Kim,

Are you in an area where Comcast took over for Adelphia? I ask because Adelphia lied when Comcast bought them and it turned out there was sub-standard equipment in a lot of areas. It will take them some time to get all the equipment up to par.

Some of the high muckety-mucks at Adelphia went to jail for the fraud in the sale.

I am in the worst area of New England according to a Comcast tech that I know. I was having tons of issues with internet and phone service (never television for some reason) and he told me some of the background.

I have to say that I haven't had any major problems since summer so I think their improving in my area, at least.

Tina

I know how you feel, I had Comcast/Comcrap years ago. And I also never understood why you only had one choice! If you want cable you have to go with comcast and dont have a choice. And the cable internet went out all the time! It was so frustrating and I think our bills should be deducted for every minute the service is out. Why should we have to pay for something we aren't getting?

Where I live now its Time Warner (are they owned by comast or vice versa?) But I don't have them, I have DSL. I looked up cable net and cable and it was so much more expensive than DSL and satellite so I went with DSL and satellite. I would never go with cable, especially not comcast.

When they switched us over to Comcast from Adelphia, we were having similar problems, takes them a while to get everything switched over. Haven't had any issues since then, around 18 months or so ago.

I still think there should be more than 1 cable company to choose from if someone wants cable. I thought monopolies were illegal??? Like for satellite you choose between Dish Network and Direct TV so they are always competing and having specials/giving incentives because they have to compete. Comcast doesn't have to do that cause they have no competition. Bet their service would be a lot better if they did.

I've heard Comcast is good in my area, with faster speeds
than the DSL I have now. Verizon annoys me so I'm
considering switching partly out of spite.

A guy down the road from me told me the cable speeds
on his street are phenomenal. With cable you share the
"pipe" - he attributed his consistent high speeds to
being on the same street with a lot of retired people
who don't use computers much.

###

I guess I would use Charter. Comcast sends me mail
though, so I'm a little baffled why they would market
outside their territory.

Ohhhh that makes sense. Well I'm still glad I don't have cable net. Maybe they've improved since several yrs ago, but I'm satisfied with my dsl.

my sympathy to Kim, et al.

i am at the other end of the country from most of you and comcrap took over here too. it is sooo unfair that you can't even watch public channels without cable here and you are forced to use their monopoly.

i had a lot of issues when i first set it up and it was related to the wiring and equipment in my geographical location too - they seem to have straightened it out as it is running well now. (same with AT&T)

like some above, my tv rarely if ever goes down - however the idea of tying the modem up between the phone and internet - well it sucks. how can you call for help if they are both down? answer: (cell phone 36 cents a minute)

i really had a lot of trouble when i first set it up and they were out here over and over and over until they figured it out.

then later i was having a problem with it crashing frequently even though i could just reboot to correct - and they wanted to blame my alarm company, which actually was a huge benefit because it chirps if the phone goes off to let me know the alarm is down - which let's me know i am also not connected to the internet. comcrap gave me a new modem and everything has been ok ever since.

now their email is the worst and competing with yahoo and hotmail for being pure crappiest of all crap - i won't use it because none of our customers EVER receive mail i send to them even 10 times.

i pay $160 for digital/hd cable tv, internet and phone - i could get it much cheaper from direct tv or dish network but it is too windy here (coupled with the fact i don't want a dish ruining my water view)

- funny how it didn't work even when they put it up on a pole above my windows. they really tried - and then charged me an early termination fee when it wouldn't work. can't say i blame them after all they tried to do for me.

it is sometimes better to work with the 2nd "best" since like the TV commercial for hertz or avis - they 'try harder'...

Well, I DID find out that comcast is the SAME company I had in Sherman Oaks, on the other side of the country. I got vonage and soon after found it FAILED! Later, comcast got SUED because they limited voip so THEY could provide it as a service. Internet was unstable for YEARS after @HOME went bankrupt. My mother recently got comcast telephone, in addition to cable, of course. It didn't work out. It kept cutting out communications. It was like the phone was on MUTE. And they didn't make it clear to her as to WHAT she would get or WHAT she had to pay.

BTW they apparently want to switch EVERYONE over to digital. NEW customers are given NO choice. Do YOU have digital? And your connection is probably just down. Lately, the analog TV and internet have worked fine, for me at least.

Steve

Trust me, this is a Comcast problem.
We have had them out at least 6 times in the past year for the SAE problem over and over.
Each tech claims the previous one didn't know what they were doing and that THEY (the new tech) will solve it once and for all.
One ech put signal amplifiers on all the cables, claiming the signal was unable to make it upstairs. ( I swear thats what he told us).
Another replaced a lot of the cable claiming that the signal was too powerful for the old cable that we had ,the orinal installed cable when we moved in 10 years ago.He said the new cable could handle the signal so the picture wouldnt freeze/choke anymore.
I actually think the closest I got to someone telling me the truth was when I once again reported that everything was out.
The tech I spoke to told me that there were no outages in the area,but from what he sees everyone on my street is having problems.
This goes along with what another tech told me a while back, which was most of the curently installed equiptment was old and falling apart and that I would contunue to have problems til comcrap came and repaired/upgraded what they had.
Trrut me, I know enough to know where the problem is,but thanks for all the responses.

By the way Steve, I agree with you about comcraps digital voice to,its worthless. I still have my old work phone hooked up and it runs off vonage, and I rarely have a problem except when I have to reset the comcrap router/modem.
Our home phone runs off the digital voice and we have nothing but problems with it

I've spent the last ten years in the cable industry.

