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Lest you think customer service is dead, Shortly after I posted this I received a call from Comcast, they where aware of my dissatisfaction and wanted to take steps to solve my issue - and asking if I would be available for a service call that afternoon, 3 days earlier than my originally service date, and let me know that they would follow-up the following day to make sure I was happy. That afternoon, I met Scott & Mark, a supervisor and a service tech respectively, nice guys, who where highly professional, polite, and forthcoming every step of the way;

they quickly accessed the situation - made changes [they eliminated all those problematic splitters], checked their work and cleaned up as they went along. It was a very positive experience, Upon leaving both Scott & Mark made sure that I knew how to reach them if I should need further help. The follow-up call from Comcast arrived like clockwork, and I let them know that YES, I’m pleased.

It’s a shame that every tech that’s dispatched isn’t as patient and as thorough as Mark was, or that every customer doesn’t get the 2 on 1 technical service call experience of having a supervisor on-site, I’m sure they (Comcast) would if they could, Why I got that level of service? hell if I know.

So ultimately it was a positive experience - what started on Twitter as a series of bitchy tweets with @Comcastcares ended with some (assumably) special technical attention and this blog post.

Tagged: comcast

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:

1. 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]
2. 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.

Update here

Tagged: comcast