Sun, 16 Mar 2008
Comcast means no service
On January 1 2008, The cable company that serviced the area that I live changed from Insight Communications to comcast. This change was due to comcast not wanting to sit on the side any longer. Through acquisitions comcast had become a silent 50% in many parts of the mid west. Both companies split up the area they partnered in. I knew this was coming only because it had been briefly mentioned in the paper in March 2007. There was zero communications from either company about the changes until the end of December I tried in December to find out what changes would be made. Neither Comcast not Insight could tell me anything. they kept passing the buck to the other.
While the change happened on Jan 1 the January Bill was issued by insight. comcast still into February claimed on its website to not be able to provide me service. They still are unable to give me a channel listing for my area. Comcast also Just sent out notices that it is raising the rates for its services.
With Insight i had a sticky IP, while it was mostly static they reserved the right to change the IP if they needed to. thought i was to be given two weeks written notice of change. Comcast silently dropped this service. Instead telling me when I called to verify that I had the same services after they finally switched us from the insight network to the comcast Network on Feb 20th that I needed to have a business internet account to get a static IP. After many calls and being completely frustrated i finally got bounced around to the correct department to switch to a business class plan. For this i had to sign an order form and fax/email it in. I dont have a scanner or a fax machine so it took me a few days to be able to get it in. A week later I called to find out the status to be told your sales person is on holiday in Spain and nothing has been done with your order. After getting them another signed copy emailed in, I called again a week later to be told its still being processed and we dont know when we will make the change. Mind you each time I called I was bounced around at least half a dozen people spent lots of time on hold and constantly got people who really have no clue about anything other than a tiny piece of their portion of things. The phone system would put you through to residential people when you follow the prompts for commercial service.
I finally got switched over on Friday to their business plan. I had chosen the option for enhanced service which is 16Mbits/3Mbits and a /29. the installers order had only a single IP. turned out that the modem was provisioned correctly but the order was wrong. and i had my /29. when doing my nightly rawhide sync i noticed Cacti was saying that i was only getting 6Mbit down alot less than the 16Mbit/s i was supposed to able to get. A quick call to support verified that my accound was on the standard plan not the enhanced one. which in my area is supposed to be 10/1.5 as thats what Insight offered but I got 6/1.5, now i have to call accounts on monday because tech support cant correct the issue without changes to my account.
All in all I have so far found comcast to be completely incompetent. Most of the people i have encountered are completely unwilling to try and help you. They are a bumbling mess. Unfortunately I have little in the way of choices. I can get naked DSL from Verizon for $30 a month but only at 3Mbit/768Kbit speed. I can get a slightly faster DSL option from a local telco but due to the FCC also being braindead I have to get a landline from verizon since MTCO being a CLEC cant offer naked DSL. Note to FCC, enforcing that ILEC must offer naked DSL, but not making sure there is competition by ensuring the CLEC's can offer the same is really dumb. Way to promote monopolies
posted at: 23:09 | link | | 1 comments
Posted by Bill Jr at Sat May 17 23:05:17 2008
Comcast cable goes out every 3 weeks - like clockwork. This has been going on since January 2008. It is now early May 2008. I have called Comcast easily over a dozen times and what do I get: hung-up on - no-call, no-show techs - lied to by customer service about the day/time when the tech was "suppose" to arrive - techs, when they do show up, have absolutely no clue on what is the problem ( I guess they are told to just show up ) - tech not fixing the problem.
The few techs that did show up told me the following:
the problem is with the signal - the problem is not with the signal - the problem is outside - the problem is inside - the problem was fixed. A few days later, cable goes out.
A few techs told be to cancel the service - that this would get their attention to fix the problem.
A few times I was told that the tech would come out and replace both HD cable boxes. Techs show up empty-handed - no replacement cable boxes. Techs did not know what I was talking about when I asked where were the new boxes. Their reply was they were not sent to replace anything - and then asked me, once again, "what is the problem ??"
Again, tech shows up with no clue on the reason they were dispatched. It is as if for the past 5 months, I have been talking to an empty phone in an empty room.
What is needed is another cable provider in Chicago. I will take ANYONE/ANYTHING over Comcast, I wish I could get satellite service, but I live in a condo that faces East. For a satellite, like Direct TV, I need to have an unobstructed view of the southwest sky.
Apparently I am left with no choice but to cancel service as the cable goes out at will with no fix and no cares/concerns from Comcast. None at all.