I have been a Comcast faithful ever since they came to Oregon. Until now, I've had no complaints. Sure, there's been downtimes and a lag spike every now and then. But that's all nothing compared to what we're dealing with now.

We got in on a special and ordered an 8mbit broadband connection from Comcast. Since the install date, about 2 weeks ago, we've received less than half of that 8mbit. I understand the concept of cable internet and sharing with the neighbors and they can't guarantee the maximum speeds. If we were paying for the 4mbit I would accept a 3-3.5 mbit connection. But we are paying for 8mbit. This is unacceptable. And that's just the speed.

Along with the blazing, turtle-like speeds, our connection is dropping a lot. Cable's draw was supposed to speed and stability. We're getting neither. Our connection drops, completely, once or twice a day. That's in addition to the hardcore lag spikes, crippling our connection down to around 300 kbps for spans of up to 20 minutes at a time, multiple times a day. Now, let's get into customer service.

Three times now we've requested techs come look at our system. The first one, never showed. The second one came over and refused to do the job because the modem was on the floor under a card table with the cisco switch and the vonage router. He told his supervisor that there were a bunch of 16-18 yr old kids getting drunk and high and that he was asked to leave. The reality, 4 people (aside from the technician) were in the house, all over 22 (aside from me but I will be 22 in 6 days) and MAYBE 3 of us had a beer in-hand. Hardly seems like a raging party full of minors. And yes, he was asked to leave. But it was after he said he refused to get down and work on the modem under the table with the rest of the hardware and we called him worthless and told him to go and we'd call for a better tech. The third tech that showed up was quite helpful and polite, but was unable to fix the issue completely.

Now we come to the web-based chat support agents. What a worthless lot. We've probably spoken to 10 chat support representatives in the last 2 weeks and not one of them could give us a straight answer as to why our connection was so bad. They all just kept giving us the same "line speed is not guaranteed" speech and then some random excuse as to why it's not working. We've saved every conversation log.

Hopefully we can endure this for the next month or two before we switch to Verizon FIOS (Fiber-optic to the premesis =] .. lines will be provisioned within 1-2 months). I have to say I am very disappointed with Comcast. They were my first non-dialup connection and I've enjoyed the service every bit until now.

Update: We were still having issues and a representative said they'd send a tech out to put a signal booster on the line. Guess who comes out? The same tech that refused to do the job before. He refused again and was asked to leave again. This time he yelled obsceneties after the door was closed on him. There are a lot of children around, as this is an apartment complex. The language he used was unacceptable. We obviously reported him, and the representative assured us that he would not return to our house.

Sorry to hear about that. We're using Comcast right now and have experienced no problems. Perhaps it's more location-specific to your area? As for the speed, from what I understand, cable internet connections work so that everything is on one... server kind of. The more customers in the area, the slower the connection for each one. It's been a while since I heard that info though so I hope someone will let me know further about that or if I am incorrect in anything.

i'm sorry to hear you have not had good dealings with Comcast. Its dissppointing and frustrating that you dont' get your money's worth in service that you paid for. I haven't had that trouble. The speeds are geneally constant. There hasn't really been some downtime or anything except for when we forget to pay the bill.hhahaha

Verizon i've heard promising stories abotu them. They are coming out oralready have with wireless you can access anywhere. well that's what the tv commericial said.

i dont' know if this will make you better, but i remember reading from www.slickdeals.net that ..if you have a 6mbits or 8 mbits.. you could try to call in a get a free upgrade to 16 mbits.

you can try to search their form for the post. lol

I dont know much about comcast, I have SBC dsl and the service is pretty nice. Although I hear that cable is

like 10x's faster. Are the rumors true? hmmmmm.

I live in Maryland, and I thought I heard somethign about Comcast upping their dl speeds to 10Mbit. And since they are buying out Adelphia. I guess I will be on that network soon. Man canyou imagine 10MB dl speeds. Holy Cow!

I live in PA, Philidelphia area. Comcast seems decent here. I get about 2 Mbs, but it is pretty inconsistent. I never really get down time, but if I do, I usualy mistake it for my crappy wireless card.

But don't get me started on Digital Cable TV...Absolutly terrible. If you want premium channels, (HBO, Starz), you must pay for both the channel and and extra cable box. You can't recive analog feeds of HBO anymore. Although analog TV should be gone by 2009, don't you think they are getting started early, and over charging?

Comcast users tend to not secure their wireless devices. Is your secure? If not, people like me would probably leech off you.