Connectivity issues
I just spent the last hour and a half arguing with Comcast about their lousy service and their lousy efforts at finding out what’s wrong with their lousy service. I’ve been dealing with connectivity issues off and on for several months, and today the whole thing seemed to get considerably worse, to the point of no connectivity at all (I’m at a friend’s house for the moment in order to be able to post this).
I plan to do a little more posting later today, but right now I’ve got other obligations to tend to.
So, here’s the question for all you techies: Comcast gave me a new modem about a month ago, and now they say they’ll come and give me another new modem. But how can the first one go bad so soon? I doubt that the modem is the problem. I think it’s just Comcast trying to kick the can down the road.
My computer seems fine; it works well in other places. For a while Comcast tried to tell me my computer must have a virus, and even sicced me onto some terrible computer analysis people, and then all those people did was to very aggressively try to sell me some $150 antivirus or anti-spyware program.
Oh, by the way, today when I asked the Comcast person to connect me to a supervisor, she acquiesced and then I was disconnected. Favorite and clever ploy; who wants to go through all the preliminaries (which take about 20 minutes) again?
Please google Conal O’Roark Comcast.
You should not rent a modem from the internet service provider. It is expensive, old, and often slow. Just buy new one.
And then there’s this instant-classic recording of a Comcast rep refusing to cancel a customer’s service until the customer explains himself to Comcast’s satisfaction:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/264834/speedreads-listen-to-this-comcast-rep-berate-a-customer-trying-to-cancel-his-service
The comcast help folks just have a few things to recommend, usually reboot computer and/or modem. If you have a wifi router, might want to reboot that also. Also check all the connections.
One problem I had was a dependence of signal level on temperature. The signal can be either too high or too low, and usually the level is adjusted using attenuators, but the result can change if the temperature is unusually low.
I don’t see a defective modem as likely being at the root of the problem.
Are you experiencing micro power outages, causing it to need to reset addresses?
Does turning it off, and then on again after a wait, temporarily solve the problem?
Is it actual connectivity, or slowness and bogging that is the problem?
I am no defender of Comcast. They are a company that I barely tolerate. But they may be correct about your modem. They can do a fair amount of troubleshooting from a remote office. Perhaps their diagnostic work revealed an issue with your modem. It’s not uncommon for new electronics to go bad. Back in my engineering days, we found that some devices would exhibit defects fairly early in their lifetimes (dubbed infant mortality). This could be caused by a manufacturing defect or some other defect that only came to light once the product was stressed a bit. Try the new modem and see what happens.
Our problem is not Comcast or any other provider. Our problem is the lack of competition. Poor service is a symptom of the lack of competition. High rates (my ‘problem’) are a symptom of the lack of competition.
Try reading through some of this and see if it gives you any perspective; or rings any alarm bells.
http://forums.techguy.org/web-email/696244-accessing-my-modem-settings.html
Your Comcast account should include free Norton Security Suite so it seems strange they would try to sell something else. Cold weather exacerbates wire and connector problems. The modem could have gone bad too but I would look at the wiring. For example a frost heave might have finally broken the insulation on your house service if direct buried.
Frost heave? That sounds painful!
“It’s not uncommon for new electronics to go bad.”
True and always a sign of questionable quality control. Which in turn implies that the company cares little for reliability.
“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.” ― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger
So too with product reliability.
Sangiovese, pretty cool actually.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_heaving
We have our own router (Ethernet and WiFi) and cable modem. We occasionally get loss of connection, 90% of the time the router and modem just need to be rebooted; no idea why. the other 10% is we’ve lost connection to the server Charter uses, and then it comes back in about half an hour.
Go to Best buy and get your own modem and router.
I am with ATT UVerse and I recently had problems for phone, internet and tv. All services would stop working. The tech came out and redid the wiring from the house to the box (but it still is not buried since that is for a subcontractor to do). All boxes for wireless and tv were changed out. I was still having quick and minor outages.
A few weeks later, my neighbor also had problems and the tech checked the inside lines and found that one in the attic was chewed through by a squirrel or other critter. He also ran new lines and boxes and I think he checked my connections since the outages have disappeared.
