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I'm counting on TMO to kick Comcast's ass in my town Is Comcast really that bad? In my admittedly European experience all the service providers are (dis)functi

by a_imho 9y ago

I'm counting on TMO to kick Comcast's ass in my town Is Comcast really that bad? In my admittedly European experience all the service providers are (dis)functional and greedy pretty much to the same degree, none of them are good guys.

wetpaws 9y ago
It's even worse.
qwz4233 9y ago
I live in a Cox area. They offer fine service, but they are monopolistic and keep increasing prices.
godzillabrennus 9y ago
Comcast and Countrywide were in the running for the Consumerists 2008 worst company of the year. Countrywide won but had to help nuke the economy. Comcast had a real shot at winning for being such a malignant organization. The rebrand to Xfinity is a joke.
- a_imho 9y ago
  Why? Are they significantly more hated than any big co? Like Uber and Facebook received quite a lot of bad press lately. Is this just perception or are they really that bad/evil? TMO (yeah Austria, not US but still) were bragging about not hashing passwords on twitter just a couple of weeks ago. Not exactly professional.
  - geodel 9y ago
    Well good companies are one which write same CRUD apps Nth time. And then in few months/years they either shutdown or join forces with a bad company.
  - csydas 9y ago
    In the US they are. Comcast has rather notorious Customer Retention policies and frequent abuse of their position as monopolies in many cities, whether it's a matter of the prices, the data caps, the script injections, the promises made to cities that never materialize, and so on. It's basically like comic book villainy, the only thing missing is photos of Comcast Executives cackling over the complaints from customers. And I say that as someone who was overall okay with Comcast's service the one time I had them. The behavior of Comcast defines the perception most of the US has with them.
rootusrootus 9y ago
It can be. I've so far had only good experiences. My service is fast and reliable, and the other day when I called them up to activate a new modem, they cut my cost to $35/month as a customer appreciation move with barely any strings attached (only that I commit to staying with them a year ... I've been with them for 6 already and there is no viable competitor here). There are plenty of horror stories, however. I may just be lucky so far.
- zwily 9y ago
  Same. I’ve had nothing but fine experiences with them.
joezydeco 9y ago
Comcast is the only broadband provider in my town that can deliver a service greater than 2 mbit/sec. AT&T has U-Verse DSLAMS in some corners, but gave up on covering the entire town and the copper network is old and crumbling. There is zero hope of any kind of fiber service showing up. In my personal experience Comcast's service isn't bad, but their rates are tied to the fact that there is no competition. My belief is that prices would drop about 50% and speeds would jump up 20% if another company could get into the space. And that's just for IP service. Video service is another story altogether. TMO's purchase of Layer3 gives me some hope that maybe there will be a decent streaming service they will bundle with it.
- tatersolid 9y ago
  > In my personal experience Comcast's service isn't bad, but their rates are tied to the fact that there is no competition. Yep. My town has exactly one provider: Comcast. They even negotiated a 50-year exclusive right of way back in the 80s by lining some local politician pockets. I pay $250/month for internet, landline phone, and basic cable bundle. This includes about $50 worth of bullshit “copper recovery fees” and the like which are designed to sound like taxes but are really just pure profit for Comcast.
mikeash 9y ago
I was a Comcast customer for years. The service was unreliable. The phone support was useless and would, for example, ask me to reboot my computer when my modem was clearly failing to communicate with their equipment. Their techs would routinely arrive an hour or two late when they already had a four-hour window to hit, and not even call to tell me they would be late. One of them replaced something in an outside box and then just left, leaving two equipment boxes hanging open and scraps of cable lying on the ground. I now have Verizon and the difference is vast. The service has gone down twice in five years. When I called it in, I was immediately connected to someone who knew what DHCP meant. They’re not perfect but they’re a lot better.
- ddoolin 9y ago
  Ha, I had the same problem with Time Warner re: leaving boxes open and cables laying around. In that case, they never told me they had come and I waited nearly a week (they said they had to come put more cable down to the end of my street [I lived on the end] or something) before calling to see when they were going to come. Come to find, they had come days prior and never finished the job, leaving the box open and the work unfinished. I had to finish it myself. All of these traditional telcos are garbage and their ratings in multiple arenas showcase that very clearly.
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by a_imho 9y ago

wetpaws 9y ago

It's even worse.

