The 6pm Sales Call

[R K]

Let me Start Mr. Comcast Sales Person. 7 years ago we moved into this house and had Comcast intalled. Primarily for the internet, but also at some point had them sell us basic, which is rarely used. In that SEVEN years the Cable has NEVER been buried. It strings across my yard, my neighbors yard, and then back across my yard all the way around the house. It has been ran over twice by the lawn mower, and quickly replaced by Comcast, but never burried. Instead just strung back across both yards, and around the entire outside of the house. Mind you there is a COMCAST BOX on the other side of the house as well. From that box the distance is about 25ft, but instead, they chose the 150ft route, the longest. On the 3rd cable, I gave up calling, it does no good. Problem #1



Problem #2 the bandwidth is just horrible. Due to the fact this part of Hawthorn Woods is so far away at 1-2PM in the afternoon the usage goes up, signal fades which makes it almost IMPOSSILBE for me to work in my remote office. Which means instead I must schlep my way into the office or risk having my IP phone just crap out at any given time. Comcast has been informed 3 times, 2 of the 3 times the remedy was for me to "upgrade" my service, pay MORE money, and still maybe have the same issues.



Problem #3 Comcast has gone 100% digital, going one step FURTHER and demanding their customers now have at least one individual box for each TV that recieves signal. No longer can that signal just be delivered via the Cable as it has been for as long as Cable has been provided. They did not inform us as customers of this change until the week before it was going to occur. The day of the change I called and was told two boxes would be sent free of charge, and if any more I would need to pay them. The boxes arrived and NEITHER TV worked. My Wife called Comcast and spent about an hour on the line, nothing fixing or correcting the probem. The final decision was to reset the signal from Comcast and wait 24hrs to see if it corrected the issue. That call was 5/2, the TV's are still not working and today is 5/10.



So Mr. Sales Person when you called tonight at 6pm, right in time to disrupt my dinner, of COURSE I thought you were calling, EIGHT days later, to see if either of my TV's were working. I most certainly did not expect a "sales call" to review my account instead.



Thank you very much.

 

[TSD]

Let me Start Mr. Comcast Sales Person. 7 years ago we moved into this house and had Comcast intalled. Primarily for the internet, but also at some point had them sell us basic, which is rarely used. In that SEVEN years the Cable has NEVER been buried. It strings across my yard, my neighbors yard, and then back across my yard all the way around the house. It has been ran over twice by the lawn mower, and quickly replaced by Comcast, but never burried. Instead just strung back across both yards, and around the entire outside of the house. Mind you there is a COMCAST BOX on the other side of the house as well. From that box the distance is about 25ft, but instead, they chose the 150ft route, the longest. On the 3rd cable, I gave up calling, it does no good. Problem #1



Problem #2 the bandwidth is just horrible. Due to the fact this part of Hawthorn Woods is so far away at 1-2PM in the afternoon the usage goes up, signal fades which makes it almost IMPOSSILBE for me to work in my remote office. Which means instead I must schlep my way into the office or risk having my IP phone just crap out at any given time. Comcast has been informed 3 times, 2 of the 3 times the remedy was for me to "upgrade" my service, pay MORE money, and still maybe have the same issues.



Problem #3 Comcast has gone 100% digital, going one step FURTHER and demanding their customers now have at least one individual box for each TV that recieves signal. No longer can that signal just be delivered via the Cable as it has been for as long as Cable has been provided. They did not inform us as customers of this change until the week before it was going to occur. The day of the change I called and was told two boxes would be sent free of charge, and if any more I would need to pay them. The boxes arrived and NEITHER TV worked. My Wife called Comcast and spent about an hour on the line, nothing fixing or correcting the probem. The final decision was to reset the signal from Comcast and wait 24hrs to see if it corrected the issue. That call was 5/2, the TV's are still not working and today is 5/10.



