I have had Comcast internet service for almost a year now, but I never really felt like a real Comcast customer until just this past week.\u00a0 And by that I mean, until this week I haven’t personally experienced any crazy customer-unfriendly policies.\u00a0 Well, I finally got that over with!<\/p>\n
Before Comcast, I had been using DSL for almost a decade, most of that with a small local ISP called Atlantic Nexus.\u00a0 When I first got service with them, they were amazing.\u00a0 I could call them at 3AM on a Saturday and reach a support person that could actually fix problems, and not even have to wait on hold for long.\u00a0 Plus, their prices were great, they offered a static IP address for like $5 extra, and their terms of service were pretty much “do with it as you please.”\u00a0 They didn’t block ports, didn’t impose data caps, their tech support people didn’t flinch when I said that I was running PPPoE on an OpenBSD-based dedicated firewall…. it was awesome.\u00a0 Some time in the past couple years though, all of that changed.\u00a0 It was subtle at first: a tech at first not knowing what a DDoS was, then insisting that it wasn’t happening to me, when it was pretty clear that it was (oh Call of Duty players, how much I DON’T miss you).\u00a0 Then it became harder and harder to reach support, or any human at all.\u00a0 When you call their number, they have a 3-option menu, you choose one of the options (ordering, billing, tech support) and it rings for 30-45 seconds, and if nobody picks up you get a prompt to leave a message.\u00a0 The time between leaving a message and getting a callback grew, until near the end where it took a week, leaving messages every day, before I got a callback from them.\u00a0 Thankfully that was just before I was about to move from my old apartment, so when they finally did call back, I cancelled my service.\u00a0 This is really too bad; years ago they were amazing, and I recommended them to everyone.\u00a0 Today, I don’t even have to warn people away, because Atlantic Nexus probably won’t even return their call for a new service order.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I moved from that apartment into my current place about 10 months ago, and took the opportunity to upgrade my internet service. My choices were Comcast or…. well, it was Comcast.\u00a0 I had big plans for my internet connection, so I called Comcast and asked about static IPs.\u00a0 Nope, not on residential plans, only on business.\u00a0 So that was a shock, my monthly internet bill just went from $55 for DSL, to $138 for Comcast.\u00a0 The upside is that the service is much faster, 50M\/10M instead of 6M\/768k, and I have 5 static IPs instead of 1.\u00a0 So it costs more, but the service is so much better that I can live with it.<\/p>\n
One thing that did bother me though was that on my bill every month I get a $13 equipment rental charge.\u00a0 That sucks, and I want to get rid of it.\u00a0 I did some research, and it seems that one of the highest-rated cable modems is the Motorola\/Arris Surfboard SB6141.\u00a0 It’s a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, 8 download and 4 upload channels, says on the box that it supports download speeds up to 343 Mbps, says that it’s compatible with Comcast, and shows up on Comcast’s list of supported deviced.\u00a0 Looks like a winner.\u00a0 $90 on Amazon.\u00a0 In 7 months it will have paid for itself.\u00a0 So I bought it a few months ago.\u00a0 Stupid mistake, I didn’t immediately hook it up.\u00a0 There was always some reason I couldn’t get on the phone with Comcast support, couldn’t afford to have internet down, etc.\u00a0 Well, this week I finally had the opportunity to hook it up.\u00a0 I was home sick one day, and so I was actually available to be on the phone with Comcast during regular business hours.<\/p>\n
“Estimated hold time is longer than 10 minutes.”<\/p>\n
Well, technically<\/em> they weren’t lying.\u00a0 An hour and a half later, someone finally picked up the phone.\u00a0 I explain what I’m trying to do, and that the self-service modem registration page didn’t work.\u00a0 The nice young lady assures me there’s no issues, we will be able to get it taken care of.\u00a0 “And my static IPs will work, right?”\u00a0 She assures me that they will.\u00a0 For the next 20 minutes or so, she tries to get the new modem registered, and can’t make it work.\u00a0 Puts me on hold.\u00a0 Comes back, tries some more stuff.\u00a0 Puts me on hold again.\u00a0 Comes back and informs me that she doesn’t know how to make the modem work.\u00a0 Says that she will refer this to Tier 2, that I should leave the new modem connected, and someone from Tier 2 will fix the issue in the next 24 hours.\u00a0 “Is that okay?”\u00a0 Ummm, no.\u00a0 That is not okay at all.\u00a0 Never mind that I have to VPN into work later that night, how the hell can a tech support person from an ISP not know how to replace a damn cable modem?\u00a0 She apologized and said that she would get her supervisor to help her try to get this cable modem registered.\u00a0 Put me back on hold again.\u00a0 Eventually she comes back, tries something, and I see the modem reboot.\u00a0 That’s a good sign.\u00a0 I have my laptop plugged directly into the modem, and when the modem comes back up I get a public IP via DHCP.\u00a0 Cool.\u00a0 Not MY IP, but it’s a start.\u00a0 Next I statically assign my laptop with one of my static IPs.\u00a0 Nada.\u00a0 No joy.\u00a0 I try some stuff, she tries some stuff, no luck.\u00a0 She puts me on hold again to ask around with her coworkers.\u00a0 Comes back, apologizes again, and informs me of a Comcast policy that neither of us had ever heard of before.<\/p>\n Comcast Business does not support static IPs on customer-owned devices.<\/strong><\/p>\n Seriously.\u00a0 I consulted the all-knowing Google and found others complaining about the same thing.\u00a0 This of course only refers to their coax connections.\u00a0 I’d love to see them try to impose that kind of restriction on their Ethernet service.<\/p>\n So we roll back.\u00a0 This at least she is able to do without trouble; the only part that takes any real time is the surprisingly slow reboot of the SMC modem\/router\/WiFi\/VoIP gateway thing that I apparently need to continue to pay $13 a month to keep around.\u00a0 At least one good thing that came out of this: after it was clear I was keeping Comcast’s modem, I got her to disable the “XfinityWiFi” SSID that it had been broadcasting.\u00a0 Allowing others to leach off of my internet connection?\u00a0 Hell no!\u00a0 I am paying for that bandwidth!<\/p>\n One last annoyance.\u00a0 Remember when I said that it was a stupid mistake not immediately hooking up the new cable modem as soon as I got it?\u00a0 It had been so long since I got it, Amazon won’t take it back as a return.\u00a0 So now I need to try to find someone to buy an almost-top-of-the-line, almost-brand-new cable modem from me.\u00a0 I paid $90 for it, I’ll be lucky if I get $50.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Currently drinking: Leinenkugel’s Canoe Paddler<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have had Comcast internet service for almost a year now, but I never really felt like a real Comcast customer until just this past week.\u00a0 And by that I mean, until this week I haven’t personally experienced any crazy … Continue reading