OT - Comcast Bringing Gigabit Pro to Indiana, Michigan
I was thrilled with my 40/3 download/upload until I read this post.
Apparently, Orlando is still in the stone ages and I didn't know.
Seriously.
"I know people tend not to like Comcast, but I've never had an issue with them."
You might be the only person ever to not have an issue with them. I had comcast for 2 years before I got so fed up I quit cable.
http://consumerist.com/2014/04/08/congratulations-to-comcast-your-2014-…
A majority of the time it's the signal levels coming into the residence.
If it's a network issue inside your house, that's a different matter.
I live in both DC and Michigan (commute for work) and so I have Comcast in DC, and U-verse in Michigan. While my comcast internet is good (thanks to my Apple router, the comcast one was terrible) the TV is horrible. It has WAY fewer HD channels, terrible customer interface, and graphics that remind me of Pong or Cable guides circa 1990. Plus it goes out all the time.
Meanwhile, U-Verse in Michigan has a modern consumer interface, good graphics with depth, and far, far more HD channels. One example: In DC I pay for all the (HBO etc) movie channels, and with Comcast, only the main HBO, Showtime et. al. Channel is HD--all the other HBO and Showtime channels are Standard Def--are you kidding me? Every single movie channel on U-verse is high def. Plus the on demand function is way better.
You should check out Comcast's X1 TV platform. And if you don't like that, you can buy a TiVo and get a Cablecard.
there are many complaints from customers who upgraded, over picture quality and reliability issues. So it scared me off.
Let me tell you also how comcast lost (I was with him when he returned his box at the local service center) my friend's cable box and put a collection on his credit report. Both comcast and verizon are the two companies I will literally break out the celebratory drinks if they ever go under.
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Eh, that could be the case with any cable provider. I've heard similar tales with Time Warner, Charter, Cox, and others.
I've had Comcast for 10 years and it's generally been fine. Customer service is decent, at best, but I haven't had many issues (knock on wood). Outages were fairly frequent when I first moved to Illinois, but that went away after they upgraded/replaced some lines in our area. Internet and cable have been stable and fast. They are expensive, though, and I haven't even upgraded to all the X1 stuff and latest equipment.
we have a winner.
I've had Comcast for the 11 years I've lived in my current house, and so far, I've gotten away free of most major issues. Some of the worst were probbaly pretty mild in comparison to what I know others have experienced - for example:
-The office near me in Woodhaven, MI passed out boxes whose voltage ratings did not match that of the power cable supplying them, so the box in the master bedroom shorted out pretty quickly, to say the least. They were quick to replace the box and get me a compatible cable though.
-For a while earlier this year, we had intermittent signal issues on the On Demand service, bad enough that it was rendered unusable for a couple days. They traced it back to a node in our subdivision, so I assume other people were having the issue. The day we finally called, it was fixed with 2-3 hours.
Maybe I've just been fortunate so far. No idea.
I have had zero issues with uverse. Compared to Comcast I am actually getting the speed I paid for.
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I download/upload a few TB a month.
third world country when it comes to internet access and speeds. $300 a fucking month!?!?!
We invented the damn thing and we pay more for it and get slower connection speeds than the rest of the civilized world.
It's way easier to justify the status quo rather than further expansion if they can claim no one wants gigabit. Of course people would want gigabit if it were somewhere below $300, but they'll leave that part out.
that we start treating internet access like a public utility. The worst part is that there is a ton of fiber optic infrastructure just sitting there unused. The telcoms built it in the 90's but never finished it. Chances are that the closest main road to your house has fiber optic cables next to it. They just need to finish the last mile and connect it to the residences.
Working for a small ISP the infrastructure generally is there. However it often is used as the backbone to get to a cable system. Regardless, switching to a pure fiber network and eliminating that "last mile" is not as simple as it sounds. Last mile construction for a home (or business) is estimated in that article as 1k per subscriber. It can go way beyond that.. Urban areas where wiring is all underground only adds to this. In addtion there are many network headaches of assuming everyone in a given node is upgraded and if so that there is truly enough fibers ran to that node. If not needing to multiplex the fiber can cause other issues. It is not just as simple to say "Oh, there is fiber within a mile, it is good to go."