So Mr. Sales Person when you called tonight at 6pm, right in time to disrupt my dinner, of COURSE I thought you were calling, EIGHT days later, to see if either of my TV's were working. I most certainly did not expect a "sales call" to review my account instead.



Thank you very much.

In fairness to comcast, the bolded isnt their fault. It was a government mandate.



One thing you might want to check, which is happening to my place right now, but Ive been too lazy to call comcast. The peak hours seriously shouldnt be hurting you that bad, but there is one way it could be.



Your normal speed should be 20-25mbps. with those speeds even at peak hours you should still be wrangling in over 5mbps(its still almost twice as fast as your average dsl line) which is plenty for remote desktop/vpn and phone.



Now to my point, what I found is I have to restart my modem like every day. the quality degrades and degrades down to about 1.5 mbps. and if you hit peak hours when its that bad? its unusable. Its definitely a modem problem for me, when I reset the modem, its like boom, back up to about 22mbps and I could down load pron, vpn, voip, and stream 5 movies without a hiccup. So I just reset mine every day, until i get off my ass to call them to replace it.



At least test your speeds to have proof your shit is jacked, otherwise they will just treat you like an idiot.



go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and that will test your bandwidth, take screen shots and email it to them (I believe comcast also has a tester on their website, but Id trust a 3rd part over a company telling you the quality of their own product is bad).



I havent restarted my modem in a day or two. heres my speed now. then ill do another test after I have restarted my modem:

and were at peak hours and look at the difference:

 

[R K]

Yea I know it was, but that said the fact a call was made on 5/2 and today is 5/10, and it wasnt a follow up call, wasn't going to allow me to admit I knew that.



And performance has gone straight down hill from them taking my old modem out and replacing it with the Xfinity Modem. I do not have time during my day to continuously re start my modem, I'm working.



Yes that does solve the problems SOME TIMES but like I said the area I happen to live in is the primary reason. Trust me the IT director pings me constantly because I try to blame the VPN! LOL!



And that also doesn't address the other 2/3rds of the email. I'm just waiting for the cable to be mowed again. It's about that time.

 

[TSD]

Yea I know it was, but that said the fact a call was made on 5/2 and today is 5/10, and it wasnt a follow up call, wasn't going to allow me to admit I knew that.



And performance has gone straight down hill from them taking my old modem out and replacing it with the Xfinity Modem. I do not have time during my day to continuously re start my modem, I'm working.



Yes that does solve the problems SOME TIMES but like I said the area I happen to live in is the primary reason. Trust me the IT director pings me constantly because I try to blame the VPN! LOL!



And that also doesn't address the other 2/3rds of the email. I'm just waiting for the cable to be mowed again. It's about that time.

Trust me I work from home alot, I know the pains of the internet going to shit. What has a bad habit of happening to me is the shit just completely going down during the day, it happens at least once or twice a week.



Its definitely something they have to fix. Unfortunately with this cable monopoly bullshit, I dont know what more you can do about it. I think eventually for internet there will be more realistic competition for internet, but as it stands, even on the worst day it out performs most dsl options. And I have no idea how much their shit might be having problems because I havent personally used it.

 

[R K]

you are 100% correct, as a consumer you really have no other option, which mean, I go into the office most days and just work from home when need be. But thats just a small part of their customer service issues. I have had a fucking cable in plain site, laying on both mine and my neighbors yard, for all of SEVEN YEARS! LOL!

 

[TSD]

you are 100% correct, as a consumer you really have no other option, which mean, I go into the office most days and just work from home when need be. But thats just a small part of their customer service issues. I have had a fucking cable in plain site, laying on both mine and my neighbors yard, for all of SEVEN YEARS! LOL!

I wonder if you can go to the city/county about that and make them bury it. I have a buddy that does exactly that job for will county(handles building permits, neighbor property disputes, and shit like that). I can ask him if there is something the local government can do to force comcast to take care of that.



EDIT: i just texted him, I'll see what he says.

 

[winos5]

We have Time Warner cable.



