Tech Status Quo

I thought my experiences with Comcast were bad: frequent outages, technicians who didn’t know how to connect the line to my house, and shotty billing techniques; the following is the worst Comcast story I have hard in a while:

In the spring of 2005, Comcast had a national DNS problem that lasted for a couple of days.

A couple of weeks after that , my own Comcast started disconnecting and reconnecting all by itself. I’d be on one minute and off the next. Sure it would work 90% of the time, but only about 9 out of every 10 minutes.

The outages would be 3 or 4 seconds, or up to a minute or more. working remotely or working on a server became impossible. A constant internet connection for me is just as important as speed. Here’s a sustained ping to Comcast…

Read the rest of this ordeal…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tag this at Technorati: comcast, internet, shotty service

Triple play.  3 for $33 each.  What a deal right?  Haha, don’t kid yourself.

From experience, Comcast services will work roughly 80% of the month; therefore, rather than paying $99 for 30 days - $3.33 a day - the subscriber is paying $99 for 24 days of service - $4.13 a day.  Not to mention that $99 promotional rate goes up to $125 after 6 months.  Wohoo!  Hand me the Vaseline.

A year ago, Comcast was flourishing.  The economy was thriving, people had money to spend on luxury services like broadband internet and digital television.  Today they don’t.  Comcast is losing its subscriber base due to the incredibly high price of its service.

When comparing broadband internet price among the United States and Europe, a startling trend appears.  Many European prices have lower costs and higher bandwidth for their broadband subscribers than the United States.  Why is this?  Three reasons:

1. No incentive for companies like Comcast to upgrade their lines - they have a monopoly
2. No large political group challenges companies like Comcast, they are all paid to stay quiet.
3. No competition among large cable providers.

Comcast’s price gouging days should be coming to an end.  That is quite a prediction, but is supportable by economic evidence.  Comcast must lower prices if they want to attract new customers in a recessionary economy like the one currently ravaging the United States.

“Sluggish consumer spending power means that the recovery may be a little slower and less vigorous, leaving it to corporations to spur the economy.

It will also take years for consumers to straighten out their household budgets since their debt burdens are near record highs. Americans put 14.3% of their disposable income toward debt in the first quarter, near the record 14.5% reached at the end of 2006. By comparison, the rate was 12.3% in 2000.

“Consumers just don’t have the cash right now that they had a few years ago,” said Hoyt, who expects the recovery to begin in the second half of 2008. “This obviously impacts their ability to spend, their confidence, their ability to service their debt and it’s going to continue even as the economy recovers.”"

Consumers are not spending right now, they don’t have the money to buy services like Comcast’s premium digital television or broadband internet.

What do you think the ideal fair market price for the three services Comcast provides is?  I’ll throw my money in the $59.99 ring.

Tag this at Technorati: comcast, consumer spending, inflation, monopoly, price gougin, recession

Just when I thought Comcast was the worst company on the planet, I stumbled upon this diamond in the rough.  It’s true, little old CableVision was rated higher than goliath Comcast.

“As consumers’ happiness with cable and satellite TV rose as a whole, the nation’s largest cable TV operator lost ground, according to the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index. The index has tracked the group since 2001.

Comcast lagged behind smaller operators such as Cablevision Systems Corp. and RCN Corp., which as a group topped the customer satisfaction ratings for the first time ever.

Comcast, whose service so infuriated a Virginia grandmother she took a hammer to a local Comcast office, tied with struggling Charter Communications for last place.

Comcast rated 54 out of a perfect 100 for customer satisfaction.”

And you thought this website was a joke.

Tag this at Technorati: cablevision systems, charter communications, comcast, RCN, terrible customer support

After being accused (and proved) of throttling p2p traffic, Comcast and Verizon are speaking out and ‘partnering’ with the p2p community.

“Following some tests showing that P2P delivery can be optimized within their networks, Comcast and Verizon say they won’t block or throttle Internet traffic delivered via peer-to-peer networks.

Verizon and file-sharing firm Pando Networks shared the results of a trial that Verizon ran with Pando and other firms in February in which they tested how P2P files are delivered if an ISP teams up with a P2P company.”

What a relief - now the service that I pay for won’t throttle me from using the internet.  Let me get my checkbook out, and bend over some more.

Tag this at Technorati: comcast, file sharing, p2p throttling, Pando Networks, verizon

As the coffee dripped and the frying pan started to heat up - getting ready for a plethora of eggs - I decided to flip the tube on and see what was happening in the world.  I grabbed the remote and hit power, only to see a new Comcast feature, an endless war between white and black dots.

I thought to myself, “What a wonderful feature, Comcast really has outdone themselves this time!”.  After this wonderful thought, a myriad of invectives poured from my mouth as I reached for my phone (Not Comcast Phone - important for later in the story).  I know the number by heart after having Comcast for so long, 1-800-COMCAST, and quickly tap ‘0′ four times to skip all of the computerized mumbo-jumbo bullshit.  After 15 minutes of explaining why my television not working is actually a bad thing, the Comcast representative licentiously agreed to have a technician scheduled for the following day.  Marvelous. Read the rest of this entry »

Tag this at Technorati: comcast, not paying Comcast this month