Shannon and I are signed up for 6Mbps Comcast High-Speed Internet service at our home in San Francisco. We had a great experience four months ago with installation and initial performance. In early December, however, our connection became sluggish on and off. When we called customer service, we were told that it looked fine, and since we had no warning lights on the cable modem, there was nothing Comcast could do. This frustrating initial response did nothing to address the worsening problem. (See video rant #1.)
By mid-December, we had no connection at all. Since the inside guys couldn't ID the problem initially, they were trying everything they could think of. The modem was swapped out twice; the splitter outside our house was replaced; the modem was reset multiple times from the network side; and so on. We waited on 'between x:00 and x:00' appointments literally seven times. The service guys now recognize my voice on the phone.
And now, after about two weeks of mostly-off connectivity and serious withdrawal pains, this finally APPEARS resolved. It appears that the real culprit was the sagging bunch of wires on the pole. Recent bad weather exacerbated the problem so that AT&T's wires on the pole were scraping up against the Comcast wires to ill effect. Did it really take eight home visits to discover this problem out on the telephone pole? Apparently, it does, and this is why:
I have learned in the course of this that there are multiple orgs performing service work for Comcast - telephone team, inside service team, contractors, and network service team. The inside service team and the telephone team have excellent communication skills. The contractors and the network team do not. (See video rant #2. Warning: lightly colorful language.)
The network
guys provided me with unacceptable service - a (second) work order was
reported as closed
last Friday when I know that they never showed up to do the work. In
addition, that work on the pole was rescheduled for this Monday, but
didn't happen
until today (Thursday). The inside contractors did the bare minimum and
got out, and apparently aren't available for consults with the regular
inside service team.
The inside service team, on the other hand, ROCKS. Multiple service staff gave us their personal mobile numbers so that we could contact them if things weren't working after their visit. (And yes, we called them and they answered.) They talk to each other and want to know who came on prior service calls. Those same inside service staff were the ones who looked pretty annoyed when the network team repeatedly failed to make needed repairs, and the inside team rescheduled the network team's work for us again and again. Kudos to those inside service guys for being so diligent in working to fix our problem. Because of them, we'll be keeping the service despite the issues this month.
What experience have you had with Comcast?
(Cross-posted at GetSatisfaction.com.)
