Posted on 02/06/2015 7:20:01 AM PST by Leaning Right
Comcast is now offering in my area a triple-play package (TV, phone, and Internet) that is much cheaper than what I'm paying now with Verizon. No contracts either.
But I've heard many bad things about Comcast. Is that all in the past, or is Comcast still a mess? Your thoughts, please.
Reading ancient cuniform tablets is easier than trying to decipher the charges on a comcast bill.
I loathe Comcast, give me FIOS any day!
Huh? I have ATT U-Verse and their customer service has been exceptional. If I have a problem, it’s sometimes same day, or next day, service.
Depending on how one uses it, cable internet runs rings around other services.
My mid-level service is sort of expensive at $68. But I get 250Gb of download and 50Mbps speed.
DSL from the phone company offers only about 12Mbps speed. [I don’t recall what they downloading is, but it is significantly less than cable] for around $40 per month.
Most wireless offers, at most, 10Gb of downloading for around $50.
Most satellite offers around 10Gb of downloading for around $90.
I gripe when cable does their 2x-per-year price increases — only a $1 or $2 per service — but over the years that adds up.
I watching a lot of streaming — Netflix, HBO Go, and network channels via Plex, so I like the 250Gb of downloading.
Which Triple Play are you viewing, as there are quite a few different ones?
There are different programing packages and different Internet speeds. In addition, they have equipment charges which vary from package to package.
I called dish...when I last moved. They referred me to ..ATT!
I have no idea what was going on with that...as Id think if they were an isp locally....theyd have service through their own company..
Same thing here with the Internet converter box.
Comcast picked it up, then I get a bill for $56 because I didn’t get a receipt and they are lying about it.
They have turned it over to some collections group. ( I’m sure its some internal bull shit department) , good luck with that
FIOS?
In my area of Colorado, I’ve had excellent service from Comcast. I use them only for internet service though, and have business class service, which costs about the same as consumer service, but gets quicker service response.
Just yesterday, I finally decided to call Comcast because speed had been uneven for quite some time and I finally decided to something about it, and they had a tech scheduled to come out in a couple of hours. The tech couldn’t find anything wrong with the signal levels, so replaced the modem/router since he says they can get flaky and cause problems like I was seeing, namely if you power-cycle the modem/router, the problems go away for a while.
I like the fact that when there’s a larger outage, that usually by the time I call comcast, they already have a notification message that they know about the problem and are working on it. We have at least a couple of outages a year due to ice storms and ancient rotten cottonwood trees dropping limbs onto lines. Comcast is very prompt at repair. I’ve seen these guys out at night working in brutal blizzard conditions. I’m very satisfied with comcast technical support and repair.
Centurylink on the other hand has fallen apart. I deal with both comcast and centurylink fairly frequently helping out my IT customers when they have problems, and Comcast has customer service nailed compared to Centurylink.
I’ve got a commercial client right now whose only high-speed option is Centurylink Ethernet Over Copper (not DSL) and customer service is worse than a joke. Only way to submit a problem is to go online and submit a service request, and then practically no one in the entire company even knows what Ethernet over copper is. Believe me, if Comcast was in the area for this customer we’d switch in a heartbeat. (BTW, my customer is within spitting distance of a centurylink central office and DSL should be available, but the lines into this area are completely decrepit and centurylink could care less about ever fixing them.
Centurylink is the umpteenth owner since the original Mountain Bell, and every owner has the same problem: their old businesses and revenues are shrinking so rapidly they have no way to make the necessary capital investments to move their plant into the 21st century.
Comcast is the devil!
Comcast owns NBC and MSNBC.
Any more questions?
Gay!
If you're OK with the price, the customer service is the best in the industry and the quality is also the best.
Their prices are through the roof {I'm paying over $ 250/ month but it all depends on what you are using}.
I give them an "A" rating for customer service because they guarantee you a 2 hour window and they make it.
When a rep shows up, he/she wears booties so they don't screw up your house, and they know what they are doing...no rookies.
They may have some service zones that are not good, but I've been a customer {off and on with verizon} for decades and Comcast is the best.
