broadbndgeek
Premium
join:2000-08-03
Graham, WA
|  Poor Cable
Too many broken promises. Sure they got customers but they could have more and they could have avoided this problem but then again the like to break promises and get customers hopes up.
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insomnia has cause man to think more deeply. |
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2farfromCO7
join:2000-10-14
Farmington, MI
| Of course it doesn't mean anything
Because @home is insignificant and unnecessary. That is a terrible business model to build, where your service is so unimportant that your clients don't even skip a beat when you go out of business. That tells you it was doomed from the start. How is Earthlink going to be any different with Time Warner Cable with the exception that AOL-Time Warner faces far greater anti-trust scrutiny, and any abuses that cost Earthlink money will surely trigger sanctions against AOL-Time Warner. Of course then they'll just pull AOL from cable modems which will make my point that the AOL-Time Warner has 0 synergy and is the most overrated, overblown, and overhyped merger in the history of capitalism. It's much todo about nothing.v |
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Anon |  Comcast caused a lot of damage while solvent
At least Comcast is getting out now. I guess they've caused as much damage as they possibly could. When Comcast took over Intermedia here in the Nashville, TN area, I was afraid they'd raise prices, lower the cap on the bandwidth and service would deteriorate. I was right on all three accounts. I can only hope that a good "house-cleaning" will be in order by starting at the top with some of these networking wannabe's and money-hungry wolves. My service was out for nearly two weeks. I KNEW where the problem was - I had it pinpointed. But would they take my word for it? Of course not! They've got it back up and running, although at about 60% efficient. You think I can get a 40% reduction in my bill? Doubtful.
Comcast, your demise serves you right. |
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cmaenginsb
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-19
Palmdale, CA | I think you need to re-read the article, Comcast is very solvent, it's @home which is not.
In areas where you are using @home right now they will most likely be run by Comcast internally in the future. |
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valmg
Neutiquam Erro.
join:2001-05-07
Brick, NJ
clubs: | reply to Anon
I had such horrible experiences with Comcast for cable tv that I got a satellite dish. Very poor customer service, some questionable business/employee practice. I stayed on dialup until I could get dsl, rather than use them to access the internet. |
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Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny
Premium,VIP,ExMod 2001-04
join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ
clubs:
| reply to cmaenginsb
I concur Comcast is not in the same position as @Home, and dare we forget they wanted to take on AT&T?
I had it running on my site, but the demand was so overwhelming I am very close to having my site shut down until November's allotment. ... an excerpt from my website:
September 11, 2001: Only Time (onlytime.swf) Flash File (click me to view). MIRROR LOCATION: Thanks to a friendly email conversation, this flash movie can now be seen at an alternate location: sonacomis. ATTENTION: I didn't know I would get slammed with requests to view this file, so in just inside a week for the first time ever, my bandwidth for the month is almost gone. I'm not increasing it, so I have to take it offline until next month, November. Sorry, what more can I do on a limited budget? Thanks for understanding. [Thu Oct 11, 2001]
--
Live Life!
{Only Time}
[text was edited by author 2001-10-11 15:52:38] |
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TimSpencer
join:2001-05-18
Arvada, CO | reply to cmaenginsb
I agree...wonder how much longer it's going to be before Comcast announces they have purchased AT&T Broadband? |
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Hardxx
join:2000-12-21
Norristown, PA
| I think in the long run...
Comcast will acquire their own access for their high speed service. They see the winfall of bundling their services (tv/internet) and the potential for phone service. That is the long term aspect. Short term it will be rough. The whole earthlink high speed expierment is still in testing phases.... I am moving saturday and since I am an existing customer of @home supposedly the tech from comcast is still coming out saturday to set up my account at my new home. Hope this works. I can't go back to dial up. |
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mcaslan
join:2000-06-17
Baltimore, MD
| Related to...
When AT&T purchased Northpoint it was published that the @HOME and Excite contractual details prohibited AT&T pursuing broadband. Now Comcast wants to buy AT&T Broadband.
Couldn't all this bankruptcy be related to the dissolution of the @HOME company to wind up operations to allow each of the parties to pursue their own strategies and interests without all the complicated contractual limitations after everybody bought into everybody else.
Maybe that's why everybody is saying it's all ok and bankruptcy court to find an amicable solution. They (upper level management) know and have planned this to occur.
[text was edited by author 2001-10-11 16:18:43] |
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banditws6
Shrinking Time and Distance
join:2001-08-18
Naples, FL
 ·Comcast
| reply to Hardxx
Good luck with the move!