3.0 can hit 500 Mbps and 3.1 is soon to arrive. Dealing with last mile copper is much easier. Most computers still have 10/100 WAN cards, and even the new MacBook Airs don't have LAN ports. It's easy to bash ISPs for saying people don't have it, but in most cases peoples' own equipment can't support Gigabit speeds.
You don't want to pay $300 a month for the service, the companies don't want to invest thousands of dollars per subscriber. Government = politics and some of how we got to this point in the first place. I'll stop there so we don't stray into politics.
be regulated like the energy companies. Have the taxpayers kick in to finish building the infrastructure and turn the ISP's into a public/private partnership.
Or just mandate that the companies do it. Add a $10 per month surcharge for the last mile fiber connection. That would pay for it in just over 8 years. Make it $15 per month and it's paid for in less than 6.
Government regulation is politics, and not for the board.
8 or even 6 years to recover capital is a long time when these companies are merging and buying eachother out it seems on a regular basis. $10 or $15 dollars a month is a ton when people are paying <$50/mo (Comcasts 75 Mbps package is $45, and a lot of customers stick to the slowest packages such as their 6 Mbps for $30/mo). Good luck having people swallow a 50% increase.
an entity, the internet, that was created by the US Government. I'd say it would be difficult to discuss the issue without going into politics, at least a bit.
So ok, you can't get people to agree to pay $15 per month more for superior internet access. Then it comes out of the pockets of the ISP's. The big ones are making massive profits selling me access to a system built by the US Government using my tax dollars.
Comcast can just get rid of their dividend for a few quarters.
http://www.thestreet.com/quote/CMCSA.html
Other countries have faster, better, and cheaper internet access. Why can't we?
I hate Comcast with a passion. I've cut everything I can from them except internet since I have zero options right now. I would pay more for slower service just to be done with Comcast.
btw I have Dish (very happy) for TV and Verizon (better than Comcast) for phone.
If there is a worse corporation in America than Comcast I don't want to know who they are.
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I can get 502 Bad Gateway even faster!
Need more football content!!
I hate June as far as sports are concerned. No offense made to OP, I just want football to be here.
Did I mention football?
North or South?
What the hell does any of this mean?
I actually just cancelled my Comcast internet and TV this morning, and had absolutely no issues. Yes they offered me a deal to stay, but I said no and they said ok, end of story. It was... refreshing.
Go Blue!
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Then this SOBs had the balls to call me offering a deal on 50 mb speed. Which is their strategy, don't provide the speed I pay for already and then offer to upgrade me for an additional charge
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With Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO on Demand, etc, they are trying to make up for their cable losses by offering this faster package. It's the right move.
Unfortunately I hate Comcast customer service. I hate having to call all the time to remove a $10 modem fee when I have had my own modem for five years. They've screwed up my billing, missed appointments, incorrectly told me my modem was no good. I wish we had a fiber option in Michigan like Verizon. They're not perfect, but I never had trouble with their service.
Like most people, my bill kept going up so I called to cancel with the idea that they would offer me a deal to stay. I told them I wanted to cancel and the lady said ok and cancelled my service right then. I had no back up plan in place so I went without TV and internet for a week until Uverse could come out. My whole family hated me for a week. I've been extremely happy with Uverse since though.
I would rather not have internet service than do business with the worst company in history, Comcast.
necessarily in that order. I cut the tv cord a long time ago, and use internet, AppleTV, Roku and FireTV, with an OTA antennae, and its been great. Thread started by a Comcast employee? Made me wonder. The pricing suggested is absurd by any reasonable estimate.
with customer service reps who care more about the gum on the bottom of their shoe than you,
and uverse is the shittier, cheaper, marginally (at best) better customer service expensive, evil, horrible company.
just like the cell phone industry. There's practically zero competition and the consumer suffers. I live in a city with its own cable system (which sucks, and is expensive.) My options are literally 1) crappy municipal cable and internet which are very expensive and not even close to speed/quality of comcast/uverse 2) uverse which has substandard equipment and speeds.
I agree with whoever said it upthread, we're the richest nation in the world and we have extremely middling home use technology and a high price tag. WTF, mate?
I just recently purchased a house in St. Clair Shores and got the Comcast double play with the 105 Blast internet, HBO and the X1 system for $130 a month with all taxes and modem rental included. The internet is topping out at 130 mbs download and 30 mbs upload. I came from shitty AT&T internet where watching a standard def Youtube video was followed by buffering every 15 seconds. Hated it. Love this new interenet.
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