Who Uses Comcast Hi-Speed?

[DesignExtend-MSI]

As luck would have it, Bell South has jerked us again. They updated our lines in January to a new account, giving a quote of XX amount. Today we get a call that we owed nearly a thousand bucks we were never billed for, nor is it in our agreement, or lines will be shut off.

So, I'm seeking alternatives. Local here is Comcast Cable Internet Access. As a cable TV service company, they're horrible, but has anyone used their Internet service? Please speak frankly, cause I hate having to change services.

[Keith Hunniford]

Me.. and what's so horrible about their TV? Comcast on demand with a DVR is the best thing ever. I've had the cable internet service for about 3 years with max 5 hours downtime - very happy.

Keith

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

The problems i see with cable are:
Speed is not gaurenteed.
Upload speed (which matters almost as much to developers) is not as fast as download (although I heard they are working on it).
Dslreports.com show a higher level of disconnects for cable than other DSL forms.

That being said, its the fastest connection for the price. I've heard that earthlink has cleaned up its DSL act (although I bailed on them for Speakeasy.org--don't know if you can get it in your area, but they are THEY BEST when it comes to service. When I was having a problem with Earthlink, THEY where the ones that had the fixe in five minutes whereas I had already had five hours of contact with Earthlink._

[DesignExtend-MSI]

Me.. and what's so horrible about their TV? Comcast on demand with a DVR is the best thing ever. I've had the cable internet service for about 3 years with max 5 hours downtime - very happy.

Keith

Our cable goes out every month for one reason or another, and they have to reset the boxes. My DVR box was freezing on replay for 6 weeks - they wouldn't send a tech. Finally I just reset the entire thing, disconnected and then had them ping me.

Don't mind problems, but they would constantly not provide service support.

The worst is they'd make one appointment and not keep it, then make one for 9 a.m., call at 8 when I was in the shower, and say since I didn't answer the phone, we weren't home so the appt. was canceled.

[klassic]

I have had comcast for my home internet service for years. I would never switch to dsl. My parents have so many problems with SBC DSL. The internet just stops working for them and goes in and out. Yeah dsl is cheaper but IMO it sucks.

Now on to the business side of it. About 2 years ago we moved to a new location and inquired about high speed internet. Comcast wanted like 200 a month and a 10 year commitment for a business line. SBC was around 50/month with no commitment. We went with SBC at the office. Well it was a pain in the neck. Started out ok, but turned to crap. About every day or every other day we had to power cycle our modem and router because connection was lost. Sometimes we did this several times a day. If you are an online company you need to get online. Helps to run a business. Comcast prices are a lot more resonable now with no commitment so we switched about 4 months ago. Since then the only problem we had was with a power surge that fried the modem, wireless router, and one network card that was connected directly to router. All other computers connect wirelessly.

IMO Comcast=Good SBC=Crap

[wmgilligan]

I use comcast high speed (upgraded speed version) and love it. I am rarely down, and we use the dvr/etc as well. My wife is almost in heaven with that thing!

As for working - costs me around $70 bucks a month for my connection - then I route it wirelessly to 5 PC's.

Once a month or so I have to reboot the cable modem - that clears any problems.

Bill

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Just wait till you get Verizon's FIOS service in your area :)

At home, I've got a 15MB/sec down, 5MB/sec up connection. I dropped Comcast like a rock.

Virtually the same price and 2.5x the download speed and 10x the upload speeds.

And if you have an HD TV, the digital FIOS TV rocks. :)

We beta'd for them when they asked if we'd like to try it...now I'm hooked. Zero downtime in 6 months so far. Now I'm just waiting for their 30MB/sec package to drop in price!

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Well, you are comparing A cable company to a Phone company...not cable verses dsl...

I personally would never use a phone company for anything other than providing phone service...(and that is getting sketchier each month<G>)

Cable is coming along...but, Cable is not alway Cable. Meaning its service, same as DSL, varies by provider and location.

I strongly recommend checking out DSLReports.com before making choices...specifically researching the results in your local area. And as a business (this is more for store owners)...make sure you get at least 1.5mb UPLOAD speed (ok, you could live with 750). The one time you need to upload a large number of graphics, or quickly update a mess of products you'll know why<G>).

