Comcast connection woes
So stop me if you’ve heard this one before, Everynight at 5:45 — 6:30 my Comcast Broadband internet connection drops, it doesn’t just drop a little, it doesn’t just drop now and then – it drops to 0kbps [I suppose it doesn’t matter what unit of measure I use to communicate zero does it], it drops everyday - after a handful of laughable calls to tech support [unplug modem, reset router, die a little more inside] and troubleshooting on my own I’m fairly certain the issue is twofold:
- The splitter in my backyard is dead/dying, this isn’t a difficult assumption because it’s been replaced 6 times in 2 years [more on this later]
- The added traffic/strain of everyone on my block surfing online, talking on the phone and
watching TV diminishes my already splittered-weakened signal to a whisper
Reach out and tweet someone
I’ve been twittering with a gentleman named frank [@comcastcares] who works for customer relations for Comcast, he has a thankless job - he’s basically doing damage control to the twittering community - but the interesting side effect of following frank on twitter is that I can read the issues everyone else is having - and my issue is fairly typical, lots of folks with a near identical problem. That being the case, you would think Comcast would have some type of handle on the issue, or at the very least their techs would acknowledge it.
IMHO if Comcast would public admit they have a problem would be an excellent first step, but to help them along I may print a few 1000 [unplug modem, reset router, die a little more inside] t-shirts, let me know what size you need.
My Spin on the Underlying problem
This is purely conjecture, but 800lb Gorilla Comcast has been pushing their ‘triple pack’ very hard in the northeast, it’s success is putting additional strain on their network, and that strain is exposing flaws in the coaxial/splitter networking that’s been in most of their customers homes for 15 years - how do they react, they announce a ‘wiring protection plan’ only $3.95 a month - and pimp it heavy on every tech call - lovely, aren’t I already paying for service I’m not getting? Wasn’t it your technicians who originally wired this crap originally? Isn’t my/our continued patronage worth 50 feet of coaxial and a two dollar splitter? Needless to say, Hearing service plan offers when I’m not getting service is not an effective sales technique, at least on me.
Possible Solutions
Obviously the first thing that comes to mind as a solution is switch providers, FIOS is readily available in my area, and the pricing even without bundles is fairly competitive. I could just go to Radio Shack and buy myself a handful of splitters, and replace them one by one as needed, Honestly they are $1.49 this is costing me 1000 times that in lost productivity and found aggravation.
I think it’s significant to mention that I have chosen to use what little bandwidth I currently have to write this post, so are you having issues with Comcast and your broadband connection? let me hear about it.
Tagged: comcast
I’m not having any connectivity issues (that I’m aware of) but I am a little put off by their new commercials claiming to have the largest fiber optic network (obviously directed at people considering switching to FIOS).
As you seem to be finding out, it doesn’t matter how big the fiber optic network is if you’re still connected to it with 15 year old coaxial cable and a 2 dollar splitter that’s on its last legs.
For most people (who don’t really understand the technology) I’d say it’s borderline false advertising to compare their service to FIOS how they are.
FIOS is available and you’re not using it?? Wow, if only we had the option in the city of Philadelphia…
We had a great deal of trouble getting Comcast to install cable in our place. Sort of amazing how easily foiled they are when it comes to simply running a wire and getting a signal… Now that it’s working, it’s usually OK.
Good luck!
From NH:
After five months of dropped service the problem just recently and mysteriously cleared up. I never did get a final call back from Tech Support’. I requested a call back over and over from Comcast customer service, to please just let me know when you’ve fixed it, or, to just let me know you’re working on it. Don’t sit around the phone, they’ll never call back.
Like yourself, I rely on the connection for productivity. When you don’t know if you’re going to have a connection on a day to day basis, you’re forced to make other arrangements when projects are mission critical, in anticipation the connection will be go down at the worst possible time.