I had signal issues off and on for several years. I finally opened the wall box (friendly tip from someone who used to install) on my home and disconnected all the unused splits that were going to unused rooms. I have one split off the main for phone/cable modem and one for digital cable Suddenly my signal is awesome.



I also ditched the shitty wireless router and bought a more powerful, dual channel router. The wireless signal now covers all my home no problems and the streaming to devices has been great.



Now my biggest gripe is Time Warner can't seem to play nice when negotiating. NBC told them to pound sand, no local NBC channel now.

 

[R K]

Yea TSD I'm sure they can force them but I have more fun watching them remember, forget, remember, forget..... Hilarious, not to mention coming from the incorrect box.



Yea Wino I never have problems with my router, other than Com Ed frying it once in awhile. It just happens I'm on the farthest end you can get with the Cable.

 

[TSD]

We have Time Warner cable.



I had signal issues off and on for several years. I finally opened the wall box (friendly tip from someone who used to install) on my home and disconnected all the unused splits that were going to unused rooms. I have one split off the main for phone/cable modem and one for digital cable Suddenly my signal is awesome.



I also ditched the shitty wireless router and bought a more powerful, dual channel router. The wireless signal now covers all my home no problems and the streaming to devices has been great.



Now my biggest gripe is Time Warner can't seem to play nice when negotiating. NBC told them to pound sand, no local NBC channel now.

Talk to me if you want to know how to get a pimp wireless network. my PC is 5 feet from my cable modem and I dont wire it, the quality is that good.



Despite the "assumption" gaming Wireless Network adapters are not just for gaming. Get a dual or triple band wireless N router and a Wireless N gaming adapter from Lynksys/cisco. the routers will run you 2-300 bucks and the adapters are 100 bucks a pop, but Im not joking when I say the performance is no different than being wired up.



the other option if you dont want too many splitters on your cable, is to wire your house with cat 5. My dad did that when we first got cable internet back in the late 90's and was actually a huge selling point when they sold the house, people were really impressed with having each bedroom with a cat 5 internet hook up. You still dont see many houses that are pre wired for cat 5, but its not that big anymore because of how far wireless technology has advanced, at the time they sold the house that was a huge perk because wireless sucked.

 

[R K]

Yea TSD that was a down fall of the house we bought, no cat5. It's a ***** as you know to pull wire!

 

[TSD]

and my buddy replied. He says if you were in will county and went to the city they would put out an order for comcast to bury the line, hes done it before in will. SO I would assume its the same for your area. Just need to give them a swift kick in the ass from the authorities.

 

[jaxhawksfan]

From everything I hear on a regular basis, Comcast is shit in the Chicago area. With that said, they hire a 3rd party to bury lines, they don't do it themselves. Most times, these contractors sign off on a job as if it were performed while they hang out banging their mistress all day. (This used to be to your advantage with disconnects because the same applied; job was never performed) I still get the lower channels straight from my tap (filter was suspiciously removed by someone) with no box. As far as you being at the end of the line, try to ask them how far you are from the nearest amplifier. Cable internet doesn't really "degrade" from every household in your neighborhood being on at the same time the way DSL does. It is there, but it shouldn't be earth shatteringly different. For all reasonable applications they can open the "pipeline" as far as they want to allow enough bandwidth to flow to everyone. It is a hybrid fiber/coax network. Fiber optic cables should take it at least to the node, which supplies a neighborhood or two (roughly 400-600 homes). Sometimes fiber goes all the way to the tap at street level. From that node the signal goes down, until it is boosted by an amplifier and they are spread every so many feet. You may be far from the last amplifier. None of this means anything other than you are fucked. They aren't going to spend the money to install another amp just to keep you as a customer. As far as your CAT 5e issue, I have about 200 feet that wraps around my house and into the back bedroom. It isn't unsightly, and I like to be plugged in instead of being wireless myself.



