Wednesday, February 18, 2009

February 18, 2009

It seems Comcast recognizes with competition it stands to loose heavily. And 2009 sounds like a year it hopes to get past quickly.

I can't say I blame them. And it doesn't help with investors leaving them. Companies like my other favorite are divesting themselves of Comcast stock.

Mr. Roberts has earned a new title besides CEO of Comcast. He's been called in many articles I've been receiving recently "The Dark Lord of Broadband". A guy who's as disconnected from reality as I've seen. And just when he thought 2007 and 2008 were going to be banner years for Comcast, people as myself rebelled and called them to the mat. Involving the FCC and other Government agencies. It's been a mess.

Yet there's a stunning disconnect between how fellow chief executives view him and what customers think. They see Comcast as arrogant, unresponsive, and overpriced. The company has managed to place last or close to last in just about every survey of customer service.


By blocking BitTorrent—in effect discriminating against those packets—Roberts had opened himself up to accusations that he was a censor and a monopolist who wanted to limit citizens' access to the Internet. He was painted as power-mad, unable to restrain himself.


"I honestly don't think we're bad people, and we have no evil intentions," he says. "We helped invent broadband."


Let me guess. Comcast gave Al Gore the idea for the Internet now? My how history has changed. Read the article. It was a good read.


I guess they really hate the Internet.

Cable’s costly infrastructure, optimized for hundreds of channels, can’t adjust to a world where entertainment is downloaded. They have to tame the Internet to survive.


People are looking at services which don't require cable TV. From Vuze to Hulu and more. Downloadable content takes control away from these guys. If you follow the money, those customers are bad for business.

Streaming video of everything from classic movies to hit TV programs to screaming music videos of '80s hair bands is available free at online portals YouTube and Joost, as well as Hulu.com (a joint venture of NBC and Fox) and the networking site MySpace, which is owned by the same company as Fox.


And now it seems by 2012 Korea will have an average Internet of 1 Gig putting American Internet providers to shame!

In America we think Charter's 60 Mbps Cable is fast, well in Korea the entire country will have 1 Gbps service by 2012, that's 16 times faster than Charter's fastest 60Mbps highspeed service. Currently, Koreans can get speeds up to 100 Mbps, which is still nearly double the speed of Charter's new 60 Mbps service.


Someday people here will wake up. The Internet is as important as public roads. Don't expect to succeed without improving the infrastructure.

Another reason our economy is a shambles.

16 comments:

Garen said...

I am new to this comcast drama. I got shut off this month for supposedly using over 1TB!!! in one month. Problem is I didn't do it!! I don't download movies or even watch tv shows online, i don't watch Hulu or even own a slingbox. Either someone cracked my wep encrypted wireless(which now I found out is easy) and "stole" my bandwidth or comcast has the numbers screwed up. The problem is they won't listen to reason or even investigate these outragous numbers. I have a 6 year old dell with 160 gb Hard drive that half empty and a G router. I've been told its not even possible, but Comcast doesn't seem to care.

The other issue is we do not have DSL available so we are out of luck for high speed service...

Is there any way to fight this???

u235sentinel said...

Garen said... I am new to this comcast drama. I got shut off this month for supposedly using over 1TB!!! in one month. Problem is I didn't do it!! I don't download movies or even watch tv shows online, i don't watch Hulu or even own a slingbox. Either someone cracked my wep encrypted wireless(which now I found out is easy) and "stole" my bandwidth or comcast has the numbers screwed up. The problem is they won't listen to reason or even investigate these outragous numbers. I have a 6 year old dell with 160 gb Hard drive that half empty and a G router. I've been told its not even possible, but Comcast doesn't seem to care.

The other issue is we do not have DSL available so we are out of luck for high speed service...

Is there any way to fight this???


I wish I could tell you there was a way to fix this. The company doesn't care as you said.

The ONLY way to fix this is doing the same thing Concast has done. And that is getting in touch with Politicians and making sure they know what's going on here.

Call your City Council. Go in and talk to them in session. Get it on the record. Call local TV stations and newspapers. Call everyone you can and make sure they all know what's going on.

Call your local telco and let them know you need internet access. DSL may not be available but if they get enough calls things will change. That's what happened here in West Jordan. There were two other's in my neighborhood who also were terminated within a couple months of me and between us and our friends we were able to push to get DSL here.

Senators and Representatives know me and my friends. And the issues. Letters written to the US Congress and another to President Obama. He's interested in seeing the Internet get to where it should be. Make sure he get's your letter and make sure you write to everyone.

I'm surprised to hear 1TB a month. I didn't think that was even possible. But no matter.

You are in for a hard road and I'm sorry. I wish I had better news. Remember to contact everyone you can.

Anonymous said...

