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| |  Inside insight on Comcast woes
Here is all I can say at this point to maybe help ease or answer some of the issues:
Issues, yes there are many, many that are yet to be resolved but they will be I assure you.
Differences, yes there are many. This is not the @Home service and will not resemble it completely any time soon for most users.
Comcast is undertaking something that @Home had several years to put in place and perfect, I was one of the very first @Home users in 97 and it was terrible for awhile until the bugs got worked out. Comcast is building the network from scratch with all new equipment and lots of new technology. There are issues with service providers trying to get circuits provided, equipment to sites, installed. There are customer service people being trained, engineers being born by fire and close to a million people being moved over to this "untested" networks thousands at a time.
@Home put people on networks that were built in periods of months, tested for several more months, and then only had a couple hundred people on them for 3 to 6 months before they called them done and ready to sell. Comcast is building, testing and moving not a few hundred but sometimes tens of thousands of people to networks at once and trying to keep everyone happy. It isn’t going to happen.
There are going to be service differences, caps that @Home were supposed to have in place from day one (128k up and 1.5 dn) are being enforced. DHCP addresses (@Home NEVER SOLD static) are being enforced. Full email and ASP services are being finished as is webspace and member services.
The PROXY quotes are inaccurate to a point. Use of caching servers is being enforced to provide the majority of the home users the best experience possible. The issues with web sites not being able to be reached is due to the fact that the IP addresses Comcast had to purchase for its customers had been "blacklisted" by many carriers due to their use by another since shutdown ISP. This has been resolved or will be soon. This was not the fault of Comcast but that of the 2 largest web-hosting companies not allowing connections to their sites from those IP addresses.
Users who did violate the AUP set forth by @Home by using their IP address to run various services will not be allowed to do so any longer. This undue strain on the network simply hurt the regular service of others. Comcast Business Solutions will provide those who want to run web and game servers the connections to do so but at an increased rate. This is simply good business practice, nothing more.
Please bear with them as they try to meet a deadline and move over 900,000 people over to a new system by Feb 28th when @Home will shut down its service for good. There will be many new features, old features and enhancements coming in the future and all of the problems being experienced now will be resolved. | |
|  | | Re: Inside insight on Comcast woes | |
| | | Yeah...gotta go with ziggy on this one. While your points are perfectly valid, I somehow doubt Comcast will be giving discounted rates for the transition period. Sure, they'll credit your account....if you don't mind being put on hold for a couple of hours while tech support is being deluged with calls.
As you mentioned, this has really been something of a crash course in network design and maintenance, and they're being forced to accomplish a year's worth of work in ninety days or less, so there are bound to be some serious issues. However, I certainly don't agree with the corporate decision to sugarcoat things for customers and pretend everything is business as usual. But I guess that's what happens when the decision makers come from marketing backgrounds, where "optimism" and "positive attitude" are just another way of saying "I have completely bought into my own line of bullshit, and you should, too."
I guess my biggest complaint is that there are so many different layers and divisions involved in the whole process, nobody quite knows what anyone else is doing, which makes solving any kind of problem a very difficult and time-consuming task. Perhaps if they streamlined the process a bit, things would work well enough to live up to the marketing people's spin.
And incidentally....I'm on the payroll, too. : ) | |
| | | | Re: Inside insight on Comcast woes "As you mentioned, this has really been something of a crash course in network design and maintenance, and they're being forced to accomplish a year's worth of work in ninety days or less, so there are bound to be some serious issues. "
That is such a pot of bullshit as I recalled the news mentioned it like over a year ago Comcast said when the contract runs out they won't be renewing it. That suggests they have backup plan. Don't tell me they wait until the last minutes to build a network from scratch. | |
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| | BIG BUSINESS GOT A WHIFF OF THE CASH, SO KISS THE GOOD OLE' DAYS GOODBYE. NO SHOCKER WE ALL KNOW HOW IT WORKS. I CAN'T BELEIVE ONE OF THE SERVICES I PAY FOR OUT OF THE MANY, THAT I FELT I WAS GETTING MY MONEY'S WORTH IS HISTORY. NICE WAY TO START THE YEAR. YOU BETTER GET BUSY COMCAST ALOT OF UNHAPPY PEOPLE OUT THERE PAYING ALOT OF MONEY, LET'S GO, PUMP IT UP, MAKE IT HAPPEN, ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. | |
| | | Thanks for the BS.. you must work for them or something. Comcast sucks and will suck. @Home sucked just as much, except they weren't down as much and the IP's didnt change every 2 days. I must have had 3 ip's in a week's time. About web/game servers? @ Home was capped at 128. BS.. that is ISDN speed. No one does it this slow. 256 at least, is where it should be. I am a Sr. Network Specialist at my company and I need my FTP server for virus updates, virus fixes, little utilities and network diagrams of my clients. I, like everyone else pay for the service. If people want to make a game server that sure as hell should have a right to do so. Another thing that really ticked me off is the software they sent you to install. They claim it HAS to be installed. So far it works without it and I do not see why it needs to be installed, since everything is TCP/IP based. They want you to install it because it has contracts out the ass. @Home wanted you to install the software, but all that did was configure TCP/IP and install a pain in the butt browser to use. I wish Optimum was available in the area, I'd tell comcast to kiss my ass. Not only do they suck, but they also charge more than their competitors. | |
| | | "Comcast Business Solutions will provide those who want to run web and game servers the connections to do so but at an increased rate. This is simply good business practice, nothing more."