I hope everything goes well for you. Moving is what killed my Comcast broadband access last month. After enjoying 3 years of cable Internet from a slew of different providers in different areas of the country, I moved 3 miles down the street last month and Comcast told me I couldn't have @home there. Of course, they told me the opposite until I actually moved; go figure. So I had to cancel my @home account. Now they don't have any clue when I will be able to get back online; every time I call I get a different answer. They've run the gamut from 2 weeks to "it's nowhere NEAR ready." This is just from moving 3 MILES AWAY. Ridiculous.
I had to go back to dial-up on my crappy, staticky Sprint phone line and it sucks the wad BIG time. Man, after 3 years I totally forgot how much analog blows.  |
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Carbon Unit
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-21
Saint Charles, MO |  @home is not provisioning anyone now and the future is dim, that goes for moves, new cable modems and new customers |
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Jim Gurd
Premium
join:2000-07-08
Plymouth, MI
 ·AT&T DSL Service
·Comcast
| reply to 2farfromCO7
Re: Of course it doesn't mean anything
said by 2farfromCO:
Of course then they'll just pull AOL from cable modems which will make my point that the AOL-Time Warner has 0 synergy and is the most overrated, overblown, and overhyped merger in the history of capitalism.
No actually it's the second. The first is Excite@Home. It made even less sense than the AOL/TW merger although I agree that there is absolutely no synergy there either.
Both were very bad ideas but AOL/TW is at least a profitable conglomerate. Excite@Home however has been bleeding red ink for years. |
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Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs:
| I wonder if @home
is trying to raise the stakes a little with this move
and trying to get more than AT&T is offering for their business by showing just how important they are?
These cable companies sign up 100,000 +
new customers a month and this has gotta certainly hit
them in the wallet. |
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2farfromCO7
join:2000-10-14
Farmington, MI
| reply to Jim Gurd
Re: Of course it doesn't mean anything
If you lived in Farmington Hills instead of the fairy tale world of Plymouth(have you basic cable TV rates even crossed the $30/month barrier yet?, and when did you get cable modems? '97?), you might be whistling a different toon. Time Warner blackmailed us for 3 years just to get c cable modems and digital cable even though we were and still are paying the highest rates in the Metro Detroit area. Now that we finally have cable modems, they are charging us $84/month for them one way or another. That is downright extortion. |
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Figures
@Dial1.Den
| Figures
Come on folks you knew Excite was doomed after they hired Patti Tart (I mean Hart) as their new CEO. Patti is the person that gave us all Telocity. Telocity failed and Excite scooped her up immediately. It takes shear dishonesty to fail a business with 3.6 million customers paying monthly. Man, I could make a decent living if I had just 100 customers paying me monthly for internet service. |
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spenster
join:2001-04-03
Houston, TX
| reply to 2farfromCO7
Re: Of course it doesn't mean anything
$84/month? That's it? You should see my monthly bill. Try $43/mo for basic cable, $79/mo for "1500/1500" internet, and $10/mo for modem rental. After taxes it comes out easily to about $155/mo. To top it all off I don't even see the "1500/1500" either. I did an average of 450 down and about 600 up. Funny thing is that the 1000/1000 plan is/was $49/mo until they changed their offerings. They no longer offer the "1500/1500" but I'm supposed to be able to keep it still since I connected before the switch.
By the way, anyone who wants to know which company this is that sucks so bad is Optel. |
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Jim Gurd
Premium
join:2000-07-08
Plymouth, MI
·AT&T DSL Service
·Comcast
| reply to 2farfromCO7
Actually I pay about $75.00 per month for Basic 1,2 and 3 plus internet access. (Basic 1 is just the local broadcast channels plus public access. I need to subscribe to 2 and 3 to get most of "basic" cable). The modem is included in the $40 price for the internet service. Since I only have basic I don't need to pay for a cable box so I don't use one. I'm not sure how much they would charge for it.
By the way, I used to live in Dearborn Heights and I got cable service when it first came out which was approximately March 1998. My move to Plymouth was seamless. The only thing that changed was I got a different brand of cable modem. I went from a Lan City to a 3Com. |
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CableModemtech
join:2001-10-10
Lawrenceville, GA
| reply to broadbndgeek
Re: Poor Cable
I am a cable modem service techician (no I'm not TV technician Internet only) and I work for comcast. Understand this, @home is Comcast's ISP, Comcast is the END USER's ISP. When you call for Tech support for the @home service 9 out of ten times your talking to one of @home's call centers.....not Comcast. @Home's so called phone technicians are not technician's (not that comcast's customer service are sharp as a tack either) they are Soccer moms and dads that have little to NO technical backround what so ever and are being paid 9 bucks an hour to read off of a piece of paper. Trust me I know I have to deal with the customer's that have been told to " unplug the modem for 12 hours" ( If something is wrong with the service unplugging the dam modem isn't gonna fix it)or the ever popular "you need your modem changed". I get about 50 service orders a week, out of those 1 or 2 may need there modem changed. Also out of those fifty half of them are provisioning (database) problems that can be fixed in 2 minutes over the phone. Most modems have there own internal diagnostics that will give you a basic Idea of whats causing the problem. Get to know the light patterns on your modem they tell you alot.
