So, I got a bit fed up with the quality of my service, despite some really notable gains from Big C on the customer service front lately, my service has just been unacceptably spotty since I moved here. Three years. I think if they had better infrastructure, I think they would not NEED so many increasingly pleasant CSRs to explain there is “scheduled maintenance” in my area.
Sure is a lot of it. A whole week last month. At least that’s how long it took them to send out a tech. Who told me I had a great signal strength! and a really old modem (13 months ago, I picked it up at my local comcast building… ‘really old modem’ MY ASS).
But tonight. Tonight I sat down to watch a movie on my one day off this week. Right at 10pm. And you know what? I couldn’t.
So, Comcast, it’s been great, but I’m done.
With your modem that tells me it’s connected when both my computer and YOUR APP know it is not. I mean really. Why bother with lights at all? Why not have a ‘scheduled maintenance’ light FFS.
With your nonsense answers, and with your monopoly here in my town.
Well, I was driven to price shop.
And I learned that for my usage… Some MB sized documents, some streaming SD video, some streaming audio… I could go with one of the big wireless carriers for my cell phone AND home internet by 4G at really… a notable amount less than Comcast was getting from me for just “fast internet”.
The one thing that consistently baffles me about the Greater Seattle Area; with all this tech, why is Comcast the only ISP choice 95% of the time? Our old house had been wired for FiOS, so we got Frontier to handle it. But then we moved and my choices were Comcast, or CenturyLink which offered me the blazingly fast speed of 20mbps. For a household of four people who are all either gaming or streaming at any given time.
Oh, and we found out our internet had a cap on it. Our PS4 died, Mr. Bells went to re-download all the games into the new one, and we hit the cap we didn’t know existed, 4 days into the billing cycle. Whee.
Comcast claims they have no data caps, and when I’d call to ask why our internet was suddenly so slow, they’d say “oh, must be your neighbors! We’re certainly not throttling you or anything!”. Complete coincidence that our speed would get throttled right after large downloads, every single time.
They sent us a new modem a year ago with a letter saying it was free of charge, their gift to us, but when I called to ask questions they got all dodgy and told me I had to come in to the shop to talk about it. The Comcast rep there told me the new modem was “useless” and “a piece of crap” and that I shouldn’t use it, but make sure to keep it. Then of course other reps would get upset that I wasn’t using their new modem model.
I’d put off switching because I didn’t want the downtime, but their local competitor had me switched over in about an hour total. My speeds are better, I’ve had zero technical issues (compared to having to cycle my Comcast modem once a week at least to keep it running), and I’m paying $60/month less.
After it happened several times, I got a rep on the phone who wouldn’t outright admit to throttling my speed, but said a bunch about “piracy protection” and “keeping an eye out for blatant file sharing” (apparently downloading Xbox updates and uploading large Photoshop files for my clients raised a flag?). When I mentioned that my speed had suddenly returned to normal while on the phone, the rep said “sure, I can do that on my side at the customer’s request”. So, throttling, then. Comcast is super slimy.
Frontier had a lot of negative reviews, but we had no problems with them. Comcast is continually baffled by our lack of desire for cable TV, and keeps trying to get us to change plans so we can get cable. We haven’t had cable in almost 15 years; we don’t miss it or want it.
I’m such a dick bitching about download speeds, though. I grew up with a 1200 baud modem, I should be happy. But, y’know, the “internet” was only ASCII art then.
When I cancel, I am going to request they send me a box for their equipment, or come get it. Or sue me - I don’t care. Not one more dime for them. No more efforts.
I’ve not ever hit a cap or been aware of throttling. My data usage in in the XXGB/month category, never 3 digits. All I get is turn off for super rando periods of time, on the regular. And I realized the frustration was absolutely NOT worth it. That time can’t be refunded.
Because Comcast and QWest lobbied hard with promises of upgrades to keep FIOS out and succeeded.
I had high hopes for Gigbit Seattle but the new mayor killed that right away.
On the plus side we haven’t ever gone over the data cap which I see is now at 1024 GB and we rarely went over the 250GB unenforced limit. Also they at least have been upping the speeds and doing network upgrades.
If Century link would offer anything faster than shitty DSL speeds (which is why they got dropped) for my neighborhood I would switch in a heartbeat.
I did learn one of the regulation problems is for them to upgrade they have to put in access/junction boxes, so something the size of small fridge in the neighborhoods and Seattle’s stupid zoning laws count no shows/abstains at the community meetings as a NO which means they never get okayed.
I could get ATT Uverse, but the speeds I would get are laughable.
For the most part, they have actually been decent outside of the shitty installer who originally came out. My last interaction with them over the phone was even “pleasant”
I wish to FSM though that they would price a highspeed internet bundle by itself for less than the Triple Play (Internet-TV-Phone) I currently have. To get the same speed as I have now outside of a bundle is the same price as the bundle.
I did manage to convince them I did not need their DVR, which I think baffled them. I didn’t care how many free months of DVR service they would give me, I didn’t want it.
So I have their Non-DVR set top box which has lately required a daily reboot to work. I’m sure it just needs to be swapped out, but the nearest service center isn’t convenient, so I just keep pulling the plug everytime we want to watch the local news.
And the phone? Well, I guess I have it hooked up as Mrs. Platt wanted a land line originally as she works from home, but since her handset is forever uncharged, I don’t think that worked out well.
One of my housemates purchased a TiVo at one point, and had been using it with a different service when we were forced to go with Comcast. The DVR conversations were bizarre.
“OK, so the set-top box comes with a DVR, and that’s a $10/month rental fee.”
“We don’t need a DVR. We have a TiVo already.”
“But… the cable box is a DVR. It has our own Comcast DVR service.”
“I understand. We already own a DVR, it’s a TiVo. So no thank you.”
“Oh, you’ve got a DVR! OK, that’s a $10/month rental fee.”
“No, we’re not renting it. WE OWN IT. It’s ours. You’re not charging us for it.”
“But… don’t you want a DVR?”
Every few months a DVR rental fee would appear on the account, we’d call, they’d remove it, and then it’d appear again.
