My internet was out tonight for about five hours. Have I mentioned that Comcast sucks? Happy July 4th!! I’m watching a Pink Panther marathon. Peter Sellers was the best.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Mine has been up and running now for at least 237 days, according to my firewall.
They’re not an angelic company by any means, and we’ve had our issues in the years since I first signed up with @HOME (who got eaten by AT&T, who got eaten by Comcast). But all in all, they give me an IP address that hasn’t changed in a very long time, a relatively fat data pipe, and they don’t complain that I’m running the world’s smallest ISP over here. Plus the price is good.
I’m lucky to be living 1/2 block from the local SBC/ATT phone frame building and able to get DSL. It has only been out once in over 2 years and is fabulous! It’s relatively cheap at <$30 per month.
I was previously on an underfunded wifi net that burned a motherboard on its server about every two weeks – always on a weekend for some strange reason. Very frustrating!
Excuse me, but do you have a – rheum?
Well, here in Fairfax, VA, so does Cox Cable.
They all appear to be horrific, without the remotest sense of how to do ‘Customer Service’ or any other such complicated things.
Equipment’s down? Cable/internet not operational? Have fun doing the troubleshooting yourself, followed by the ‘Customer Service Representative’ informing you that “We can have a technician there to investigate, next Wednesday sometime between the hours of noon and 4pm.”
Monopolies…
Having said what I did to BooMan above, I will readily admit that my cable Internet experience is probably different from the average non-techie’s, in that I am often able to diagnose problems myself that others wouldn’t be able to. It’s not bragging or anything; it’s just what I do for a living.
I have to agree with you about customer service. I did Windows 95 customer service for about a year. I was pretty good at it, able to solve problems that others didn’t, and eventually made it to be a second-tier support tech. Not everybody was able to. For every tech who was able to think their way through a problem, there were two or three who were lost if they couldn’t read from a script. Nowadays tech support seems to be moving overwhelmingly toward the second type of tech, to the point where I hate to call customer service on a technical question and will do everything possible to avoid calling a support line. I can only imagine what it must be like for people who don’t eat and breathe this stuff like I do.
when I first set up the HSI through Comcast — mainly because I couldn’t find anyone who could speak Mac; they’re a very Windows-centric company. 🙁 Finally got it figured out with the help of two different CSRs. (I considered applying for a job when they opened the Morgan Hill call center, but getting to south Santa Clara County from the north during normal commute hours is a bitch; despite changing commute patterns, transit is still mostly geared to those going north in the mornings, south in the evenings, and nowhere at night.)
I’m like you, Omir, in being a bit more techie than most; I was able to set up my Airport wireless network in about 15 minutes, and it would’ve been 10 if I hadn’t spent 5 minutes swearing and realized I had to reset the cable modem to get the network to work…fortunately I didn’t have to call Comcast for them to tell me that… 🙂
All the BS about “leakers will be punished” seems to have been forgotten in the fog of war and it appears everybody’s got their stories in alignment. Scooter’ll never see the inside of a jail unless Cheney goes too.
Happy Independence Day.
I’m watching a self-imposed “24” marathon myself – a full season on DVD. What a way to kill a weekend – I’ve hardly left the couch today. Bad!!!
Happy Dependence Day all.
I am thrilled to say that I am one of those people that caused Comcast to lose 57 Million dollars for the fourth quarter 2005. I learned they had LIED to me, were charging me to get a couple of BBC Programs that were carried FREE on PBS in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which I get without any cable at all.
Forced them to disconnect and waited several months before I paid!
Comcast shouldn’t even have a license for “Our Air Waves” as far as I am concerned.
Just my $.02!