Here’s how my problem manifested itself:
Sometime between 7a.m. and 10a.m on random days of the week, the connection would drop. It was always fine at night, and on the weekends, but Mon-Fri was disaster. This only affected the computer and not the TV.
The consistent timing was weird. I went through all the standard stuff: Power Cycle (unplug-wait-plugin), different computers, replacing wires. power-cycling the router. Then, I started replacing components, the router and modem. Nothing worked.
They scheduled a Comcast Tech to come to the house on a weekend, even though I told them this was a waste of my time and theirs, they needed to come in the morning during the week. Of course, the visit turned up nothing, and the following month they tried to charge me for the visit.
Each time I called customer service, their people would ‘Ping’ my connection, and verify I had ‘Packet Loss’, something I’ve been hearing from my wife for years, but I digress. Next, they would open a ‘Trouble Ticket’, and assigned a number. When nothing changed, the next call back would reveal the Trouble Ticket had been closed, but with no explanation as to why or what they did?
It was like the Seinfeld episode when Jerry blasted the car reservation clerk, after he arrived to find out all the cars were gone. Jerry made a huge scene explaining to the service rep, the key to the process was ‘holding the reservation, as anybody could make reservations willy nilly, which mean nothing unless you honor them’. Comcast has the same short-coming with Trouble Tickets. They impress you by assigning a long number, you write it down, confident they’re on your case. Later you find out the Ticket was closed, or just not in their system any longer? How convenient.
One Comcast rep tried to sell me phone service as an added feature, and launched into a pitch about their fantastic service. Her pitch was short lived, when she finally stopped to take a breath and I told her why I was on hold.
After months of chasing this around, I asked Comcast for a credit on my bill. I only asked for a partial credit, as the problem never affected the TV signal, and they gave me a full credit for several months. I’ll give them credit here, they stepped up to the plate on this, without much of a fight.
All in all, I have to agree, appears they have network issues. After countless phone calls, I generally got the impression this was a known problem.
My advice, get your bill adjusted until they fix.
Like you my connection drops between 11am and 2pm PST every day. Just the internet drops, the TV is fine. Comcast never fines an outage or an issue with their network. They ping and reset my modem and then try and blame my router for dropping the connection.I have gotten the run around w/ customer service, they have been out to my house countless times and each person they send seems to contradict the previous tech’s visit.
I’m going to ask for a credit or switch service.
I have been experiencing dropped connections on Comcast. Not regularly, not often, mostly when my wife gets on about 8:00pm EDT. It occurred to me when I read the previous posts that timing may be the key.
As I understand it, cable bandwidth is shared on each node (you and I-don’t-know-how-many neighbors). It’s also true that local demand for bandwidth and the Internet backbone as well may fluctuate just as traffic on the freeway does. Even if they know this is what is causing the dropped connections, what can they do about it? Wire fiber directly to everyone’s house?
Let’s say my wife gets on about 8:00 and my son is already headlong into an Internet game hogging most of the 6Mbs that Comcast allocates for my account. Next door, the neighbor’s kid is doing the same, and the story is repeated down the block . . you get the picture. Let’s call it an Internet traffic jam.
Kinda makes you remember the days when AOL got the nick-name America Off-Line because they sold more bandwidth and ports than they could deliver. Well, at least everyone keeps trying to sell us on more Internet-enabled services, including HDTV sets and Blu-ray Disc players that now come complete with Ethernet ports.
Comcast did come through my neighborhood last year and install a fiber optic cable. So I think they do have the hardware capacity, but they can’t control world demand for Internet bandwidth.
I have read many posts of dropped Internet connections with many possible explanations related to WiFi or even wired routers cast as the villains because the problem seems to go away when they connect directly to their cable modem. Perhaps they have not considered that if multiple computers are connected at the same time, it occasionally exceeds the connection capacity which is difficult to do with a direct modem connection. I read some reviews that said these routers can handle a combined throughput of 1.5MBytes/Second, or 8+ times that of a typical cable account. It does not seem logical to me that the router is the slow link in the chain, given these facts.
