What Comcast Really Thinks About You

Local government officials fucked us by allowing Comcast exclusive rights and no competition for the sake of a few dollars of temporary savings that evaporated a few years later when prices were hiked and speeds were capped.
 
The Comcast bashing is starting to get pretty old actually, especially given how much of it is based on theory about what might happen in the future, as well as people still latching onto the false idea that Comcast throttles certain traffic.

I'd like like to ask, if Comcast is a company that "doesn't give a fuck" about it's subscribers, then what would people on here see as an example of an ISP that does? What is the big difference here that somehow sets Comcast apart?

Comcast has increased my speeds to almost 10x over what it was a decade ago, all through upgrades they've made to their network, and keeping up with the latest tech (at no direct cost to me).

EODetroit said:
Local government officials fucked us by allowing Comcast exclusive rights and no competition for the sake of a few dollars of temporary savings that evaporated a few years later when prices were hiked and speeds were capped.
Click to expand...

Comcast's speeds as well as prices are fairly standardized nationwide. Are you saying that you pay more and/or have had you speeds capped lower than other Comcast subscribers? What are your speeds currently "capped" at?
 
As someone who never dealt with Comcast 13 hours a day and never had to deal with local markets that refused to answer calls from other Comcast employees I can say this is nothing but truth. I only hope the FCC can regulate their ass till it bleeds.
 
No company in the US gives a damn cause it is a virtual monopoly by territory. No real competition at all. We pay more and get less than other countries. Too say it is standard in the US and this is the norm is part of the problem.
 
i just realized that most likely means unlimited timewarner bandwidth will be gone after the merger.
I'll have to pay extra to download all that HD porn.
 
dr.kevin said:
i just realized that most likely means unlimited timewarner bandwidth will be gone after the merger.
I'll have to pay extra to download all that HD porn.
Click to expand...

Comcast doesn't currently have any enforced monthly bandwidth caps.
 
Outamyhead said:
Oh, really?

http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-what-are-the-different-plans-launching

Methinks you don't read the small print, or kept up with the news for the last four years.
Click to expand...

Did you say something about small print?

This is what Comcast users will see when they view their data meter from their account page:

datameter.jpg


Sorry that you were misinformed.
 
250GB limit is probably suspended because they moved it up to 300GB as of November according to Comcast/Xfinity's official support page I linked, so technically your statement is correct.
 
What do they mean "you don't have a choice?" can't we just watch/download free stuff and live in the sweet bliss of ignorance?
 
Youn said:
What do they mean "you don't have a choice?" can't we just watch/download free stuff and live in the sweet bliss of ignorance?
Click to expand...

Easy, they'll start charging by the meg, don't like it? Refer to video.
 
GotNoRice said:
The Comcast bashing is starting to get pretty old actually, especially given how much of it is based on theory about what might happen in the future, as well as people still latching onto the false idea that Comcast throttles certain traffic.

I'd like like to ask, if Comcast is a company that "doesn't give a fuck" about it's subscribers, then what would people on here see as an example of an ISP that does? What is the big difference here that somehow sets Comcast apart?

Comcast has increased my speeds to almost 10x over what it was a decade ago, all through upgrades they've made to their network, and keeping up with the latest tech (at no direct cost to me).

Comcast's speeds as well as prices are fairly standardized nationwide. Are you saying that you pay more and/or have had you speeds capped lower than other Comcast subscribers? What are your speeds currently "capped" at?
Click to expand...

Hi, you clearly work for Comcast. Can you pass on a message? Tell Comcast that the Time Warner merger won't have a chance in hell.
 
GotNoRice said:
The Comcast bashing is starting to get pretty old actually, especially given how much of it is based on theory about what might happen in the future, as well as people still latching onto the false idea that Comcast throttles certain traffic.

I'd like like to ask, if Comcast is a company that "doesn't give a fuck" about it's subscribers, then what would people on here see as an example of an ISP that does? What is the big difference here that somehow sets Comcast apart?

Comcast has increased my speeds to almost 10x over what it was a decade ago, all through upgrades they've made to their network, and keeping up with the latest tech (at no direct cost to me).



Comcast's speeds as well as prices are fairly standardized nationwide. Are you saying that you pay more and/or have had you speeds capped lower than other Comcast subscribers? What are your speeds currently "capped" at?
Click to expand...



