Comcast Slow Speeds?

[utrythinkinof1]

Hey everyone, I have Comcast "High Speed Internet" and lately it has been anything but high speed. I don't know if it's all the people online for Christmas shopping but my speeds have been ridiculously slow. As in, slower than dial-up. Sometimes the internet works fine (like now) but other times, it just doesn't do anything. It's worst between 7PM-12AM. I was wondering if anyone else with Comcast high speed is having the same problems. I'm thinking about switching to Verizon FIOS. Can someone with FIOS tell me about their experiences? :brick:

 

[Uponastar]

Wow.
We have Comcast High Speed and have never had a problem.
Maybe you could call and ask if there is a problem in your area?
Slower than dial-up...I couldn't even imagine.

 

[DMC-12]

Comcast is crap. I play a couple of different games.. that require me to be online (WoW, BF2142, SL) and I always wound up getting booted from the servers.. due to the high latency on Comcast's end. Same thing with my work FTP servers... I was always getting booted (cause my Comcast connection would make me time out).

Comcast's latency [server ping] would go from 300ms one minute (which is awful to begin with)... and them jump up to 3000-4000ms response time the next. Horrid... just beyond horrid. And of course calling their top tiered support folks is usless to... they dont care. Also... Comcast is involved in Traffic Shaping your packets... which clogs up the tubes that is the internet. To put it in simple terms. I use a couple torrent progams (one to seed/leech linux distros... and another to d'load /seed game patches)... and Comcast severely down throttles torrent traffic. Thats another reason why I dropped them.

So I finally dumped Comcast about 6 months ago... and went with a AT&T Elite DSL line. Now my server [on the West Coast] ping is now around 70ms to 120ms on a bad day.. which is MUCH better of course. :lol:

FIOS is awesome... but I dont have that in my building yet (old old building I am in). As soon as FIOS comes in... I will switch out to that. :lol: Everyone that I know with FIOS loves it. The speed is insain for both UL & DL. Crazy insain! I want it bad!!

Comcast = full of suck

Everything else = win.. and you are much better off.

 

[Master Yoda]

Chances are your signal strength has dropped for one reason or another. Depending on how the system is set up if there are too many customers on one node it can really slow your speed down at peak times. You can sort of troubleshoot this yourself by checking your connection speed at different times of the day. If this is the case they might be able to switch you to a less busy node. The biggest culprit for this is usually a bad cable somewhere. The line from your cable box to your house is usually the most common bad cable especially if it is an underground one. Go to one of the various internet connection speed test sites and get a base line for your speed. Call Comcast and have a tech come out to test the signal strength. Re-perform the test before the tech leaves and do not let him report the matter as closed until you get a satisfactory speed.

 

[DMC-12]

Chances are your signal strength has dropped for one reason or another. Depending on how the system is set up if there are too many customers on one node it can really slow your speed down at peak times. You can sort of troubleshoot this yourself by checking your connection speed at different times of the day. If this is the case they might be able to switch you to a less busy node. The biggest culprit for this is usually a bad cable somewhere. The line from your cable box to your house is usually the most common bad cable especially if it is an underground one. Go to one of the various internet connection speed test sites and get a base line for your speed. Call Comcast and have a tech come out to test the signal strength. Re-perform the test before the tech leaves and do not let him report the matter as closed until you get a satisfactory speed.

I played that game a millions times to... only for them to tell me "signal strength is low".

Me: NO!!! Really!!? GTFOH!!! Thats what the last 3 techs said to... now what are gonna do to fix it this time??

Comcast: Nuthin *shrug*


:brick::brick::lol:

 

[Master Yoda]

I played that game a millions times to... only for them to tell me "signal strength is low".

Me: NO!!! Really!!? GTFOH!!! Thats what the last 3 techs said to... now what are gonna do to fix it this time??

Comcast: Nuthin *shrug*


:brick::brick::lol:

It took a while for me to get it fixed as well. Eventually I requested a level 5 tech (their smartest guys). When he came out I was very polite and explained the situation and that I was going to be a little demanding. He understood and I was his shadow for an hour or two and the problem was fixed.

Much to my chagrin my wife switched us over to Direct TV and DSL through AT&T (she works for them so we get a wicked discount) and it sucks big time. My broadband connection was a consistent 9 times faster then my current DSL.