So, what can we do? We can adjust our use of bandwidth-hogging sites or applications to off-peak times. I had a URL of Internet usage statistics. I’ll try to dig it up again. You can also check out http://www.wiredtodesign.com for Adam Pash’s article on How to Manage Your Bandwidth (on your home LAN).
Be safe out there. Don’t disable your firewall. And don’t hog the road (Internet).
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I have connection issues every day of the week, random times, random intervals. I fully understand everyones frustrations, I am a college student in northwest Georgia and I have classes with online material. My hybrid (A class thats partially online and offline.) class is extremely difficult without an internet connection. The only time I get terribly slow but usable (by dial-up standards) internet, is in the crazy hours of the night, i.e. it’s past 4 a.m. now…
College students need sleep, thanks Comcast for creating a half dead insomniac. :)
Over last 8 months of daily but random disconnects, I’ve made 48 useless calls to tech support. They can’t do anything but confirm connection is broken and arrange a tech visit. I’ve had 8 techs and 2 “line men”. Each gives me a different excuse, takes meter readings, makes miniscule changes to power levels (often reversing what the prior tech had done), assures me it is fixed, and leaves. I’m keeping detailed records of visits/actions now. Maybe a letter to the CEO might shake them up. Or a lawsuit in small claims court for failing to provide agreed upon service. I’m really starting to lose patience. I’ve had 5 modems (3 of them Comcast’s). I’ve removed my router. I’ve connected via each of the 2 separate cables entering the house. I’ve tried 3 different computers. The last tech said my interior cable was causing the problem but couldn’t explain why the identical problem was happening on both cables coming into the house (one has no interior splitters, the other has several). The tech people are all very nice. But useless. And so is Comcast.
I was going to write about my issues with Comcast. But it would be like beating a dead horse. But I will say this. Comcast is a Cable TV provider. the key word is TV and that seems to work fine. Even if my Internet is dead. Before I moved I had DSL 4 meg down 1 up for $45 a month and Direct TV. Never had issues. I moved to a new home and Comcast was my only option. Too far out for DSL and the Dish was left at my old place.
The good news. AT&T and U-verse is now in my area. (Fiber) My order is in for 10 meg and IPTV & HD with extra tuner and Comcast is going bye bye. The best part is… Saving $30 a month over Comcast.
Seems like the same problem for everyone. Basically starting around 9pm (everyday) I start to lose connection while playing some computer games. But it’s ONLY when I play games and it really does get annoying. At first I thought it was the router but I talked to a few people and they said it’s got to be the wiring since the router is new. Someone needs to kick Comcast in the rear and FORCE them to get their priorities straight if they plan on being the “best” out there.
This is the same problem people all over the Midwest are having.
It took 15+ minutes and six reloads for this page to load fully and there aren’t even any pictures on it.
I’m on my landlord’s network, and for reasons known only to himself and God, it’s on Comcrap. It’s been like this for a week. It takes me fifteen minutes or longer to view one Web page. Dialup was better than this. I have friends online and chat programs that I can’t use because the connection is dying every few seconds. Comcrap? Yeah, Comcrap.
The worst part is that my landlord doesn’t care because he doesn’t use the Internet much, it’s only for his tenants. He sits around and gets drunk and watches the lobotomy box clatter and chatter away, and that works for some reason.
I get a surcharge tacked onto my rent for this. I’m paying for it and I can’t even use it.
So just another echo in here… Every night around 11pm my internet gets intmittent and finally drops completely around midnight (I ONLY HAVE 10 MINUTES!)
The first drop happened on schedule for about 20 minutes. I’ve called comcast, told them about the issue, my second tech visited today and the point I try to drive home is lost on these barely high school graduate morons…
My points:
1. This happens at nearly the same time every night
2. This happens on multiple PCs including my laptop from work
3. My phone goes out at the same time (triple play)
4. My on-demand television also goes out at the same time
The idiot procedes to replace the modem as I tell him it’s not going to work and replace a splitter in the wall thats only going to my TV….