So, have you had the cables checked for still being intact?
Re Comcast, they wouldn’t let me change the account name from my father to mother after his death. So, after her death, I took both death certificates and the trust documents to the Comcast office to close the account.
Had Verizon FIOS and everyone in my house was happy..no connectivity issues. Then was lured into switching to Comcast with lower rate bundle. Everyone hated Comcast and we had ongoing issues with the wifi, including having to stick a toothpick into the back of the modem to reset it on a regular basis. We also had to practically sit on top of the modem to pick up a decent wifi signal.
Tolerated Comcast for many months longer than we should have due to hassle of switching, but we are finally back with FIOS and everyone is happy again. Comcast did however make the process of cancellation fairly easy, which is the only positive thing I can say about them.
Comcast has a limited repertoire of responses. They replaced our cable prior to checking the local box, which is the issue had to be because it was a neighborhood problem. They just had not connected the dots yet.
You did not mention what type of computer you have or how you are connected.
You have the modem. Is there a router? Are you connecting via WiFi or ethernet cable to the router or modem.
The latest Apple version of Mac OS X has a Wifi connection issue.
To monitor you line go to DLSReports.com and join. In their tool section there are options to test the line quality and to monitor if you are available. To do this, you have to be pingable, which some firewalls turn off. It has been so long since I used it, I don’t recall if the full features require some payment. They also have a BBS to ask detailed questions, as well as newbee stuff.
We had connectivity issues— the comcast tech boosted the signal best he could inside, but said the problem was the cabling outside. Wrote up a ticket to run a new cable. Months passed– we figured the cold weather was keeping them away. Finally called again– evidently they had no record of such a work order. Thank God my wife still had the original. They came out, works much better. Comcast said they will “compensate” us. Probably give us 25 new channels– in Spanish.
Back in the 80s, I was an electronics test technician. You could have a unit with dozens of cards and circuits–all pre-tested, all operating with specs–put them all together and–zilch, nothing! Sometimes things work on paper, but reality is another story.
What physicsguy said.
I was mildly offended at having to pay rental fees, monthly, for a cable modem… so I long ago got in the habit of buying my own. The cable company was at first very perplexed by this, but I think it’s a lot more common now.
Ditto on electronics going bad early on. That is why extended warranties aren’t usually worth the money. Ditto on buying your own modem, too. Cheaper than renting after a few months. Best Buy or similar store will have what you need – DOCSIS 3.0 for newer modems.
We have Cox Cable here. A few years ago, it took them 8 trips to fix an issue (which they required I be home for even though they had already determined that the problem was outside). Two supervisors later and a call to the county consumer liaison officer, they noticed that the innards of the outside box had been installed upside down.
Watch out for un-notified changes in cable-cast frequencies.
To stuff more bandwidth in the ‘pipe’ the industry is gradually going up the scale to higher frequencies.
These change overs are common as dust on weekends/ slow days.
Most critical service work shuts down connectivity — typically performed in the wee hours of the morning.
So what often happens is that you’re receiving fine — at the old legacy frequencies — until so much time has elapsed that Comcast shut down the lower frequencies.
This is occurring nationally. Our Comcast was upgraded in exactly this fashion only a few months ago. They had to send out their very best field tech: the local connection had been so difficult to see that it was missed during the entire transition period. (which lasted two-years, btw)
Since this is a basic problem, nothing done inside your domicile will have any impact.
If by any chance you’ve received a new router from Comcast in the last year, or so, you should suspect this to be your issue.
Naturally the ‘help’ staff will be entirely clueless about the matter. The turn-over at those desks is epic by even McDonald’s standards.
We had a similar problem that went on for a year; the constant disconnecting. We spent a long time on the phone with the internet provider, changed modems, installed line filters… in the end we just had to drop that internet provider and get a new one. And since then we’ve had no problems. The company names are irrelevant as I’m in Australia, but I just thought you’d like to know we had a similar problem that could only be fixed by changing companies.
It’s bandwidth. They aren’t investing in new infrastructure, so unless it is fiber optic, people downloading several hundred gigs per month will cut off “cable access” to the entire neighborhood. It will just go “down” like a switch was flipped. Whether that’s due to hardware, server software switches, or something else, is hard to determine.