 

[DisneyJoe]

I was a mostly happy Comcast subscriber for 8+ years, here in Southern NJ. I rarely complained, had maybe 2 outages per year, of usually less than a few hours each, if that. Speed was fairly consistent. Support calls were answered promptly and intelligently! (tried adding 3rd party VoIP service, that was horrible)

Verizon DSL recently offered a package that was half the price, at almost the same speed.

Made the switch 18 days ago (back to Verizon phone service AND DSL), the first week took some tweaking to get a consistent DSL speed, the second week was great, no issues at all, even my 16yo son was getting happier with World of Warcraft and his Instant Messaging....

Then I went to bed this past Saturday night and it all went south for the winter.

Woke up Sunday, page loads now take 30-60+ seconds to load, if they load at all.

Verizon is blaming it all on me, said something must have changed on both of my computers overnight to cause the problem, they said they see no issues at their end.

I'm trying to give it until Saturday, as I have off on Friday and can dedicate the day to working the issue. If its not fixed then, I'm going back to Comcast!

My area doesn't have FIOS yet, but friends of mine that have it love it.

I've been getting better support from a Verizon support area on dslreports.com - I highly recommend the forums there.

-Joe

 

[mkt]

Ditch Comcast. They are by far the worst ISP in the US. Want reasons? Read consumerist.com

 

[DisneyJoe]

Ditch Comcast. They are by far the worst ISP in the US. Want reasons? Read consumerist.com

According to that site, Verizon is just as bad as an ISP.

In my experience, I'll take Comcast over Verizon anyday.

 

[DMC-12]

I should go in my basment here in my building.. and show you the Comcast junction box... and show you how awful they really are....LOL brb.

 

[Master Yoda]

It is a pretty safe assumption that all the ISP providers suck. For the most part switching from one to another does nothing more that switch one set of problems for another. All you can do is find out which one seems to work the best for you and go with it.

 

[DMC-12]

This is how awesome Comcast is :sohappy::sohappy: [I just took these]:

This was like this 6 months ago... when I cancelled... they swore up and down to me that they were going to install a new box many many times. Its nice to see they followed up on that promise to their customers.
:lol:Good show Comcast!!

"Comcast's finest work" [as said by their local and corporate offices] = FAIL! :lol:

 

[TurboCaroline]

Hey everyone, I have Comcast "High Speed Internet" and lately it has been anything but high speed. I don't know if it's all the people online for Christmas shopping but my speeds have been ridiculously slow. As in, slower than dial-up. Sometimes the internet works fine (like now) but other times, it just doesn't do anything. It's worst between 7PM-12AM. I was wondering if anyone else with Comcast high speed is having the same problems. I'm thinking about switching to Verizon FIOS. Can someone with FIOS tell me about their experiences? :brick:

I have Cable One high speed internet and I was having problems with the service not coming on but I was still getting my digital cable...then I remembered that the cable line was spliced twice..once when we dug up a plant and the other was caused by the concrete guys forms for our driveway extension...(his stakes cut the line:brick. The lines were just "patched" together instead of them running me a new line to my house. So anyway the cable guy said that moisture gets in the lines and causes it to not get a good signal. Also is your internet cable line using the same line that a tv is using? I was always told that it is a good idea to have a dedicated line for internet...:shrug:

 

[miles1]

I have Comcast both at home and at the office. I've noticed a slowdown the last two weeks at both locations, moreso at the office. The office slowdown seemed to coincide with one of those automatic "Windows Updates", which also rendered another application useless. I didn't notice if my home computer recevied the same "Upgrade" (sarcasm). Overall, I think it may be a combination of of that and increased traffic as the weather turns and holiday shoppers spend more time on-line.

I had a worse experience with AT&T DSL. It was down more than it was working, and when you called tech support (in Pakistan, of course), they would make you go through 20 minutes of changing settings and diagnosing YOUR computer before admitting it was THEIR problem. I've always found Comcast's tech support pretty good. I also like being able to communicate through a live chat session, that way if I can't understand what the tech is saying verbally, it's in writing.

 

[Nemo14]

This is how awesome Comcast is :sohappy::sohappy: [I just took these]:

This was like this 6 months ago... when I cancelled... they swore up and down to me that they were going to install a new box many many times. Its nice to see they followed up on that promise to their customers.
:lol:Good show Comcast!!

"Comcast's finest work" [as said by their local and corporate offices] = FAIL! :lol: