So I finally come here for help. FUCK COMCAST

[Mikelee0351]

I worked as an install tech for Time Warner for a about a year, and helped with/did a few service calls. I can't help with crazy shit like feeder line problems, but you would be fucking amazed at the number of problems caused be either shitty fittings or bad splitters.

The crappy $.10 a piece twist on fittings with the braids sticking all out of the fitting behind your wall plates that contractors love to use cause a fuckton of signal problems and are really easy to fix yourself. I personally went through my new house and replaced every one of those damn twist-ons. I recommend either having your cable company come out and fix them, they will. Or, invest in a compression fitting tool, and rg6 stripper, and a few compression fittings. shit can make a world of difference in your signal quality.

Also, if you are having problems try to find any splitters in your house and inspect them. I have found many a splitter hooked up wrong. In screwed into the out, out coming from the in. Splitters will still work like that but you'll get signal problems, ghosting, static, high return levels (which can play hell with your internet reliability). Without tools, a friend, and a little trial and error, can make it easy enough to ID which lines are which.

Lastly, WHEN YOU CALL TO HAVE A TECH COME OUT TELL THEM YOU WANT A COMPANY EMPLOYEE NOT A CONTRACTOR. This is probably the most important thing you can do. They will try to BS you, but if you insist, and you should, you can make them send a company tech. Most of the time company techs are much more skilled, knowledgeable, and give half a damn cause they have QA inspectors go behind them and check their work, and calls to the customer about their job. YOU WILL, MOST TIMES, GET A MUCH BETTER RESOLUTION RATE, AND BETTER OVERALL SERVICE FROM AN ACTUAL TIME WARNER/COMCAST/ WHOEVER EMPLOYEE THAN A CONTRACTOR.

[The_OG_Nelta]

Wait, if they are wearing a comcast shirt/hat and drive a comcast truck, they are not a company employee?

[CoronA1979]

They have recently initiated charging for house service calls if the issue was inside the house - Bellsouth AT&T does the same thing. The service agreement thing is like $2.99 a month and you don't have to pay if they come out, regardless. It's bullshit but what isn't in this world...

As for the dropping out - It happens to me semi regularly as well. I have gone through about 5+ service calls to my house and finally I got someone to be honest with me the last time they came out. The guy actually lived in the back of my neighberhood (on a different node from Comcast, though) and just came right out and told me it was two issues. To many people on the node + shitty cabling producing feedback in some of the node (likely houses). Being that I do low voltage electrical work (some coaxial) for a living I knew this pretty much all along. The bad part about it is there isn't jack shit you the end user is going to be able to do with it outside making sure all the cable in your house is new/up to par, which your $2.99 service agreement would cover for them to re-wire the entire house if need be. My issue has seemingly got better so perhaps they made some changes as I am sure I was not the only person calling and complaining on a near constant basis in the evenings when the nodes would load up from everyone getting home from work and such.

The bad part is while some may have a choice I don't have another option for an ISP (I am also willing to bet ALOT of people are in the same boat), unless you want to consider satellite (lol?) a valid ISP. No thanks.

[CoronA1979]

As for the Comcast employee caring more, Perhaps. I'd be inclined to disagree entirely though considering when I called in once due to packet loss issue (which is what the issue is basically) that after running a ping test I returned with a 20'ish% packet loss and the tech asked me and I quote "How does that constitute a quality of service issue with your Internet, Sir?"

I immediately asked for his supervisor, so yeah -.-

[The_OG_Nelta]

They replaced the line running from the node box, and I still disconnect during the night.. It's not as bad, buts it not good either..

[Mikelee0351]

As for the Comcast employee caring more, Perhaps. I'd be inclined to disagree entirely though considering when I called in once due to packet loss issue (which is what the issue is basically) that after running a ping test I returned with a 20'ish% packet loss and the tech asked me and I quote "How does that constitute a quality of service issue with your Internet, Sir?"

I immediately asked for his supervisor, so yeah -.-

Well, as with anything, some people are just dicks. But, another point is that, as far as I know, most company techs are hourly, and most contractors are paid by the job. They tend to rush and try to blow through as many as they can as fast as they can. Being paid the same no matter how many jobs he gets done, a company tech will tend to spend more time per job making sure shit is right, they do have a certain number they are supposed to get done per day, but it's not a huge deal, other not-so-busy techs will help out a guy that gets a long job.

But, again, this is a generalization and does not mean no contractors will do a good job, or that company techs will never do a bad job.

