Comcast

I was just wondering, but has anyone else found Comcast Cable Internet to be as unreliable as I have found it to be? For the 5 time in 4 weeks, it has gone down.

GRRRRRRRRRR.

When I first got Comcast, it was at least that unreliable, but in the past three months, it hasn't gone down, ever.

I have Comcast Internet . It runs at 3mb down 256k up and it goes down about once every 5 weeks or so.
It has been the most stable connection compared to 3 years ago.

Mine was unstable a lot a few months ago but its been very good to me lately. I miss it a few years ago because everything seemed different and a lot better. Now that Comcast has merged with AT&T, everything seems different. Never really have liked Comcast, but they're the only ones out here.

A friend of mine has comcast at work. For some reason unknown to me they have no other choice there. Anyway, when we were discussing cable companies she went on and on about how they sucked. Poor reliability, worse service and horrid technical support. Maintaining service for her office is part of her job functions and she says they really make her life miserable.

I imagine it varies area to area. I use Astound and they are great. Excellent reliability and speeds faster than advertised.

Really depends on the day for me. It was far worse when I initially signed up (as in daily downtime in the vicinity of hours). They've improved, and the downtime I experience now seems to be due to the terrible modem they gave me. I was planning on replacing it with my own soon, anyway, so I'll see how much that helps. Lately, even when it does drop, it reconnects faster than SL times out, so I don't have to log back in.

Spotty service at times, but I'm getting 3mbps for $20/month so I can't really complain.

Mine was pretty bad at first, sometimes going down for a day or so (keep calling them to send people). That lasted awhile (kept calling them about it, etc)...but the last few years or so it's almost NEVER down and the connection is kicka$$. Usually when it would go down (in the early days) it was at night, which happens to be when I'm online the most, so it started to piss me off a bit. Sometimes it'd go down *routinely* as if they were doing some kind of routine maintanence every night. (*Ahem* isn't this supposed to be an always on connection?) Recently the only time it went offline was when everything (cable tv included) died during a storm one night.

Oh, also--Comcast is completely !@#$ing retarded when it comes to keeping their customer's modems updated. This also includes the WIRE to the house (needed a new one here). I'm on like my 3rd modem now, every time I called them they'd say "oh well that's an outdated modem". Well THANKS FOR TELLING ME....

Heh... other this stuff (and I make it sound worse than it is maybe), Comcast is a pretty good ISP. I'd say that during the last 2-3 years it's gone down maybe 2-3 times (not counting freaks of nature when there's a tornado or something, heh).

Was service recently expanded to your area?

Comcast can be a mixed bag when it comes to reliability. I went through a few random days of no connection about a year ago. Last outage was related to hurricane Isabel, and that lasted 3 days. Things are going well now, but its just a matter of time before something or someone screws it up.

I'm sure it depends on the area in which you live. I switched from a DSL connection through MSN to Comcast back in May 2003, and was rather disappointed at first because I experienced frequent interruptions in service (often at night, as someone else on this thread said). However, my connection has been pretty stable the past three months or so. I'm in the Portland, OR metro area.

Probably local rather than Comcast-wide. They do depend on an infrastructure that in many cases predates Comcast by decades. In three years with AT&T -> Comcast, I have only had total outages 2-3 times; POP outages lasting a couple hours probably 8-10 times, and DNS failures about another half dozen times. Not perfect, but beats any dialup I ever had.

I've been on comcast for a while now here in CT.

First it was @home, then Attbi, then comcast.

overall I like the service, but my cable is through the same company and their people generally knock out my cable internet when they do something to the cable tv.

I use Comcast. It used to be @Home, but they bought 'em out. I've found Comcast to be a thousand times more reliable than @Home ever was. @Home was frickin' always down.

I had a few problems with Comcast in the first few months of service. And I have issues every time I need to speak to their technical support, cos', frankly... it sucks! But they've been very stable for me for me lately, so I haven't had to call them. *crosses fingers*

I personally make a point of NEVER calling anyone's tech support. In most cases, bashing your head with a brick for 45 minutes is more fun, and the result is identical to a tech call.

I was having problems with Comcast for a while with dropped packets and unreliable connections. But the problem has been solved!

Make sure to check the type of cable going to your modem. I was using a standard video coax cable, which is apparently TOO THIN to maintain a strong and reliable connection. Comcast came out and changed the cable to a higher grade thicker coax cable and all has been well ever since!

So check your cables! Do not use standard video coax!

That's probably the wire they installed here. Helped alot.

I don't know why people have such an issue with tech support. Whenever I call with a very specific problem (not just Comcast, I mean in general) as long as I don't get some friggin non-english speaking Indian or something I usually find out something new. I've discovered features I didn't even know my computer had through tech support...and I'm pretty tech-y.

A problem may arise when you give a bad/incomplete description of a problem or present them with a very general problem that could have about 1,000 different causes.

I dunno, I've called them before knowing the exact problem and exact solution and it took me over an hour to fix. On multiple occasions. On just my basic cable service, they gave me a cable box with parental controls enabled and a non-default password. I called, told them what the problem was, sat through repeated instructions on resetting my box, and was then told that I needed to have a technician come to my house. Having already checked the website for solutions to my problem, I knew that I didn't need a technician and they just had to reset the box. I offered to prove that I was myself, in case they thought I had a child that was trying to access porn or something, but that wasn't the problem. They did not believe that it could be reset from their end. After insisting multiple times (to avoid having to wait for a technician all day) I was put on hold, then finally told, "Ok, you're all set."

All told, the call took 80+ minutes when it should have taken five. Most of that was me waiting on hold. Unfortunately, this is my normal interaction with them and not the exception. It probably varies from place to place, though.

The couple times I've had to call comcast about my cable modem the people have been very nice. The 2nd time it was something I could have done at my end and completely forgot about doing.
But they were patient and got my jokes.

It took us several days to convince them to send a tech out with a new modem and such because LIGHTNING had hit the house. They kept telling us to reboot the computer and stuff! Look, buddy, the modem is fried! It's dead! 100% burned up! We need a new one! And they're like, "what's your MAC address again?" ARGH!

Interesting! I'll have to check mine out now. I dunno what we're using...

This may not mean anything whatsoever, but when they installed the new wire for my modem it was a white wire, not the standard black ones you see. No idea if that's any kind of standard, but...

Xadrian: Hmm, well I was speaking very generally of tech support. I know the Dell and Comcast people I've called in the past were pretty nice and I haven't had a problem (but I can't remember the last non-English speaking support person I had). Nobody with any kind of (strong) accent has EVER helped me, I have to admit.

But who knows, I may just be getting lucky by describing these complex problems and scaring the crap out of the lower tier people (thus getting bumped up to the higher level support).