Review by JnKC 
member for 4.9 years, 1056 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 260 days ago
 Independence,Jackson,MO
 $77 per month about 999 days "Service is there and used every day with few outages" "Declining quality, terrible CTV content at lower rates." "Not the service it used to be"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Update: August 2012
I downgraded my CTV just after Comcast raised prices to the current rates. I am at Limited Basic on CTV which has next to no value for content. This a $20.00 service and you can tell. I got no retention arguments after a conversation with a Comcast rep. She stated that Comcast had not upped their pricing in my area for quite some time and they deserve the higher prices. The combined price I paid at the time increased a little over 11% when counting the total bill. I informed the rep. of the percentage and told her my pension finally went up 3.5%. She closed her mouth and cheer leading for Comcast at that point. I got a subdued reply and I continued on my downgrading my CTV service. I have been downgrading CTV for the last few years to gain budget health. OTA service is the next step as far as CTV goes. There are more worthless channels on Limited Basic as opposed to OTA, but that is it. I've been with Comcast since 2004 and I have been cutting back since 2010. Their prices go up and I cut back to keep my budget from blowing up.
I've kept Performance HSI for years rolling with the changes. I've gone along with whatever the speeds were knowing my base was 12/2 for a long time. I now have speeds consistently at 15/2 when tested by Shaper Probe. That is the speed class up to claim. I now pay $7.00/month for a Modem that started this year. A UPS man knocked on my door last week and delivered a new Arris Modem from Comcast for reasons unknown to me. I called Comcast asking for an explanation; of course, the rep had no idea either. I got a letter from Comcast this week explaining they needed to upgrade the Modem to a higher DOCSIS. I don't mind the upgraded MoDem, but my speeds are still 15/2 which means a higher DOCSIS had no real change. A look at the LAN shows 4 channels downstream at 256QAM and one upstream at DOCSIS 2.0 with the other at DOCSIS 1.0. The new MoDem is DOCSIS 3.0 capable which was the purpose of the swap. I'm good to go for a while with HSI to my way of thinking. As far as the budget goes; HSI is the next cut. A good speed internet has been nice to have for the last 8 years, but money shrinks and bills expand. Comcast will never pay attention to the limited budget folks when fools pay over $200.00 a month for service. Things like CTV/HSI are still in the luxury list and will fall away when needed things are more important. I've felt CTV is a joke these days when compared to what it was a few decades ago. Just a sign of the times as have been through time immemorial.
Update: January 2012
I still have CTV at the Digital Economy package. I've noticed channel shuffling that put a few channels I used to get on a higher tier. No big deal, money needs to be grabbed right? My HSI has remained the same Performance 12mbps. Shaper/Probe tells me me I still have 12mpbs down and 2mbps up. The ridiculous speed tests show anywhere from 22mbps to 16mbps down and 4mbps to just over 2mbps up. I don't care how fast the boosts are because they are temporary. I usually get exactly what I pay for: 12/2mbps service. Comcast did raise the modem fee to $7/month from $5/month. That is enough of a difference to buy a very good modem with the purchase price paid off in a year's time. That is the first experiment for the new year. Next to go will be CTV which costs me around $35.00 a month. OTA TV won't be much different from the Digital Economy package I have now. This is the second experiment for the year. I will lose a one time expense of $30 to $50 in the effort to save $400 a year. Some of the savings will be taken back by Comcast for having only HSI. Cord cutting is real and in practice by many I know. TV Cable is not the service it used to be at all. The profit pigs have spun and rehashed everything to where it is a no value deal. This is a problem with every company that has share holders in the profit at any cost environment today.