Comcast is the worst utility company in the history of companies for this whole country. They promi9se things that they also say will put in our record as a customer, but then later you go to check on that and the company has no record of what you whjere told. They say they will give you a 6month dicount but it never happens. They say that just to get you off their back but never come through with it.
What a piece of s*** company!
They have also never gotten my service working properly for the past 3 years. They say it has been escalated.

u235sentinel said...

Dave has left a new comment on your post "February 18, 2009":

Comcast is the worst utility company in the history of companies for this whole country. They promi9se things that they also say will put in our record as a customer, but then later you go to check on that and the company has no record of what you whjere told. They say they will give you a 6month dicount but it never happens. They say that just to get you off their back but never come through with it.
What a piece of s*** company!
They have also never gotten my service working properly for the past 3 years. They say it has been escalated.


I'm encouraging everyone I meet to speak to their local and federal Senators and Representatives. Let them know what you think. Tell them what's happening.

Years of avoiding legislation hasn't helped us one bit. There are cases where we need to federalize things like infrastructure.

Look at the rest of the world. They are all running fiber to the home. Apparently they think it's a good idea.

We just build bombs and blow stuff up and forget the needs at home.

Unknown said...

If Comcast is bad what is better? I'm under the impression all ISPs are working on solutions to manage bandwidth. The current internet was designed to serve HTML, not video.

u235sentinel said...

Dan said...

If Comcast is bad what is better? I'm under the impression all ISPs are working on solutions to manage bandwidth. The current internet was designed to serve HTML, not video.
You are correct. Which is why ISP's are frantically working to lock you and me into a plan which optimizes their profits regardless of where we get content from.

I understand they have agreements with content providers. Those same providers are making the same content available via the Internet or indie's are publishing and side stepping cable providers entirely.

Netflix directly to your LG TV, movie downloads, Internet TV using MythTV or MIRO are all dangerous to their models. So they are generally fighting to prevent that as a loss of revenue (I've done my homework here).

I'm not suggesting anyone company IS better than Comcast. I've heard good and bad about most out there including my #1 favorite fiber ISP Verizon.

Yeah I didn't say Utopia but they are not an ISP, don't provide services, and are seriously showing a side which could mean their demise unless they pull their heads out of the dirt.

I've also been pushing everyone to speak with their Senators and Reps about building what Japan and other countries have done. A fiber to the home network so you can replace a retarded company with one who is anxious for your business.

In this economy, companies like Comcast can't afford to treat customers poorly anymore. This is the time where either they will improve or fallow other's such as AOL into oblivion.

Anonymous said...

Comcast last year paid the state of Florida $150,000 to deal with this exact issue and the ambiguity that surrounded it. Each month, Comcast would contact the top 1,000 users of its 14.4 million user network network, regardless of how much data they had transferred, and warn them that they were violating the acceptable use policy. When users asked what the limit was, they were simply told that they needed to stay out of the top 1,000 user list—something impossible to know.

The state attorney general said that "a 'top 1,000' criteria, as previously applied, did not clearly and conspicuously disclose to the consumer the specific amount of bandwidth deemed to be excessive under Comcast's subscriber agreements." In response, Comcast adopted the explicit 250GB/month cap.

mike said...

Will Comcast carry The Ski Channel? It's frustrating they don't.

http://www.theskichannel.com

Unknown said...

I was also disconnected by Comcast for a year for excessive bandwidth usage. Granted I know I was a pretty heavy user but I ad no way of knowing how much bandwidth I was using because e Comcast doesn't provide any kind of bandwidth monitoring software. Of course one of the techs that called me told me that there were several available that I could buy but why should I have to buy bandwidth monitoring software? If Comcast want their customers to monitor their bandwidth usage then Comcast should be providing bandwidth monitoring tools. These tools should have been available BEFORE Comcast even started complaining about bandwidth hogs.
When I signed up for my cellular account with Verizon I purchased the right to use a specific amount of minutes every month. Any time I want I can log onto my account and see how many minutes I have used so I know if I am about to exceed the number of minutes that I purchased. If I remember correctly I can also call a number to check my minutes. Comcast customers should have the same ability and for Comcast to ban users for any amount of time without these tools being available should be considered criminal.
Unfortunately the only other service available in Merrillville is AT&T DSL @1.5 Mbps (And I'm only getting half of that).Neither AT&T U-verse nor anything from Verizon is available here.

Unknown said...

