Global Geek News Blog

My family has used Comcast for internet for the past several years, and have had our fare share of problems with their internet service ever since we have had it.

I am forced to call Comcast on a semi-regular basis because of some kind of connection problems with my high-speed internet. In all of those times, only maybe twice, was the problem actually on my end. I may be on my sixth Motorola Surfboard cable modem, but despite the insistence of Comcast, my connection problem is rarely on my end. This leads me to my latest encounter with Comcast’s technical support.

Sunday afternoon, my internet connection slowed to a rate that made me envious of any dial-up user. With rare bursts of speed, my average browsing speed was around half that of dial-up internet. The strangest thing about the whole event was that doing speed tests through my browser was showing that I was getting record speeds, typically between 9-14mbps down. Despite this wonderful statistic, it took forever to load web pages and playing games was out of the question. Finally I figured enough was enough and started troubleshooting possible issues on my end, powercycling the modem and router several times, as well as clearing out the internet settings (this didnt make much since considering the problem was happening on all my computers, but I figured it cant hurt since it needed done anyway).

After about 30 minutes of troubleshooting and making sure that everything on my end was as it should be, I decided to run a trace route to see what kind of results I could get out of it. By trace routing sites such as Google and Yahoo, I was able to track down that the problem was not on my end, but extremely long lags between hops, mostly dealing with Comcast and AT&T. After realizing this, I gave in and called Comcast to figure out what was going on.

When I called Comcast, after I wormed my way through their answering machine, I finally spoke to a woman, who’s name I don’t remember. This lady began by asking the standard questions as to who I was, although this time I was asked the account number and the last 4 digits of the social security number on the account. Considering how many times I have called there, including one other time in the past week for modem issues, I know these arent standard questions unless you are altering your service. I told the Comcast employee about my problems, for which she insisted that I do everything I had just completed, such as powercycling the modem and router and clearing out my internet settings. She said that there were no issues in my area, which I knew was a complete lie. After I did all of the recommended tests to the satisfaction of the representative, the problem continued, to which the ignorant employee blamed me for my problems and said that the problem was on my end, despite myself proving otherwise.

At this point, the Comcast representative attempted to fix me up with a technician to come out to my house, which is not possible during the day as I work during the day and cannot be home for this. After my refusal, I hung up in frustration. While I understand that with inexperienced internet users, problems such as this could be on the users end, I knew the problem was not on my end despite the fact that the Comcast representative did everything she could to convince me that it was on my end. The company was not even willing to entertain the idea that the problem could be on their end. For those of you who are curious how things turned out, by 10pm that night, the problem was magically cured.

I would consider overlooking this problem if this was the first time it had happened, but this seams to happen nearly every time I call Comcast. For the price that they require customers to pay for internet access, it would be nice to be shown some respect and kindness instead of rude arrogance. I hope by publishing this story, it will encourage others to come forward and cause changes in Comcast’s policy when dealing with customers with problems. Also, a public apology to myself and every other customer that has been treated this way would also go along way, because as it stands, my family plans on getting rid of Comcast before the end of the year.