feeders run from the side of the house to the interior. There are two Flex cables running to the house, now. The house has four Feeder cables running from the cable box on the side of the house to the media closet inside the house. Each Flex cable should have been connected to an independent Feeder cable, one for internet, one for television. Alas, one feeder cable was hooked to a splitter, split between the cable modem and a powered 8-way coax amplifier. The remaining 3 Feeder cables, (inputs, two of which are unused) were hooked into the powered 8-way amplifier outputs with 2-way and 3-way splitters. Ouch.
I noticed a marked improvement in internet speed, however, when I plugged a laptop directly into the cable modem. I got a much slower speed through the Airport WiFi. A bit of experimenting, involving moving my Mac Pro physically to five or six different locations, revealed that I had placed the desktop Macs in the one dead zone in my house; presumably blocked by interference from nearby HVAC ductwork. By moving my Mac Pro two feet to the left, I improved my internet speed threefold.
On my own initiative, I ordered a 1x16 powered bi-directional coax amplifier. Now I have to find the time to connect one feeder cable to the cable modem and the other to the new amplifier. Granted, none of the cables are labeled, so Ill have to test each one, to see which room it goes to.
Thanks loads, Time-Warner. During the past six weeks, spurred by a recent 20% rate hike by TW, I looked at a few alternatives; DirecTV for television and Clearwire for internet. Verizon FIOS and AT&T U-Verse are not available in my area (just outside of Greensboro, NC) and the local DSL is too slow. One problem is that Clearwire only gives me 2 out of 5 bars of signal, though they said a new tower going up next month should fix that. Another problem is that DirecTV does not support standalone TiVo units and my wife likes her TiVo. DirecTV has been attempting to get back together with TiVo for some time, now, but there is no timetable set in stone. I'm sure by the time they work out a deal, Apple would have purchased TiVo.
Yeah, I actually read that somewhere. (Maybe here? I forget) My thought is that they can't even get simple bare bones DSL working, so that doesn't really make me thing they can make my TV and internet work. They actually show an 18MB/s connection on the UVerse options, but it was greyed out for me. My biggest gripe is that getting them to fix a problem on their end should not involve me replacing cabling in my house. I shouldn't be surprised, though. I deal with them a lot at work, and we get the same problem. We've had them say they can loop their Smartjack with no problem, even though said Smartjack had been fried by lightning. They automatically claim the problem is on your end, not theirs. I realize that all the major ISPs have terrible support, but this is crazy.
Another issue is that I find their services expensive. Right now, their TV service is more expensive that what I get through DirecTV. Maybe after my friend referral discount and special 1 year pricing end, they will be similar, but for now they can't beat my DirecTV prices.
I went that route several months ago. Didn't think I'd make it through. At the time of disconnect I had never played a video game. I armed myself with movies streamed with Netflix and Amazon. Fast forward to today and I've watched a handful of movies, play video games once in a while with PS3, and go with the rabbit ears for everything else. And I don't regret it. Sports? I don't care about pro sports anymore. Too many commercials. In the NFL they take a commercial break every 5 minutes. Lifes too short for that nonsense. Besides, we get the San Diego Charger games for free via rabbit ears. The NFL isn't what it once was. Now they call it the No Fun League. Don't know if that's true. Do know that it's no fun watching games on TV unless you're stoned or on death row.
sorry to hear that, comcast sucks balls. thats a fact. charter communications isnt any better. Make sure you get your credit back from them, and when they come over to do services, video tape it. They have been known to mark stuff up and not take care of it.
charter communications isnt any better. Make sure you get your credit back from them, and when they come over to do services, video tape it. They have been known to mark stuff up and not take care of it.U-verse and DSL are two entirely different products, your DSL service has no bearing on your U-verse service. U-verse basically is DSL on steroids (for the higher speeds) but it's completely different networks with completely different products. Hell, I can't even get DSL service at my house, but my U-verse service works great.
FWIW, I can't speak for DSL support, but I had an issue with TV cutting out on my U-verse service. The tech came out, found a problem on the line outside, fixed it and it's been working great ever since.
To clarify, U-verse is a DSL product: VDSL usually over FTTN. So while ADSL is coming straight from the CO, VDSL over FTTN has fiber to the neighborhood and then the service is distributed from there. Thus, you can potentially be eligible for U-verse, but not ADSL.
AT&T is very problematic for us as well. Ever since we moved to MPLS with them, their PERs keep dropping eliminating entire regions of service. That said, my basic ADSL at the house has had no issues whatsoever.
My bill went up forty bucks in just over three years after Comcast purchased insight. I had nothing out of the ordinary, regular internet, classic cable and digital TV with a DVR. It was ridiculous. I just switched to AT&T and while it will cost about the same, I get a TON more channels.