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markw
04-18-2013, 06:11 AM
Well, not all, but mostly.

I ordered a Motorola modem/router Tuesday morning and it showed up at my door Wednesday about 12:00. One day turnaround time from Amazon. I'm impressed.

So, down to the basement office I went. I yanked out my old cable modem and router and connected my new one piece combo unit. With only one piece, it's a lot less crowded down there. Total time: About 1/2 hour and most of that was neatening up the wiring.

Now, the hard part: Registering the new hardware with Comcast.

First, when I clicked on the internet icon, it brought me directly to the Comcast website where it said I could do this.

Take 1:

I input my account number and phone number and it initiates a chat with a "tech".

I meet Suzanne. She asks what I need, I say I need to register my new modem. She wants a MAC number. I give it to her. She says she's gonna send a command sequence to my modem and I'll need to reset it and we're done.

Great!

She sends it and, on her direction, I reset the modem. She says to test it by going to google and msn to see if it works.

It doesn't and my chat session is gone.

Take 2:

I input my account number and phone number again and it initiates a chat with another "tech".

This time I meet Dennis. I fill him in and he says I shouldn't have reset the modem. He asks my modem's serial number and, again, my MAC address.

He tries to send that command string but says some problem with billing won't allow it. He gives me a number to call. I say this is odd since I've always owned my own modem and have never been billed for this. He said I have to talk to billing.

Chat 2 ends with the same results.

Take 3:

I call Billing. He says since I've always owned my hardware they have nothing to do with this but he offers to transfer me to someone who can help me, and does so. He transfers my call.

Take 4:

The person he transferred me to only deals with television prblems but she gives me a direct number to my local comcast service center.

Take 5:

I call the number, follow the maze and get through to some tough old bird who I can hear chawin spittin' terbaccy and she asks what's the problem. I like her already. So, I give her the rundown and she laughs, spits into er spitoon, and says she'll see what she can do. Somehow, by her attitude, I felt I was in good hands. She asks for a different MAC address, which was what they needed. It turns out there are two, but she was more specific in her request, and explained this.

She clicks at the keyboard, has me power down the computer, sends out the command string, and has me reboot the modem, turn on the computer and give it a try. Houston, we have liftoff.

Time with this last lady: about 15 minutes.

I should have simpky called the local service numer in the first place but, when setting the new toy up, it brought me to the Comcast website where it said I could do it all there. Why didn't the chat people simply tell me to call someone local in te first place?

Total time since starting this project: About three and a half hours, and that includes my hooking it up initially. Had it been done correctly, this would have taken less than an hour.

But, it did increase my speed. I'm doing 1 gig downstairs hard wired to the router, 54 meg on the two prehistoric, coal-fired Compaq wireless laptops and I stream Amazon prime around 15 meg on the upstairs wireless Blu-ray, which is enough for hi-def.

Comcast is staffed by idiots, well, mostly. That last lady was on the ball and cut right to the chase.
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Hyfi
04-18-2013, 06:27 AM
I can't tell you how many personal customers I have helped with Comcast issues and when I would make the call, I would have to tell them what they needed to do. The idiots there don't even know how to flush DNS and re-register it when a conflict arises. Same for just a simple ipconfig /renew to update your IP addy.

Sorry you had such trouble but this is the way of the world today.

We have been trying to hire a few 2nd line analysts to support our software and cannot find anyone that could do the job. They put on the resume how much IT experience they have, or that they are Experts with Office. They can't tell you how to do a continuous ping, what a Template in Word is, how to tell what version of Java is running and so on. We probably interview and turn away 50 people for every one we decide to hire.

We did recently hire someone from Comcast but he is the exception to the rule and knows his stuff. We don't just support our software because it gets rolled out globally so App servers are in one country while the database is in another and users accessing it via IE are all over the world. We have to know how to deal with all the connectivity and network issues more than actual software issues. Or we have to figure out how they messed up a Word document to the point it will not process through our rendering servers.

Have fun....now you can download all that porn really fast!

ForeverAutumn
04-18-2013, 07:18 AM
I have to laugh Mark because it doesn't seem to matter where you live, the Great White North or the Mighty South, all communications companies suck. I had a similar experience here last year with Bell. Only in my case it took about a week to get to someone who knew what he was doing and about 1.5 hours on the phone with him to get everything (including billing errors and the set-up of a new modem that they sent me and I ended up not even really needing) fixed. And all of this wasted time happened because someone at their end, in the first place, decided that it was a good idea to reinstate an account that I had closed two years prior, which then interfered with our current account. It's a long story and an even longer resolution! But eventually, after wading my way through the hoards of Brain-dead they call Customer Service Reps, I did find a shining star.

When all was said and done (and fixed) I calculated the total approximate time I spent on the phone with them trying to fix their stupidity and it was the equivalent of two working days. :shocked:

Smokey
04-19-2013, 06:44 PM
If you think Comcast customer service is bad, wait till you have to deal with AT&T customer service. Every time you call in for an issue, you will get a different answer. And don't believe their promotions untill you see it on the bill :)

TheHills44060
04-21-2013, 05:11 AM
Time Warner is the same way.