(oh, one other thing...get an AOL account or cheap dialup too, so you can see how the other half lives while using your store<G>)

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Cable has a hard physical limit of 12MB/sec. Nothing the cable companies can do about that....unless they dig it all up and replace it with newer cable.

Standard RG-6 is run all over the US.

With cable companies jumping on the digital and data bandwagons, they already push about 4-6MB/sec of video over those lines, and now add another 6.5MB/sec for data...you're out of space :) So what gives? Data service suffers when they add more channels, and in some cases, VoIP phone. They have to take the bandwidth from somewhere.

Fiber direct to the house is the only way to go now.

[reynoldjr]

I would say the difference between comcast and verizon is that verizon is a dial up and during my subscription I would frequently get knocked off line with it. Can't say whether this is due to congestion in the Boston area or not but i eventually I switched to comcast. I have never been bumped offline with comcast because I have a static ip address with it. My download speed is about 1Mb/sec but I still can't say if this is due to my location. Bottom line - Comcast is much the better service for various reasons.

Reynold

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Reynold, that is for their dial up DSL.

I am talking about FIOS, their new product over fiber. It is not dialup.

DSL over copper has limitations due to signal loss over distance. Which is why it is only available within 25000 feet of a phone company switching office. Many rural areas do not have access to DSL.

FIOS has much better throughput and less signal loss since it is all digital over fiber.

Verizon claims they will sport speeds up to 90MB/sec synchronus in the future. Wow, that will be like having dual T-3's at home.

[Red Flare]

Reynold, that is for their dial up DSL.

I am talking about FIOS, their new product over fiber.
This FIOS sounds really good :)
Do you know when its going to be available?

Anyway, I have Comcast cable at my home and it works great. I also have Vonage and I am able to use internet and talk on the phone without any glitches. Cable is faster then my parent's DSL.

I had an issue with them once in 1.5 years I was a subscriber. This was related to, I think a thunderstorm and something being burned out outside of our home. They fixed it within a day or two.

Its a bit pricier then DSL, but speeds are a lot higher.

[DesignExtend-MSI]

Anyone running Comcast - can you use your own mail servers?

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

I couldnt, when I had them.

[Keith Hunniford]

Anyone running Comcast - can you use your own mail servers?

If you mean, does Comcast mess with SMTP traffic the answer is NO so you can just treat the connection as a connection to a network and do whatever you want.

To one of your other posts, I have had some cable TV issues, but not with the cable itself - like you with the box ( Motorola ) but they've been prompt to get out here and fix it. Now that I think about it though, I did have connectivity issues for a while, but it was from squirrels chewing through the cable and was also quickly resolved.

As far as another comment about upload download speed, that is true.. download is faster by a ratio of about 5, but it's the same with Qwest DSL, although the ratio is closer to 3 for that.

Keith

[aGorilla]

I run a small mail server for sending emails from mia for testing, and I haven't had any problems.

Just ran a test on dlsreports, here's what I'm currently getting.
dslreports.com speed test result on 2006-05-04 19:42:58 EST:
5280 / 689
Your download speed : 5280 kbps or 660.1 KB/sec.
That is 4% better than an average user on comcast.net

Your upload speed : 689 kbps or 86.1 KB/sec.
That is 72.2% better than an average user on comcast.net

[DesignExtend-MSI]

Thanks to all of your for the input. I ordered the Comcast service today.

I've spent many hours bickering with BellSouth. In January, without notice, they halted using your own mail servers. Our only option was to upgrade the lines and pay an additional $12 a month. They faxed the paperwork, we signed it. Then we start receiving three separate bills, for each line, amounting to $200 EACH. Each time we called we were told they were duplicates, and that everything is as it was. Auto billing showed only the proper amount was being charged.

They've admitted their mistakes, admitted that we were overbilled and that the account rep set it all up wrong. Yet that we OWE all this back money.

I had no choice today but to cough up quite a bit of money, but will pursue a fight on it seeing as I have all paperwork AND (like them) we recorded the conversations. Sad that they'd want to lose us to make some measely bucks to their own internal mishaps.