EPT
And, ty. The "EvilTeletubby" name is unfortunately a joke name I made when I was 15 or so (I'm 28 now) back in the Diablo 1 and SC days that just sort've stuck. I think it's absolutely ridiculous but there is little I can do about it now.
I Hate Comcast With a Fiery Passion - Page 5
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EvilTeletubby
Baltimore, USA22247 Posts
And, ty. The "EvilTeletubby" name is unfortunately a joke name I made when I was 15 or so (I'm 28 now) back in the Diablo 1 and SC days that just sort've stuck. I think it's absolutely ridiculous but there is little I can do about it now. | ||
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wherebugsgo
Japan10647 Posts
Comcast in the bay area is god awful. Between like 3 pm and 12 am I get 700 ping; essentially my internet spikes every 2 seconds from being a reasonable (albeit still much slower than normal) speed to 0. Then during nonpeak hours (i.e. after midnight and before 3 pm) it's fine. Need better bandwidth! | ||
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PieceOCake
United States67 Posts
I just had an issue too that I ignored for an week or so not wanting to have to call and deal with them, but I finally did. I feel your pain. | ||
tofucake
Hyrule18938 Posts
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Badfatpanda
United States9719 Posts
On June 24 2012 01:24 tofucake wrote: Avoid Philly, Comcast's home town. You can get Verizon FiOS in something like 2% of the city, Verizon DSL in another 10%. Comcast has contracts with almost all of the apartment complexes for exclusivity for internet. Options for TV are typically Comcast or Dish/DirecTV. The burbs are less shitty, but the only high speed internet around here is Comcast. I grew up outside of Philly, my parents had Comcast but it fucking blew, so many issues and after I started using the net more I was involved in half of the perennial "WTF" customer support calls, which just ended in paperwork and bullshit. When I moved in right outside of the city I figured I was done in to suffer some more but luckily I'm able to get FiOS. But you go down the street a block and the complexes are all supplied by Comcast. It's ridiculous, I don't know a single person who's had a legitimately pleasant experience with Comcast but I'll read through the thread to see if someone hear has been lucky lol. | ||
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ghrur
United States3785 Posts
That said, our Comcast internet has been fine ever since, and we do get at least 1mb/s now. It lags like hell when my parents stream Asian shows and shit, but hey, that's understandable. And most of the Starcraft streams run seamlessly, so I'm content. | ||
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EvilTeletubby
Baltimore, USA22247 Posts
On June 25 2012 00:21 ghrur wrote: Story about Comcast: We had a deal where we SHOULD get 1mb/s internet for X amount per month, set rate, can continue as long as we want. Right? Well, I go on speedtest.net and guess what my DL speed is? 300kb/s. >_> Okay, well, I thought maybe it was just something like clogging or too many people or something. My dad swore it was 1mb/s anyway. Finally, I get him to run speedtest.net, comes out a 300kb/s, and we're both like >_> ripoffs. Call Comcast, and the next day, 1mb/s. WTF! That means they COULD AND SHOULD have given us 1mb/s internet, but they were INTENTIONALLY ripping us off! If it were unintentional, that'd be okay. I can understand too many people on at one time, but to be INTENTIONALLY screwing over your customer on a deal is just upsetting and unethical to me. :/ That said, our Comcast internet has been fine ever since, and we do get at least 1mb/s now. It lags like hell when my parents stream Asian shows and shit, but hey, that's understandable. And most of the Starcraft streams run seamlessly, so I'm content. Le sigh. We don't even have bootfiles that go that low. They probably had you power cycle the modem/router or tighten the coax connections and that fixed everything. But thanks for assuming you were "INTENTIONALLY" being ripped off and screwed. I do like the logic though... because tech support fixed your problem, and quickly too, it was something intentional that we knew about. -_- | ||
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Frolossus
United States4779 Posts
at both of my houses i always have had stable ping and fairly high speeds, the service has maybe only been down 2 or 3 times in around 6 or 7 years | ||
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DeltaX
United States287 Posts