Yep, same shit, different night… Comcast is getting a new one tonight.
Put me on the list. Started something like 3 months ago. Around 5ish until about 10pm it’s not even worth trying to get on the internet (or play XBox Live). Sometimes it clears up around 10 and can last until about 11p or 12a, then it drops again. I was considering switching Dish to Comcast cable, but now I don’t know if I want any Comcast products. Thinking I’ll have to get DSL, not as fast supposidly, but it’s better than not working at all.
I too have the same problems, had them about 3 months now. Just picked up the new modem. Don’t want to bother with tech visits. Am seriously thinking of going back to DSL. I don’t know why we continue to pay for a service that doesn’t work, wishful thinking I guess. I have been a comcast customer for about 15 years and have had their internet since it came to our area. I just may call them to forewarn them of my impending drop of their service.
I’ve been having the same problem for about a week now. Every night usually around 9pm my web browser craps out on me. Instant messangers work fine, but they’ll still boot me occasionaly. Did the whole power up proccess, cleaned out my cookies, ran a virus scan, and still no progress. I finally called, yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, i was unable to get a tech out, but they did send one today. Ran his tests, told me my connection was strong, did a couple things, and away he went. Internet worked fine and then, what do ya know? The browser took another crap around 8:45pm. Only this time it wasn’t slow loading. It was no loading. I spent a half hour on the phone with customer service, who told me i also sounded like i was underwater, ( I also have phone through them, it seemed like a good idea @ the time) After much investigation, it was determined that the signal was indeed weak in my neighborhood, which was the cause of my connectivity issues. However, It technicall doesn’t count as an “outage” therefore it doesn’t get priority. He said that if enough people called and complained. (I thought about disconnecting the cable to the whole building, but realized I would have no TV, so i nixed that plan) My internet is finally normal as I type this, but I’m sure it will change in the morning, considering its saturday. I told them they have til Monday to fix it, or credit my account. (The Tech comes out Sunday)
Now about the post office……………
Add the Pacific Northwest to the fray! Every single night at 9PM PST we have the same issue everyone here has. I’ll be watching some glorious “B” or “C” movie on my Roku Netflix box and the quality (running Wi-Fi) drops to nil! Though, tonight it was a bit earlier at 7:30 or 8. We used to have ALL our services through Comcast and never had any problems. Now that we’ve ditched the phone and the TV we have drops all the time. Interesting to experience them physically driving us towards buying their “Triple Play” again. Why oh Why can’t we have Fios in the city???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comcast drops every night from midnight to 7am over and over for the last year. Now it runs slooow for the last 3 weeks all day and night. I have tried everything. I’m going nutz and out of business.
January 20, 2009.
I just had Comcast cable installed for high-speed Internet in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I experienced so many dropped connections, that I started to count… 20 in one hour! I know that the cable that they used is too small for the length of the run. Even the installer admitted it. Would this cause dropped connection? Thanks for your help, Bob
Greetings from down South in Florida.
We too have the issue with Comcast where we lose connectivity. Just this morning, I have lost connectivity 3 times in 4 hours. It does seem to drop more often in the evenings. This has been happening for a little over 2 months now. Never had the problem before then.
This is extremely frustrating since I have to work form home every so often. Losing connectivity while in the middle of work is unbearable!
We found that powering off the modem and powering it back on usually gives us connectivity again, at least for a little while.
We have swapped routers and I asked my BF to call Comcast (since he is the one on the account) but he is hesitant because he knows that he’ll just get the usual run around.I definitely think that we need to call and at least ask for some kind of credit. It is wrong to pay for a service and have it drop for no apparent reason.
We will be moving in a few months, and I will be looking for another internet connection!!
We have noticed that our cable on the TV seems to not be stable anymore as well.
