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If you've got Comcast for your Internet connection, you've probably noticed lately an unbelievable fall-off in service. Many of Chicagoist's editorial staff use Comcast, and it's contributed to the lack of articles over the past two weeks. It's hard to work from your home office when you've got no Internet.
Surprisingly, this story has completely evaded the Chicago media. When power or phone service goes out, or (God forbid!) a television station goes off the air, it's big news. Yet nobody's talking about thousands of people losing their ties to the Electronic Ether. To find out what happened, Chicagoist had to check out Tech-friendly newspapers like the Washington Post and the San Jose Mercury News.
Turns out these little outages affected seven million people nationwide. That's a lot of people.
So, Chicagoist is looking at some other broadband providers. We strongly recommend you checkout Broadband Reports and CNET to see what else is out there.
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THANK YOU.
first, starting maybe two weekends ago (?) the internet was out for most of the weekend.
then, since then, it goes out at night. like, i can get home from work and use it, but then it will stop loading pages unless you try to load them 10 times. i am *not* paying $45/mo. for this crap. grr.
also, i'd heard that they were upgrading their service - faster upload speeds for another $10/month or something. hang on and i'll find it.
yeah - here, from a friend in seattle's gournal:
"comcast free upgrade
i'm about a week late on this, but for those who don't know...comcast recently gave all subscribers a free upgrade from 3mb/256 to 4mb/384.
i still hate hate HATE comcast. and they are only doing this because they know verizon is breathing down their necks with FIOS who will swallow their asses once they finish building their network. even right now in seattle, verizon is offering 3mb/768 DSL for $30/mo. i'd honestly much rather have that, but i don't have the landline anymore so i'm screwed."
then in response to one of my comments:
"mine was a little messed up last week also. btw, since you are in chicago, i read that they are doing a special upgrade there to 6mb/768 for $10 more a month. look into dat."
i'm having that same problem at nighttime! i figured it was just that lots of people in my building were using the web, and that the cables could only handle so much traffic, but it's been driving me insane, nonetheless. now that (and especially since) i know it's a more widespread problem, i'll be sure to complain to customer service next time it happens.
Unfortunately, we had to do this post on Seattlest as well. Here is a way around the problem..
I was having some trouble Monday night, and just swapped out the DNS servers (as per the link in that last comment). No problems since.
E-mail was unaffected the whole time.
When I first started noticing issues with my Comcast, I quickly realized it was their DNS servers acting flaky.
I called in, and the tech starting having me walk through the whole "delete your cookies", stuff. I told him that I knew it was not the browser, because I couldn't resolve names at a command prompt. He tried to convince me this could have to do with my cookies. He even said "Sir, it's difficult to help you when you think you're smarter than I am."
Later in the call, when I convinced him it WAS their DNS servers that were down (which he validated by checking with uplevel support) he apologized and said "Wow, maybe YOU should be working for Comcast."
I just point myself to my co-located server not connected to Comcast for DNS and haven't been affected since. But yes. Comcast sucks.
Another part of the problem is that there is insufficient competition, so prices aren't forced down and service quality isn't forced up. Plus cable is regulated only at the federal level, and then with little concern for service quality - just misguided attempts to regulate content.
I've had RCN cable internet for a couple months, and it's been great so far. No outages, no slowdowns, just fast connections. They only cover a small part of the Chicago area, tho.
Thank you for writing about this. Why is it being ignored by the major media? I'll tell ya why. Comcast is a major advertiser in all the local newspapers and on TV. In dear old cozy Chicagoland you'll never see a negative story about Comcast.
Must be nice, Dave... I have been having problems nonstop with RCN lately. Just, no service. Then, three days later--service! It annoys me to no end, especially since I rely on my home internet connection to do freelance work. But because my building is wired only for RCN, I can't even switch to Comcast. Not that I'd want to, I guess.
It really hurts to pay for a service that you don't receive.
I'm not sure about the situation in other cities but for just plain old cable television, Comcast is pretty much the only game in town for most of Chicago. Thus their service sucks majorly and they have no qualms overcharging for their underperformance. I didn't have my internet through them (thank god) but I did change to satellite tv six months or so because they SUCK so much (60 bucks a month for BASIC cable!?). When I did change I had to return the cable boxes myself to one of their offices which are conveiniently only open from like 9-6 M-F. Nice. Anyhow, the closest I'm going to come to relevance to the topic at hand is that THEY SUCK.
I really can't stand comcast at all. I'm happy with SpeakEasy DSL (the company is out of seattle but they have a local Chicago POP so service is nice and fast). They're server friendly, which is crucial for me.
my cable has been horseshit for the last week. i have digital cable through comcast & it was my only option in my condo building (wouldn't allow us roof access for a direcTV dish).
strangely, i also noticed the irving park Y was having the same issues, so i don't think it's just me. i haven't had time to call in, but like 99.9% of my channels are screwed up or just not accessible at all. only network channels (with awful picture) and a handful of "cable" channels are currently coming through. very frustrating & i don't have time to schedule an appt.
something tells me it's not just me, either. especially with timing of other problems in the area!
I have RCN internet and it has been great. Verry fast, no connection problems.
Their customer service on the other hand, ranks them as probably the worst company I have ever dealt with.
The Same thing is going on out in the Northwest Burbs and I was out in the alley talking to the line tech and he explained it really started to get bad when they added VoIP and that they are doing whatever it is they can do, but that the current setup will Not handle all the extra bandwidth and that unless more people complain in a Area then nothing will be done in that area in the near future.
Have you seen this before? It's a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 88326, and it got it right! Pretty neat.
Comcast is the worst internet provider in miami area, since Octubre 24 I have been having connections issues more than 10 techs has come over my house and outside and still the same problem, they say should be a fiber optic cable damaged after the hurricane , and outage in the area .etc I,ve never loss my tv signal but internet goes from real slow to no connection at all.
Tech support is a disaster those people don't know nothing but make you reboot the modem,and on top of that are a bunch of liers, they cancel appoiments and never let know the costumer about it,You loose a whole day wating for someone that'll never come,"Comcast you have no respect for the people that pays your services".Over 3 months calling twice a week and still the same???
Defenitly Comcast internet connection is no reliable many random disconnections and problems .As soon i have DSL in my area I'll go for it.