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What do they mean WiFi won't work? How is that anything other than a blatant lie? Reminds me of the late 90's when my ISP told me I couldn't get cable Internet
by scrabble 12y ago
What do they mean WiFi won't work? How is that anything other than a blatant lie?
Reminds me of the late 90's when my ISP told me I couldn't get cable Internet because I didn't have a 486. I lied and told them I did to have the modem sent to me to hook up myself. It's a computer network, once it's in my house I can expose it as I like.
- dec0dedab0de 12y agoWhat do they mean WiFi won't work? How is that anything other than a blatant lie? They probably mean the WiFi built into the cable modem.
- jessaustin 12y agoHow would that be anything other than a blatant lie? Are they going to mail the customer a different model of modem? Do any current cableco-provided modems not have built-in wifi?
- danudey 12y ago> Do any current cableco-provided modems not have built-in wifi? No, but all of their features can be enabled/disabled by the ISP remotely.
- scrabble 12y agoI know for my ISP the user names and passwords used by support are all freely available online. I needed a tech to come in because they couldn't troubleshoot my issue (magically fixed the next day) and he was flummoxed when he couldn't log in because his passwords didn't work.
- NoPiece 12y agoI have a Ubee cable modem from Comcast that doesn't have wifi, and I think had an Arris before that that also didn't have wifi.
- ossreality 12y agoI can't tell if people are naive or clueless. They fucking just turn it off dude.
- shurcooL 12y agoCan't it be remotely disabled because it's not a part of the cheaper plan? Similarly to how you only get the ability to tether your data with more expensive plans. It's a completely artificial client-side restriction that can be circumvented by rooting, etc. Not unlike DRM.
- MaysonL 12y agoYeah: a few months ago Charter upgraded our cable modem, and neither the new one nor the old one has wifi (they want to sell a router for $12/month).
- jwdunne 12y agoYes, whenever I miss the payment on my TalkTalk bill, the whole local network goes down, not just Internet access. I've been meaning to get a cheapo router to remedy. People just don't know that you can have wifi for free, especially when you've got adverts from O2 and such that 2gb 3G and " unlimited wifi". I dunno if it's the same in the US but apparently it's some typically restricted resource that many providers in the UK are lifting the limits off.
- hueving 12y ago>I dunno if it's the same in the US but apparently it's some typically restricted resource that many providers in the UK are lifting the limits off. No, this isn't too typical. Most people have their own router offering WiFi in front of the cable modem. It wasn't until recently that cable companies started bundling wi-fi and NAT into the modem.
- wtallis 12y agoReally? I had Time Warner Cable providing a Netgear modem+router+802.11g AP combo box back in 2004, maybe 2003. (It was shit.) I think the only thing that's changed is that nowadays even non-technical users have more than one device that needs a connection, so attaching the modem directly to the PC by USB doesn't cut it.
- jwdunne 12y agoI know it's not typically restricted, I've enjoyed "unlimited wifi" for over a decade! The thing that bothers me is some providers in the UK say they give away unlimited wifi as part of the package.
- lucb1e 12y ago> " unlimited wifi". I just felt a disturbance in the force. Damn, that sentence triggers a whole range of evil ideas I hadn't yet thought of. Hmm, hold on while I check with my ISP whether I can downgrade my WiFi data limit for cheaper service... or would that just be giving them ideas? :p
- devrelm 12y agoOr their comcast/xfinity hotspots, which is true.[1] Their lowest "Performance Starter" package does not have access to those hotspots, while the next higher "Performance" package does. [1] http://www.comcast.com/internet-service.html http://www.comcast.com/internet-service.html
- mox1 12y agoI'm honestly not sure what the Representative meant. This is just what my mother told me (non tech person, she could have misunderstood). I left out the part where the rep told my mother she was already on the cheapest plan. Fortunately they had just mailed their yearly "price sheet" that listed Economy Plus Internet, with prices. Magically when my mother mentioned this by name, it became available. My general sense is that these types of conversations happen daily at Comcast and such...I've heard too many similar stories over the years.
- joezydeco 12y agoHow many of us had to bluff our way through the first gatekeeper on tech support like this? Tech: "Could you please unplug your computer for 20 seconds and restart it?" Me: "Okay. <does nothing for 60 seconds>. Okay, it's back" Or this gem? Tech: "What browser are you using?" Me: "<Looks at Ubuntu desktop> Internet Explorer 6".
- knodi123 12y agostop it, you're giving me flashbacks
- click170 12y agoI just want to point out that Teksavvy have in my experience proven to be FANTASTIC at helping with linux internet-related problems. I now refuse to subscribe to any ISP who does not offer Linux support, and will in fact check to make sure that Teksavvy (or an equivalent as described above) is available in an area before moving to it. Full Disclosure, I am a Teksavvy customer but not a Teksavvy employee.
- roadnottaken 12y agoMust be nice to have a choice of ISPs...
- wpietri 12y agoAs a Sonic customer, I agree with you: small ISPs can be awesome. However, over 90% of American homes have at most 2 ISP choices. At most! So we are in a small but happy minority. I lay most of the blame here on the FCC and the FTC, who have totally failed to regulate in a way that maintains a healthy market. But I also have some blame left over for all the people who signed up with major ISPs while the small ones went out of business. It has always cost me more money to go with a local ISP rather than whatever the megacorp's latest intro rate would be. Now everybody is shocked that Comcast, Verizon, et al are giving shitty service and being total dicks about it. But it turns out I can't go down to the corner and shout, "WELL DUH! WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?!? TO THEM YOU ARE THE VEAL!" because nobody likes hearing I told you so. That or they don't like crazy people shouting on the corner.
- w-ll 12y agoSimilarly in college, when setting up TWC account after some friends and I moved into a house. I clearly remember them saying that our wifi would only work with 1 device if we didnt get the "Fastlane" or whatever package they where trying to up-sell at the time. I just played it dumb and said it was just me. We had about 10+ wireless devices connected.
- gknoy 12y agoI suppose that if you had it hooked to a single router, that could be your one device. ;)
- bachmeier 12y agoNothing new about tech support not knowing what they're talking about. After all, it's written into the script that they're told to read for that question. A few years ago I was setting up a new internet provider for my mother, so I called to get the info to get email: Support: "You're using Outlook, right?" Me: "No, Thunderbird." Support: "We only support Outlook, so I can't help you." Me: "It's email, it won't matter if I use Thunderbird." Support: "Our email does not work with anything other than Outlook." Me: "Okay, I'll get rid of Thunderbird and use Outlook." I entered the information into Thunderbird as he gave it to me and then hung up the phone.
- bluedino 12y agoOr when your ISP 'requires' Windows
- lucb1e 12y agoAnd modem/router/switch boxes that come with Windows 7 logos.
- marcosdumay 12y agoAt the earlier 2000's my ISP sent a "drivers" with malware that would disable brigding and NATing at the OS. But, of course, it only run on Windows, and I was lying telling that I had Windows, as every ISP would refuse to serve somebody that uses Linux...