EFF Comcast!

[Carbo]

Been with Comcast/Xfinity for 16 years here in south Florida. Triple play package. Rates keep going higher and higher. For years the game was I would receive their promo rate for 6 months. It would expire and I'd call to disconnect and they would re-up me for another 6 months. Not anymore. When I call now the best I could negotiate was a $40 break in my monthly bill, but that also required a downgrade in my internet speeds.
My bill has hit about $240/mo. So now I'm looking for ways to cut these bastards out of my life. In all fairness to Comcast, their internet service has always been reliable and fast. I don't see anyone here who can touch them. AT&T? Don't know much about their service.
I can probably do without a landline, or switch to a VOIP setup if I decide I need one. My current TV package is overkill and I can probably go with an indoor antennae, Netflix, Hulu, etc.
I know many here have dealt with this. What has life after Comcast been like?

 

[olds]

You're 10 years late to the party.

 

[Carbo]

I like to make an entrance.

 

[Sonikku]

Three things you need to whittle that bill down to $40. (assuming you go with a 15/1 internet plan)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833617008

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ime_warner_cable_modem-_-25-390-001-_-Product

http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/Kij/o5B/Kijo5BgrT.jpeg

 

[zinfamous]

My Comcast here is 80/6, basic cable (which includes AMC, all HBO channels, CNN, Fox...no sports/TNT/TBS) w/ HD for $60/month after fees and all that crap.

I think I'm lucky, though. This deal started about 3 years ago in CA< and they let me carry it over to Maryland/DC area. AT&T was rolling into Berkeley back then, when I was about to cancel them for my internet-only 5/1 for $50, and Verizon is here in the area, so they have to give me a good deal.

Jesus help us when Comcast controls everything everywhere.

 

[LPCTech]

I used to work from home, online. Recently comcast cant stay connected, always a DNS issue, they cant ever figure out the problem, nothing changed on my end, random 15min periods of downtime throughout the day. I have an exemplary record at work for both attendance and performance. Yet I was let go recently over the issue. My work was very nice about it and gave me all the parting benefits they could. But comcast fucked me. To this day I still have the problem and they cant fix it. I live in a building that MUST use comcast, I cant use any other service nor is there one in the area.
Fuck comcast, fuck them in the goat ass. lol Now I have to get up and go to a real job every day. Comcast i hate you with the passion of 1000 suns.

 

[Aharami]

I used to have the double play for over 7 yrs. Same deal. I'd call their retentions dept once a year when it expired and they'd put me back on a similar package. This year they refused. Must be new mandate from corporate. Anyways, i cancelled all tv and only have internet so far. I'll look into DirecTV or Dish later this year if/when they have promotions.

 

[Sonikku]

I used to work from home, online. Recently comcast cant stay connected, always a DNS issue, they cant ever figure out the problem, nothing changed on my end, random 15min periods of downtime throughout the day. I have an exemplary record at work for both attendance and performance. Yet I was let go recently over the issue. My work was very nice about it and gave me all the parting benefits they could. But comcast fucked me. To this day I still have the problem and they cant fix it. I live in a building that MUST use comcast, I cant use any other service nor is there one in the area.
Fuck comcast, fuck them in the goat ass. lol Now I have to get up and go to a real job every day. Comcast i hate you with the passion of 1000 suns.

 

[Carbo]

Looking at options, I'm not liking what I've seen so far.
AT&T seems like much the same, with their bundles and buried fees and charges. Before you know it that $99.99/mo promo is costing you $179. Just got off the phone with them and I was told their internet speed is 24 Mbps. Currently getting 105 Mbps with Comcast's Extreme 105 package. But the phone rep told me it's pretty much the same because the cable is shared but AT&T isn't. Any truth to this?
As for a Dish, here in south Florida that's a hurricane magnet.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Looking at options, I'm not liking what I've seen so far.
AT&T seems like much the same, with their bundles and buried fees and charges. Before you know it that $99.99/mo promo is costing you $179. Just got off the phone with them and I was told their internet speed is 24 Mbps. Currently getting 105 Mbps with Comcast's Extreme 105 package. But the phone rep told me it's pretty much the same because the cable is shared but AT&T isn't. Any truth to this?
As for a Dish, here in south Florida that's a hurricane magnet.

The att guy is in a very small way correct but a very, very small way. 105 MB is very fast. Honestly I think 25 or 50 is more than enough unless you have a ton of people in the house using streaming stuff all day. Look at your TV package in my area that generates the most cost.
Two people in my home and I could not tell the difference between our old 25mb service and our newer 50mb service.