My favorite call ever was a service call to some middle-aged lady that said her cable was out. She BS'd the phone help person and got a service call. After a little investigation we found her problem. The batteries in her remote were dead..... Some people are just fucking idiots.

[The_OG_Nelta]

They still haven't fixed the problem yet, do you guys think it could be a router problem?

[behe]

Slight necro but eh...

I just had Comcast at my house for the third time yesterday morning. I experience D/Cing several times throughout the day. I have zero packet loss during DC etc, the modem just losses sync and has to reestablish the connection. When I DC its usually for only 1-2 minutes while the modem reconnects. There is no specific time throughout the day it happens, it just happens every so often, about 10-15 times a day.

One the first visit from Comcast the guy said an F connector inside the outlet was loose. Replaced it and left. Said my signal was fine throughout the entire house. I kept DCing....

Second visit, two guys came out found a splitter in one wall that was old. They said it was an old splitter that was not designed to carry the signal so it weakened the signal so low I kept losing sync. Removed it. I kept DCing...

This last visit the guy noted that my home is wired with RG 59 cable. He told me that it was not suitable to carry broadband frequencies and that my house had to be rewired or a direct line for the modem brought in through the wall. He was actually really cool about it though. He said there was a 1.99$ a month service plan and that I should just sign up for it, get the wires replaced by them and then cancel in 30 days if i wanted. He also said that it wasn't meant for rentals, I live in a townhouse, but said he would come do it himself and ignore that rule, lol. So next Wednesday, July 6th, He is coming back to replace all the existing wiring in the wall by "fish lining?" it out and replacing with RG 6 wire. He noticed a huge drop in signal from the main drop to the modem. Stated that the increased conductor size within the RG 6 would carry the signal more effectively. (Though I am no cable guy, I could have swore at those frequencies the signal travels on the outside of the conductor not inside it anymore) I'll give an update after its all replaced.

As for the contract worker vs Comcast employee thing.. Every single service guy that has come out asked "was the last guy a contractor? Did he come in a Comcast truck?" Then they went on to all but call contract installers losers who didn't know what they are doing. They did say though that it was possible to ask specifically for a Comcast installer and that I should every single time.

[Kiehl]

In response to the RG59, it will cause a signal decrease over long lines. RG6 is a little "fatter" because of more "insulation" (what we called it at DTV) and so the signal has a wider frequency to travel along. Same thing happens with satalite lines. Lower quality video is transmitted near the center of the wire while HD (and I'm assuming broadband) use a higher frequency that the RG59 just can't send effectively.

[Toxictaru]

A few years ago I was living in an older building. I was constantly having issues with my connection dropping, and after replacing all of my own networking hardware (NICs, routers, cables, everything), I KNEW it was an ISP thing. I was having issues where I was DCing in the evening, and it would just come and go. It was especially bad in the winter.

Finally they got annoyed with my constant service calls and had a guy come out and run my building over with a fine toothed comb. He couldn't find the issue, but said he had one more thing to check. 20 minutes later I get a frantic knock on my door, opened it to a tech who was borderline in tears laughing. He holds out an old piece of cable that apparently had been deemed good enough. Essentially instead of patching the lines properly, a tech had, a few years prior to this, cut the coax, stripped it bare so that the wire was intact, but totally exposed in the middle (kinda like =-=), with the other piece wrapped around the exposed bit. A bit of duct tape and he was done. What was happening was that in the evenings (and obviously, in the winter), the temperatures were fluctuating and causing the cable to expand and contract, making really spotty connections, especially in the cold. He replaced it, and all was well.

I only mention this because you said something about it happening in the evenings.

[behe]

During the week long wait I realized I had several feet of RG6 a cable guy from my previous apartment gave me in case I decided to move my computer across the room, there was only one cable outlet in a large room. The Dcing was pissing me off beyond all comprehension so I decided, since the main drop was right outside the window one room over, I would run the RG6 through the window and into this room to my modem. I did not DC once afterwards.

The service rep came back out and put a new line into the house directly through the wall. I don't have cable TV, never really needed it with Internet access lol, so he said I could just use a good splitter later and connect the line to the other old wall outlet i used to use if I decided to get cable. I haven't had any DCing issues since.

The rep showed me the modem diagnostic page and explained what each value, up / downstream dB etc, meant and where they should be. My values all looked practically perfect afterwards.

The original RG 59 cable ran from the back of the house all the way to the front through the attic, so it was a fairly large cable run. When I went to the property managers for a letter saying they could perform the drilling and installation they told me that they had several of their tenants that had previously asked for letters for the exact same thing. So I guess all these houses have crap wiring.

Now I can AFK without interruption in port, lol.