Comcast to limit customers' broadband usage

[Matt Fulger]

Originally Posted by jjpmarketing

I'm sorry you had to deal with the Charter experience. You know they actually had a major problem of not having enough field technicians to work on line issues. It takes 6 months to train those guys. Some customers had to wait well over a month to get their internet fixed.

I would cancel in a heartbeat if a company ever told me that. I wouldn't care if it was the only internet connection within a 50 mile radius. I would move. That is total crap.

These companies need to move their support to Costa Rica if they outsource. I dealt with a company that had outsourced to Costa Rica... and I could understand every single word. They could understand me. Other than the fact that it is outsourced... I would say I was happy with that. I would prefer the jobs stay in America, but if they don't then Costa Rica gets my vote.

I have never been able to understand India reps. They don't understand me. It is always a difficult experience.

The Charter Experience. LOL Yeah, I think I'm still dealing with the Charter Experience. The new name is SuddenLink, but I believe it's just Charter under another name. Charter disappeared and SuddenLink magically appeared right after a big class action law suit against Charter. I can't see Charter selling out to a smaller company. Keep in mind there's no facts I'm basing my opinion on, it's just a gut feeling.

6 Months to train a field tech! Are these guys total IDIOTS or what? I've had zero training and there's no doubt in my mind I could go setup a cable internet connection anywhere the service is available. It's almost as easy as setting up cable TV. Screw the cable in, turn on the PC. There's not much more to it than that in MOST cases. Sometimes a phone call to the main office to provision the modem, but other than that, there's really not much to installing cable internet.

And these idiots they send out here get 6 months training for that? Better still, the vast majority of them (in my experience anyway) STILL cannot properly hook up a Cable modem. As stated earlier, I have to do it for them. Also, anytime I've had to have a tech come to the house, I've basically had to hold their hand and tell them how to do their job.
Why is that? I don't understand, especially now that you've told me about the 6 months training.

I personally wouldn't wait for a month for service either. I'd cancel for sure, even if there was NO other option. As I did with Verizon. I stayed offline for over a year simply because I refused to pay for services I never asked for and never recieved.

Verizon outsources to India, sometimes I could understand them; sometimes, I cannot. But I think the main reason I could understand them sometimes is simply cuz I have a few Indian programmer buddies I've talked to on Skype and Yahoo. So I got used to the heavy accent.

Anyways, this whole 6 months training thing really blows me away. I cannot believe someone could go through 6 months training and STILL not know how to hookup and/or troubleshoot a cable internet setup. I mean, there's only so much that could go wrong:

A. Bad Modem
B. Bad Router (in case of a network)
C. Bad Ethernet Card
D. Bad Cable
E. Bad Cable Splitter
F. Bad Cable Software (which can usually be avoided and/or bypassed to begin with)
H. Cable company itself experiencing outages and/or updating the system

I mean obviously there are other things that could go wrong, like a junky OS or some other PC complication, but the cable company doesn't fix computers, or even attempt to. So if it isn't one of the above problems, it's probably not a problem on their end to begin with. Or am I the idiot here? And if I am the idiot, then why is it 99% of the time I have to fix the problem FOR the moron techs they send?

The last incident I had was simply replacing the old, outdated cable wiring in this old house. The cable tech probably "could" have done that for me, however, I would have
a. had to wait 48 hours and b. I doubt they would have run the cable through the walls, floors and ceiling the way I did (to hide the wires). At least, I know they didn't the last time they actually installed the wires for me (cuz I ripped out the old **** to start fresh before I even called them). All they did was run it into the basement and then throughout the house everywhere I wanted it (after several visits, that is).

They didn't even attempt to hide any cables and they tried to short me on the installation.
I PAID for a 4 room install, they ran ONE wire (naturally, I wasn't home for that one, the better half was). We had to call them back a few times to get all 4 wires ran. I'm quite sure had I been home during the installation process, all wires would have been run the first time out. But I'm a bit more pushy than my girlfriend. Instead, they had to come out 2 or 3 times to finish the initial job. And that was only AFTER I started to cancel my service and demand a refund.

But the fact is, this **** is nothing new. Big companies do this type of **** all the time and get away with it cuz we don't have any other options. MaBelle used to control the phone lines and could charge whatever they wanted until it was deregulated and new companies came in to pick up the slack. Now we can have unlimited long distance for under $100 bucks, under $50 in some places.

Anyway, life goes on and we all deal with it.

Peace & Prosperity,
Matt Fulger

[zerofill]

6 Months to train a field tech! Are these guys total IDIOTS or what?

You do realize that there is a lot of bull**** red tape that companies have to deal with and that is why it takes 6 months right? Not because someone is necessarily an idiot.
Not to mention all the safety ****...some of them still climb poles here.

Ever hear of OSHA?

Try half ass training someone have something happen and watch the fines role in.

[VinceNouvel]

comcast comcast comcast...
they are juswt giving me trouble... I have 8mb/s connection but never ever have a download speed more than 2mbps... heck..
so they decrease my speed in order to save bandwith?
Jeez, I will start to hit them harder from now on..

[jjpmarketing]

Yeah and the six months wasn't necessarily all for the cable modem install. It was probably more to deal with the OSHA stuff like already mentioned, in addition to teaching them how to properly terminate coax cables, and test noise levels in the line, etc., etc. and all the other stuff to go along with cable tv installation... and the phone service that Charter was selling... it was supposed to be a hybrid between a land line and a VOIP line. Then add knowing how to setup and install a network on top of that...

That is quite a bit in six months. Of course when you offer crappy pay for a job that can be quite dirty and physical at times... this is the quality of worker you get. You get what you pay for.