qwz4233 9y ago

I live in a Cox area. They offer fine service, but they are monopolistic and keep increasing prices.

godzillabrennus 9y ago

Comcast and Countrywide were in the running for the Consumerists 2008 worst company of the year. Countrywide won but had to help nuke the economy. Comcast had a real shot at winning for being such a malignant organization. The rebrand to Xfinity is a joke.

a_imho 9y ago
Why? Are they significantly more hated than any big co? Like Uber and Facebook received quite a lot of bad press lately. Is this just perception or are they really that bad/evil? TMO (yeah Austria, not US but still) were bragging about not hashing passwords on twitter just a couple of weeks ago. Not exactly professional.
- geodel 9y ago
  Well good companies are one which write same CRUD apps Nth time. And then in few months/years they either shutdown or join forces with a bad company.
- csydas 9y ago
  In the US they are. Comcast has rather notorious Customer Retention policies and frequent abuse of their position as monopolies in many cities, whether it's a matter of the prices, the data caps, the script injections, the promises made to cities that never materialize, and so on. It's basically like comic book villainy, the only thing missing is photos of Comcast Executives cackling over the complaints from customers. And I say that as someone who was overall okay with Comcast's service the one time I had them. The behavior of Comcast defines the perception most of the US has with them.

rootusrootus 9y ago

It can be. I've so far had only good experiences. My service is fast and reliable, and the other day when I called them up to activate a new modem, they cut my cost to $35/month as a customer appreciation move with barely any strings attached (only that I commit to staying with them a year ... I've been with them for 6 already and there is no viable competitor here). There are plenty of horror stories, however. I may just be lucky so far.

zwily 9y ago
Same. I’ve had nothing but fine experiences with them.

joezydeco 9y ago

Comcast is the only broadband provider in my town that can deliver a service greater than 2 mbit/sec. AT&T has U-Verse DSLAMS in some corners, but gave up on covering the entire town and the copper network is old and crumbling. There is zero hope of any kind of fiber service showing up. In my personal experience Comcast's service isn't bad, but their rates are tied to the fact that there is no competition. My belief is that prices would drop about 50% and speeds would jump up 20% if another company could get into the space. And that's just for IP service. Video service is another story altogether. TMO's purchase of Layer3 gives me some hope that maybe there will be a decent streaming service they will bundle with it.

tatersolid 9y ago
> In my personal experience Comcast's service isn't bad, but their rates are tied to the fact that there is no competition. Yep. My town has exactly one provider: Comcast. They even negotiated a 50-year exclusive right of way back in the 80s by lining some local politician pockets. I pay $250/month for internet, landline phone, and basic cable bundle. This includes about $50 worth of bullshit “copper recovery fees” and the like which are designed to sound like taxes but are really just pure profit for Comcast.

mikeash 9y ago

I was a Comcast customer for years. The service was unreliable. The phone support was useless and would, for example, ask me to reboot my computer when my modem was clearly failing to communicate with their equipment. Their techs would routinely arrive an hour or two late when they already had a four-hour window to hit, and not even call to tell me they would be late. One of them replaced something in an outside box and then just left, leaving two equipment boxes hanging open and scraps of cable lying on the ground. I now have Verizon and the difference is vast. The service has gone down twice in five years. When I called it in, I was immediately connected to someone who knew what DHCP meant. They’re not perfect but they’re a lot better.

ddoolin 9y ago
Ha, I had the same problem with Time Warner re: leaving boxes open and cables laying around. In that case, they never told me they had come and I waited nearly a week (they said they had to come put more cable down to the end of my street [I lived on the end] or something) before calling to see when they were going to come. Come to find, they had come days prior and never finished the job, leaving the box open and the work unfinished. I had to finish it myself. All of these traditional telcos are garbage and their ratings in multiple arenas showcase that very clearly.

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