The Surfboard modems in paticular have an internal diagnostic utility that displays signal levels and return powers in your web browser. This is good for sometimes figuring out intermitent MODEM connections. It can be accessed by typing 192.168.100.1 in your web browser. Note this will only work if the modem is locked and you are not accessing the modem through a NAT router or proxy server.
Here are a few things to help you have a better understanding of cable modems.
1. Signal levels have almost no bearing on speed. The modem is either on and perfect (modem only not the rest of the system) or off and nothing. In some cases the modem can be losing and regaining its lock so fast it shows up as packet loss or slow speed.
2. Speed meters are bullshit. If you want an Idea of the kind of speed your modem is capable of go to a bunch of different download sites and download some files. See what kind of rate you get. Most cable modem systems give you 1-3 megabits (not bytes) on the download. This is not guarenteed by any system though. Notice the words "UP TO" 50 times faster in the fine print. Just because you are capable of downloading at a certain speed doesn't mean its going to be sent to you at that speed.
3. Just because you have cable TV doesn't mean you should be able to get the cable modem. Docsis compliant cable modems require a forward signal (the one that supplies your TV's)and a return (the signal that is sent back to the cable company by the modem). There are a few systems that utilize the cable for downloading and a standard phone line modem for the return. Analog cable TV boxes don't send anything back to the cable company. The modem actually uses 2 regular tv channels for its communication pathways (forward and return).Which ones they are differ from cable system to cable system. Cable TV has been around for 40-50 years and was never originally designed to have a signal sent back from the home to the cable company. Cable modems less than 10. Not all cable systems are capable of supporting the cable modem service. DOCSIS cable standards require a certain range of frequencies and a return path to support cable modems (except non DOCSIS proprietary setups and dialup modem return). If you live in an area with an older cable system that doesn't meet the specifications then it must be upgraded or completely rebuilt (that takes an assload of money when your talking a few thousand miles of cable in one decient size system. Don't be surprised if every modem doesn't work perfect all the time (I'm not trying to defend the reliability just stating the reality). Whenever you try to utilize old technology as a medium for new technology there are bound to be problems. Alot of cable systems are 15 to 20+ years old thats a long time for a piece of electrical equipment to be underground or hanging on a pole exposed to the elements. Things like water, loose connections, dirty cable fittings and worst of all IGNORANCE can cause you to have problems with your modem.
4. Splitters are probably the biggest enemy of the cable modem. When you split the signal it drops the signal strength down. The more you split the weaker the signal on the forward. The other side of the coin is the modems return power. Its limited to between 58 and somewhere around 65 db (depending on manufacturer) worth of transmit power. The modem's return has to travel back through what ever splitters are between the modem and the main line outside. If there are to many the modem will not be able to get its signal back to the cable company (try to have the modem wired to most direct route to the cable house box outside.
If you want to know more about technical specs on cable modems go here »www.cablemodem.com
Sorry its late i gotta go to bed have to deal with retards tomorrow. Thank god @home is going out of business my job might get easier!!!! PS Comcast did not Cap your upload @home did because some stupid ass genius thought it would free up bandwidth on the download side...........doesn't work like that!!!!!! |
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CableModemtech
join:2001-10-10
Lawrenceville, GA | reply to cmaenginsb
Re: Comcast caused a lot of damage while solvent
Your right |
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celicaguy
@24.22.x.x
| reply to CableModemtech
Re: Poor Cable
I couldn't agree more about @home technical support. My experience with the @Home tech support script readers was very frustrating. I knew more about the cable modem than they did. They even had problems with the webspace server failing to load the Frontpage extensions. They kept trying to tell me my full version of Frontpage 2000 was not compatible with @Home Webspace. It took weeks and an escalation to a supervisor to explain what an extension file was. Since Frontpage is not really supported by @home, they would try to blow you off and disconnect the call. Another problem was with the power cord on the RCA Modem. It was shorting out on the circuit board but they wouldn't beleive it. They kept asking to do a system push and the standard BS script checks when I had already stated the obvious. Took two weeks to get them to replace it. The replacement modem was sent but then they put a cap on my upload. I complained enough that a tech took it off.
My last experience with these idiots was with the mail server. The mail.indpndnce1.mo.home.com mail server will not respond to ping or tracert from my location anymore. They have no clue how to fix it even when I told them what was wrong. I proved to them it was a mail server issue when I could Telnet to a Portland, WA mail server and also retrieve my mail from the netmail.home.com mail server. To this day, the original mail server is not responding and I had to change my Outlook settings for the Netmail server. |
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