Louise is an elderly (age 85) lady that I occasionally help. She’s not what anyone would call computer-savvy, but is a daily user of e-mail and quite willing to dive into computer issues that may arise.
Last week she lost all internet connectivity, and naturally called Comcast (her ISP) for help with this. They reported that her modem passed all checks from their end, and told her that her computer (now 5 years old) probably needed replacement. She was troubled at the idea that she might have to suddenly spend hundreds of unbudgeted dollars, so called me to investigate.
There was no indication of any PC problem at all - her PC was happily connecting to her wireless router. The problem was a lack of any connection between the router and the Comcast modem. Based on this description, I was surprised to hear Comcast’s recommendation, which seemed to make no sense.
At her house I did some checking and found that when the router was connected to the modem (located in her basement) with a short cable, all was well. The problem was clearly with the long ethernet cable that runs from the basement to her second-floor office. But how can a cable, which had been working fine for 18 months, go bad?
It’s rather simple: When the Comcast guy installed this cable, he had no interest in the challenges of running it inside the house. Much simpler to run it outside, up to the second floor, and through a hole drilled right through the house’s vinyl siding into the office. Naturally, the cable used for this was not exterior grade. The solution was to run a cable inside the house.
Comcast has been informed, but seems unrepentant. Morons.
The cable installers are paid a fixed amount per install, thus have no desire to spend more than the absolute minimum amount of time in any customer’s house. I am a little baffled at her modem being in the basement while her computer and router is on the second floor. The modem would be perfectly happy on the second floor and the RG6 cable is actually weather rated and happy enough to be run up the side of the house.
Xema, Comcast told me I needed a new TV, since my picture was tiling. Uh, really guys? Really I need a new TV? This 7 year old one that had no problems at my previous 3 apartments just won’t do?
And that is why I will gleefully fling shit at Comcast while switching to FIOS as soon as my contract is over.
I’ve pretty much given up on ever calling Comcast for support on anything. Every call goes the same way. Sit on hold forever, then run through their method of trouble shooting which is to basically turn everything off/on, and end up with them telling you that your PC/TV/Phone is defective.
We lost internet once and my wife sat on the phone with them for 2 hours. It ended up with her telling me when I got home “Comcast said we need a new router, ours is bad.” I went to the modem and stuck a pencil in the back to reset the thing. 30 seconds later we had internet again.
Same thing with our phone. Real bad static out of nowhere for a week. They said it was on our end and we had bad wires in our home. A few days later the static vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.
I sometimes work from home, and the internet will randomly cut out. I restart, I reset, and still nothing. It drives me bananas. I mean, in this day and age, don’t a LOT of people work from home? I understand that if they had a 30 minute outtage at like, 8pm on a weekday that it would make the papers and Comcast would have to formally reply.
I can’t believe that FIOS is here. I’m so excited I can hardly contain myself.
We unplugged the modem from both the line and the power before calling Comcast, because they kept saying the signal to the modem was fine. So we called again. And they still insisted the signal to the modem was fine and it was pinging.
Comcast and Verizon DSL need to both go die in a fire. Optonline sent me a new modem “Just in Case” it was the modem. It was actually the wire, which their tech confirmed within about 10 minutes. Optonline and Verizon FiOS are so far both my faves.