WTH?! A coworker said that they think that Comcast sends out signals to “reset” modems/routers to save up on the bandwidth being used. If that is true, that’s even more upsetting than them not knowing what’s causing all these connectivity loses!!!
Thanks for letting me vent :-)
I’ve been having issues with my comcast internet service for about three weeks now. Despite the terrible matrix of black cables that are strung all over the outside of my building during all seasons of the year and the numerous splitters that connect these wires in an open box on the side of the building, the connection was perfectly fine before three weeks ago. It all started when a second or third household in my building signed up with comcast. From that day forward, from that very minute when comcast was here hooking up the newest neighbor it’s been down right awful. It’s bad enough that when comcast “wired” my place they just drilled holes in the wall and ran black wire along the floor of every room connecting it through holes in the wall, but now I am constantly running back to the modem to unplug all the wires and plug them back in to get it working again. My modem is the first point of contact for the cable that comes in from outside (very convenient to have a mess of wires in the dining room). So comcast has been called several times, they’ve come out and said that everything is wired fine outside. So why on the day when someone new was put on the network does the connection drop from then on every 30 - 60 minutes if everything is fine? What am I paying for exactly? Unfortunately, there isn’t another choice even though the people directly below me have ATT. Yes, 15 year old wires coupled with splitters that should be trashed coupled with too many people on the network cause me, a person who works from home and goes to school online, to be forced to go up to Panera on a regular basis just to get online.
We have had comcast internet for about 10 years. It has worked fine for our usage requirements until recently. Connections being lost and poor performance. Had comcast technician come out. He said our modem was obsolete and non-supported. It is a Best Data modem and 10 years old. Technician swapped out comcast rental at $3/mo and all is well. Just sharing my experience.
For the past week we’ve been having trouble with our cable connection dropping out randomly. Especially after 10pm (and intermittently as i’m writing this). That and our cable television signal has been static-y for the past week also. I’m hoping it just has something to do the digital transition and them “tweaking” their service.
We’ve had downtime about (around) once a month up until this week when it’s been three days off and on already. When our service high speed service provider was Adelphia we never had any sort of problem whatsoever.
Hopefully Comcast straightens this out.
I have been having problems with comcast for months now. My computer, router, and modem are fine. I even switched them to new ones but I still have a problem.
Unlike most people here who lose their connection at certain times, I lose it all day everyday, no matter what the time. Anytime I use the internet I have only about ten minutes before I lose my connection. In fact I will have to copy this post because I doubt my connection will last long enough to post it, and it will take several tries.
I had to reboot one day last week 52 times in that day.
I work from the web and my husband has family in Europe that he communicates with using the net, so not having service is not exceptable. It took me from 5am to 7pm to print out five orders I needed to mail out that day, needless to say it did not happen that day.
I am looking at getting dsl now because I can’t run a buisness without an internet connection.
I would have to get a land line and then dsl, which would up costing me more but I need a reliable service.
I prefer cable internet because I am heavy user who uploads and downloads a lot of graphics, but that’s why I pay for the service that I need. But comcast is the only cable service available in my area.
I would love to have rcn again, had them for years and only once did I have a problem. And they came out and re-wire my whole building, a building with 1000 plus apartments.
i have to unplug and replug my modem constantly every single day. it’s been like this every day, since i got it, over a year ago. comcast is all that’s available in california where i live. besides the internet connection issue, i’m reaching my boiling point in regards to their cable tv service as well.
