Hi everyone,
I just read a very well written post by Imonlyacustomer: The Good, The Bad and the Comcastic!
I've replied to his post but also wanted to post here, to improve the chances someone at Comcast might read it as well.
Imonlyacustomer - You are not alone my friend.
We're in the Bay Area in California and have had connectivity issues constantly. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I remember reading stories about the intermitent electricity in Baghdad after the war. It's honestly like that sometimes. Kids watching a movie on Netflix? Nope. Buffering...buffering...buffering. And we supposedly have "50 mbps" download speed.
Yes, we paid to "upgrade" our service for faster upload and download speeds, but have seen no improvement. I've logged probably 20 hours on the phone w/ various "customer service" people trying to understand how this could be. Have been visited by Comcast techs probably 10 times. But there has been no resolution.
Getting to the bottom of it requires...I don't know, maybe some real investigative reporting. Unfortunately the "Better Business Bureau" is an organization that is paid by it's member buseinsses and has a serious conflict of interest when it comes to investiagting the businesses that pay them membership fees.
http://business.time.com/2013/03/19/why-the-better-business-bureau-should-give-itself-a-bad-grade/
It's a tough situation to be in as a consumer of a products that are essential but flawed. Part of the issue is that our technology is not really "serving us" right now. It's buggy, inconsistent - sometimes great - but maddening overall, I would say. It's not just Comcast. Look at computers. They usually work great for a length of time...maybe 1-2 years. Then they become incredibly unstable and buggy. If you're a tech geek, then great, you can probably fix it. But most of are not. So we call Apple, got to the Genius Bar, etc, in a desperate attempt to "fix" the problem.
The options as I see it are:
- Try another service (I'm considering trying another service. U-Verse or something else.)
- Report the issue to any investigative journalism outfits you might know of. A great one here is the Center for Investigative Reporting. Maybe they'll run with it.
- Live with it. (This is not really and option for me because I pay Comcast north of $200 per month)
- Become a technnically proficient technologist/hacker so you can solve your own tech problems.
- Send your kids to Stanford so they can learn to fix the U.S. Internet Delivery Infrastructure.
In the meantime, log off. Go outside and hike a trail, read a book, take your wife out, throw a football to your kids. I find that's the best medicine for tech frustration. It works! Until the next time I try to log in...
PN