 

[Carbo]

Spoke with both Comcast and AT&T again. Comcast remains steadfast and will barely budge from their exorbitant monthly price. :thumbsdown:
AT&T is offering what seems to be a sweet intro deal. They upped my internet speed to 75 Mbps, which is more than adequate for our needs.
Their Direct TV Select package, 145 channels, 140 which will never be watched.
I've decided to drop my landline altogether. Between cell phones, Skype, Google Voice, no need for it. Total cost for 12 months, including the usual assortment of fees and taxes is around $106/mo. Don't think I can beat that. Oh, and they're throwing a $250 Visa gift card into the mix if I complete my order online.
Anyone here have experience with Uverse? Also, is it worthwhile to buy my own modem, or lease theirs for $7/mo?
Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Ichinisan]

Looking at options, I'm not liking what I've seen so far.
AT&T seems like much the same, with their bundles and buried fees and charges. Before you know it that $99.99/mo promo is costing you $179. Just got off the phone with them and I was told their internet speed is 24 Mbps. Currently getting 105 Mbps with Comcast's Extreme 105 package. But the phone rep told me it's pretty much the same because the cable is shared but AT&T isn't. Any truth to this?
As for a Dish, here in south Florida that's a hurricane magnet.

LOL! I can't believe they still use that argument.

It was even a lie back then when they made commercials and tried to convince people to choose inferior DSL service. Cable had smaller, more manageable segments than DSL.

So with HFC cable, you have a certain amount of capacity dedicated to your neighborhood (node).

With DSL, you're sharing capacity with a much larger segment (the whole region?).

...and with ALL Internet providers, you're sharing the capacity they have at their head-end with ALL of their subscribers.

 

[Red Squirrel]

With DSL it really depends. I've seen some areas that have an AFC fed by a couple T1's... so yeah that's shared considering there's not even enough bandwidth for 1 customer let alone 24 or whatever amount they can put on an AFC. But if you are connected to a CO they usually have a gig or two uplink to the DSLAMs (a bit under 1,000 customers can go on a Stinger but they're rarely at max capacity) and like 10 gig or more pipe going to "the internet". But yeah there's always going to be a bottleneck somewhere.

Here the biggest selling point of ADSL vs Cable is that ADSL is unlimited, while Cable has a monthly cap.

 

[esquared]

Spoke with both Comcast and AT&T again. Comcast remains steadfast and will barely budge from their exorbitant monthly price. :thumbsdown:
AT&T is offering what seems to be a sweet intro deal. They upped my internet speed to 75 Mbps, which is more than adequate for our needs.
Their Direct TV Select package, 145 channels, 140 which will never be watched.
I've decided to drop my landline altogether. Between cell phones, Skype, Google Voice, no need for it. Total cost for 12 months, including the usual assortment of fees and taxes is around $106/mo. Don't think I can beat that. Oh, and they're throwing a $250 Visa gift card into the mix if I complete my order online.
Anyone here have experience with Uverse? Also, is it worthwhile to buy my own modem, or lease theirs for $7/mo?
Thanks for the feedback.

I do the Comcast/Uverse switch every 2 years. Sometimes they will negotiate. I have Uverse U300 with 24 mbps and its fast enough for showing HD movies.
My first year for Uverse for U300 with 2 receivers and HD was around 100/month. I negotiated another year for around 130 with the internet increase to 24 (from 18 mbps). The year ends soon but I saw the next months bill and its near 200 so I am going to Comcast.

BTW, you cannot have your own modem for Uverse. They have the phone, TV, internet and wireless all into one unit. It used to be 3Wire unit but now they use Motorola. That's the 7.00/month charge.

I like ATT better but I won't pay their regular rates.

 

[Carbo]

I do the Comcast/Uverse switch every 2 years. Sometimes they will negotiate. I have Uverse U300 with 24 mbps and its fast enough for showing HD movies.
My first year for Uverse for U300 with 2 receivers and HD was around 100/month. I negotiated another year for around 130 with the internet increase to 24 (from 18 mbps). The year ends soon but I saw the next months bill and its near 200 so I am going to Comcast.

BTW, you cannot have your own modem for Uverse. They have the phone, TV, internet and wireless all into one unit. It used to be 3Wire unit but now they use Motorola. That's the 7.00/month charge.