we pay a buttload of money each month to them for tv and broadband cable internet. with the amount they collect from me i don’t feel they are putting out anything of use. why is it that they charge those infomercial folks a ton of cash to run their half hour long bull*hit lie fest every single night and have us paying for decent programming at the same time. for several hours, every single night here, all but 2 or 3 channels is a stupid infomercial. the 2 or 3 channels showing actual programs are showing total crap most times. and out here over half the channels don’t even try to show a variety of shows, instead they repeat, over and over, the exact same show/episode that only just finished airing on that channel. 4 hour block of this then a 4 hour block of that. weekends and holidays are even worse because they only show 1 program “marathons” consisting of nothing but episode reruns of old shows… for 3 days straight !! shows like: star trek, quantum leap, csi:zimbabwe. they run maybe 6 different movies (not new releases either…example: road house, braveheart, constantine, the mask) throughout the entire month. to make it even worse… when one channel finally feels that they have played a movie or show as often and for as long as they dare, one of the other channels snaps it up and does the exact same thing with the show on their channel !! now to top it all off… in california, i’m not sure if it’s just here or everywhere, they no longer broadcast any tv signals over the air. so if you have a tv with rabbit ears, but no cable service, you get nothing. you have to buy a converter box at $40+ to use your analog tv… period!! i wouldn’t mind paying the outrageous fees for service, if i received decent service, comcast just plain doesn’t even care that they totally stink in every single way because out here it’s them of nothing.
I know this is late, but seriously.
My internet connection completely dies every 10 minutes. On a good day. This interrupts all web traffic (I get a new IP address too, so, goodbye saved sessions), all instant messaging clients, all downloads, pretty much everything. I have tested every piece of hardware, including the computers and the cables, at other locations with all kinds of different providers. Everything works flawlessly, not a single drop in a week.
However, at this particular location, the internet drops every 10 minutes on a good day, on average every 7 minutes, and last night every 3 minutes. I wrote a little TCP program that just maintains a TCP connection and have it on a private server I have at a location 50 miles away that does nothing but log connection interrupts, which all sync up with the death of everything I happen to be doing. To throw some numbers out there, in the past 4 weeks, the internet has died (starting at 12:00 AM Sunday and ending at Midnight Saturday night):
Week 1: 1431 times
Week 2: 1442 times
Week 3: 1445 times
Week 4: 1452 times
Generally speaking, the time stamps are all almost perfectly spread apart (IE, it’s very consistent in the time between individual drops). If the connection is dying every 10 minutes, it’s usually a mere 3-5 seconds from being at exactly the 10 minute mark. If it’s moving to every 7 minutes, it will slowly switch to a 7 minute interval over the course of ten drops or so.
I have logs and documentation of all the work I’ve put into this, including recorded values of the modem noise ratio at the time of every drop, full traffic logs, the time of the drops, and all the same data at the different sites. It took me 8 service appointments to convince the Comcast technician to replace everything from the house to the pole (splitter and cable), with the other 7 telling me that I’m just whining for attention. Hell, those 7 technician visits have been removed from Comcast’s records! They don’t even show up.
Even with the new cable and the new splitter and fully-tested cables, modem, router, and wireless access point, the internet still regularly dies. This leads me to believe that my periodic service interruption is some sort of sociological experiment. The drops are far too evenly spaced for it to be mere coincidence.
Every call to Comcast turns into “I pinged your router, the levels are fine, BYE.” Every response of “It’s a brief interruption,and an active TCP connection would prove it” is returned with “Sir, I pinged your modem, and its fine.”
I’m at the end of my rope, it’s been like this for 2 years,and there are no other high speed internet offerings in my area. I am considering moving to a different state just to get away from Comcast. Their absolute refusal to acknowledge the problem and the fact that they will insult my intelligence in order to “shut me up” makes me fume with rage.
yep, 6pm sat nights for me, usually just when I’m getting ready to game. no phone, tv ok, comcast modem reboots several times, 2 hrs last night. would like to get a copy of that log program scali is using.
my connection drops RANDOMLY between 6am and 11pm. I am glad that now bellsouth is providing internet service without a phone line in my area. I am changing this ass fucking comcast to bell south. mother fucking comcast
Man i thought i was the only one with the fucking problem , this shit is driving me nuts.
Although mine aren’t as bad as some others on here , it is still frustrating.
Connection always drops around 11pm - 3am, phone and tv are alright but the internet just totally dies and the online light blinks on and off on my modem.
