I hate Comcast

I used to work at a marketing agency in Detroit that did a lot of work for Ford Motor Company. One day, Alan Mulally, Ford's then-new CEO, came and addressed the entire agency. I recall him regaling us with a story of how when he first started he conducted an exercise to gauge public opinion of Ford. He Googled both "love Ford" and "hate Ford" and looked at how many results Google came back with to determine what the relative magnitude of love and hate was out on the internet for his new company.

In the spirit of that exercise, I have decided to entitle this post "I hate Comcast" to accurately bucket my Google result when Brian L. Roberts does the same.

So, my wife and I have moved to Chicago and obviously we needed new internet service here in Chi-city. I did my research and decided on Comcast's "double-play" package of digital cable television and a cable modem (we both use our cell phones exclusively, so there was no need for a landline).

My wife's response when I told her about the choice to go with Comcast was this: "I HATE Comcast" (that's 3 if you're counting). "Please, let’s get anyone else." She has had such terrible experiences with Comcast in the past that she begged me to go with anyone but them. I decided to give Comcast my business anyway, mostly due to the fact that the service that they offer promises faster theoretical download rates, up to 16Mbps, and I want "fast". It pains me to say this, but my wife was right.

Now, I had never in the past had any overly horrible service from Comcast. There have been some issues here and there with service calls and the occasional modem downtime, but nothing that would make me turn away from the provider of the potentially fastest internet service available in my neighborhood. That was all before I moved to Chicago, though.

I had decided on Comcast. I called, ordered the "double-play" and set up an installation date.

1. The installer came out to my apartment, installed the cable box (which worked fine) and attempted to get my cable modem working. After about an hour and a half trying, he told me that "the entire system must be down" and that it had “been happening all day long". He had me sign a sheet and advised me to try again the next day.
2. The next day I tried the self install to no avail. I got on the phone and the tech remotely connected to the modem to set everything up. After everything was working, I was connected to a customer service rep so I could inquire about a refund of the $50 that I was charged for a cable modem installation that never happened. The rep told me that a refund wasn't possible and that I shouldn't have signed the work order when the installation tech was out. She argued with me for about five minutes until I asked her to clarify whether it was Comcast or the tech on their behalf that was responsible for defrauding me. She then agreed to refund my money.
3. My modem worked ok for about two weeks. Then one day I suddenly started getting disconnected every couple of minutes from the various online games that I play, which persisted each time I logged back in. I downloaded Ping Plotter to see what my connection looked like. For anyone interested, Ping Plotter is a great utility that will do a trace route to any site that you give it on any interval that you set. I went with the default 15 seconds, pointed it at Google, and let it go. What I discovered was that every 2-3 minutes my connection to the internet was interrupted for 15-30 seconds. The oddity here was that the modem lights never shut off, indicating that the modem was still connected to Comcast but I wasn’t receiving service from them.
4. I called Comcast and spent literally HOURS trying to get someone on the phone that knew what they were talking about AND serviced Illinois customers (my cell phone is in area code 517, so when I call 888-COMCAST, I automatically get directed to a Michigan call center, EVERY TIME). When I finally did get a tech that seemed mildly intelligent, I explained the situation. He remotely connected to my modem and told me everything looked fine. I then had to explain to him again that the problem was an intermittent connection issue, so SOME of the time it SHOULD connect fine. We went through this a couple more times until he said "well that doesn't look right", but sadly, whatever it was that didn't look right started looking right once again (hence the concept of intermittency). I asked for a tech to be sent out to my apartment to try to show someone in person what was happening.
5. My service appointment was scheduled for Saturday, August 23 between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. My wife and I sat home waiting for the tech between those times. I was told when I made the appointment that the tech would call 30 minutes before he was going to arrive, so I kept my phone near me and charged. 4 p.m. rolled around and we hadn't seen nor heard from the tech, so I called Comcast. The service rep told me that the appointment had been cancelled. I was amazed and appalled at that news and demanded to know who had cancelled it, because I sure didn't. According to her, the tech cancelled it with a note that said that nobody was home. Now this couldn't be farther from the truth, as we never even left the apartment for fear of missing the tech. Furthermore, the tech NEVER called me, not to say he would be there in 30 minutes, not to say that he was there and wanted to be let in, not to tell me that my appointment would be cancelled if I didn't answer the door. NOTHING. I was furious. I told the rep that I would be cancelling my service as soon as I had another ISP lined up, and I meant it. I’m sure I was charged for a “missed appointment” so I’ll probably have to get on the phone with them to battle that as well.
   

So, that experience was the end of my dedication to Comcast. Last night I called and signed up for DSL through AT&T. It's slower (6Mbps) but as long as it's reliable, I'll be ecstatic. I'll also from now on be looking at anyone but Comcast for internet and cable service (I've decided to go with DirectTV as well) no matter where I live. It's too bad too, because although I didn't used to, now I HATE COMCAST. (4!)

For anyone curious, Google gives “about 23,100” results for “hate Comcast” (5) but only “about 4,570” for the opposite phrase (which I don’t want to type for fear of being indexed against it).