I like ATT better but I won't pay their regular rates.

Yeah, it looks like a game of back and forth is the way to go with these two. It's ass backwards that long term customers are forced to pay more, while new customers are given incentives to join.
Regarding the modem, after I posted I saw that I am required to use their modem. Can I use my own Netgear router with their setup?

 

[Ichinisan]

With DSL it really depends. I've seen some areas that have an AFC fed by a couple T1's... so yeah that's shared considering there's not even enough bandwidth for 1 customer let alone 24 or whatever amount they can put on an AFC. But if you are connected to a CO they usually have a gig or two uplink to the DSLAMs (a bit under 1,000 customers can go on a Stinger but they're rarely at max capacity) and like 10 gig or more pipe going to "the internet". But yeah there's always going to be a bottleneck somewhere.

Here the biggest selling point of ADSL vs Cable is that ADSL is unlimited, while Cable has a monthly cap.

I work for a cable company and we have never had any kind of cap and no throttling based on usage whatsoever.

Latency sensitive protocols are prioritized though.

 

[esquared]

Yeah, it looks like a game of back and forth is the way to go with these two. It's ass backwards that long term customers are forced to pay more, while new customers are given incentives to join.
Regarding the modem, after I posted I saw that I am required to use their modem. Can I use my own Netgear router with their setup?

They have 4 available ports on the Motorola unit. I tried to plug in my WD MyCloud drive into their Motorola unit and I couldn't get the Mycloud drive to work.

I ended up plugging my Asus N-600 router (from my Comcast days) into the Uverse/Motorola, to which I plugged in my MyCloud drive and it worked fine. If that made sense. I didn't try the wireless from the Asus router, as I just needed a separate port from the Motorola unit. I am guessing a gigabit switch would have worked as well.

You want to use a separate wireless from theirs? I am guessing for better security?

 

[cbrsurfr]

Did you actually cancel Comcast or are you just threatening to cancel? I had the same issues and said OK I'd like to disconnect service immediately. They closed out the bill but never cancelled service (it's my own modem). A week later I got a call to come back. It was 5 bucks more but given the speed increases I could live with that. It was a 1 year deal instead of normal 6 months.

 

[Carbo]

. . .You want to use a separate wireless from theirs? I am guessing for better security?

I recently purchased a Netgear R7000 router. Nice unit. Excellent range throughout my house, fast, dual band and secure. It's set up now with the Comcast modem, the Technicolor TC8305C model. Easy to set up and works perfectly. Hate to lose that if I switch to AT&T.

 

[Pardus]

If you live in an area with Comcast is the only game in town, only thing you can do is buy your own modem, own router and cost cut down to the basic package. Not much else you can do.

 

[Sonikku]

Spoke with both Comcast and AT&T again. Comcast remains steadfast and will barely budge from their exorbitant monthly price. :thumbsdown:

I've been with Time Warner over three years and I have detected a similar change with them. In the past I've been able to negotiate my deal down considerably. But now they're remaining stubborn, hardly willing to negotiate at all while raising and raising rates simultaneously. They know they basically have a monopoly like Comcast and have just stopped giving a crap.

 

[Carbo]

Did you actually cancel Comcast or are you just threatening to cancel? I had the same issues and said OK I'd like to disconnect service immediately. They closed out the bill but never cancelled service (it's my own modem). A week later I got a call to come back. It was 5 bucks more but given the speed increases I could live with that. It was a 1 year deal instead of normal 6 months.

Have not yet cancelled Comcast. Truth is I would prefer to remain with them for no other reason than they are already in place and I would like to avoid the hassle of switching. But I'm having a hard time justifying the cost. In the past, one call with a threat to cancel and I was given the going promo rate. Now it seems like orders from up high have done away with this. My call yesterday and again today fell on dear ears. "Sorry, we can't do any better."

 

[Carbo]

If you live in an area with Comcast is the only game in town, only thing you can do is buy your own modem, own router and cost cut down to the basic package. Not much else you can do.

It's either Comcast or AT&T. Or, cut the cord entirely and go the Roku, Hulu, Slingbox, Chromecast route.

 

[Craig234]

If I ever did want to end Comcast internet, one thing I'd wonder is how to preserve years of e-mail.

 

[Ichinisan]

If I ever did want to end Comcast internet, one thing I'd wonder is how to preserve years of e-mail.

Configure your email client with both accounts using IMAP protocol. Move everything from one account to the other.

I recommend Gmail.