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Review by tlbepson 
member for 11.2 years, 272 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 342 days ago
 Reston,Fairfax,VA
 $45 per month "TV signal rarely, if ever, goes out - spoke too soon, lost stb this evening (Saturday) and I have to wait until Tuesday for appt" "Lousy customer/tech support because of poor corporate level policies, crappy closed caption support" "I *loathe* Comcast"
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I have been a Comcast customer since 1988 and currently only have their cable tv service. Since their merger/takeover of NBC, their customer/tech support is even worse than it used to be. The problem is not (generally) with the individual support person but with corporate policies that don't provide their front-line people with the information/knowledge they need to do their jobs, the power to make decisions to fix things--basically, their support reps are sacrificial fodder because as a corporation, Comcast couldn't care any less about their employees or their customers. They've taken over the old Ma Bell refrain "We're THE PHONE COMPANY! We don't have to care" and made it their own.
After my latest go-round with Comcast in which I was informed that I would now be charged for dvr service Comcast activated but I'd never requested, don't want and never used on my Scientific Atlanta/Cisco Explorer 8300HD cable box--had never been active in all the *years* I had box--but now, even though Comcast turned the service on, Comcast (mysteriously) cannot turn it off so I was told I had to get a new cable box or pay an extra $16-$17/month for something I didn't order or want.
When I asked for a service appointment I was told that Comcast would charge me! Ended going to/from the local Comcast office 4 times, spending an entire day trying to get the closed captioning to work properly because Comcast can't be bothered to actually document the settings on their set top boxes. UGH!
I am seriously looking into other cable tv providers in my area.
EDIT (6/17/12): As I noted in my reply to user "Comcaster" (below), the new stb I have (RNG200N) essentially died last night at 9:20pm with a message "your stb is not authorized" and I spent 2.5 hours (until midnight) on the phone (very difficult due to my hearing loss) trying to get the stb fixed without success. Today (Sunday) I decided to try Comcast live chat to see if they could help. Less than 3 minutes into the chat, the stb was fixed!
I asked the chat rep what she'd done and she said " I just double checked the codes on the account and corrected it to make your cable box work."
Now WHY!!!??? couldn't one of the many, many Comcast phone reps I talked with last night do that?!
Comments:
 mcbighamPremium
join:2004-10-10
Huntsville, AL | I feel your pain Comcast is the worst company I have ever dealt with.
I came here to update my review on Comcast and see that I am not treated special, they treat all their customers the same.
»/comment/83528 | |
| | |  True
The problem is not (generally) with the individual support person but with corporate policies that don't provide their front-line people with the information/knowledge they need to do their jobs, the power to make decisions to fix things--basically, their support reps are sacrificial fodder because as a corporation, Comcast couldn't care any less about their employees or their customers. They've taken over the old Ma Bell refrain "We're THE PHONE COMPANY! We don't have to care" and made it their own. My friend you have no idea how true that statement is. I know, I am one of the employees referenced. | |
| | tlbepsonPremium
join:2002-02-09
Reston, VA Reviews:
 ·Comcast
2 edits | Re: True I have just spent the last 2.5 hours!!! trying to get my cable box to come back online. I have a hearing loss which makes using the phone (even my special one) very difficult. If the line transferring me to someone who was supposed to be able to help didn't get dropped, then the connection was terrible or they couldn't help me or I waited and waited and waited on hold only for the connection to drop yet again. The end result it is now about midnight--lost the cable box about 9:20 right in the middle of one of the few programs on tv I actually enjoy and missed the rest of it--and I now have an appointment for Tuesday between 10-11am for a tech to come to fix the problem so no tv for me between now (Saturday night) and Tuesday
I NEVER, EVER had a problem with the SA 8300HD stb in all the years that I had it--I spoke too soon (or jinxed myself) about never losing the tv signal.
