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Rant about internet providers and monopolies.

Dittohead not!

Dittohead not!

master political analyst
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In this area, there are two internet providers, Comcast and ATT. The latter is slower than a turtle with arthritic joints and four bad knees. That leaves one if you want to actually use the net.

Well, there is also mobile hotspot on the smartphone. That works well, but takes up the allotted data pretty quickly if you use it a lot.

This afternoon, Comcast began to work in snail mode. Pages would time out. I made sure it wasn't my computer by opening a mobile hotspot. It wasn't.

So, I went on the Comcast website about 4:00 and signed up for live chat to see why all of a sudden internet had entered dial up territory. (remember dial up? It used to be the cutting edge).

Now, it is 5:17. When I look at the tab where I've connected to Comcast, I still see that my chat will begin "shortly."

It's a monopoly, so who cares if their customer service sucks?
 
Dittohead not! said:
In this area, there are two internet providers, Comcast and ATT. The latter is slower than a turtle with arthritic joints and four bad knees. That leaves one if you want to actually use the net.

Well, there is also mobile hotspot on the smartphone. That works well, but takes up the allotted data pretty quickly if you use it a lot.

This afternoon, Comcast began to work in snail mode. Pages would time out. I made sure it wasn't my computer by opening a mobile hotspot. It wasn't.

So, I went on the Comcast website about 4:00 and signed up for live chat to see why all of a sudden internet had entered dial up territory. (remember dial up? It used to be the cutting edge).

Now, it is 5:17. When I look at the tab where I've connected to Comcast, I still see that my chat will begin "shortly."

It's a monopoly, so who cares if their customer service sucks?
Click to expand...

If your internet is slow...Why use internet to fix the problem??? Give them a call!
 
Give Comcast a call? That's hilarious. I live in Mexico and Comcast started blocking all my emails to three friends. I contacted Comcast and they said it was because my ISP didn't meet their standards. Comcast has no standards. My sister is suffering under a Comcast regime and is eager for another provider to arrive.

The only actual monopoly is the government and what private monopolies exist are with government collusion.
 
6:35 now and my chat will still "begin shortly." Good thing I wasn't just staring at the computer screen for the past two and a half hours.

I wonder if they ever will respond? I'll just leave the tab open for a while longer and see.
 
Patrickt said:
Give Comcast a call? That's hilarious. I live in Mexico and Comcast started blocking all my emails to three friends. I contacted Comcast and they said it was because my ISP didn't meet their standards. Comcast has no standards. My sister is suffering under a Comcast regime and is eager for another provider to arrive.

The only actual monopoly is the government and what private monopolies exist are with government collusion.
Click to expand...

Uh get a new email then? I mean these problems are more or less easily solved on the user end. Blaming comcast because you are lazy is silly.
 
Dittohead not! said:
6:35 now and my chat will still "begin shortly." Good thing I wasn't just staring at the computer screen for the past two and a half hours.

I wonder if they ever will respond? I'll just leave the tab open for a while longer and see.
Click to expand...

How is waiting on the internet for a chat-bot to respond better than waiting on the phone for a real person to respond? In all this time you would have gotten someone to speak to you on the phone. Especially since you are already having internet problems in the first place.... A phone call would make more sense...
 
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Comcast has a rep for that, but the last two times a service person has been out they have been top rate.
 
ModerateGOP said:
Uh get a new email then? I mean these problems are more or less easily solved on the user end. Blaming comcast because you are lazy is silly.
Click to expand...

Let's see. Comcast blocks my emails to their customers and I should get a new email. If that's how you solve problems I'll assume you work for Comcast. Or, did you mean the Comcast customers should get new email addresses from Comcast so they could be blocked, too.

What my friends did was get Hotmail accounts because Comcast was incompetent but they still had to have Comcast as their ISP. The more I think about it the more likely it seems to be that blaming the user is what a Comcast Customer Service Rep would do.

My sister, with Comcast because there is no choice, had Comcast change their system and suddenly she could only connect to WiFi in the room with the equipment. Before she could sit in the kitchen while her husband was online in the "computer room". So, since it's up to the user, she bought a couple of $100 repeaters to get a little range. Is that the kind of solving problems by the users the Comcast expects?

By golly, it is. The block a user from getting emails and the user can get a Hotmail or GMail or Yahoo account. They change their equipment and the user can go buy a few hundred dollars worth of new equipment. And, Comcast is so inexpensive, too.
 
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ModerateGOP said:
Uh get a new email then? I mean these problems are more or less easily solved on the user end. Blaming comcast because you are lazy is silly.
Click to expand...

It's not the email or the email provider. Read the OP.
 
ModerateGOP said:
How is waiting on the internet for a chat-bot to respond better than waiting on the phone for a real person to respond? In all this time you would have gotten someone to speak to you on the phone. Especially since you are already having internet problems in the first place.... A phone call would make more sense...
Click to expand...

Usually online chats start within a few seconds, as opposed to waiting for a customer service person on the phone, which might take 15 - 20 minutes.

For companies that actually have customer service, that is.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Usually online chats start within a few seconds, as opposed to waiting for a customer service person on the phone, which might take 15 - 20 minutes.

For companies that actually have customer service, that is.
Click to expand...