But they don’t have the money to expand their infrastructure. The MPAA is involved, btw, in some fashion.
Bear in mind, when making provider decisions, that Comcast is the owner of NBC Universal, which owns among other things NBC and MSNBC. (For a while they owned these assets jointly with GE, but now they are all Comcast’s)
I don’t think it’s healthy to have roughly half of the nation’s communications infrastructure controlled by a company which is also a content provider and which has given evidence of strong political bias. I have no love for Verizon, but will be switching from Comcast to Verizon Fios for both political and cost-reduction reasons.
1. Is your Comcast cable buried, or overhead? – We had some very odd connectivity issues at the new home, and the problem was finally traced to squirrels having half-gnawed the [overhead] lines (apparently squirrel damaage is a common problem in the area, so the Comcast tech’s look for it). Comcast tech’s replaced the lines. No more of those kinds of problems.
2. Electronics “stuff” is hard to effectively troubleshoot. And OS problems can be, and often are, worse. The typical troubleshooting technique for almost any kind of tech is take a known-working device and substitute it for the one where symptoms exist. If the symptoms “go away”, you know the problem is the specific device. Since your laptop appears to be fine elsewhere, I doubt it’s the source of the problem. Though it might not be worth the effort (and will requires some on-phone time with Comcast to get it authenticated), you can test your modem at a friends house (well, if they have Comcast, of course).
3. When you say “Comcast gave me a modem”, do you mean they gave you a multi-function router/switch/Wifi/modem unit? Or a single function device? You should always specify a single function device; i.e., a modem-only unit. Comcast will happily replace their multi-function wireless router with a single function modem (you can ask for a specific model, even: if the tech has it on the truck, they’re usually happy to oblige …I prefer the Cisco DPC3008 at the moment …and yeah, I “rent” too: there was a period a few years ago when my cable modems were self-destructing every 1-2 months, and I just got into the habit of renting them) as part of their rental contract. You will be responsible for providing your own wireless router (which is a good thing, as you can certainly do better than Comcast’s offering for only nominal costs).
The problem (i.e., with trouble-shooting techie issues) is that as often as not there are often multiple problems that can both reinforce OR cancel each other (I have decades of experience in trouble-shooting tech issues btw; just sayin’). And so fixing one thing can uncover something else (or “one problem can mask another” if you prefer). You just have to work your way through ’em all.
4. The online help desk people (of whatever support center in whatever city of whatever country) generally run through “expert” scripts that guide them to general solutions.They are required to do that; it’s part of their job description. Expertise is NOT part of their job requirement; at my level, most of their scripts amount to “common sense things I’ve already done”. But I still let them work their way through. Because …eventually – as another part of their script – they will put me [you] through to a real expert (they do exist lol). You want to reach that person. They can do magic. Patience, unlimited time on the phone (schedule it for when you have time and humour and aren’t stressed), and you will get through the lower levels quicker. “You catch more flies with honey” lol.
5. As far as any suspected malware goes (and I already mentioned that your problem is not – probably – malware related, since your laptop connection appears fine at other locations), I’d be more than happy to check it out thoroughly, gratis, if that would increase both your comfort level and your “ammunition” with Comcast support (as “payment” for all the years of enjoyment your blog has given, if you want to consider it that way …and yes, you can watch while I work, and chat and ask questions if you wish …remotely, of course: my clients are hundreds to thousands of miles away, so I’ve become fairly facile at working remotely …just email me, and I’ll send you my cell number and we can set something up: I never charge friends and family btw).
…and CV: FiOS is so superior to cable that it should never be an issue. You are fortunate. I would kill for FIOS lol (I actually have reason to hope that we might get FIOS here some day) …over the years, and before we bought a house to permanently settle in, I’ve moved several times just to get better ‘net connectivity. I’ve been a nerd since way before it was semi-popular.
Sell your house and move to Korea.
Hmm. The very first thing you should do when you have a connectivity issue with Comcast …is power down. Especially if you have a cable modem.