[Matt Fulger]

Originally Posted by zerofill

You do realize that there is a lot of bull**** red tape that companies have to deal with and that is why it takes 6 months right? Not because someone is necessarily an idiot.
Not to mention all the safety ****...some of them still climb poles here.

Ever hear of OSHA?

Try half ass training someone have something happen and watch the fines role in.

Yes, I understand the Red Tape Bull**** and OSHA, I worked for Waste Management, Factory Jobs, Cunstruction, etc. before so YES, I'm definatley aware of OSHA (don't get me started on them). Although, I admit I wasn't thinking about red tape within my post.

I was thinking more along the lines that their training program must not be too great. Or they hire unqualified people that don't want to work to begin with and no amount of training will do them any good. They don't wanna be there.

Originally Posted by jjpmarketing

Yeah and the six months wasn't necessarily all for the cable modem install. It was probably more to deal with the OSHA stuff like already mentioned, in addition to teaching them how to properly terminate coax cables, and test noise levels in the line, etc., etc. and all the other stuff to go along with cable tv installation... and the phone service that Charter was selling... it was supposed to be a hybrid between a land line and a VOIP line. Then add knowing how to setup and install a network on top of that...

Good point and thanks for correcting me, I feel MUCH better now. I wasn't thinking about Cable TV signals and their new phone system either. And you're probably right about the OSHA stuff too. All I wanted was a simple Cable Internet connection, nothing else and that's what I was thinking about. lol Either way, no matter how long the training is and what all they have to learn, if they DO NOT learn the job, they shouldn't be sent to my house to install my service. No matter what service that might be. It pisses me off to no end when I have to do their job for them. I've demanded and gotten(after hours on the phone) a refund on the installation price once.

Originally Posted by jjpmarketing

That is quite a bit in six months. Of course when you offer crappy pay for a job that can be quite dirty and physical at times... this is the quality of worker you get. You get what you pay for.

You probably hit the nail right on the head with that one.

Now that I've vented, I will say that I do seem to get better speeds with cable here vs. DSL. However, in Michigan it kinda depended on the time of day. But overall DSL was faster. Cable speeds were advertised as being 3x faster than DSL but from a user experience, DSL was faster more often than cable. I didn't have FIOS either. I think cable just had more users and was more congested. Plus, I was closer to the DSL hub (or whatever they call it) since you had to be within a 3 mile radius.

Overall, the Internet experience was much better on DSL than Cable up there. Whereas down here in West "BY GOD" Virginia, it's the opposite.

Either way, they BOTH beat the **** out of good old dialup.

[jjpmarketing]

If you can get cable in a rural area... that is the best. DSL in the city because of the location of the hubs and the number of hubs.

I had cable in the south end of Louisville. Everything south of me was spread out businesses and a few residences. Not enough to really compete with bandwidth on. I live in the country further south of where I was living... and I am using DSL. Service is comparable between the two, but if I had my choice I would still prefer cable.

[Matt Fulger]

Yeah, Cable Internet Rocks. Their support just sucks my left testical.
I'm curious to see how this FIOS plays out. Also, have you ever heard about Internet connection thorugh the power lines? I recall reading about it a few years back, but never followed it. A fellow warrior had pasted a link to the WF about it.

[ahlexis]

Anyone remember the old Compuserve? Not the one run by AOL, the ORIGINAL one? The one that charged $12 - $24 per HOUR for access?

There was this program called TAPCIS, that allowed you to set up to get on and download and then get off and not burn up so much $$$.

At the rate these companies are going people who DO go over will just get more creative about how they access the internet, like the creators and users of that TAPCIS program.

Case in point: one of my neighbors' wireless is wide open. I try not to use it even though it seems to be the path of least resistance for my computer. But here's the thing. I bet my neighbor only uses it to get a bit of email, nothing heavy. Those that require more than the limit will just start cruising the streets for bandwidth, their laptops set to tie into whatever wireless is open! Which in my eyes is even worse than the God-awful downloading of tons of torrents and illegal music downloads!

[chucknnita]

I'm not going to call it a problem until it actually becomes a problem. Although I wouldn't be surprised by anything Comcast does. I'll just go back to DSL or get a dedicated circuit and sell access to a few neighbors to offset the cost. I can get a T1 for under 400 a month. A few years ago I never thought I would think of a T1 as slow, but whatcha gonna do.

[Internet Income]

Don't all ISP's limit usage? I was sure they did, a big thing in the UK 6 months ago proved that 85% of iSP's were not even giving 50% of the claimed bandwith. People were paying for 8MB and not getting 1 MB!

[Matt Fulger]

So then, no one else has heard of powerline internet access yet?

Well, if anyone IS interested take a look at:

Power line communication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From there you can find links to providers, etc.

[Matt Fulger]

Originally Posted by ahlexis

Anyone remember the old Compuserve? Not the one run by AOL, the ORIGINAL one? The one that charged $12 - $24 per HOUR for access?

Yeah, I remember those days. But I didn't sign online with them EVER. ISP's used to have per minute usage fees too. I never paid per minute fees either. I lways found a way around those excessive fees.

Originally Posted by Internet Income

Don't all ISP's limit usage? I was sure they did, a big thing in the UK 6 months ago proved that 85% of iSP's were not even giving 50% of the claimed bandwith. People were paying for 8MB and not getting 1 MB!

I think you are right, I stated basically the same thing earlier in the thread. I mean, really, who here has EVER actually got the max speeds advertised? Even when you pay for the highest level available, you will be LUCKY to actually get the minimum package speeds. But what the hell can we do about it?

[Wakunahum]

250g is actually quite a bit of bandwidth.

I have been monitoring mine for the last 4 months and haven't used more than 20g in any one month. That includes watching way too many videos online as well as a subscription to netflix watching movies online.

[jjpmarketing]

That is interesting. Did you use the connection 8 to 10 hours per day?