I've never tried Dish or Direct TV, because I have no good way to get high speed internet without cable.
I will never go back to slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow speed inet.
This is just my experience, it may be different in different places.
It gave me great pleasure to fire Comcast about 15 years ago. I hear they’re even worse now than they were back then. The fact that they spew sewage into our culture through NBC/Universal is an absolute deal killer for me.
Tangential reminder to all:
The FCC has now defined “broadband” as 25Mbps minimum.
Make sure you’re getting “broadband”, and make sure it’s at least that fast.
OB: get internet service and an AppleTV. Dump “cable TV”. Life’s too short for commercials and “lowest common denominator” content.
I’ve been a Comcast customer for quite a while, and have been a Frontier customer too.
The Comcast X1 platform was released too early. It doesn’t work very well, but when it does, it is good. Never used the ‘voice search’ thing, because its not out yet, not really.
They got WAAAY out ahead of their skis on X1.
The other issue with Comcast is maintaining signal strength in some neighborhoods. The resolution of their HD is iffy a lot.
As for internet - by far and hands down - the fastest service both up and down. On their non-premium service, I’ve had speeds approaching a Gig a second.
What’s more is that it is clear they are experimenting with increasing download speeds without publicizing it. The increase in download speed just in the last 3 months is astounding.
I do quite a bit of uploading too, and again, fastest I’ve experienced. Skype, GoToMeeting, and other applications work with zero latency and no line reflection or SWR (echo, basically).
Last but not least, they are willing to deal. I have nearly every premium movie channel there is, and I don’t pay for it. I joined as a triple-play customer, on which they reap decent margin.
The cable cord cutting is real. People are being driven in the spirit of Linux to cutting the cord to keep the costs down. It’s a definite trade off, as you might imagine. I helped my BIL cut the cord, and he’s doing OK. I have a business partner doing the same thing. Major trade offs.
When contract renewal comes up, I can pretty much talk them back down to the price discounts I’m getting today, plus almost all of the premium channels.
HBO and the rest are starting to wake up to the idea that they’ve overplayed their hands with price increases. They are basically getting a ride on DISH’s coattails, as they have been very aggressive in holding the line on content costs.
I have no download caps, and no throttling. Netflix flows through all the boxes and computers.
And then there is the free wifi - which is available all over the place. Comcast (xfinity) started installing wifi in public places, and it is available in the house through my boxes. It is incredibly fast, and there are no caps.
All of my home network wifi is now completely locked down by passwords, and guests now login to the xfinity wifi with a simple password.
Comcast appears to realize that they are racing against their own debt load. They are trying to sell off infrastructure assets, and they are trying to whittle it down to the profitable core.
To that end, they know they can’t afford to lose customers in droves. That was an option when there were only two or three in the box. They know the wireless companies are on their tail, and so it is a buyer’s market.
I pay about $190 for everything, the premiums, wifi, home phone (I love still having regular home phones), and the greasy fast internet.
Aside from the kinks with X1, which are getting better, and having taken other people off the ‘grid’, being a Comcast customer has been worth it in terms of the hassles I don’t have to worry about.
All customers, everywhere, lost a big benefit when they took POTS offline - your home phone used to work in a power outage. Bell wired their own circuits with 24V. We used to maintain our phone connectivity (including the modem) through major power outages.
I miss that. We still have analog phones lying around the house, and I know how to access a dial tone through the RJ9 jacks if need be.
Anyway, that’s been our experience.
Any more questions?
What the hell does having crappy liberals as executives have to do with a product or service?
If we apply that standard, we won't use any utilities, automobiles, fuel or food.
Many senior executives from all kinds of companies are liberals.
Still an absolute mess. You will spend 10 hours a month on the phone with them because (1) their security systems constantly cause you to lose service and (2) customer service is so bad that what should be handled with a reset button turns into a five-hour phone brawl.
Ditto. The final straw was when they started dropping our connection on a near-daily basis, requiring a reboot of the cable modem. We fired them for WOW.
FIOS is Verizon fiber optic....we switched to that a couple of years ago; no complaints other than being totally unable to reach a real humanoid via phone if you want to axe about something.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.