The reason is because sometimes it’s not the connectivity per se that’s the problem (and the problem might not be on your end at all): it’s that Comcast DNS servers are having issues …and from your perspective what can appear to be a connectivity issue is in reality a DNS problem …DNS servers “translate” familiar domain names [FQDN’s] to IP addresses so normal people can remember – and “spell” their “address” …Comcast in particular has had lots of DNS server related issues over the years (well “IMHO” and experience).
You’re not going to lose any settings or data or anything – you won’t cause problems – by power-cycling your Comcast stuff.
The drill is pull the power plug on the modem; leave it off for two minutes. Depending upon your network infrastructure, you might also want to power down the router, the WiFi access points [AP], and any switches (those last three are generally the same device in typical consumer environments). You might as well turn off your laptop, too.
Then – and in this order – turn on the cable modem (until all the lights have lit up, and/or are no longer flashing rhythmically), turn on the router and switch, turn on your wireless AP (again: these are probably a single device), and when those lights stop dancing, turn on your laptop.
Sometimes – during “bad Comcast months” – I have to do this a few times a week (well, it seems like a few times per week lol).
Works for me.
…and if it don’t for you: call ’em.
Oh.
And this page is your friend (link to “is Comcast down” site …and yeah, there are others).
I’ve actually wished I could do that a time or three LOL. Just for the reason implied.
…you realize that statement reveals you as an uber geek, right?
Aargh. Forgot.
To explain: power-cycling your cable modem causes Comcast servers to “re-authenticate” the MAC [machine] address of your device (all network devices have a unique “machine address”).
Sometimes that [authentication procedure] is all that needs done (especially if the Comcast server farm has been doing maintenance), so power-cycling can be quite effective in fixing transient “Comcast-end” problems.
A.T., physicsguy, Daniel in Brookline:
I wouldn’t rent a modem if I didn’t have to. I tried several times to buy the recommended modem type and router and it could not be made to work. I forget the reason, but there was a reason that where I am it’s better to rent. Unfortunately.
Also, there are problems with all the alternative ways of going online. I may look into them again, though, because this has gotten ridiculous.
DNW:
All of the above.
Usually it’s just slowness, but very intermittent slowness. Most of the time it’s fine, then it will slow way down, and rebooting helps with that.
This is different. It connects for about three seconds, then it won’t work. Over and over, even if I reset the modem, reboot, etc. . What’s more, it says I’m connected and signal strength is “excellent,” but “no internet access.”
Neo, that’s generally what happens when the bandwidth has been capped. The other things that happen are storms or electricity outs disrupting some infrastructure node.
Fiber optic is the way to go, doesn’t matter which provider.
After switching, zero problems for the entirety of the Hussein O Regime. Whereas previous to that…. lots of problems, lots of restarts. So annoying.
Thanks, everyone.
I can’t say I understand all the suggestions, though. I probably have to call on a friend to consult.
Another “aargh”:
“Slow” internet speeds with Comcast can be caused by other subscribers in your local cable loop. “Can be” (not necessarily “are”).
Comcast cable is a shared network resource, and one user in a local loop can seriously impact that loop’s shared resources (think “tragedy of the commons”, but add in “over-subscribed” to the mix to get a mind-pix of this).
That “no internet access” you’re seeing can be a problem with the OS (especially in the user profile), or with malware (again: as it works fine elsewhere, I don’t think it would be malware related).
There’s a couple of things you can try.
1. Delete ALL the wireless profiles (if you want to pursue this, I can email more specific instructions), and start from scratch with a fresh WiFi connection.
2. Create a new user profile (with admin privileges), and see if that new profile works fine. It just might. Doesn’t cost anything to try it.
(This “technique” – creating a new user profile – has solved countless “tearing-my-hair-out-over-this-problem” over the years btw. Sometimes it’s the ONLY solution I’ve found …like on this [Windows 7] workstation, there’s my original “brd” profile which started doing some weird crap last winter that I never figured out the cause of (and wasn’t worth pursuing), and a new “brd2” profile which just works. Sometimes, even with years of experience, you just say “beats me” and you move on lol.)