Since when is running a game server a business ? If I pay a monthly fee for internet access and I want to run a small server for my friends, I should not have to pay "Comcast Business Solutions" a huge fee. | |
| | | So... Basically you're saying "@Home was letting you get away with crap, Comcast isn't."? And you want people to accept it?
Example: My car had an advertised EPA mileage of 30mpg. During the first two years, it got closer to 40. Then, abruptly after a dealer-done 30k maintenance, I dropped to the high 20s, and acceleration got worse. I asked the dealer why. They decided to help me, and found out that their tech had changed my timing back to 'spec'. They played with the timing, and I'm back to the high 30s, and good acceleration. Not quite what I was getting before, but better than what 'spec' said.
My example actually happened to me. According to you, they should have told me "Oh, your car never should have gotten that, so we're not going to help you." and left it at that. No, if you raise a customer's expectations by providing service above what you originally claimed, you must expect that when you reduce it to what you originally claimed, you're going to get complaints. Even VERY pissed off customers. The same way people complain when cops spring a speed trap in an area that people are usually allowed to speed in.
Yes, legally they are fully allowed to do what they're doing. But expect complains, and cancellations. And don't give me any 'well, we're allowed to' crap when they do. Comcast knew what it was doing, it took the risk that people would get pissed and cancel. Now it's happening. AT&T went through the same thing when it had its switchover. (Although they at least kept MOST of the @Home capabilities.) | |
| | | | Re: Insight? More like whiny defending. Comcast isn't a car. heh. | |
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| | So what if I run my own web and email server at home?
I am using far less bandwidth than someone downloading
MP3's and MPEG movies! These companies should understand the
meaning of ISP, that is, Internet Service Provider - and
do just that - provide me with an internet connection -
without blocking ports, etc. If they want to limit total
bandwidth usage for their plans, thats OK - within reason.
But stop blocking ports!! | |
| | | You can say whatever you'd like about Comcast, I as a consumer am no longer happy with the service. @Home's demise was directly caused by Comcast, Cox and AT&T, just to name a few. They among others, put @Home out of business. The aforementioned companies did what was right for THEMSELVES, and not what was good for the consumer. Corporate greed has once again screwed the consumer.
My only hope is that the now dissatisfied customers (and there are many) drop Comcast in droves for alternative internet providers. I'm confident Comcast service will improve once they start losing members in a noticeable amount.
Elsewhere in NJ, Optimum Online is $30.00 per month with down speeds averaging 3500K and upload at 1000K. Yes, that's correct. Optimum Online offers upload speeds equal to Comcast download speed for substantially less money. I wonder what Comcast's response to that would be? | |
| | | | Re: Inside insight on Comcast woes When your large ISP goes out of business, you can expect problems, delays, and run around. When your small ISP goes outta business you can expect a sudden loss of service with absoutely no recourse. | |
| | | | | Re: Inside insight on Comcast woes said by DeathNova:
When your large ISP goes out of business, you can expect problems, delays, and run around. When your small ISP goes outta business you can expect a sudden loss of service with absoutely no recourse.
So... Is that recommending a small ISP, or a large one? I can't tell.
I'd rather have a sudden loss of service, with the ability to switch providers, than to be stuck in a contract with a company that has problems, delays, and runarounds... | |
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