Comcast vs our Internet. Round 22

Most of what I write has a clear positive message. I do not enjoy complaining just as I know others do not enjoy hearing complaints, so I tend to do as little of it as possible. As a word of warning, I am looking for the lesson in this story, what I can learn from it. So, I apologize in advance, if there is nothing positive for you to take away from it. Also it is a bit long and I just didn’t feel like splitting it up. So, here it is.

 

A few months ago, back in January, I wrote about what a wonderful internet provider Comcast is (http://lnk.to/oFc0m) . Since January, we have paid them over $1500 and our internet still does not work properly.

 

When we call in and talk to the tier 1 representatives, most of them have no idea what we are talking about. What they are trained to deal with is people who have no internet signal at all. We get asked to do things like make sure the cable modem has power and that all of our cables are connected properly. When we inform them that the problem isn’t whether or not we can connect to the internet, that the problem has something to do with lost packets, high ping times and signal degradation they start drooling and jiberring like their brains have been totally blown and are now oozing slowly out their earholes.

 

Each time, they want to walk us through this inane and completely useless set of steps that is designed to discover why you have no signal at all. Then once we finally get it through their heads that we do in fact have a signal, just that it is a crappy one, then they move on to asking whether or not we have a wired or a wireless network set up. When we tell them that our network is wireless, but that for testing purposes we have set up one computer that is hard wired and that it is getting the same results they latch on to the wireless portion of the conversation and then claim that they can’t help us troubleshoot because our network is wireless which they do not support. We could just lie to them and say its wired. But, then we would be lying.

The rest of this is really just more of the same. So if you are totally like TLDR, believe me I get it. It’s fine. But if you want to read the rest of the Comcast saga, click here to read on

Are you responsible for what happens in your life? Pt1

The following actually occurred this past Friday afternoon. Names have been changed to letters for anonymity.

 

Comcast sent out a technician to troubleshoot the internet problems that we have been having. As part of his troubleshooting he needed to test all of the coaxial cables for line noise. We all live together in a big house, but all have separate schedules. Sometimes we do not know who is home or awake or what their general status is.

 

One of the rooms the technician needed to get into was behind a closed door. He asked if it was alright to go in and check the line in that room. This sequence of events is what happened as a result.

 

Person A asked person B if person C was home. Person B said they did not know. Person A asked person B to check. Person B checked the door to person C’s room, found it unlocked, opened it looked in and said person C was sleeping. Person A replied that was not useful information and that something more would need to be done. Person B then went over to the sleeping person C and woke them up.

 

Person C was understandably upset about one about being woken up in general, and even more upset at being woken up by person B standing next to their bed and calling their name. Person C felt that their privacy was being invaded due to the fact that person B did not even bother to knock before coming into their room.

 

Of course an argument started. But whose fault was it really? Click here to read on and see. The answer may surprise you.

Comcast provides the fastest most reliable internet service in our area, which sucks

Our home is a veritable hotspot of internet usage. Sometimes we are downloading a game on our desktops while playing another game on our laptops and using our phones to check movie times or to map out a route to someplace new.

 

Between streaming movies and videos from one computer to another within an our network, torrenting movies music and games from the internet, playing online games on our computers and playstation4, checking email,  and just general web browsing we use the internet for just about everything.

 

We are loyal Comcast customers. But not because we have any real choice. Satellite internet has way too much latency for serious gamers. And AT&T, Comcast’s only real competition in the area has much slower service. When AT&T offered 20MB service Comcast offered 50. With AT&T recently offering 50 Comcast upgraded all their 50MB customers to their new 105MB service.

Sounds great doesn’t it? IF it all worked as advertised it would be. But it doesn’t. Click here to read on and see why I say this