US Cable Support > Comcast HSI > [RANT] Res gets 2x speeds FREE|biz pays $10 for small change

reply to ropeguru

Re: [RANT] Res gets 2x speeds FREE|biz pays $10 for small change

Oh? What has Comcast already done, in some areas?

Sigh. Why don't you wait until March (most likely April) when this actually goes down and see what really happens. You're making a lot of assumptions. Comcast (or any other big corporation) generally doesn't need are help to make a snafu of things.

reply to pflog
Actually pflog, I get your rant. At first blush it is at least confusing, and has to be irritating to business customers to see residential service offerings sprint ahead on speeds on somewhat equivalent tiers.

At the same time, I suggest at least considering that residential versus business packages are two different product lines, despite both being HSI. It is less important comparing relative "value" between packages designed for two disparate groups of customers, as it is determining if the product stands as useful and fairly priced on its own merit. Truth to tell, I never really bothered worrying about what business customers got, I was only concerned that the package that I was interested in represented a fair value for my intened usage.

It is a bit amusing that for a long time now residential users have been the ones bemoaning the fact that business users had the advantages of no caps as well as better CS...and indeed despite the fact that caps really are not currently being enforced, Comcast policy still fully indicates that they will be a part of residential packages. Further, although there is always the "bad" story to counter, business customers still do have better customer service for the most part than their residential counterparts...and yes, that support costs money.

I think that if Comcast business customers feel sufficiently disenfranchised then they have every right to voice their disatisfaction...however, it is clear that Comcast will never make everyone happy
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Deeds, not words

reply to pflog
I've decided that once my contract is up in roughly a year, I'm going to go back to residential. It seems like the business support has gotten worse over the last few months, both over the phone, and on-site visits.

They've started giving me grief for owning my own modem when calling them for my current ongoing issue, even though I bought a second one to swap with. The last service call I scheduled over the phone was for a week later, and this was with my modem rebooting 4-10 times a day.

Most of the techs that show up, aside from the maintenance supervisor that I'm currently dealing with, are "normal"/residential service techs, that usually don't have access to business-class accounts. They're basically flying blind if I'm not at home (and this usually results in little to no follow-up), and if I am, I have to re-explain everything that I told over the phone. They can't do too much anyways before forwarding it on to a supervisor. I guess I can chalk this one up to living in a sparsely populated area.

The lack of modem choices is the icing on the cake. I'd really like to get a Zoom 5341J or a similar 8x4 modem, since the newer chipsets seem to be more tolerant of crap coming down the wire. I absolutely refuse to use any kind of combo/gateway unit, which means I'm stuck with older modems. Hopefully the SB6121 will continue to be sold for a while longer.
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KI6RIT

reply to PeteC2
I see your point, I do. I don't have to like it though!

The thing is, they won't lose that much business over this (in the near term) because it's not like someone can get out of their contract because "residential gets higher speeds" And I doubt people are willing to pay a massive ETF to spite them and get residential instead.

I hope this is all just me overreacting like AVonGauss thinks, but I'm not so sure.
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"I drank what?" -Socrates

reply to pflog
Like some of the other comments, I think I'll be moving to residential once my contract is up as well. I got the business service because I didn't want to risk hitting the cap that residential had at the time, I didn't want to be without internets for days on end, and the price premium wasn't that much more. That was a bad idea.

IMHO the business phone support is no different than the residential. I can't get them to come out the same day and the tech that eventually comes days later can't be bothered to follow-up when they discover the problem isn't limited to just my house. There isn't any value in the business service for me.

I think caps are a bad idea, but the proposed 50GB/$10 with three passes in 1yr. may just be worth it if I save >=$20/mo for faster service and that savings can be applied to any cap overages. I wouldn't be paying extra for the same crappy support either.

So if I owned my own modem on business, how much grief am I in for to move it over to residential when my contract is up? I've been meaning to get rid of the rent fee for that POS SMC gateway.

And the other up side for residential? You would already have native IPv6.

reply to pflog

reply to ropeguru

reply to pflog
No way to get statics, or run email servers. That puts me in business class.
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My place : »www.schettino.us

reply to ropeguru