A Tale of Good (and a Bunch of Stupid) with Comcast 

05 Jun 2014

When I received a letter from Comcast a few weeks back informing me that they would ship me a new cable modem for free, I didn’t think much of it. I figured “Sure, why not. Should be better than my current one,” as my current cable modem is over four years old.

Less than a week later, I had a package from Comcast containing the new cable modem and the instructions on how to set it up.

I should say, first, that from a technology perspective, I’ve never really had a problem with our Comcast service. I have almost never had outages, I get pretty solid performance, and I’ve never had any issues with seemingly getting throttled. Looking at our history, our house uses between about 100 and 150GB of data per month (well under Comcast’s limit). That’s 90% Netflix viewing.

Prior to setting up the new modem, I grabbed the current performance of our connection from speedtest.net.

32Mb down is pretty solid—according to this site the average in the US is 24.5 Mbps, and in Massachusetts it’s 33Mbps. So pretty much dead on.

The upgrade process was pretty straightforward (it’s an Arris TG862G modem). Hooked it up, followed the instructions for online activation. And … nothing.

So, as I sort of expected, I had to call Comcast. I luckily got a competent phone agent who verified me as quickly as Comcast seems to verify you [1]. The agent sends a couple of reset signals and the modem springs to life. I’m able to get onto the web, all of my devices are working, everything seems great. I thank the agent and go about my business.

I want to secure everything (I don’t want people leeching off my network, as best I can), so I log into the modem to change its management password and to turn off its wifi (since I’ve already got a wifi network). Turns out, you can’t turn off the wifi without calling Comcast. [2]

I decide I don’t care enough about turning the wifi off. I’ve turned off the SSID, it’s WPA2, and the password is complex enough that nothing should find it too easily. I pick up the land line to make sure it’s working (since with Comcast, it’s cheaper to have a phone number than not—even if you tell them you’ll pay the same amount, you just don’t want a phone number). It’s not working. Oh well. [3]

I pop open the backup battery compartment just to take a look. It’s empty. Turns out, Comcast charges you $40+ for a battery. That’s a real dick move. [4]

Now, to the fun stuff. I rerun the speed test …

Well, that’s pretty nice. Almost doubling our download speed.

And, in the end, that’s why I stay with Comcast. I generally get good internet performance, generally don’t have issues with our cable, and they’ll generally let me handle stuff on my own without having to wait for someone to show up at my house.

That doesn’t make me like Comcast. There’s a reason they’re the second most hated company in America.

• They constantly screw with your billing, even when you call them and they agree to fix your billing.
• They nickel and dime you for everything because they are dicks. Franchise Related Cost, Regulatory Recovery Fee [5], another Franchise Fee.
• They do stuff like charge you for the battery backup for your modem, and don’t let you turn off the wifi on the modem without calling back into their team.
• They’re dicks about net neutrality

And, somehow, they’re still the best option many in the country have available. [6]

At least my internet is fast.