OK so then why didn't you call the company after that window passed? Have you even called them yet?
 
Patrickt said:
Let's see. Comcast blocks my emails to their customers and I should get a new email. If that's how you solve problems I'll assume you work for Comcast. Or, did you mean the Comcast customers should get new email addresses from Comcast so they could be blocked, too.

What my friends did was get Hotmail accounts because Comcast was incompetent but they still had to have Comcast as their ISP. The more I think about it the more likely it seems to be that blaming the user is what a Comcast Customer Service Rep would do.

My sister, with Comcast because there is no choice, had Comcast change their system and suddenly she could only connect to WiFi in the room with the equipment. Before she could sit in the kitchen while her husband was online in the "computer room". So, since it's up to the user, she bought a couple of $100 repeaters to get a little range. Is that the kind of solving problems by the users the Comcast expects?

By golly, it is. The block a user from getting emails and the user can get a Hotmail or GMail or Yahoo account. They change their equipment and the user can go buy a few hundred dollars worth of new equipment. And, Comcast is so inexpensive, too.
Click to expand...

What type of email did you have? If you had something strange or something obscure then Comcast might have blocked it because of purely that reason. I don't work for comcast but I have experience with customer service at a help desk. And I can tell you. Most of these problems I encounter, are not the company's fault but rather emotional tirades from the user. Hence the Rant in the OP. When you work in this field you have to simplify the issue and deal with only the things you as a technical support person can deal with. The way I see it on my end is this: I don't know the layout of your sister's house and I am not in charge of contracts. But hopefully I can try to calm the situation and try basic things.

Although, I must say most large corporations and ISPs have horrible customer service. It's too structured and outsourced and filled with people just reading off the script where it's clear they don't even know what they are doing. I had a lady from dell who was going to send me a CPU fan and I had to ask her five times if she knew if the pump was included. It was clear she didn't know what the pump was. I at least know what it is I am talking about so I can get somewhere in the conversation AKA speaking to managers and whatnot. It's clear the poster hasn't even tried calling Comcast yet... :roll:

If I had a $100 Million I would start an ISP with wonderful customer service, but that's wishful thinking.
 
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ModerateGOP said:
That wasn't a reply to you. Another poster commented on his email problem.
Click to expand...

Oh.

No worries.

Say, it's 9:00, and the tab still says my chat will begin shortly. The internet appears to be working again. Time to close the tab and end the non conversation.
 
Maybe it's still in snail mode. That last post almost timed out.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Did you think I wanted to be on hold for as long as my computer was waiting for an answer?
Click to expand...

No of course not, but at least it's another avenue to try, and considering you were already having internet problems there was a good chance that the Chat may not have been working at all. I'm not there so I cannot know, but you could have tried more things. Glad it's working now though.
 
Dittohead not! said:
In this area, there are two internet providers, Comcast and ATT. The latter is slower than a turtle with arthritic joints and four bad knees. That leaves one if you want to actually use the net.

Well, there is also mobile hotspot on the smartphone. That works well, but takes up the allotted data pretty quickly if you use it a lot.

This afternoon, Comcast began to work in snail mode. Pages would time out. I made sure it wasn't my computer by opening a mobile hotspot. It wasn't.

So, I went on the Comcast website about 4:00 and signed up for live chat to see why all of a sudden internet had entered dial up territory. (remember dial up? It used to be the cutting edge).

Now, it is 5:17. When I look at the tab where I've connected to Comcast, I still see that my chat will begin "shortly."

It's a monopoly, so who cares if their customer service sucks?
Click to expand...

Makes me glad I have time warner cable, which is god awefull but I can sleep well at night knowing it is not comcast. Actually they pull the same bs, outside fort hood they are decent because competitors, when I was stationed on fort hod, they had no competitors, and their internet made a snail look fast.
 
Dittohead not! said:
6:35 now and my chat will still "begin shortly." Good thing I wasn't just staring at the computer screen for the past two and a half hours.

I wonder if they ever will respond? I'll just leave the tab open for a while longer and see.
Click to expand...

OMG. Have you tried unplugging, waiting a minute, then replugging your modem/router in?

Maybe Comcast is having technical problems generally?
 
beerftw said:
Makes me glad I have time warner cable, which is god awefull but I can sleep well at night knowing it is not comcast. Actually they pull the same bs, outside fort hood they are decent because competitors, when I was stationed on fort hod, they had no competitors, and their internet made a snail look fast.
Click to expand...

The OP said there is a competitor to Comcast. It's At&T. Don't know if he means AT&T dsl or u-verse.
 
It's really such a racket. We have Comcast and Fios available to us. They keep their prices very similar. We were paying $150ish for the triple play with Comcast, Internet, phone & cable. We recently dropped the phone and cable and our bill is now going to be $92 plus tax. WTH? It's hard to believe that the Internet still costs $100 a month. I wish Google or Amazon would hurry up and offer Internet.
 
JumpinJack said:
OMG. Have you tried unplugging, waiting a minute, then replugging your modem/router in?

Maybe Comcast is having technical problems generally?
Click to expand...

I don't know why I hadn't thought of that. I did turn the computer off and turn it back on again. I tried unplugging the modem and router, once they were back up again the internet was working again.
 
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