1. The tech who set us up when we got it 10 years ago "sold" my mom the modem for $40. 2. Net did not work right away. Tech came out and after half an hour or so told us our computer had a virus and we had to re-install the OS (he had to call for help as well even). I thought it was BS but after the hour long reinstall it worked >.> 3. Mom finds out that we are getting charged for the modem she "bought". She calls up and finds out the tech had gotten fired the next day and gets refunded her $40. 4. Net was somewhat slow so I decided to streamline all the splitters for the coax coming into the house. Unfortunately I lost track of the original one (old house has like 10 wires in a bundle) and needed another tech to come fix it, he also did a better job than me streamlining it and boosted the signal. 5. 2 or so years ago when they went digital, we find out the original tech had set us up with better service than we were paying for (basic instead of local channels only). Overall the internet speeds have been pretty good. Our speed had crashed pretty bad 2 years ago or so, but I think this was just network congestion. It got upgraded and now its pretty darn fast (25 Mbit). My biggest complaint is that it costs a ton so I may have to see if I can get a discount sometime, Century link (slow but cheap) moved into our area recently so rates may have come down. | ||
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felisconcolori
United States6168 Posts
I once was a telephone tech support representative for a company that contracted with a number of big names (Palm, Dell, Gateway, etc) - there were competing motivations, which is endemic in the telephone support industry. They were paid by volume of calls handled, so as you would imagine there was pressure to keep calls short. This was not an "official" directive, but management was pretty strong in suggesting that if we couldn't solve it in 15 minutes, we should tell them to go download drivers, or install windows, or something, and get them off the phone to call back later. (Hardware issues were not usually that time consuming - restart this, reseat that, that's a fried component, schedule onsite tech, etc.) And I guarantee, the upper management would never cop to this strategy - although there were other call centers that were much more... vigorous in their efforts. (It got to be that we would see the last call in a ticket history, where it was, and then groan because they were notorious for barely trying and then dumping the call.) Things may have improved; this was over 10 years ago. In my current position, dealing with IT Support (provided of course by a contractor) can be hit and miss. Some are barely competent, and on at least two occasions I had to walk someone through something basic. Like a printer driver installation. In fact, the call went over the tech's allotted time, so he just stayed on remote desktop and dropped the call. After a minute, he said "you can try to figure it out if you want to, have another call". I fixed it (via the magic of his escalated privileges), and said "it's working now". Then I taught the tech how to do it. -_- Apparently printer installation is not something they get a lot of training in. Then there's our on-site tech contractor. Great guy, generally helpful as long as there's a ticket attached, and actually knows quite a bit. Good guy overall. Shame he has to get called in, then drive 2 hours to fix something. (It's apparently "faster, better, cheaper" than having a dedicated guy locally.) The people I've talked to with my cable company (Cox) have run the gamut between these various positions. The phone support is okay, although the automated "slap upside yo' cable modem's head" option takes care of most problems. The few times I've had to have a tech out, it's been relatively painless. Except for the one time I had to tell the guy how to hard reset my DVR. But, like I said, there's a variety of people, and not everyone is great at everything. (Example - I can wire a network and program Cisco routers/switches, set up satellite internet, and troubleshoot RF interference from an HF radio, but I can't strip Cat5 and install an RJ45 jack or put a plug on the end of coax.) Back to the more immediate topic - you might just want to call and say you want to cancel. I've heard that's a great way to get a discount. | ||
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EvilTeletubby
Baltimore, USA22247 Posts
I also hate to admit that your last line is absolutely correct. Although it can depend on his current package, and what services he wants to keep and everything. But hey, it never hurts to ask... we might have a promo or some other way to alter his package that works better and saves him some $$$. | ||
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.kv
United States2332 Posts
Now this can all be due to the place I reside in (TX). P.S Typed this up using my phone's data just so I'm not forced to sign a 1year contract with AT&T. I rather wait over a month (now 2 weeks left) when I move to a place that has FiOS available. | ||
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ghrur
United States3785 Posts
