I apologize for my recent lack of posting, however, I must mention that this is not due to a lack of ideas or effort on my part. Rather it is due to what could quite probably be the worst run company I have ever come into contact with: Comcast.
I would like to publicly announce that Comcast is undeserving of any patronage. Those who are considering subscribing to their so-called "high-speed internet," think twice.
Here is a brief overview of what I've been through in the past six months since having subscribed to Comcast.
Off and on we've been having connection issues. Sometimes the internet was slow, and sometimes it simply wouldn't work at all. I wrote many posts on blogger that simply got completely lost due to the unreliability of Comcast's internet. At times, when I went to attach an attachment on my work email, with even something as small as a two page word file, it would take 20 minutes or longer and then, 50% of the time it wouldn't attach it anyway. Web pages were dropped. Forget using anything interactive... Comcast is too slow for that.
We've called dozens of times. I've lost count. Their customer service reps do no know what they're doing and their supervisors seem to know even less. They are rude and extremely condescending. They took us through the same process of trouble shooting every time despite out insistence that we had already done it. Every time they tried to blame it on both of our computers (one on a wireless one on a wire... one 6 years old, the other less than 6 months). When we insisted that that simply wasn't the problem, after 45 minutes or so on the phone, much of which was spent on hold, they would finally send out a "technician."
The technicians constantly came late (even though they had a window of time of 4 hours) did not do as requested, and were never informed of what the problem was. We would have to go through the process of telling them what was wrong all over again. Again, they would try to blame it on our computers. One time they replaced a wire that hooked the modem up to my computer (really helpful considering it was also a problem with the WIRELESS computer as well). Another time they replaced the modem. Another time they just came over and deleted the few cookies I had on my computer... and didn't even try that on my wife's... SAME PROBLEM. None of it worked of course. They didn't know what they were doing.
I also would like to add that both the technicians and the customer service reps could clearly see and stated that we had a slow signal. We continued to insist that it must be something in the building and not in our particular apartment that is causing the problem. We were told that that couldn't be the problem which really meant they just didn't feel like going through the effort of checking it out.
Then, the Friday before Christmas came. The connection was slower than ever. We were unable to load even 50% of the web pages that we needed to use. Those that loaded took between 5 and 10 minutes and often loaded with errors. Again, we called. We were told nobody could come until after the holiday weekend. Fine.
In the meantime, my wife found a random unsecured wireless connection that somebody in our neighborhood was using and, just for the purposes of being able to to anything on the internet, we decided that, for now, we'd use that. For the record, it worked faster than comcast ever did in the 6 months since we've had them.
So, Tuesday came around. I was told that the technician would be there between 7 AM and 11 AM. It became 11:05 so I called again. I was told that the technician would be there in less than 30 minutes. Around noon the technician finally came. I told him promptly that it was not a problem with the computers or in my apartment. I scrutinized his every move. He finally agreed to go to the telephone closet in the building to check it. When I told him he would have to get a key from the front desk he acted all annoyed like it was such a big burden for him to do his job. So, I escorted him like a baby down to the front desk and he got the key. We went up to the telephone closet and he fiddled with a couple of wires. He checked the connection and it seemed to be working. Granted it still wasn't working as fast as the random wireless network my wife found, but it was working a little.
Success right? WRONG.
About an hour later it started doing the same thing again.
I called Comcast AGAIN. They started to give me the run around saying that it was probably the cookies on my computer (even though I'd just cleared them out and it was on BOTH computers) to which I promptly set them straight. Then they said it was because I hadn't reset the modem in over 90 days.... the modem that we haven't even had for a month because they replaced it.
When all was said and done they finally agreed to send another technician over. BUT there was another problem! The previous technician hadn't closed out my account yet so they couldn't schedule another appointment until he did. I began to request that they do that for me when he closes the account when the rep interrupted me to tell me that I had to wait a couple of hours and then call back, wait on hold AGAIN to request it myself. When I asked why she couldn't do that for me she began to tell me what I "had to do." I simply stated, "What I have to do? It's your job... you do it... I did what you're telling me to do all ready."
She started on another excuse when I finally just said, "Fine, I'm going with Verizon then" and hung up the phone. I promptly called Verizon and ordered DSL for a 30 day trial that I will try next to Comcast starting on January 5th.
I then emailed Comcast again, explaining this whole situation and demanding a refund. To their end of it, they did give me a refund for the month, but then also said to call them to get the service fixed. Fat chance....
So, here's the moral of the story... DO NOT GET COMCAST. I'm going to try Verizon and see where that goes. It has to be better than this.
To the other end of it, we had Cox cable internet when we lived in Fairfax County. We never had a problem with them ever and were very pleased with their service. It is incredibly unfortunate that we cannot get their services here.
Comcast is just another example of a business getting too big for itself. It no longer provides the services it promises, or, for that matter, much of any service at all.