Restarting the network usually solves it , for about a hour and then its back to the usual bullshit.
Anyone else’s online light on the modem blinking?
My connection problem (twice a day) did not start till I changed from a business level service to a personal level service. Then swapped out the modem to a newer one. Time to change to a service that will provide the QOS that I pay for.
what the fuck is wrong with comcast?
Are they going to fix this connection problem?
They know about this connection issue.
When I call/chat they pretend as they have no idea with this issue yet they control our connection from their end. Calling techs does not solve this problem. You wait a week for a tech to come to your house. This tech will point out the router as the connection problem maker. even thought you change the router, problem won’t be fixed. You call comcast again to schedule another tech. After you wait another week, the second tech points out the modem as the maker of the connection issue. So he changes the modem with his. Another week, the third tech points out the wires. Nothing will fix the problem because the reason of dropping connection is comcast cuts your connection on purpose because of the small shared bandwidth with a lot of traffic. while you waiting countless techs who don’t have the ability to fix, time goes on. and it’s about to pay the comcast bill. fucking comcast
So, ive had many issues with comcast over the years with them. Unfortuantly FIOS is not available in my area (sighs). First they cut our service completely and there reasoning for this, they gave us the “wrong modem” for our account and when they caught wind of it they cut out service thinking we were stealing service(seriously). After a week of talking for hours on the phone with them and then finally driving out to the providers outlet i was able the get the issues resolved with a simple switch(amazing how long that took…). Okay well, i thought that would be it , boy was i wrong. Next a few months later, the modem would just constantly lose connection over and over and over again. Connect disconnect. Would blink on every green light or just one or some of them never the same. Eventually managed to get a tech to come out and figure out the problem. There answer, wasnt on our end nope theres again they had the wrong modem for our account, they never changed the number even after we had gone through it. Well they told me that because the numbers didnt match i shouldnt have had any connectivity in the first place…(are you kidding me). So they finally fixed that on there end. Now, things were smooth for months, oh boy, but then summer hit. Every day around 5:45pm-6:15pm the connection would drop to horrible mbps im talking 0.5-1.0 bad when i was alwayas at a constant 54mbps wireless and 100mbps direct connected. Well they send a tech out this time actually withing a day (shocked). He tests the modem then looks at the routers and tries to blame it on that but i shut him down fast with the direct connection being poor as well. So he then replaces the wires inside and outside and says that they were dull wires….well it actually worked for awhile there maybe even half a year. But now the issues are just horrible. My connection is great most of the time in fact nothing wrong with it, save for when my brother comes home from work. When he gets home around 4pm-7pm he gets on him macbook pro. Instantly my mbps drops and i mean plumits, and then i get sparatic bandwidth, as if his macbook is sucking up all the bandwidth and im left with nothing, Now i thought it was my end but i checked the main computer in the house the one directly connected and that one suffers the same issues when he uses his macbook. We changed out router from a Linksys to a Airport Extreme. At first when we did this change everything was great the connection speeds were amazing, But recently the above mentioned issues have surfaced and im baffled at the poor service im getting. Comcast is just a giant whore now everyone has it and they have monopolized the market in my area, i have no other choice so im stuck with there crappy service or dial up….Any ideas?
You should do the T-shirt. Everyone can relate!
I’m on a wireless network using a router and I lose my connection randomly and every time I get a phone call and it’s driving me insane. And this doesn’t only happen with my laptop, it’s everything, iPod touch, Xbox LIVE, it all goes down. I think Comcast really needs to do something about this or they’re gonna lose a lot of customers.
I have Comcast service in the Bellevue, WA area and am also getting the same problem. Every midnight EXACTLY AT MIDNIGHT my cable internet connection cuts off but my basic cable tv keeps on truckin’. I actually did an online support one time at 11:55 and told them that I will be cut off in a few minutes. That said, they still told me to check my router because I was connected on their end. The problem was, I was directly connected to the modem at the time of the chat. I’ve tested other internet devices to see if it was a setting on my desktop or laptop. I attempted to play a game on the Xbox online at 1155 and was sure enough timed out and disconnected from Xbox Live at 12. Same goes for a Playstation 3 test. Does anyone know what’s wrong? I’m somewhat glad that I am not alone… but I sure hope there is an reason for this daily disconnection.