GO AWAY!
 
GotNoRice said:
Comcast doesn't currently have any enforced monthly bandwidth caps.
Click to expand...

You obviously don't live in one of their "Test" markets where your data capped now, and their preparing to roll it out nation wide after the merger. You get 300G's, which is more than enough for most people, then $10 for every time you hit an additional 100G's that billing cycle.
 
GotNoRice said:
The Comcast bashing is starting to get pretty old actually, especially given how much of it is based on theory about what might happen in the future, as well as people still latching onto the false idea that Comcast throttles certain traffic.

I'd like like to ask, if Comcast is a company that "doesn't give a fuck" about it's subscribers, then what would people on here see as an example of an ISP that does? What is the big difference here that somehow sets Comcast apart?

Comcast has increased my speeds to almost 10x over what it was a decade ago, all through upgrades they've made to their network, and keeping up with the latest tech (at no direct cost to me).

Comcast's speeds as well as prices are fairly standardized nationwide. Are you saying that you pay more and/or have had you speeds capped lower than other Comcast subscribers? What are your speeds currently "capped" at?
Click to expand...

1: imo it's happening now since the conversation is constantly being guided to this bogus garbage about "the capacity" of the internet. That would not even be an issue if ISPs actually invested in improving infrastructure. Instead they and their ilk took tax payer dollars to make that happen and simply did not do that and there were no repercussions. The conversation should not be about how much people need (ie: what they can be sold at maximum profit) it should be about what can be done to make the internet better.

2: There are no good examples. This is not a failure of any one company to just conjure up being a good example, but an example of how utterly stupid it is to allow corporations to run their own show on the backs of the populace, powered by unmitigated greed.

3: "latest tech"!? If Comcast is a demonstration of latest tech, then how is Google waltzing into their test areas and plopping in gear that's 58 times the speed of my Comcast connection right now? Comcast is literally a GIGANTIC company with $8.5 billion in free cash flow and they suddenly are being upended by a company that is not even an ISP?

4: No shit Comcast's speed and rates are "standardized". That's just a way of saying "There is no choice but to kneel before Zod". They're standardized because you have no alternative but to pay up or go fuck yourself.

My current Netflix experience at home is 360p at best. Oh wait, if I run through VPN, that magically becomes fluid Super-HD... Yea... I'm sure that Comcast is handling all traffic equally :rolleyes:

I sincerely hope you get paid by Comcast, because defending them at all is tantamount to literally licking the heels of bad people :mad:
 
GotNoRice said:
Comcast doesn't currently have any enforced monthly bandwidth caps.
Click to expand...


This is true. They did halt the cap enforcement policy after it was in effect for two years, but they only did so to revise their strategy. They've technically only halted them for about a year in all areas, but for the past year they've been rolling them out on a city-by-city basis in select markets as a "trial". They just recently bumped it up to a decent amount of cities in their latest "test" so it's only a matter of time before it returns to everyone.

They've been saying their strategy seems to work better. This being that customers get a choice between 10GB a month with $1 per gig over while getting a reduced price for your Internet package, or everyone just getting 300GB if you decide to opt out of that package.

Seems like the old tag line of a frog in boiling water me thinks.
 
Ashbringer said:
Hi, you clearly work for Comcast. Can you pass on a message? Tell Comcast that the Time Warner merger won't have a chance in hell.
Click to expand...

Actually yes I do :D

Cool thing about the merger is it gives us employees a wider coverage area we can transfer to if we want to move. Nothing much else about it is too interesting.

Someone told me that Comcast and TWC both had the worst rated customer service in america? Ouch!

FYI - Customer service is lousy, because it's a shitty shitty job, where you have to deal with shitty shitty people all day long. If you're good, you'll find another job or you'll move up quickly. If you're bad you won't last long either, resulting in a revolving door of agents who have no idea what's going on.
 
cortexodus said:
3: "latest tech"!? If Comcast is a demonstration of latest tech, then how is Google waltzing into their test areas and plopping in gear that's 58 times the speed of my Comcast connection right now? Comcast is literally a GIGANTIC company with $8.5 billion in free cash flow and they suddenly are being upended by a company that is not even an ISP?
Click to expand...