On June 25 2012 02:18 EvilTeletubby wrote: Le sigh. We don't even have bootfiles that go that low. They probably had you power cycle the modem/router or tighten the coax connections and that fixed everything. But thanks for assuming you were "INTENTIONALLY" being ripped off and screwed. I do like the logic though... because tech support fixed your problem, and quickly too, it was something intentional that we knew about. -_- Le sigh. Pretty sure that wasn't the case considering they didn't really have us do anything. And given that my dad's a computer science major, with a master's degree, who works on network development, and has built his own computer before, and understands how the internet works, he would have known if it were something on our end that caused the problem. And I'm quite sure we don't do either of those as we usually power cycle the modem/router when the internet just randomly decides to stop working and our computers can't connect to it at all. But thanks for assuming I don't know shit and belittling me. | ||
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pb.fcnz
Canada101 Posts
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tofucake
Hyrule18938 Posts
Overall though he was pretty good. Ruled out a power surge, checked the outlets/extension cords in my room, checked signal (good news: signal is strong), and said he'd file the damage claims tomorrow morning. Almost definitely won't get direct reimbursement; it's more likely they'll credit my account with whatever amount blah blah whatever better than nothing. Also I got a new DVR. | ||
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Flonomenalz
Nigeria3519 Posts
I suffered through that hell for 3 years... worst customer service I've ever seen, consistently lie about their "free offers" and have awful tech support. 90% of the time I ended up fixing my own problems... and let's not even get to how inconsistent the internet service is. Blind hate gets you nowhere fellas. | ||
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GeNeSiDe
United Kingdom354 Posts
Never really noticed any hiccups, i did get a few DC's every once and awhile but you can't help it. Saying that, It is a cable service and my house there is in a massive golfing community where the average age is about 60, probably not alot of traffic going to my switch to slow me down, whereas for someone who lives in an area with 10-20 people on their street DL'ing movies, games, music, gaming etc. I can see it being different. | ||
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
I'm currently with AT&T and managed to get a phone number for a more direct line that passes the automated bullshit. It's in an office in St. Louis, I believe, so it has limited hours. It still beats the overseas ones by a mile, though. I also utilize dslreports.com where they have some actual technicians posting. True story, I went to one of their retail stores for help once and the people there are generally knowledgeable and helpful. Unfortunately, even they have problems navigating their own company's red tape. The manager was telling me how much of an idiot the guy he was talking to was. I played with a large WoW guild once and had people from all sorts of ISPs. The experience is pretty much the same. If you can find a way to grease the wheel somehow, you are going to be way happier with your service. Getting past that first layer is always the toughest. If there's somebody like ETT here who works for AT&T that I can bug when I have a problem with my net, it would be awesome. | ||
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Snuggles
United States1865 Posts
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Battleaxe
United States843 Posts
I live in the Philly area myself, my parents have had comcast seemingly forever, and I've used it everywhere else I've lived with very little problems. My gf lives in an area with optimum, and it's atrocious. Internet is slower, on demand options for the TV are very sparce. From what I've heard, Verizon is pretty good with their FiOS deals, but I've some truly nightmarish stories about houses needing to be rewired and all sorts of other issues, but generally once the install was done it was pretty clean. ATT Uverse seems alright from the few friends I have with this service in other parts of the country, but from those who used to live in my area, they'd still prefer comcast. Then there's other providers like Time Warner, Cox, Granite, etc. which I've only really had experiences with thanks to working in IT for an insurance company and supporting our work from home employees, but it doesn't seem any different then many of the other providers. As someone just mentioned above, most people generally have the same experience regardless of provider, and seems like one of those things where if you ask people how they feel about X service, you're gonna get each person's horror story with that provider. However, if you can get a small win for yourself you generally view the company in a better light. When I was living in college, I was somehow able to negotiate a new deal every 6 months with comcast, each time getting more channels and paying the same price each time. | ||
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