Comcast: June 26, 2009

It's Friday afternoon and I'm trying to play World of Warcraft. The problem is that I keep getting disconnected from the internet. Finally I complain about it to a couple of guild mates. One of them immediately responds, "Comcast?" I reply in the affirmative and he proceeds to explain that Comcast frequently likes to reset internet connections for some reason. My guild mates want to go to Kharazan for fun. It's a "raid" instance designed for 10 level 70 players. My friends are very well geared level 80 players. Though not as well geared I have several level 80 characters who could accompany them but decide not to due to the frequent disconnects. After the fifth disconnect I finally give up on playing WoW and go watch television instead. I am not happy and decide that I might as well blog about any bad service I receive from Comcast, hence the sudden flurry of Comcast postings.

Comcast: Signing Up

I called Comcast on a Thursday to get information. The customer service rep (CSR) that I talked to told me internet service would be $23 per month for the first year and then $43 per month after that. I could install it myself or I could have them send a technician out to do it for me for $50. I could supply my own cable modem or they would provide one for $3 per month. I would need to supply my own networking equipment.

The very next day, Friday, I went to Best Buy to price a wireless router and adapter and wound up buying those plus a cable modem as well as a splitter and some coax cable so I could do the install myself. I then called Comcast to tell them to sign me up. The CSR, a different one than the previous day, proceeded to quote me a price of $19.95 a month for the first year and then $42 per month after that. I thought it was odd that their pricing had changed from the day before but since it was cheaper I told her to go ahead and sign me up. She proceeded to put the order into the computer or rather she proceeded to try to put the order in but she didn't know how to do it and finally had to call her supervisor over to do it for her. I thought this kind of odd given that her job was to take orders but whatever.

She then asked me when I wanted to schedule an installer to come by and I explained that I'd been told the day before that I could just do the install myself. So she tried several times to put it into the computer but couldn't figure out how to do it and rather than call her supervisor back again instead insisted that we had the wrong kind of services for a self-install and said that we would have to have an installer come out. So I said alright and set up an appointment for Monday figuring I could have the installer look at the cable outlets scatter throughout the house and see if they were usable instead of having to have the cable modem with the television which is at the extreme opposite end of the house from where I want to put the computer.

So Monday rolls around and the installers show up. They're nice and professional and quickly determine that the other cable outlets aren't hooked up and consequently can't be used without doing a lot of work so I tell them to just put the cable modem with the television and I'll deal with it. They then proceed to connect a splitter and hook up both cable box and modem. The only thing they do that I couldn't have done for myself is install a Comcast cable modem since I didn't have one. They explain that they can't use my cable modem because I bought it from Best Buy instead of Comcast and so I'll have to call Comcast tech support and give them information from the modem and after about three or so days they'll put the modem information into their system and then I can use it. In the meantime I've got to rent a modem from Comcast.

There's absolutely no reason why I couldn't have done the install myself as the first Comcast CSR told me I could. The second Comcast CSR just didn't know how to enter stuff into the system despite it being her job.

Comcast: AT&T vs. Comcast

About a week after Hurricane Ike I called both AT&T and Comcast to inform them that their lines going into my parents' house were physically down, having been taken out by a falling tree. The AT&T customer service rep (CSR) that I talked to was polite and helpful. I called on Saturday afternoon and an AT&T technician showed up at my parents' house bright and early, around 9 am, the next morning to hook them back up.

By way of contrast, Comcast had apparently configured their voice mail system to hang up on anyone trying to make tech support calls. After laboriously working my way through their voice mail system to the tech support only to be told to try again later and then be disconnected, I decided to try Comcast's online support instead since I already had internet access back at my apartment. After sitting in a Comcast chat room for 15-20 minutes a Comcast CSR finally showed up. She was rather rude and her attitude could be summed up with the phrase, "Why are you bothering me?" So I explained that I just wanted to make sure they knew they knew the lines to the house were down since I didn't know if their equipment could detect that or not and was told, and this is almost verbatim, "We'll get around to it when we get around to it."

Well it took Comcast about a month to get around to it and when they did get around to it the technician made a half-assed job of it. My parents repeatedly called Comcast to let them know there was a problem but the CSRs would just tell them to unplug their cable box, plug it back in, and wait 20-30 minutes and that would fix the problem. Even when told that my parents had already tried that and it didn't fix the problem, the CSRs would insist they do it again. It took another two months before Comcast finally decided that maybe resetting the cable box wasn't going to work and sent a technician out who then fixed the problem.

Add in the fact that every person I know that has Comcast has complained about the quality of their service and several have recently switched from Comcast to AT&T U-Verse and I was definitely leaning towards signing up with AT&T to get my internet access.

So armed with the knowledge of how much my parents already pay for Comcast cable I went down to an AT&T store to price their U-Verse service. I inquired about internet coupled with the second tier of their television service and it wasn't that much more than my parents are currently paying for Comcast's bottom tier. For more channels plus a free DVR plus internet I didn't see how Comcast could match the price but, to make my parents happy, I called Comcast anyway just to compare.

AT&T offered $10 off a month for the first 6 months plus $100 cash back, free installation, free cable modem, free wireless router, and a free adapter. Comcast offered $23 a month for internet for the first year then $43 month, I was told I could do the install myself or they could send a technician out for $50, I could supply my own cable modem or I could rent one from them for $3 per month, and they didn't supply routers and adapters so I would have to buy those from someone else.

The way it broke down, AT&T was cheaper for the first six months. Comcast was cheaper for the first year unless you had to buy networking gear, as I did, in which case AT&T was still cheaper for the first year. After than AT&T was about $7 more a month but for that $7 I would be getting more channels and a free DVR so I was all set to go with AT&T.

It was at this point that I discovered that my parents have reached an age at which they don't handle change well. Since just the idea of switching them from Comcast to AT&T was clearly causing them a lot of distress and remembering how much trouble they had learning to operate the Comcast remote and navigate the Comcast menus, I decided that it would be best to stay with Comcast despite AT&T being the better deal.

Comcast: 10-1 BC (Before Comcast)

Since I seem to be stuck with Comcast for cable and internet I figured I might as well blog about the experience.

To give you some idea of where I'm coming from, when I moved into my apartment I had to get my cable service from OpTel and I had a choice of phone service from OpTel or Alltel. At the time I was working for a division of MCI so as a benefit I was receiving a monthly long distance credit but I had to have MCI as my long distance carrier to use it. Since OpTel insisted on being both local and long distance carrier if I used them I went with Alltel instead. When OpTel proved to be extremely bad at providing cable I dropped them in favor of DirecTV. (Amusing story, when I went into the apartment office to ask if we were allowed to have satellite the apartment manager told me, "No, but if we don't see the antenna we don't see the antenna if you know what I mean." I did and shortly thereafter I was a DirecTV customer.) To give you an idea of just how incompetent OpTel was, shortly after I cancelled my OpTel service I discovered that my television, through no action of my own, was suddenly receiving more premium movie channels from the OpTel cable coming out of the wall than I had ever gotten as a paid subscriber and continued to do so for about a year before they apparently figured out that instead of disconnecting me they had hooked me up with more channels and finally cut me off. It didn't really matter to me at that point since I'd been a DirecTV customer the entire time.

When Alltel offered DSL I signed up and when they sold their broadband service to Windstream I went along. After being an Alltel/Windstream customer for over 10 years with no real complaints about the quality of service I had received from them it was with a certain amount of sadness that I called them to cancel my account. Same goes for DirecTV. I was happy with their service but they just aren't practical at my parents' house unless we want to cut down a bunch of trees, which we don't.