Update: January 2011
I've had Comcast since I moved to the area in 2004. I have down graded from Digital Starter TV, Performance HSI 12mbps, and Digital Phone. The first to go was Digital Phone several months back to save money. The full price on Digital Phone put it above the level of normal phone service. VOIP does not work if the internet is down. I realize CC Digital Phone is supposed to work even if connectivity to the internet is down. That has not been true in my experience. The outages were across the board as in all services were down. The VOIP (CDV) was replaced with a much cheaper Vonage account and a cell phone that is free of charge to me. A few months later I replaced the Digital Starter TV package with Digital Economy TV. I found the package one day by accident browsing Comcast services. TV went from around $59.00 to $30.00. I am missing a couple channels that I occasionally watched. This is no big deal and a true savings. I have kept the Performance 12mbps Internet. It was Performance 6mbps last January and went up magically to 12mbps with no charge. That is always nice and I notice a note on my current bill that internet speed is up to 15mbps. I test speeds daily with the test here between 20mbps to 17 or 18mbps down and around 2mbps up. The comcast speed test is always at least 20mbps down with around 3mbps. Speed test net shows the lowest speeds at 13.25 to highest at 19.97mbps down and usually 3mbps up for this month. Shaper probe consistently shows me at 12/2 mbps, so no big surprise there. I started having problems with Digital Starter TV where channels would blank out a few seconds and come back. Switching to Economy Digital TV did not stop that; no big surprise there. I have found channels pixilated from time to time on the cheaper tier. I have also noticed slower performance on the internet that may be due to DNS servers. I haven't done any experimentation to see what the cause could be.
I find it odd that my internet has always been performance from 6mbps to up to 15mbps and page load and connections are slower now. I asked about DOCSIS and my area is at 2.2. The TV still has interference from time to time (blackout a few seconds) and the quality of picture shows interference with pixilation at times. The quality of the entire service has declined in the last year. Oddly if I use a partial zip code I note that I have always had the fastest internet even in the same city. I have come to an understanding with tech support if I call in. Everything they want me to try I have done before calling. Most times they will not make me do it again. It's always funny when they want me to restart my modem and stay on the line with them. That simply will not work and they don't get it. My bottom line is Comcast service has gotten worse over the last year. I had to tell the person on the phone when I called to cancel Digital Voice to stop trying to sell me with stupid bundles for 6 months at a time. I wasn't interested in savings on a temporary basis. When I changed TV options I got no argument or offers, the rep did as I wanted the first time I asked. The future of Comcast services looks to be more money and less service quality. My next bill modification will be trying to remove the $1.89 whole house wiring charge because I have a single connection. This charge is a simple charge for no good reason. It comes out to just under $23.00 a year, but that multiplies per customer to a nice profit on a "just because" charge.
END EDIT 16 January, 2011
Where I live you either have DSL or Cable internet for usage of the internet. I live in an apartment building, so no outside antennas; cable TV was a must. I used a VOIP that was cheap for the phone. Cheap meant added stress on internet connection. I haven't used a POTS in years.I got digital phone (VOIP) as soon as it came to my area. Telephony is great due to the way Comcast handles the service. I have had TV and HSI since 2004 and digital phone at least a year.
I have digital starter, I believe for the TV. I can see the channels I want and grab a ppv once in a while. I had the dvr and movie channel for almost a year. The cost went up on TV and I cut cost across the board. I had 10/2 HSI and that was cut as well; it turned out a good thing. I pay less for more speed now; I'm not sure which speed class I'm in, but I have peaked 23/3 when a tech was in the building fixing someone else. The guy knocked on my door and asked to look at my connections due to noise in the building going back to the company. After he showed ID, I let him in and he checked a few things. He tightened some connections and showed me the Comcast speed site. He had a LCD meter he used on the modem and things turned out better. I run my speed tests to Chicago, This web site always shows me slower around 16mbps, but that doesn't bother me. Sustained downloads go well enough for me, I don't get excited about having the fastest.
I cut 30 bucks off my bill when I did the triple play about a year ago and am happy with the results. Tech support has always worked with me if I had a problem and things were solved. I see critical reviews of Comcast; I just don't have those problems where I am. There could be a day when everything gets bogged down; it just hasn't happened yet. I'm happy with everything; I'm waiting for the day Comcast will pay me to use their service, or give it to me free. I have a feeling I probably won't see that day.
Comments:
|
service not what it once was