I'm sure you have looked into U-Verse and Fios already. We finally have some choices here in town and Comcast isn't the only game in town. If you can get solid internet, I suggest Magic Jack for your phone. I love mine. I can even send faxes through it.

 

[LordKOTL]

You sure about that Jax? I thought it was the opposite: Cable internet speeds depend on how many active connections there are on the circuit, and DSL depends on how far you are away from the junction box.



Either way in this area you've got 2 choices for real high speed, Comcast or whatever-the-****-Qwest-is-called-now. Both are meh and just get the job done. Comcast has repeatedly disconnected my service because the guy they contract out to connect service had a trans-orbital lobotomy, and Qwest (or whatever) has a lot of line noise and no support for their own equipment. As for Cable TV, I just can't even justify basic--especially with GameCenter live. Phone service I go with Vonage--the "free calls to any landline on Slovakia" (Amongst other countries) was the selling point there (and yes, I do have Skype but the quality is hit-or-miss).

 

[supraman]

RK since I don't think you game is satellite internet an option for you?

 

[Tater]

Maybe Comcrap could put some type of signal booster at your house. It sounds like the really need to run fiber right to your house though.

 

[jaxhawksfan]

RK since I don't think you game is satellite internet an option for you?

I have never heard a good word about satellite internet. I know some people who had it, and when I sold DirecTV there was a department that sold HughesNet and Blue (whatever the hell they call it) and everyone thought it was shit.



KOTL, nope, not sure about the cable vs DSL "flooding" issue. It was 2005 when I worked for Comcast so I forgot lots of stuff. I do remember the engineers saying they could open the pipeline "infinitely" though.

 

[supraman]

I have never heard a good word about satellite internet. I know some people who had it, and when I sold DirecTV there was a department that sold HughesNet and Blue (whatever the hell they call it) and everyone thought it was shit.



KOTL, nope, not sure about the cable vs DSL "flooding" issue. It was 2005 when I worked for Comcast so I forgot lots of stuff. I do remember the engineers saying they could open the pipeline "infinitely" though.

The only thing I've heard about is it is terrible for gaming due to the signal lag

 

[LordKOTL]

I have never heard a good word about satellite internet. I know some people who had it, and when I sold DirecTV there was a department that sold HughesNet and Blue (whatever the hell they call it) and everyone thought it was shit.



KOTL, nope, not sure about the cable vs DSL "flooding" issue. It was 2005 when I worked for Comcast so I forgot lots of stuff. I do remember the engineers saying they could open the pipeline "infinitely" though.

It's been about the same time since I looked into the issue as well. I was under the impression that Cable was set up much like an office's LAN: there's a specific bandwith allowed over the neighborhood's circuit, an every active connection takes a slice of that. Fiber usually has beau coup bandwidth, and coax can carry a lot as well, and as such, the limiting factor was not the speed of the modem or the bandwith of the cable lines, but the amount of people on the circuit. ADSL, on the other hand, was usually a "single" connection to the local junction box that ran over normal phone lines with was a lot more subject to interference (being that the usual twisted pair copper was unsheilded), and as such, what the advertised speed was is what you generally got less interference and distance losses and your connection speeds were generally more stable.



Again, I could be wrong.



As for other i-net access...i hear that cell-based (clearwire) is not too good as yet for price vs speed. 4G might change that but again it would have area restrictions based on cell signal. Satellite has lag issues. Microwave requires a clear shot and at least out here in the PacNW, would be iffy at best.



Stll, it beats the snot out of dialup...Hayes Smartmodem 2400...I remember those days.

 

[jaxhawksfan]

KOTL I think you are correct about your comparison. I was just told that they could pump more into the circuit if they found the neighborhood wasn't getting enough (if that makes sense).

 

[R K]

I wanted to switch to Uverse but of course, not available here yet. I think from what I've read and customers Comcast is just about the only way to go. Sucks but I'll continue to deal with them.



They have yet to call back after the phone call the other night. No surprise. LOL