Comcast was rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 in our market before most other cable providers had even finished rolling out 2.0. I'm currently on 100Mbps and they are already talking about higher speeds in the future. UVerse is our only competing ISP and they top out at 24Mbps. Google fiber is great for the handful of cities they actually provide service to, but remains nothing more than a wet dream for most. I'm quite happy with 100Mbps and I have to give props to Comcast for not just talking about higher speeds but continually making them a reality for me over the years.
 
I love how assholes( I say that because that's what they are) keep saying the ISPs don't throttle bandwidth. If you can barely stream 360/480p of Netflix, but then magically a vpn lets you stream the highest HD quality they are throttleing. Just because they aren't programming the routers and switches to give less than 1mb of bandwidth to Netflix doesn't mean they aren't getting the exact same effect in a different way. Plus we know what that other way is, its called purposefully using equipment that will not the handle the load. Obviously they have the equipment that can handle the load on their network or else a VPN would be crappy also. I don't see how anyone can say there is a difference between programing it to make them slow or using equipment to make it slow. If they both have the same result then they should both fall under the same category.

So please stop being assholes.
 
c@Nc3r said:
I love how assholes( I say that because that's what they are) keep saying the ISPs don't throttle bandwidth. If you can barely stream 360/480p of Netflix, but then magically a vpn lets you stream the highest HD quality they are throttleing. Just because they aren't programming the routers and switches to give less than 1mb of bandwidth to Netflix doesn't mean they aren't getting the exact same effect in a different way. Plus we know what that other way is, its called purposefully using equipment that will not the handle the load. Obviously they have the equipment that can handle the load on their network or else a VPN would be crappy also. I don't see how anyone can say there is a difference between programing it to make them slow or using equipment to make it slow. If they both have the same result then they should both fall under the same category.

So please stop being assholes.
Click to expand...

It is actually clearly not throttling. You should learn something about peering and interconnection before you start calling people who do know something about them assholes. Just a thought.
 
c@Nc3r said:
I love how assholes( I say that because that's what they are) keep saying the ISPs don't throttle bandwidth. If you can barely stream 360/480p of Netflix, but then magically a vpn lets you stream the highest HD quality they are throttleing. Just because they aren't programming the routers and switches to give less than 1mb of bandwidth to Netflix doesn't mean they aren't getting the exact same effect in a different way.
Click to expand...
Or it could be Netflix (through its provider) is purposely choosing a path to Comcast that is congested, even though Comcast has adequate bandwidth at other connection points to handle all Netflix traffic if the traffic was distributed in a balanced manner. When you're using the VPN, the VPN host uses a non-congested path to Comcast.
 
c@Nc3r said:
I love how assholes( I say that because that's what they are) keep saying the ISPs don't throttle bandwidth. If you can barely stream 360/480p of Netflix, but then magically a vpn lets you stream the highest HD quality they are throttleing.
Click to expand...

Do you know what a peering agreement is? Or are you another one of those that just thinks of the internet as one big magic cloud?

The only thing that was ever slowing down netflix traffic for Comcast users was the peering agreement dispute between Cogent and Comcast. This wasn't about netflix traffic specifically, but more generically, a discrepancy in the amount of traffic flowing from Cogent's networks to Comcast's networks vs what they had agreed upon. All traffic going through that link was suffering equally, not just netflix traffic.

A VPN would bypass the problem because the ISP of the network you're connecting to via the VPN more than likely has it's own separate peering agreement with Cogent.

Netflix themselves have said no one is throttling anything. I guess they are assholes too? :rolleyes:
 
I pay overages every month because I have DSL and ATT wants me to buy direct TV instead of prime/netflix. I hate it, $81 this last month. I'm lucky afford to not monitor my usage daily or I would always be pissed off...
 
Do you know what a peering agreement is? Or are you another one of those that just thinks of the internet as one big magic cloud?

The only thing that was ever slowing down netflix traffic for Comcast users was the peering agreement dispute between Cogent and Comcast. This wasn't about netflix traffic specifically, but more generically, a discrepancy in the amount of traffic flowing from Cogent's networks to Comcast's networks vs what they had agreed upon. All traffic going through that link was suffering equally, not just netflix traffic.

A VPN would bypass the problem because the ISP of the network you're connecting to via the VPN more than likely has it's own separate peering agreement with Cogent.

Netflix themselves have said no one is throttling anything. I guess they are assholes too?
Click to expand...