All of the phone reps were very courteous and patient (there's a bit of a lag in the conversation because I have to wait for the speech-to-text conversion to display on the screen on my phone) but really, what does it matter if they can't fix stuff, the transfers are dropped (or misdirected to Houston, TX when I'm in VA), phone menus are so complex, wait times are eons with no notice of where you are in the queue. I feel sorry for the employees--I always make a point to tell them that I know it's not their fault but really...it's exhausting and frustrating! UGH! | |
| | | | | Re: True I gotta be honest its maddening to me to me to see people post things like this all the time, if you spent half as much effort on finding a company you dont hate instead of continuing to use a company you do then i would guess your life would signifigantly improve! Stop complaining and get rid of comcast if you are unhappy, I swear misery loves company... | |
| | | | tlbepsonPremium
join:2002-02-09
Reston, VA Reviews:
·Comcast
1 edit | Re: True You have no idea what time and effort I have put in to investigating other cable tv companies because it has nothing to do with outlining my experiences with Comcast as a cable tv provider--you'll note that this is a REVIEW of Comcast as a cable tv provider in the REVIEW section. | |
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·Comcast
| It would be cool if Comcast actually had competition in the area where I live. It's an unregulated monopoly, and I have no other choices or any recourse. They charge through the nose, but do deliver on the cable TV side.
For their ISP services, I'm in the "I loathe Comcast" camp...they have refused to build out the infrastructure to deliver the internet download speed I'm paying for. I'm paying for 12Mb/s download speed, and get 2Mb/s in the evening on a good day. That sucks, but nothing I can do. | |
| | | | | tlbepsonPremium
join:2002-02-09
Reston, VA Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: True Comcast was as my first broadband provider--when broadband was just beginning to be "reasonably" priced--because at the time it would have taken Verizon 3-5 weeks to provide service and I would have only gotten their slowest speed while Comcast offered installation 2 days after talking with them, higher speed and if memory serves, a not too bad price. It's been a good number of years but I don't remember having a lot of problems with their broadband service--at that time there not a lot of users hanging on the system. Needless to say, this was *well before* the Comcast/NBC takeover/merger.
A few of years later, I went with Verizon DSL because I could get higher speed for less money than Comcast and Verizon gave me a $70-$80 credit for switching. I don't remember having too many problems with Verizon's DSL which continued to be reasonably priced and when my condo complex was wired for FiOS I switched to that.
Sorry that you don't have alternative options because I can imagine it's frustrating not getting anywhere near the speed you are paying for--I'm surprised that you don't have more choices in Santa Cruz. | |
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
lodged 344 days ago
- Mountain View,Santa Clara,CA
- $100 per month
- (6 month contract)
- "Connection quality, customer support"
- "$$$"
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I got Comcast at my current address two years ago. I'd dealt with
them and AT&T previously, and I was willing to pay a little more for
Comcast's responsiveness and quality of service. They started me out
at $50 for a cable Internet and long-distance voice bundle. When the
introductory rate expired, the price shot up to almost $100. I
negotiated them down to about $70, but that only lasted six months. I
think I'm going to switch to Sonic.
Comments:
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Review by RogerSC
member for 349 days, 3 visits, last login: 272 days ago
lodged 349 days ago
- Santa Cruz,Santa Cruz,CA
- $118 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "They're in Santa Cruz"
- "They're in Santa Cruz"
- "Terrible."
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I'm paying for 12Mb/s, get about 10Mb/s in the morning, usually, here on the west side of Santa Cruz, CA. As the afternoon wears on, after about 3PM, the speed really dives. By evening I'm usually sitting at 1.5-3Mb/s. Just terrible. They won't tell me if they're working on any improvements, all they can do is send out a tech, but it apparently isn't a technical problem. They obviously need to improve their infrastructure around here, but don't seem to have any moral compunctions about taking my money and delivering CRAP service.
I'd dump them in a NY minute if I could get broadband or DSL over 6Mb/s, but very little competition at the high end here. I can pay DSLextreme $15 for 3Mb/s, or AT&T for 3Mb/s, but don't want that. Really pisses me off that all I can do is pay for decent internet service, but can't get it.
Anyone having better luck that me on the west side of Santa Cruz??? Any suggestions? I was looking at the Exede satellite internet thing, but it is expensive, and lots of latency despite advertising decent speed.
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 Review by DaHen
member for 10.5 years, 5399 visits, last login: 10 days ago
updated 350 days ago
- Brockton,Plymouth,MA
- $48 per month
 about 1 days- "Available when I go online."
- "expensive"
- "Will stay with Comcast for now."
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June 2012: Still performing great. Expensive though.
October 2011: Still performing great. Expensive though.
September 7, 2010: Still chugging along great. No outages that have occured when I'm on line.
August 4, 2009: Only had a slowdown for about a day and a half so far this year. In fact the whole neighborhood was affected. Noticed a few Comcast cable trucks working on the poles and afterwards everything was back up to speed.
September 26, 2008: Haven't had any outages so far this year. Still working great.
July 2, 2008: Comcast is still working great.
Dec. 17, 2007: Still great connnectivity.
May 10, 2007: Purchased the Linksys Cable Modem last November to do away with the monthly rental charge. Still great connectivity and speeds.
August 15, 2006: Comcast service has been excellent during the past eleven months. Has always been holding steady with download and upload speeds.
Sept. 20, 2005: The Verizon DSL modem just wouldn't sync up with Verizons equipment. Phone tech was to come out last week but never showed up. Meanwhile the clock was ticking on my thirty day money back guarantee so I cancelled and returned the self-install kit.
Odd, Comcast has been holding steady with instant connections and fast downloads during this time. Looks like I am stuck with Comcast.
August 30, 2005: Comcast has been down about seven times in the past two months. Between that and still the price, I have ordered Verizon's new $14.95 a month plan this morning. True, it does come with a slower speed. But I don't really need the higher speed at Comcast's higher price.
June 3, 2005: Have been happy with Comcast except for the price.
However, after talking to a Verzion cable repairman last week, I was informed that Verizon's DSL is now available in my area. Being on a fixed income, I am considering changing over to Verizon.
May 4, 2004: Have been pleased with Comcast. The only down time that I noticed was just yesterday morning which only lasted about thirty minutes.
July, 2003: After I moved to this area, I was to far away from the CO to continue using Verizon's DSL service.
Comcast was out on July 10 and had provided a line and a Toshiba PCX1100 modem after I had called the day before. After failing to got the Comcast CD installed, I called support and a gentleman in Ohio walked me thru the installation without using the CD. Was on line that afternoon.
Noticed that my BI firewall was being scanned and probed often but putting my Linksys router on line put a stop to that.
Have had good up-time with Comcast. Am paying more for broadband than I did for DSL but this is better than dial-up.
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Review by jmmilner2
member for 2 years, 67 visits, last login: 32 days ago
updated 356 days ago
- La Grange Park,Cook,IL
- $10 per month
- about 21 days
- "Great price for HD but you have to live in a nursing home to get it!"
- "Two weeks just to establish an account - the bill will be here before the service"
- "Wish the place allowed U-Verse Service"
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I'm trying to get cable TV for my elderly mom at the nursing home. The place provides expanded basic service and one DTA for each resident. Sadly, the prior resident upgraded her service to HD and the pre-installed DTA disappeared (I'd guess the Comcast installer took it when installing the HD - either by mistake or because the work order was wrong). My sister spent a week on the phone with Comcast before dumping the problem on me two weeks ago. Call center rep said just go to a service center and they'll handle account setup and give me the boxes. At the Service Center the first rep can't figure out how to setup an account. Has me wait 20 minutes for somebody else who also can't set up the account. First rep promises to call back on Monday (when in on a Saturday) with resolution - no call back. Next call center rep listens to the history and does set up an account (hence we will at least get billed, even if we never get service - nice business model!) and promises me they will UPS me the needed boxes by tomorrow. Gives me a tracking number which doesn't work on the UPS system. Next call center guy finally gets me a valid tracking number which shows the boxes due to me mid next week. When I point out that not having TV is a major issue for my mom, he suggests I try the Service Center again, since now that the account is set up they may be able to manage giving me the boxes.
At this point I really wish I could pay AT&T full price for U-Verse at the nursing home. Comcast's whole service ordering and installation process is a mess. They don't understand the product they sell, make promises they don't keep, and still talk about their Comcast Customer Guarantee like it means something.
As for the Fair Warning - I've been on DSLReports for about 10 years but had to sign up again after the id/password leak last month.