I was also disconnected by Comcast for a year for excessive bandwidth usage. Granted I know I was a pretty heavy user but I ad no way of knowing how much bandwidth I was using because e Comcast doesn't provide any kind of bandwidth monitoring software. Of course one of the techs that called me told me that there were several available that I could buy but why should I have to buy bandwidth monitoring software? If Comcast want their customers to monitor their bandwidth usage then Comcast should be providing bandwidth monitoring tools. These tools should have been available BEFORE Comcast even started complaining about bandwidth hogs.
When I signed up for my cellular account with Verizon I purchased the right to use a specific amount of minutes every month. Any time I want I can log onto my account and see how many minutes I have used so I know if I am about to exceed the number of minutes that I purchased. If I remember correctly I can also call a number to check my minutes. Comcast customers should have the same ability and for Comcast to ban users for any amount of time without these tools being available should be considered criminal.
Unfortunately the only other service available in Merrillville is AT&T DSL @1.5 Mbps (And I'm only getting half of that).Neither AT&T U-verse nor anything from Verizon is available here.

Unknown said...

To add to my previous comments:
When Comcast disconnected my internet service they also deleted my email account along with all of my emails. If any one sends me a message to that email address I will not be able to read it nor will I be able to retrieve any of my old messages.
When I found out about my account being suspended I decided to send back my cable modem. It wasn't like I would be able to use it and I didn't want to try to keep up with it for a whole year. Also I was a bit paranoid. And it turns out that my paranoia was justified. I called Comcast and I was assured that a postage paid envelope would be sent so that I could return my cable modem. After a week had gone by and no envelope had arrived I called Comcast again and once again I was told that an envelope would be sent so that I could return the cable modem. A week and a half went by and STILL no envelope so I called Comcast AGAIN and was told A third time that a return envelope would be sent to me. After a week had gone by I STILL had not received the return envelope. I did however receive at least a dozen voice messages from Comcast saying exactly the same thing : Do I need one return envelope or two? This is the address we have on file for you is it correct? The first half of the voice messages sounded exactly alike - It sounded like someone recorded the message and then played it back when they got to my voice mail. And to add insult to injury as soon as I listened to one message they would immediately leave another.
I FINALLY got the return envelope today. Along with a threatening letter about not damaging my credit by refusing to hold onto their equipment....The equipment I had been trying to get rid of for more than three weeks. The letter said that I had disconnected or changed service with Comcast...No I didn't Comcast disconnected me!

u235sentinel said...

I wish I could offer some good news. I can however offer you some hope.

I've written to many politicians and I've encouraged many people to do the same. Tell them your story. Tell them they should be involved with this vital infrastructure that Concast is abusing their customers with.

There are many politicians sympathetic to our cause. But it will take much more effort before this problem is eliminated.

Oh and for bandwidth tools, I'm using cacti and vnstat to monitor my traffic. Also using iptables and tc to manage my bandwidth. It's slick software. Not sure about Windows but it works great in linux.

BTW, don't trust Concast. I took my cable modem in myself and it was entertaining. The long line gave me plenty of time to speak with OTHER Concast customers including many ex Concast customers switching to other services. Some have switched to Utopia. Thank God I was there to educate them :-)

And taking in the modem myself I ensured it wasn't "lost" just so Concast could screw with me some more.

I don't trust people and Concast has IMO very untrustworthy people working there. Shame.

I guess it comes from working in Information Security. I've developed a healthy paranoid attitude according to my instructors in SANS training :-)

mike said...

Will The Ski Channel ever be on Comcast? I'm a big ski fan.
http://www.theskichannel.com

Blacksonville Community Network (BCN) said...

This is a really strong and necessary issue. I live in Jacksonville, Florida and Comcast here is an even uglier monster than your blog indicated. For the past 3 weeks I have been trying to acquire local broadband usage information and they have been giving me the run around like nobodies business. My conclusion is that their numbers have been super-inflated so much that it would warrant an FCC investigation (which is bound to come). The service sucks, to say the least.

ana said...

Lately, I've been getting a lot of advertisements from Comcast at my home, for my business. I've always disgarded them without investigating the services Comcast provides. I thought I might look into it a bit one day in the future when I have more time. I'm glad I found this blog, as now I won't waste anytime on perusing Comcast info. The advertisements will continue to be an immediate toss. Thank you!

u235sentinel said...

Lately, I've been getting a lot of advertisements from Comcast at my home, for my business. I've always disgarded them without investigating the services Comcast provides. I thought I might look into it a bit one day in the future when I have more time. I'm glad I found this blog, as now I won't waste anytime on perusing Comcast info. The advertisements will continue to be an immediate toss. Thank you!

While their tech is better than most (notice I didn't say the best in the world), they do have a strange pattern of customer dis-service. The last year they have been improving their customer dis-service however they still have issues.

It's unfortunate this is how they choose to treat the people who MADE them successful.

To this day I will not switch from our DSL provider to Concast. I have difficulty supporting a company I deem to be very screwed up. Another company I've left in the dust is Microsoft. I've switched nearly every computer to Ubuntu Linux and have one running XP for Vegas Video Studio. My wife has her own DVD business. Someday perhaps Linux Video editors will get to be almost as good :-)

Anyway, Unless you have no other means, I'd shy away from these guys. They are just bizarre.