People keep bringing up these peering agreements, and frankly who gives a shit?

If Comcast valued access to Netflix for their users then they would have made it work.

THEY DO NOT VALUE OFFERING THIS SERVICE.

It is direct competition to their cable tv and on demand services. It is in their best interest for it not to work well or to squeeze netflix.

Peering agreement bullshit is just that... bullshit.
 
XvMMvX said:
People keep bringing up these peering agreements, and frankly who gives a shit?
Click to expand...

People who actually care about how things work instead of stamping their feet in a fit of ignorant rage.

XvMMvX said:
If Comcast valued access to Netflix for their users then they would have made it work.
Click to expand...

That's EXACTLY what they did. They bypassed the problem (Cogent) and negotiated a direct agreement with Netflix.

XvMMvX said:
Peering agreement bullshit is just that... bullshit.
Click to expand...

Head in the sand ftw? :rolleyes:
 
Yeah they fixed it all right.

Squeezed money from Netflix and now Netflix will probably have to eventually raise prices. Thus making sure that Comcast still gets theirs while not having to compete with anyone.

Great model we have.
 
XvMMvX said:
Yeah they fixed it all right.

Squeezed money from Netflix and now Netflix will probably have to eventually raise prices. Thus making sure that Comcast still gets theirs while not having to compete with anyone.

Great model we have.
Click to expand...
It seems pretty fair to me, the cost (if Comcast is more expensive than Cogent) ultimately ends up on Netflix users, those who benefit most from the upgrade. The 60-70% of the Comcast userbase who aren't Netflix users are not forced to pay for something that has little benefit to them.
 
XvMMvX said:
Yeah they fixed it all right.

Squeezed money from Netflix and now Netflix will probably have to eventually raise prices. Thus making sure that Comcast still gets theirs while not having to compete with anyone.

Great model we have.
Click to expand...

Netflix was already paying Cogent. Now they're paying Comcast instead. What a terrible, terrible arrangement.
 
Wierdo said:
Heh...well if we had to go with this hypothetical scenario then mooching off someone's wifi would become a federal crime.
Click to expand...
how is not paying for internet a "hypothetical scenario"... :confused: my point was merely that people DO have a choice despite what dude said in the video. Maybe it's a difficult choice to make for most people, or maybe some don't even realize another option exists, I dunno...
 
XvMMvX said:
Yeah they fixed it all right.

Squeezed money from Netflix and now Netflix will probably have to eventually raise prices. Thus making sure that Comcast still gets theirs while not having to compete with anyone.

Great model we have.
Click to expand...

Do you realize that Netflix was already paying Cogent for bandwidth? Now they are paying Comcast. Given that Netflix traffic from comcast users (a shit-ton) won't be going through Cogent anymore, it would stand to reason that they will be paying Cogent less now. This isn't some sneaky underhanded deal like you seem to want to believe it is. Comcast is just as legitimate a supplier of bandwidth and hosting services as Cogent is, and given what was happening, it absolutely made sense to bypass the problem.
 
GotNoRice said:
Comcast was rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 in our market before most other cable providers had even finished rolling out 2.0. I'm currently on 100Mbps and they are already talking about higher speeds in the future. UVerse is our only competing ISP and they top out at 24Mbps. Google fiber is great for the handful of cities they actually provide service to, but remains nothing more than a wet dream for most. I'm quite happy with 100Mbps and I have to give props to Comcast for not just talking about higher speeds but continually making them a reality for me over the years.
Click to expand...

Drink that koolaid. I had 50mbps Comcast and I could rarely stream Netflix, hulu, or vudu. When I say rarely I mean most the time I couldn't even watch a full movie in low res. That means I wasn't even getting 1.5mbps because with a 1.5 mbps DSL line I had no issue streaming any low res movies. Right now I have 70mbps Verizon fios and Netflix will only run in low res. Watching hulu in HD it will drop to low res with in 5-10min. Sometimes I think of dropping down a tier or two to save some money since I would probably not notice a difference with bandwidth since I never get my 70 mbps anyways.

When I had Comcast it was a choice between Comcast or ATT. They both were crappy but Comcast on paper was better - more bandwidth for about the same price. The truth though was that Comcast was only better for a few things and other things they throttled so it was the same experience or worse. But good for you if you like that koolaid, then keep on drinking it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top