If it’s a reoccuring issue - try contacting comcast via twitter @comcastcares very helpful!
Well i’ve been having the same problems I havent noticed that it occurs during the same time frames..but I’m in the Midwest and its been occuring TOO often. I recently had Tech Out and they (you guessed it..my splitter). Since then it occurs less..but now picture onHD TV has blocks and I lose my phone as well. (Tripe Play HD Package). Has ANYONE had this problem rectified by Comcast and if so WHAT was the solution. I’m ready to switch to something else..but I live in new community and dont have many options….YET? As soon as I do,,they’ll be gone I think (Comcast). My Main problem is I keep losing connection to internet and my job relies on it too..I work from home a few days a week…and I just cant take this unreliable connection anymore. HELP ANYONE???
After about 10 months of perfect internet, I’m having the same connectivity issues as most of the people above.
Usually messenger programs and checking email will work, but most websites will not load. I’ve changed cables and power cycled my modem & router but it is completely arbitrary.
Tech support wanted to send a technician but warned me that if it was my fault they would charge me $49.95 for the visit. I told them I literally have not touched the modem since the problem started happening.
I will probably just cancel. I’m way too busy to sit around and wait for a technician to come in and be useless.
I just moved to jacksonville fl with some roommates. It’s their connection that supposed to be 12 Mbps down. Well right now, I can’t even get a speed test to work, and a ping test loses half of its packets. I can see the coaxial hanging from a telephone pole looking very dodgy as I leave my neighborhood. I BET thats the whole neighborhoods connection. I feel helpless as I’m not in control of the cable package. I moved from tampa, Brighthouse is sooo much better. 44.99 for 12 mbps is really obsurd.
oh now its back up to 11.39 mbps. Some times packets get lost tho, and a ping test cannot be accomplished. I’m sure it’ll drop down to 5 mbps or so around 10pm when all the highschool kids and college kids are torrenting and gaming. Hey, thats what I’ll be doing :-)
ok same thing.. I thought it was my computer but i finally did some research and quickly found out this is a issue all over. Between 6pm and 12pm every night the modem jus periodically resets. Mostly when im playin a game but now for the past week i cant even surf the web. Tonight it is resetting every 3 min or so. This is rediculous, i was planning on calling to get a tech out here but from the looks of it , it wont do me any good. Im sure their phone lines are flooded wit people callin in on this issue so keep it up guys.Enough complaints and threats to change providers and they will do somethin bout it.
3-24-2010
I have just started noticing around 9pm it gets slower & by 10pm it is so slow I can only go to non-multimedia type websites such as craigslist without pictures or even get email from Comcasts site. I will have them replace the modem and any splitters since they are coming out. I install home automation and theaters so I know my wiring of this house. It’s all pretty newer wire and the run to the internet moto modem is maybe 20 feet long, the phone modem is 5 feet, and all the TV’s operate. It’s just the damm internet. My linksys router is quick to access all the GUI pages. It just does not make sense when I come home from a workout at 10pm I just can’t get my email. I hate Comcast!
I tried to connect hardwired directly to the modem. Same issue as above. It’s not the router at all.
For the last week I have had to re-set my router at least four times a day. A tech came out and declared we needed a new line from our house to the box at the back of the yard. He laid a new line on top the lawn and said someone would be out in about 3 WEEKS to bury the cable, so in the meantime don’t run over it with your mower. This did not correct the problem. I connected to a chat line online with comcast on Monday, and they set up another appointment for a tech to come out. Now it is very suspicious to me, but ever since I talked to that guy (probably in India) I have not had any more connectivity problems. Hmmmm!