sortofageek
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| reply to yvliew
Re: Unable to get speed upgrade!
I get a lot of questions like this and will try to answer it. Keep in mind the fact I am just another Comcast customer with no inside knowledge, but this is what I think I know.
1. The MAC of your modem is only useful to either a Comcast employee or contractor who is authorized to use it via company tools available to them. If you give me your MAC, there is nothing I can do with it other than look at it, perhaps note it is different from mine. 
2. Given access via Comcast, an employee can look at your modem signals, logs and, perhaps, internal diagnostic pages we as customers can't see. (I am guessing at the third item and, if true, may depend on the modem.) I don't know if different techs may have different levels of access but, depending on their authorization to access, some can push firmware and/or speed cap config files and also access your account information.
I think it is not a good idea to post your MAC publicly because you are then making it available to any employee or contractor with accessibility with no regard as to whether they may be ethical individuals. If you work through the Comcast support lines, calls are monitored, security precautions on your behalf are in place. If you give out your MAC elsewhere, you are bypassing Comcast security measures.
All that said, it is a personal choice whether or not you trust an individual to handle access to your account and identity or not, whether or not you trust your information will not be passed on to others. I do know some have trusted some techs here with the MAC, had their problems fixed expeditiously and I have never heard of this being abused here on this site.
Disclaimer: The above is partly what I think I know and partly my opinion. If I have facts wrong, I sincerely hope someone will offer a correction. We're here to educate and be educated and the latter is mostly what is true for me.
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