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Review by hoserama See Profile

  • Location: Tomball, Harris, TX, USA
  • Cost: $65 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
Awesome constant speed & latency, reliable connection
Expanding caps loom over the death of Comcast being a good bargain
Buy now with the understanding you may move later if they expand caps to Houston market area
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

Having spent a year with AT&T I decided to switch to Comcast for the following reasons: more speed for the dollar.

I was eyeballing their Blast! package which for the Houston area market at the time I purchased (Oct 2013) is 50Mbit down/10Mbit up.

Since Comcast is trying to make profit from renting cable modems, I opted to buy my own. I purchased a Motorola SB 6141 from Amazon and completed my on-line sign up for Comcast.

My first impression of the on-line signup for Comcast service was not a good one. I felt it ridiculous I needed to pay them for a self-install kit which consisted of a splitter, coax cable, and a network cable; most people already have these. Comcast considers this a requirement and will not allow you to not purchase it.

It took about five days to receive the kit. The kit was given to the dog as a chew toy and I begun the install process. Comcast *TRIES* to make this a fairly painless and easy process. The cable modem during the install process will actually divert the web browser on your computer to the proper activation webpage to complete the process. In theory if it works, its very painless and easy for anyone to do. Unfortunately, the downfall of this easy process was literature sent with my self install kit did not explain exactly how to do it. Instead, I tried going to a Comcast activation page by manually typing in the URL which may or may not have been the issue why by self-install failed.

I had to call the dreaded phone support. After several minutes of being on hold I wrestled the self install kit from the dog and began chewing on it myself. When I finally got through to someone I realized the self install kit was to be used to tie around your own neck in the event you have to call Comcast phone support; its brutal! For something as simple as activating my cable modem over the phone, it took literally 12 minutes with a non-native English speaking Comcast employee to communicate to them the MAC ID of the cable modem, have it correctly repeated, and then he wanted me to give it back to him again.

So that's the bad. The good about it is, ever since the self install was completed via phone support all has been well. In fact, I can say all has been PERFECT. I always get the advertised speeds. Speedtests inside and outside Comcast exceed the advertised speed of 50/10mbit. I have never experienced an outage even for a few moments. During the peak hours of the day, I do not experience sub-standard speeds.

You can read all the reviews you want about an ISP and there will always be bad as well as good reviews. In my opinion, if you are looking to get Comcast in the Houston market area and are moving into a new home or recently built home, you should be fine. My house is a 2012 construction. The drop to my house stretches about 250 feet which is relatively close. All houses in my neighborhood are now complete and granted there are a fair share of residents who have AT&T but with a housing development of over 400 homes, I am impressed with the quality of service I am receiving in my house.

My only concern moving forward is the future of Comcast and how it appears to be spreading coverage of its caps. This family of five (2 adults, 3 kids) use on average 1tb a month. Xbox live, PC's, laptops, and another half dozen wifi devices. We are a connected family! Even my refrigerator and thermostats are connected. If Comcast begins rolling out their caps into the Houston area as they did others my internet bill alone would exceed several hundred dollars. This is the downside to Comcast and when implemented in all markets will result in fierce competition by other ISPs to gain Comcast's lost customer-base.

7/31/14 UPDATE:

Since obtaining service my internet connection has been flawless. There has not been any periods of high latency or slow speeds. Yesterday, on 7/30/14, my Blast service experienced a speed upgrade as part of a Comcast initiative to roll out faster speeds. My Blast service went from 50/10mbit to 105/10mbit.

There was one outage created by a neighbor digging in his yard, breaking the cable going to my house. Comcast was at my house within two hours to replace but failed to bury the cable. After 5 weeks of calling customer service about the matter, I ended up resolving the issue by filing a BBB complaint. The issue was resolved promptly.



member for 22.3 years, 285 visits, last login: 198 days ago
updated 9.6 years ago


bigjohn
join:2005-05-26
Woodstock, GA

bigjohn

Member

CAPS will come...

They're here in ATLANTA now.
Comcast is doing this market by market to keep the groundswell of HATE / Complaint against them to a minimum... If caps come to your area, remember - comcast is a government authorized monopoly. Contact your state government / county government and complain!
JohnShade
join:2009-03-07
Pearland, TX

JohnShade

Member

Re: CAPS will come...

"comcast is a government authorized monopoly" Nope, bigjohn, no cable company is a government authorized monopoly. All cable companies have !!contracts!! with the local municipal governments to operate in the area for which the company pays fees. Your idea about contacting the Local/State goverenment is correct, however. The truth is, as people vote with their wallets, companies will alter their policies. That's called capitalism