As far as monopolies go, cable companies sign a franchise agreement with the city/town to be able to provide the cable service. A town can have two different cable providers but they cannot overbuild on top of each other. Basically, Cable company A may have service up to 123 Main St. and Cable company B may start at 124 Main St. There is a an FCC regulation that prevents both companies from servicing 123 Main St. With that said it is rare that cable companies will build in the same town because it's simply not reasonable from a financial standpoint.

KimW - You did good by asking to speak to a customer retention specialist. Next time request a "Technical Supervisor". (Not sure what Comcast calls there Tech Supervisors) to come to your home or at least provide an explanation on why the service is constantly down. Sounds like your getting technicians with different skill levels trying to fix your problem, with different ideas on what is actually causing the problem. Techs have skill levels from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. If all else fails you can pull out a trump card, which definately gets the ball rolling, tell the rep on the phone that you will be contacting the Public Service Commission if the problem is not resolved in a timely manner or ask for the phone number to the corporate office. And don't just threaten but actually contact the PSC or call corporate. And always ask for credit. Reps are trained not to offer credit unless the circumstances are extreme and many won't unless you specifically ask.



Seasoned - All broadcast signals are being delivered digitally as of June of last year or the year before(can't really remember.) FCC regulations forced all analog broadcast channels to begin delivering their signal digitally so cable companies are now offering digital services as part of their main packages. Think of it as an upsell. They get you in a digital box then they can try to sell you digital packages.

dave - You probably scared the bejeesus out of him. He probably thought you were a psycho customer coming to beat him down. lol.
Most homes are "tagged" with an ID at the pole where the cable is hooked into for identification purposes. He was probably provided the wrong information or no info at all. Cool that you got him to turn it back on. To save you some time and gas just contact the cable company and tell them what happened, they'll usually send someone out right away.

Of course, none of what I said applies to Comcast but most major cable companies operate amongst the same guidelines.

Not confused, just didn't explain myself in a way that made any sense. Blame it on the cold that has my brain waves scattered at the moment.

The FCC does not regulate cable or satellite(however there are rules that must be followed), they only regulate off-air broadcast stations. At some point there was a mandate per the FCC that all off air broadcast channels(this was basically your local stations) revert to a digital signal. You can still pick these channels up without the need for a digital convertor.

What I was trying to say was that many digital cable companies now-a-days are offering packages that include digital set-top recievers to customers even if the customer has no intention of taking on any digital packages. I don't know if this is the Comcast way but in order to recieve any premium channels such as HBO, MAX etc... it is now required that you have a digital set-top reciever as many companies are no longer offering these channels via analog. Like I said, I don't know the Comcast way but from reading trade mags most companies have reverted to this.

As far as the analog to digital convertor, that was only required if you DID NOT have cable television. Cable TV subscribers were not affected and needed no additional equipment when the conversion took place even if you had a television that was 30 years old, as long as you were hooked into cable you were fine. It was the people that were not subscribing to cable that needed the convertors.

I can't tell you how many times my cable company has been sold. It used to be I think mediaone or maybe mediageneral? After that it was bought out I think by Roadrunner and then after that attbi.com and then after that comcrap.
And with each buyout myservice has deteriated.

Just want to add this to the Comcast record: they're latest trick is that they've been billing me "returned payment fees" which, when I checked with my bank, never existed. As in, I paid, the bank paid Comcast, Comcast assessed a "returned payment fee." I'm still working this out.

When Comcast came to town and took over time warner, I swore - never cable again.
I love my ATT DSL, as well as my DirecTV.......only when we have those 'major' storms is when I might lose tv for awhile.

Sucks to be stuck without at least some option

Andie

Steven:

They have levels. Basic/with or without blocks of channels. then you start adding on if you want the 'plex' (complex like star or hbo, showtime, indie whatever) - for example

I have just basic and then digital - $10 a month extra and I can get Turner Classics, Independent Film Channel, Indie-Plex, and Sundance Channels-

I don't do HBO Showtime and all of 100 other plexes

I pay like $150 for ISP-Internet-cable/wireless/+ telephone unlimited (free long distance), voice mail all that; + TV and on demand (record movies on a clock thingy and watch later)

they are actually decent - sometimes - last week we had lightening, power outage in neighborhood, and then the next day i had a telephone and TV but no Internet.

The lightening fried the port on my PC (and my router) and the comcast tech was nice enough to give me an ethernet adapter for free and didn't charge me for the visit since there was nothing wrong with their modem.

man - neither deskop or laptop worked. (is it finally time to get a text phone thingy? COLD TURKEY.

I am twice-blessed telecomically ok -

My Belkin Router has LIFETIME replacement - so it was time (way past time actually) to replace the G router with an N. Free - all i have to do is send back the poor blown up old one.

what do you mean Bill?

it just happened last weekend...

two minutes later:
oh ha ha on me.

i see now february 2010 -

guilty of what i accuse new-b's of when they don't read the thread and just jump in there and slobber all over the place.

making whatever i said drivel.

sorry!

Patrician,
He means Steve's post if from February of this year. Someone is bring old threads back to life.

oh! yes Kim I caught it two seconds after I posted above.

duh.

Yeah, it really doiesn't add anything. HECK, I got things they don't offer now. My mother wanted a deal and couldn't simply ask for what I had. They also INSISTED that she needed to have things installed, whereas I just plugged in. Of course RECENTLY they asked ME to install the other stuff as well. 8-(

Steve