3. Not all laptop wireless cards work with all wireless routers. Nothing to help you with here (well: you can kind of test it by taking what I assume is your Comcast WiFi to a friend’s house …if you have the same issue there – but otherwise not when you use their equipment – you’ll have found at least part of your problem).
signal strength is “excellent,” but “no internet access.”
I assume signal strength here is for wireless connection from your laptop. That is a different signal than what the modem is receiving. If you want to be all geeky, try using http://192.168.100.1/ as the internet address, that will connect you directly to most Motorola modems and you can look at what the modem thinks is happening if you manage to log in. Don’t change modem passwords or anything like that. It is also possible that comcast hasn’t registered your modem, they need to register the MAC address — each modem has a different one — before you are allowed to use the network.
I have been having similar problems off and on with Cox. I pay for their medium (premium) speed. In testing broadband speed, i don’t even get their lowest speeds up- or down. I have land line (no long distance since i have a cell) cable (no sports bundles or movie channels) and middle speed internet. In 1.5 years, my monthly bill has risen from just over 150 bucks a month to 303 bucks a month. My electric bill is about 135 bucks a month. Cox has something called a loyalty expert. I am to contact one to see how to get my cable bill down. Someone will come up with a better way of doing this, it will cost less and be more dependable. I patiently await the new mark Andreesen.
I never was a geek, but over the years with everything now an icon to be clicked on, I forgot everything i ever learned in the early days.
My inner nerd: I’m assuming you have a Windows laptop.
The “connected and signal strength is excellent” you’re seeing refers only to the wireless, hardware-specific, connection between your laptop and your wireless router. That part of your connection is being reported as fine.
The “no internet connection” is between your cable modem (which – now – I’m guessing is the single device that provides modem, wireless, routing, and switching: so …the “box” you rent from Comcast) and the Comcast DNS servers.
This might be due to a hardware authentication issue (so try a power cycle like I described previously, and don’t skip any bits and details) as these are typically transitory (it’s the nature of Comcast’s hardware authentication procedure with cable modems), or it might be something in your user profile.
…the fastest thing to try would be creating a new user account (in Control Panel –> User Accounts –> Manage Another Account –> Create a new account); surprisingly effective sometimes, for similar situations.
And that’s all I got.
And now I’m thinking your wireless password may have changed and you are still using the old one.
I have Comcast and was having frequent internet outages a few months ago. Sometimes rebooting the modem would fix it and sometimes it wouldn’t.
It kept getting worse and the outages were sometimes getting longer, so I called Comcast. The symptoms resembled an incident a few years ago which turned out to be squirrel damage to their equipment on a nearby pole.
The technician came inside and measured the signal to the modem, then went outside and replaced a splitter. That immediately improved the signal. He went on to replace the exterior cable, which was at least 20 years old. There was no charge, since it was the exterior wiring.
He did say that I should replace my modem because it’s outdated and a newer one would give better performance. (I own my modem.) But replacing the wiring and connectors fixed the immediate problem.
***
But tonight I had a mysterious outage for about a half hour. It was strange because modem looked normal, with four lights on, two steady and two flashing. I’ve never seen that before. With every previous outage, the modem dropped to one or two lights. I didn’t reboot it, and eventually the signal came back. I suspect it was a problem on Comcast’s end.
We have CenturyLink, and recently we had a 3-4 month span where we had almost constant connectivity problems. A few times they sent someone over to poke around or run a new wire or something, but most of the time we’d get on the phone with customer service and spend an hour or three running though all the diagnostics before they made some fiddling little adjustment that made everything work again. The next week or the next day, we’d lose our connection again or it would slow to the speed of mud, and they’d make a DIFFERENT fiddling little adjustment that made everything work again.
Personally, I think they’ve just got a wall of dials at their HQ, one per customer, and periodically they turn all the dials to “slow” or “disconnect” to save on resources; customers who call and are hardy enough to suffer through the wait time and all of the diagnostics get their dials turned back to “fast” (or maybe “slow” if it was previously turned to “disconnect”) with the assurance that their problem has been fixed, and it stays on that setting until the next time the provider wants to save a few bucks. It would explain the frankly baffling fixes they kept giving us.
