Mike Dunford was a graduate student in the Department of Zoology at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where he studied evolution. Life as an army spouse has since moved him on to Pensacola, where he's currently trying to figure out what to do next. While he's doing that, he writes stuff here, although not usually in the third person. He's also a contributer to One of several reasons that my posting frequency has been low lately is that my internet connection has been miserable. As in dial-up speed miserable. As in so slow that the online tools that measure connection speed have been showing me that I'm getting download speeds that I haven't had to experience since I upgraded to a 28.8k modem back in the mid-90s.
So I call Comcast. Yes, their tools also show a big connection speed problem. No, there's probably not anything I can do on my end to fix it. Yes, they can set up a service call to have the problem fixed. They'll be able to squeeze me in on Thursday afternoon. Gotta love prompt service.
Comments
I feel for you. My description of my experience with Comcast is here.
Posted by: Orac | March 30, 2008 11:10 PM
Somewhat to my surprise, I just had a good experience with AT&T. My DSL service was recently cut off and I was reduced to miserable dial-up access. When the AT&T tech came out, I was still stuck at school in an important committee meeting (we're hiring). He found the note I posted on the door in case no one was home, called me, and arranged to return the next day. He came back and dealt with several problems with my configuration and connection speed, getting me back on-line and up to snuff. I guess there's hope for AT&T after all, which I feared was getting big enough to not care anymore (like the original AT&T).
Posted by: Zeno | March 31, 2008 1:48 AM
In my experience, cable modem users follow a predictable pattern. In the beginning, they get unrivaled speed (FIOS notwithstanding). And for several months, up to a year and half that's the way it is. But then the problems kick in. Performance, reliability, etc.
I had a cable modem years ago, and the service would crap out every other month. Tech support was dreadful. Every single time, the problem begins the same way -- unable ping my default route. I would spend 20 minutes with level one support, going through the normal stupidity. Level two would take a look at the situation and agree with me. Each time, they would set up a service call for a technician to visit my house, usually two weeks into the future. No service in the mean time. On the day of the service call, the technician performs some magic on the network side that level two should probably have done when I called. No visit takes place, just a two week loss of service. Two months later, it's "Lather, rinse, and repeat." Cable is awful.
DSL does not have the same performance, but the consistency and reliability is MUCH better in my opinion. Unless, of course, you live too far from the CO, in which case the bandwidth is inadequate and you might lose the connection whenever the phone rings. If you live in a fringe area, I don't know which is worse.
Posted by: David Cavanaugh | April 3, 2008 12:09 PM
I might just have been spoiled, but I've had excellent service with other providers. In the six years that I was in Honolulu, I had Oceanic Time Warner. Once in that time was there a problem with the equipment inside the house. I was able to bring the modem in to a service center, swap it out, and was back up again within a day.
The times that there were service problems in the area - either outages or delays - their customer service almost always had identified the problem before I called, and they typically had things fixed within a matter of a few hours. Excellent customer service.
Comcast's customer service people are pleasant, but simply don't seem to have the resources to accomplish a thing within a reasonable timeframe.
Posted by: Mike Dunford | April 3, 2008 12:41 PM
thank you so much
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Posted by: araç muayene | June 25, 2009 7:39 AM
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Posted by: bayrak | June 25, 2009 7:41 AM