WTF is Comcast up to?

[merwin]

First, they go on and on about how bittorrent is evil and is killing bandwidth, and that's why they need to interfere with packets. Now, in the last 6 months, they've increased my speed twice for free. They just upped me to a 15 Mbit connection.

How can they be strapped for bandwidth and be able to double the speed?

[Hawkeye-X]

1. Eh, they think file sharing is EBBBBIL

The well-known peer 2 peer website The Pirate Bay in Sweden's founders were found guilty and sentenced to 1 year in jail, and 3.6m in fines. Naturally, they're appealing.

TPB has gone downhill since then, and there are few others that have taken their places.

Hawkeye-X

[BlooInBloo]

2. They want you to PAY for the service, but not USE it.

[merwin]

6. I called them a couple weeks ago and told them their service was too expensive

and that I was going to switch to Qwest DSL, even though they had worse speed because they had a special offer. I flat out told the rep that I was cutting fat in my budget and was going to switch if Comcast couldn't make their offer any better. The rep tried a few times to convince me based on the higher speeds of cable (to which I replied each time that cost was the important factor right now). Then I got the introductory rate of $29.95/month for 6 months (down from $45/month).

[lunatica]

20. I did the exact same thing and they gave me an introductory deal for 1 year

And they added internet speed and threw in the Starz premium channels. My bill is $70 less now. I live in an area where I have to use cable to watch TV at all and I have their bundled service (cable Tv, internet and phone service)

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. Perhaps FIOS is kicking their asses?

Or at least where they can compete. Not an option in my area, unfortunately. It's either Comcast or Qwest DSL. Can't stand either corporation, but Comcast has the best connection of the two, so I'm stuck with them :evilfrown:

[merwin]

5. I had FIOS when I lived in the Seattle area... best service ever.

When I moved back to my hometown I had to get Comcast... it's like going back to the old 56k modem days :)

[ejpoeta]

7. the commercials around here are funny regarding cable vs fios

the cable commercial shows people asking about if they don't like the service and they are stuck with it for two years. i do believe we had to sign a 1 year contract with cable. what's the difference. i don't know about fios though. and we can't get it on our road yet anyway. cable or dial up is our choice. or i can go with satellite which is really expensive and my sister says not that great.

[Delphinus]

9. Just got FiOS at work ...

can't tell that's any faster than their DSL. :(

[merwin]

12. Depends on what you use it for.

Certain things like bittorrent, which rely on a lot of low-latency connections and high uplink speeds, work much better over FiOS. Web browsing wouldn't be a noticeable difference. DSL has (the potential for) high download speeds but is stuck with crappy upload speeds.

[merwin]

10. Around here you don't really have contracts, unless you're a business or you go with

the really pricey solutions (requiring upfront investment) like satellite.

Think of satellite as driving through Australia in order to get groceries from the store down the street. Hard to get good speeds when you're going into space and back :)

[RoyGBiv]

4. They're competing with AT&T is what ...

Specifically Uverse ...

Uverse offers more than double the speed of an equivalently priced tier in some markets where Comcast has a hold.

The torrent issue has nothing to do with bandwidth, btw. It's about money. If you're watching videos you download via a torrent, you're not watching cable, which means their view rate goes down which means they amount they can charge for in-line advertising goes down.

[Deja Q]

8. Cable networks have many people sharing the same internet segment...

They will advertise "15Mbit, wheeeee!" but won't be bothered to tell you that if one of your (how many?) neighbors is playing a game or downloading a 8GB porno DVD all the time, that affects EVERYBODY on that segment.

They also charge per connection, so you probably don't want to put in a router to try to get extra free connections. The router's MAC address likely contains company/model information for Comcast to become aware of and then disable until you pony up the money for my IP addresses...

Now, one segment allows something like 253 individual connections -- numerous neighborhoods wired on the cheap.

Yon 15Mbit is going to be nothing near it during certain times of the day, if everybody is doing the same things.

[merwin]

11. That's not true anymore.

It was true 10 years ago, but the days of your neighbors affecting your speeds are gone. And Comcast has nothing against routers. You get one IP... if you want to put a router behind it they don't care. I switch out my router pretty much weekly depending on what I'm doing. Currently, playing around with running a router through VMware on a computer with two network cards. Actually works very well and doesn't affect the computer noticeably.

The only time you actually have to call them is if you buy a new cable modem. Otherwise, to switch the router you just unplug the modem's cable connection and power, switch the router, and plug the cable/power back in (have to do it for the cable modem to be happy with the new router).

[radfringe]

13. we dumped their cable about 2 years ago and went with DISH-TV

Comcast upped the monthly fees on cable television and cut the number of channels. We did opt for the "movies on demand" package at first - right after we had the "box" installed, we had problems with receiving "movies on demand" - couldn't get them.

several phone calls, techs out to the house, new cables installed, new "box", etc - still nothing. the last straw was when they said a "specialty tech" would be sent to the house to diagnose and fix the problem. No such tech showed up. When we called to find out where the "specialty tech" was - they didn't know anything about it and we were told there wasn't such a thing as a "specialty tech".

They tried to mollify us by giving us "coupons" for free movies on their PPV channels - WTF good does that do when we couldn't get the freaking movies (PPV or otherwise) in the first place.

We signed up for DISH-TV on a Saturday - due to severe weather conditions, installation was delayed until Thursday of that week. Installer came, put up the dish, set-up/programmed the boxes and was gone within 2 hours - there was one slight glitch but that was resolved with 1 phone call and a few minutes later we had reception.