More realistically, somebody — maybe a neighbor, maybe a Centurylink employee, I don’t remember now — told us that Centurylink oversold its internet services in our (rural) area, so we have hundreds more people sharing the bandwidth supply than there should be. Since Centurylink is the only provider hereabouts, there’s nothing we can do except grumble about it and speak sharply to the poor customer service representatives.
MCI/WorldCom swore they’d fire us if we in Customer Service pulled this or dozens of other examples of misbehavior that I’ve been subjected to from telephone and internet companies. To say, ok, here’s a supervisor and hang up…
Three or four years ago I uncoupled Internet from the rest of the Comcast bundle. I moved to Verizon MiFi. It’s faster than Comcast with the added advantage of being able to take it with me wherever I go. Current model allows 15 wireless connections.
Often their “new” modems are merely old, defective ones that have been refurbished.
Buy your own.
Harum:
As I said, I already tried that, twice.
Actually, I think there are too many other subscribers, as several of you have said. I’ve discussed this with Comcast, but they keep denying it, or purposely not understanding what I’m talking about.
The problem could be on the cable modem side, the WiFi side, or the DNS.
If you can connect your computer with an ethernet cable to the modem, you’ll bypass WiFi. If the problem goes away, then the issue is WiFi (for instance a neighbor or something is making RF noise).
Most cable modems have a status page you can view in your browser by going to the IP address of your “gateway”. There you’ll see all the “channels” the modem is using. The faster services use more channels. Check the SNR (signal to noise ratio) for the channels. Ideal is 40+ dB. When it starts getting down to the low thirties, there is so much noise on the cable line that the packets keep getting corrupted. Different bands of modems have different strengths dealing with noise.
DNS is used by your computer to translate domain names (e.g. neenocon.com) to numeric addresses. Comcast provides DNS servers for your computer to query for DNS. If those servers are overloaded, your connection hangs. Google and others provide alternate DNS servers (e.g. 8.8.8.8). You can type those address into your network configuration to tell you computer to use those DNS servers.
Had Time Warner cable for six years. Initially, service was horrible. A TW contractor fixed a neighbor’s problem by disconnecting us and hitching him up to our good connection. But it has improved. If we have an outage we can easily find out if it is just us or local by calling. Now and then we unplug out cable modem and router from their power sources and then replug. That cures most issues. Speed s good. Software downloads are fast, and I often download huge software updates.
Can’t really complain.
If it’s a case of having too many subscribers or perhaps intentional bandwidth throttling by your provider, then service will tend to be laggy and intermittent. A site my provider usually asks me to check when my connection is slow is speedtest.net. You might also want to use it to gather some ammunition before placing your service call.
Go to the site and click “Begin Test”. Within a couple of minutes, it’ll spit out a few numbers. Write down the last two, the download and upload speeds. Try the test on a day when your connection is good, and again each time your connection is slow.
Most internet plans promise to deliver certain speeds — e.g., a 15/5 account should deliver around 15Mbps for downloads and 5 Mbps for uploads. Speeds will vary and undershoot at times, but I’m happy if I consistently get 70-80% of those numbers. But if you’re often getting 1.5/0.5 for a 15/5 account, then you and your provider will know definitively there’s a problem.
Keep a diary of all outages and periods of slow connection speeds, and if you’re so inclined, ask (nicely) for a credit, which might give them the incentive to resolve your problem more quickly.
A couple of years ago, I had a similar problem. After about an hour and a half of waiting for the ISP to field the call, I was connected to customer service. Conversation follows:
Hi, my service has been down for about a week, could we look at my connection?
Sure, have you upgraded to the new account yet?
No, but that’s not what’s wrong. Trust me.
Well , if you don’t upgrade and change your account name, then I can’t help you.
Fine, I’ll upgrade, but it won’t help. What’s my new account name?
I don’t know.
Why not, you’re the ISP, and you assigned it?
My computer is down.
Well, lean over to the guy next to you and type it into his machine.
That won’t do any good.
Why not?
His machine is down too.
How do you know that?
Because all of the machines are down.
(A light begins to dawn???)
