Review by chas3 
UPDATED: 32 days ago
member for 4.9 years, 783 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Dallastown,York,PA
 $43 per month
 "when it works"
 "price"
 " too costly, need competition, needs fixed, ping loss"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
Had suscom service until comcast bought them last year. Suscom had good virus filtering on their incoming email which was nice but their email server was slow and went down too often. Comcast email has been perfect for reliability, but I miss having my mail pre-scanned for viruses.
Internet is 6.6Mb down, 384K up which is very consistent. Up time has been great, don't remember when it was last down. Another neat thing I discovered during a 3 hour power outage....I could continue on the internet and email the whole time. I have battery backup on my equipment. Apparently, comcast has a different power source for their amplifiers than the local grid in my neighborhood because it continued to work. This is good to know if you want VOIP during power outages.
But price is too high. I even have limited basic cable. I don't need cable tv, just need internet. DSL not available at the moment.
05/2007....Tried to get tech support for a failure of a comcast server accessing my modem. complete run around. no real support since they shutdown the local suscom support center.
05/2007....My signal level is worsening, 55db on uplink. Figured I would go the documented route and use help chat to get a tech scheduled to look at the signal. Got a ticket # and confirmation in the chat and kept the transcript. After they were several hours late, I went into chat again and they claim to have no record of the ticket. So it was sorry, want to schedule again? Now got another ticket # and again kept the chat transcript even tho that's apparently worthless. Guess this is the level of service after the switch to comcast is complete. At least you could get to real techs before the switch.
05/2007....This time the tech showed and was experienced. Changed all the crimp connectors from the house to the box out in the neighbor's yard. Also changed the filter for limited basic tv. That got me to 53.75dB. Then he replaced the 26db connection block with a 23db block out in the neighbor's yard. That boosted my signal to 50.5dB. So, now I have some extra room for noise again. Seems like the local folks are good, but when you get into the national pool for comcast, it's all bad.
10/2009....randomly lose connection. Especially annoying since I use VOIP. I will often stop hearing on a call and look over at the modem and see it blinking to connect. Or go to the log and see an entry corresponding a pause in the conversation. Had tech out, he cut off all the ends and improved my upstream from 52.5db to 52db. The tech did see some data errors on his scanner a few times, but when it stopped for a short time, said it was fixed. Tech said he would have the line techs check the tap block to see if 23db block is ok or if it can be lowered. HAVE NOT HEARD BACK ON THIS IN SEVERAL WEEKS. Still having interruptions being logged. I think the buried cable in the neighborhood that is over 25 years old might be part of the trouble. I downgraded to the economy Tier since the cable in the neighborhood could not provide even 4.5M service.
See comment/responses below about ping loss throughout the comcast infrastructure. This is a serious problem, verifyable against a competing provider.
10/2009 .... STILL HAVE INTERMITTENT CONNECTION!!!! This is after a high level tech worked on it. This tech did not see any noise issues when he was here and made changes to boost my signal strength. Signal strength running about 48dbmV up and 11db down. I do have limited basic service and wonder if the extra filter in the line hurts the signal. Several times per day modem re-syncs interrupting voip phone calls or browsing. DSLR smoke ping test to my IP and several gateway nodes upstream with in comcast shows comcast has network trouble. There is ping loss at the gateways, and loss increases as the ping gets closer to me. As a comparison point, I included an epix.net local IP address to ping. The epix modem has no loss....I think proving comcast has a problem.
Perhaps this is more of comcast's selective filtering policy??
Not sure what is next to find a solution.
Followup comments:  Comcast Mana
join:2009-10-07
York, PA
| Chas3 Comcast Issues Hello Chas3 - I'm terribly sorry that you are experiencing problems with your Comcast service. Please give us a call at (800) Comcast to discuss. You can tell the rep that "Joni" had you call for help. Or, if you'd like to post your Comcast acct# I can have someone give you a call at your convenience. Thanks I look forward helping you resolve these issues.
Joni H. | |
|  | chas3
join:2004-12-03
Dallastown, PA
 ·Comcast
 ·ViaTalk
| Re: Chas3 Comcast Issues They are sending a line tech on Thursday. Meanwhile, I have been doing smoke ping tests to various places. Over the last 30 hours, I have a 1.2% average packet loss while the comcast gateway has a 0.11% loss, and the comcast gateway for the city has a 0.03% loss. A neighbor's ip has a 0.36% loss.
What is concerning is the loss at the headend equipment. A couple years ago I did smoke pings and the headend equipment was zero loss. I would write off the issue as an issue between the ping server and comcast, but the loss rate increases as packets go deeper into the comcast network.
Perhaps this is some form of comcast bandwidth limiting, dropping packets randomly, just to be fair? | |
| | chas3
join:2004-12-03
Dallastown, PA
·Comcast
·ViaTalk
| I was concerned there could have been a problem with the smoke ping servers....but no more....
I started pinging another local provider, epix. Over the past day, no ping loss!!! Comcast still running about 1% loss. This is the comparison I needed.
Line tech coming this afternoon. However, now I think the problem is bigger than the local neighborhood wiring. I think comcast has a system wide problem that gets worse the closer you get to the user.
I will update the review when I learn more. | |
| | chas3
join:2004-12-03
Dallastown, PA
·Comcast
·ViaTalk
1 edit | This service tech did not see any noise, obviously intermittent. Checked for noise on all the cables. Replaced connectors on the underground drop that last month's tech didn't. Also changed the splitter on the house from a 6db loss tap splitter to a standard 3db loss splitter. Tech said upstream improved to 48db, but I cannot verify as my modem is displaying 0.00 right now. I will continue to watch ping tests and look for the upstream dbmV to populate.
edit...after many power cycles, the modem now shows 48.5 dbmV upstream power and 12db downstream.
Will have to wait a few days to see if reliability improves. | |
| | chas3
join:2004-12-03
Dallastown, PA | Been a week since the level 4 tech. No improvement. Still have random re-syncs of modem. Especially annoying when on voip.
48db up 11 db down | |
| 
fishmaster
Premium
join:2004-10-08
Rockford, IL |  Thumbs up
| |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Comcast |
|