Next day we went to Comcast office in town, returned their equipment and canceled the service.

Yes, there have been times with really bad weather where we do not get reception - but it's been far and few between.

my parents have comcast for their phone, tv and internet - some kind of package deal. Phone cuts out in mid-conversation, or they can't receive in-coming calls. Internet speed bogs down, or they can't get a connection at all. They've also had some problems with tv reception. All the cables, boxes etc are relatively new. Plus, every few months Comcast ups their rates.

[merwin]

14. Your parents' cable problems are most likely due to wiring, not hardware.

TV reception is the key indicator. If the wiring is bad, or something is messed up at the junction box then none of their services are going to work right.

I do understand those rate hikes. Not every few months here, but it does go up steadily every couple of years.

[radfringe]

15. wiring, cables, boxes etc

are all fairly new - installed 2-3 years ago. They had to re-wire the entire house when they bought it less than 10 years ago, and the house is less than 15 years old - so we're not talking about a house that's 70 years old. It's in a newish neighborhood, most houses less than 20 years old. a year or two prior to them buying the house - there was a storm which knocked down/took out all the power lines (phone, electric, cable) - all new poles/lines had to be installed.

plus they have had "techs" out several times since then to check everything out - and the problem is NOT at my parents end. Other people in the area/neighborhood have the same problem with comcast service - the only ones on their street that do not have a problem with Comcast are the ones which DO NOT use comcast for anything.

[merwin]

24. Then the problem is farther away from the house.

Which would probably take every single person who is having issues in the neighborhood coming together and demanding Comcast fix it for them to do anything. They're lazy and are only as good as the contractors that they hire to do the work for them. None of the techs actually work for them.

[RebelOne]

16. I had DishNetwork, but finally had to switch to cable.

Every time it rained, I lost reception. Then tree branches on a property across from me blocked reception. Finally, I got fed up and went with Comcast.

[radfringe]

17. we're on a hilltop

the only branches that may eventually block our reception are our own trees

the only "cable" company that we have a "choice" of is comcast - no other cable service in our area. DISH costs about the same as what comcast was charging for basic service... with DISH we get more channels and more of the channels we want.

yeah bad weather does interfer with reception at times - for those rare occurances, we pop in a DVD movie or watch something we've recorded

[onenote]

18. who do you get your internet service from?

[radfringe]

21. local phone company

we live in a very small rural town, not many choices. for internet hi-speed our choices are the local phone company, comcast, or through Dish/Direct TV

we went with local phone company for 2 reasons:

1. PRICE - cheaper than internet service through DISH-TV
2. If we went with DISH-TV for internet service, we would have the same problems of weather conditions

[vadawg]

19. i cant get any cable company to run cable to my house, so i went with dishtv

no problems until my DVR stopped working yesterday, they are fed exing me a new one and i didnt have the heart to tell them that fed ex wont deliver as they cant get their truck up to my property. oh joy

[jamesbolton]

25. Bad weather also interferes with Comcast...

so that isn't an important fact when comparing. Since Comcast is too cheap to use water-tight connectors or high quality junction boxes, you'll typically have trouble when it's raining or is damp. When I had Comcast it would quit for several hours a month due to rain. With a dish you'd only have trouble while it was raining hard. With Comcast it doesn't work until their cables and equipment dry out which can take hours or days longer.

Now I miss my old crappy service since the area where I live has been "at capacity" for over two years so they haven't done any new installs. It sucks being on the waiting list.

[radfringe]

26. years ago, before sat-dishes were readily available

back in Massachusetts - friends of mine had built a house - it was on private road (not recognized by the town - meaning the town wouldn't maintain or plow it). There were about 10 houses on the road.

the cable licensing had expired, and was up for bid. One of the conditions was that ALL town residents would have access to cable - not just those who already had it. It would require running/installing new cable, etc.

I don't remember what company won the bid.

3 or 4 years later - my friends still didn't have cable access - including other residents - not just my friends and those who lived on that particular road, but also others living in other parts of town. Repeated calls to the cable company resulted in the excuse of "there's not enough people in your immediate area to justify running the cables" - and calls to the town officials were met with "we'll look into it"

Well, the contract did specify ALL residents, including those who lived in the more "rural" areas of town.

The licensing was up for review soon after. My friends managed to get ahold of a list of people who didn't have access to cable - they pulled together a petition, and went to a town hall meeting to request cable service. Next step was a hearing to review the cable service, and decide whether or not to renew their licensing.

These types of meetings/hearings are usually not the kind that draws a big crowd - but my friends managed to get enough people to overflow the room, causing the town officials to reschedule the hearing to a bigger venue.

The end result was the licensing was provisionally continued for another year - the cable company would have to extend service access to ALL residents, if not, their license would be yanked and it would go to another cable provider who would extend service to ALL residents.

It took a little more than a year, but all residents now had access to cable.

Granted, the cable company in your area may not have a "all residents" provision in their licensing/permits contracts - however, I'm sure you are not the only one in town without cable access. If you are up to the task, you could research the permit/licensing contracts, find out when it's up for review/renewal and organize other "cable-less" residents to petition the town.

yes, there will be people who shrug it off, saying "I have a satellite dish - what do I care about cable" - well - it's nice to have a choice between cable or satellite.

[DS1]

22. I've noticed my download speeds are significantly higher

I'm getting hour-long shows in 7 minutes!

[Still Sensible]

23. Sounds to me like set up marketing...

they give away something for free, get people used to having such incredible bandwidth so when they start charging for it people will pay... because over some period of time they are convinced it is something they just must have.