Update: finally got both HD and SD working. Took a few tries and a phone call to get the HD box correctly initialized. The HD picture quality was fairly good but did see a few dozen screen freezes and macroblocking in a baseball game (Cubs vs. Red Sox) so there may still be weeds in the grass. When we checked my mom's mail we did already have mail from Comcast - not a bill but a notice about a security deposit. As usual, this directly contradicted what multiple call center reps said when I asked them point blank about any deposit.
Update: After a year, Comcast started threatening my mom with a $500 fee since the last tenant of her unit died before she returned the HD box. It took a few phone calls and a review of their past handling of this account before they agreed to drop the threat. I'll let you know when they start up again (I'm guessing either end of year or this time next year). My mom reports that service goes down for the whole building for several hours every few months. The staff now post Comcast status at the elevator lobbies on the ground floor so everybody gets an update on their way to or from meals.
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 Review by se7endipity
member for 8.9 years, 78 visits, last login: 123 days ago
updated 357 days ago
- Norton,Bristol,MA
- $232 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "fastest internet available for my location"
- "3 billing increases in 3 months; incompetent customer service reps"
- "I would switch to a Directv bundle but the only internet option is super slow DSL"
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Have had the HD Premier Bundle for past 4 years.
I've never had any problems with nice, speedy internet connection but have had constant issues with the DVR/cable tv service and the atrocious xfinity website.
Of course Comcast *still* has yet to make their websites fully functional for Mac OS X users...
My biggest complaint is that I'm paying an obscene amount of money and am unable to use any of the online or iPhone services (i.e. setting DVR recordings online or iPhone remote features)!
I definitely have a compatible DVR but xfinity online does not recognize it as so because it erroneously thinks I have the Tivo channel guide service which is not compatible. I have spent well over 8 hours dealing with numerous reps and no one has been able to rectify the issue to date and refuse to credit my bill at all to reflect their ongoing inability to provide many features I am paying for.
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 Review by SysEngr
member for 7.4 years, 400 visits, last login: 13 days ago
updated 358 days ago
- Sacramento,Sacramento,CA
- $229 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 210 days
- "Amazing Speed!"
- "Nothing"
- "The best service available."
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Over the past few years our company has tried several options for our internet connectivity. No one could deliver any acceptable connections to our area which was built out in the 1970's We switched back and forth to and from Comcast several times and ended up staying with Comcast.
At first our internet connection was a nightmare due to the degraded condition of the entire node we were on. But Comcast took it upon themselves to build out a new node, and replace a substantial sections of their cable infrastructure. The result being we suddenly have clean, fast, low latency high speed internet for our business. The costs incurred by Comcast for this upgrade will never be recovered by the payments we make to Comcast every month. We are deeply grateful for everything they have done in our behalf.
Personally I have been negatively outspoken against Comcast and their service in the past. Not knowing the depth of the entire issue, and the fact that Comcast daily had my Company and our entire node under review, upgrade and repair. I do feel a bit guilty for my rants, but they did gain enough attention to resolve the issues we have had at this location for the past 11 years.
Since the repairs we have only had one issue, which everyone felt from the May 1st 2012 SMC D3 firmware update…
So, since May 19th 2010 when we rolled back the Firmware on the SMC D3 modem, we have only had one outage for 1 hour and 26 minutes. This was for the entire node and not related specifically to our equipment. So not counting that one issue, we have had 13 days of wonderful internet connectivity from Comcast. The horrors of May 3rd through May 18th 2012 and our 51 outages totaling 9h 32m 56s of downtime are behind us and we again look to the future and expansion yet again. We are looking to the month of June to get our average connectivity for the host up in the 99% again.
We wish to whole heartedly thank Comcast for their attention to our past issues with connectivity, acknowledge the daunting task required to upgrade us to a new node, the replacement of much degraded cable and everything done to clean up the signals for this entire area.
We know we have been a constant complaint for almost an entire year now, but we are and shall always be proud to have Comcast displayed on our Homepage as our Business Class Internet Provider. Again, thank you everyone at Comcast for their tireless efforts in our behalf.