Sir, is it possible that the fact that your machine is down is related to the fact that my machine is down?
Well, I suppose it’s possible, do you live in Northern California?
Why yes, I do.
Well, all of Northern California is down.
Do you know why?
Yes, a back hoe cut 600,000 fiber optic feeds.
Oh, well thanks, now I understand.
(You can’t make this stuff up).
Try checking out your net. Open a command window in START->ACCESSORIES->Command Prompt
In the window, type . You should see a configuration list for your IP stuff. Look for your gateway. It will have a code like 192.168.1.32. Now ping the gateway. is a command. It generates an ICMP Echo request from the gateway. (ICMP = Internet Control Message Protocol)
(substitute the IP address of your gateway). A reply means you’re connected. Now ping your DNS server. (Domain Name System). See it you can reach it. If this much works, try pinging google. You should be able to use the resolver to find the IP address: If that worked, then you have connectivity and the problem is some sort of misconfiguration or worm or virus.
whoops, you type IPCONFIG in the window in current systems.
For what its worth, I had a similar problem with comcast………for a few years. I then threatened them with calling the police…….for theft. Hey, whatever works, right?
Long story short…..they found that the lines had water in them…and the wire of the coax was a little rusted (this was an outside the house link), but when I looked……at the wire coming into my place it was a little rusted…….Was hard to really tell, but yep………..that was the problem.
A month later I got a $180 bill……….for something that happened outside………they took care of it, but as far as I’m concerned Comcast is the worst company I ever dealt with by far.
Not one tech even looked at what the final tech did (I give him kudos and gave him a 20 spot………there ARE good techs out there).
Looking back, it seemed the problem was worse when the seasons changed (maybe something to do with how metal contracts and expands)
Comcast is also directly competing with netflix and other such internet video feeds for entertainment. They probably think, the higher ups, that folks are not subscribing to cable because they have netflix. Thus if they throttle the bandwidth on the net downloads, they can get back some of their market share.
But that’s not why people refuse to watch cable tv. And it’s not why people prefer to download internet stuff either.
I’ve discussed this with Comcast, but they keep denying it, or purposely not understanding what I’m talking about.
Their reps are indoctrinated or merely ignorant.
It’s common in such large organizations or cults. The higher ups know what’s really going on, the peons not so much. The rest of us outside the bubble, can do our own analysis and data gathering without fear of being punished by corporate management.
I am with ATT UVerse and I recently had problems for phone, internet and tv. All services would stop working. The tech came out and redid the wiring from the house to the box (but it still is not buried since that is for a subcontractor to do). All boxes for wireless and tv were changed out. I was still having quick and minor outages.
I had the same issues when I switched from DSL To uverse (although just for internet). The tech rewired and gave me a new modem which fixed the issue. He told me something about old wiring not working well with Uverse (as compared to DSL)?
Can’t help you with comcast, but getting a new modem has fixed internet problems for me several times over the years. Sometimes they break and sometimes they are just not good products, especially if they are the ones the company gave you.
I have heard a lot of bad stories about Comcast. AT&T is my ISP. I have no complaints about its service.
AT&T provided me with a router when I signed up. After 7 years, the router stopped working. Instead of dealing with bureaucracy, I drove 5 miles to the local big box electronics store and purchased a new router. The new router is about a third the size of the old router.
Neo, did you get the name of the service representative at the beginning of the call? That way, when you call a second time, you can identify who cut you off.
There is no harm in swapping out your cable modem for a newer model.
If you don’t have it already you might look into getting DSL service in addition to your cable internet service. DSL is through your phone company and phone lines.
This way when your friendly efficient cable company goes down you can switch to DSL until the cable is fixed.
Gringo:
I didn’t understand some of what she said, including her name. By the time she cut me off, I had forgotten it.
Wow, this is a huge-arse thread.
My little contribution: I used to have AT&T, which ended up being a nightmare to leave (“walled garden,” anyone? I had to call in a relative who luckily was a higher-up there). Every time there was a heavy thunderstorm, my internet would go out.
I finally, finally got them to look at the outside box, and sure enough, there was a rusted out short.