Special note goes to both two Senior Staff Members from the Sacramento California Office, who have taken it upon themselves to personally make themselves available to direct contact in resolving our past issues. Thank you guys!!!
When they deploy the Gigabit Cable in our area, we hope they will consider us to assist you in the bETA test program.
To check how we are doing, you can always look at our stats page...
»stats.thewebgamer.net
Wm Cruz Carroll Sr.
Co-Owner / Senior Systems Engineer
TheWebGamer.Net
Comments:
| | Lost of signal Have comcast replace the line from the pole to your house. It may be old and can cause lost of packets. | |
| | | | Re: Lost of signal Umhmm, That will totally fix a modem that maintains a connection to Comcast but can't reach the internet.... You sound like one of those ignorant techs on the phone. Perhaps you're one of them? Who knows... | |
| | | | | Re: Lost of signal Actually you are the ignorant one. His problem sounds exactly like a bad drop line, likely moisture getting into it from condensation. I have seen this happen many times. | |
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Review by gecs
member for 12.3 years, 398 visits, last login: 131 days ago
updated 1 year ago
- Aurora,Arapahoe,CO
- $64 per month
- about 21 days
- "Connection stutters from time to time"
- "Ping times could be better/Ping times not as good as when AT&T ran the service."
- "Generally Acceptable for Internet... Cancelled the Cable & got my own Docsis 3 modem"
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Update to 2011. Comcast has become another bloated Corporation full of itself. The prices are constantly on the increase while provided services in Cable TV are cut. number of channels has decreased to the point that i will soon leave Comcast (Xfinity) for another more reasonable service structure.
When i called about standard channels they cut from my service last week (about 25 channels), their answer was that I was never supposed to have received then in the first place. These are not premium channels, but channels like History International.
How CHEAP can you get Comcast?
If you want lower end television feed, get someone besides Comm-ass.
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 Review by Scilicet
member for 8.1 years, 1328 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 1 year ago
- Aurora,Arapahoe,CO
- Contract price not specified.
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Comcast has never been the same since they were bought out by NBC.
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 Review by signmeuptoo
member for 11.5 years, 5644 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 1 year ago
- NanoParticle
- $142 per month
- about 7 days
- "Been up and running for a month"
- "More expensive than other cablecos, disorganized support, 1/2 the speed for higher price, high latency"
- "Acceptable service, certainly better than ATT DSL, yet the 250G cap is a bummer"
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I called a week before my move. I had been a cablevision consumer and with CV/OOL I had 50M/8M and latency was only 12ms max. With Comcast my bandwidth is only 24/4 and it costs more than the OOL did, so value just isn't there. Latency is pretty high at over 60ms consistently from in house tests.
Install person was refreshingly good, ran a fresh cable for me and was very businesslike, but arrived late. He left cable pieces laying around the yard though, didn't pick up after himself at all.
I am very unhappy about the bandwidth cap of 250 Gb. IMHO, I'd rather see it be about 500 for all I am paying. And my price will go up significantly after the trial period. I have the triple service, phone, internet, cable (middle tier). Phone works well, but lots of add on charges you don't see with regular VOIP.
Also, Caller ID to TV doesn't work here, and the cable box does have a display on it, no time/channel info.
I've gotten literally assaulted with spam phone callers, I've never experienced this before, so they are recycling numbers or spam callers are focusing on this company's consumers, or perhaps it is where I live. I am on the do not call list, yet still get several harassing calls a day, even at 10 PM. No, I don't answer unless I think it is a call from my family overseas.
I am very disappointed in the high latency and cap. I can live with the speeds being 1/2 of cable visions, but even so, and even though I am on their best non contract offer, it is really expensive.
There is call blocking, but they don't tell you that it is liimited to just a few numbers total, after you fill your max, you can't block other numbers, that is pathetic. And where is the free 411? I don't know, I am not entirely happy with the service, but compared to ATT it is better.
There is SOME artifacting with the cable TV.
All in all, passable service, but too expensive and too limited and too much latency for living in a big city. Yes, I was provisioned DOCSIS 3.0.
Also, the did my billing cycle weird. After only 2 and a half weeks service I already got a bill for a second month, screwing up my tight budgeting. And they didn't prorate.
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Hear hear