Goodbye Comcast

God, I wish I had the option to choose which provider I could use, but I don't because I can't use any. I have been fighting for broadband since I moved into my apartment in Brooklyn 6 months ago, but I can't get DSL _or_ Cable. It's getting to the point of ridiculousness--it's only my side of my block within a 5-mile radius that doesn't have these services.

I've been using dial-up for 6 months now, and I'm dying. So just thank God you can get broadband in your new place.

Speakeasy is absolutely wonderful! I have been using their DSL service at my loft for nearly 2 years now, and it is fast, reliable, and their tech support rocks. I have never experienced an outage of longer than a day, and their people are intelligent and realistic.

The best thing about Speakeasy is that they have no qualms with supporting Linux, Windows, Mac, and any other operating system that you choose. They also have no problems with you sharing your connection wirelessly in your own home. Good choice!

This is good to know - I'll have to look for my own service provider in a few months, so any user experience from others will be helpful. Now to see if Speakeasy has service in my city ... if not I sure hope there are others besides Comcast. (We've had problems with them as our cable provider, too, but unfortunately don't have a choice of cable providers in our area.)

Mmm. Speakeasy. I've been with them for years at three or four different apartments. They're more pricey than some, but every dollar is worth it.

local telephone and cable monopolies MUST DIE!

but this probably won't happen, so instead wireless technologies like wifi, satellite tv, and maybe G3 will leapfrog them.

I hope you got your $240 dollar installation charge back.

oh yeah, speakeasy is the way to go. I switched to them about two months ago from my longtime sbc/pacbell provider, especially since sbc stole my static IP when I moved. bastards. speakeasy has been a dream. capable tech support, glitch free, super-informative reg and install process (every step is documented for you in real-time on the account website), and progressive concepts like wi-fi sharing with neighbors.

Well good to know Comcast's broadband is as good as there cable is -- worthless! I am currently with Earthlink for DSL and Comcast for TV, but have been thinking of switching my internet connection to Comcast because there were offering some kind of deal with Internet and Digital Cable for about the same price as I currently pay for just one of the services. I am glad I read this before I made the switch. Looks like I am getting a Dish.

As for Speakeasy. Looked into them and all they can offer me is IDSL...which tops out at 144k and cost more then the others. If they ever offer ADSL in may area they sound like they might be worth switching to.

RE: My $240

Yep - I forgot to follow up on that. I did get my installation money back, though in a round-a-bout way. They credited my account for 2 months of free service, which compensates the installation fee.

Speakeasy has been great - my modem arrived exactly seven days after I placed the order, which astounded me (and which tells you how crappy other telco companies are). Service has been great - they email you to warn of upcoming service outages, which usually take place during the wee hours of the morning.

Speakeasy offers service in my town as well and I've heard they're great. I looked up their plans however and the $50 a month plan is slower than the SBC Yahoo! DSL plan at $40. You get around 600kbps up and 120kbps down. Which plan did you order, Todd?

Comcast! My attbi service was fine until comcast took over. Now my connection comes and goes. Support is a nightmare--I actually had to use that same web-based nightmare. I hate them.

I just got this letter from teh city though

Dear Resident:

The City of Orem has joined with 16 other Utah cities to work with the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) to provide fiber optics directly to each resident's home. Fiber optics would provide residents with Internet Protocol (IP) phone capability, digital television, and Internet access capable of downloading files at speeds of 10 megabytes to 1 gigabytes per second...

Gotta love that.

Yeah, it's just unbelievable what these ISP's make you go through. Apple has been making computers easier to work with for years now, MS is catching up with XP. But ISP's and networks in general are just a pain. It's a wonder that no ISP has called themselves 'doassimonsays.com' yet. For all their messing about they might as well.

I know the exact web form of which you speak. Get all the way to the end of the form, and it hangs - and will eventually time out.
Gotta love Comcast.

I had my own nasy experiences with Comcast tech support. No wonder why they switch to web based forms that their customers can fill out. From my experience, their TS sucks. Here is my story.

First off, I am a Tier 3 TS rep for a pretty large ISP. I was trying to setup the giganews subscription from comcast's home page. It said that my account did not have the priviledges and to call ts. Ok, whatever. I gave them a call. I don't think they understood what I meant when I told them the problem, so I had to tell them exactly what I was clicking on to get there. Then they said that they would have a teir 2 agent call me back just like they told Todd. Sick of waiting, I called back and started all over again the next night. This time they asked me to open up Outlook Express. I'm like, "I don't use Outlook Express, I am on OS X." Immediately the tech told me that was my problem. This infuriated me and I was like, "How could it be ANY kind of news program if I can't even make the account?!" They were studdering for a few moments and then said that they would have a teir 2 agent call me back. I was like, whatever. In my head I was thinking (YOU PEOPLE ARE PATHETIC!!) I didn't express that to them, though I am sure they could tell by the tone of my voice. Either case, 2 or 3 days later, I tried to sign up and it worked fine. Unreal. Comcast may be my service provider, but they need better techs.

I can't say I've had any major issues with attbi/Comcast. I did send them an FYI note to point out an error in their instructions for manually changing the email settings to comcast.net and that I noticed they hadn't provided OS X instructions, just for old mac systems and Outlook. I got an email back saying they don't support OS X. How lame is that when they could ask any one of us to take 10 minutes and write the basic instructions it takes to edit the Mail settings? Now I'm glad I opted to not use their Transition Wizard because I was sure it would hose me up!

Based on your recs, I just signed up for one of SpeakEasy's DSL accounts. I got the second-slowest option, but only because I don't know which package is best for me.

What do you all recommend?

This is funny, I just signed up with Speakeasy as well. I wrote it up in my blog as well (link above). I'm going to write up more about it soon, been busy recently. Thus far, it's been good. It took me all of 5-10 minutes to do the self-install. The thing that took the longest was hanging the DSL filter on our ancient wall phone. Nothing to do with the actual computer stuff. Of course Apple hardware helped, seeing I set it up using an AirPort. Next, I'm going to investigate running their netshare program.

As with most industries, you usually get the best customer service with the smaller companies. (Wait, is Speakeasy still a small company?).

I've used the little guys (oz.net, then bought by theriver.com) for 6 years and in that time can count the downtime in minutes, not days, and always talk to a real person immediately when setting things up after a move, etc.

Doesn't T1 sound just peachy? I wish there was a service in Austin that would support T1 to residental. To be fair, I really don't know if there isn't one, but I use cable (TimeWarner) and haven't had enough problems to force a research project.

I say kudos, all the same, for ditching what sounds like a horrible company for internet access.

My Comcast cable connection is 2 megabits/sec. in good ol' Minnesota. So no need for T1 lines in a residential setting. Lots of old folks in my neighborhood I guess...

All I can say is: just think youself lucky that NTL haven't come to America yet.

i've been holding my breath, my comcast service has been working well for the past year ... before that it was a bad bad thing, and calling tech support made it worse.

If this were *last* week, i would be writing the most glowing Speakeasy recommendation ever. Sure it's pricy, but i get 2 static IPs, and last month they upgraded my service *for*free*. Now I get 1.5 down / 768 up. Alas, it's *this* week, and I've been down for three or four days while Covad tries to figure out what's wrong. Speakeasy's just a reseller for the most part, and my upgrade was the result of them switching from WorldCom to Covad. Hopefully this isn't indicative of future connection stability... In any case, their tech support does indeed rock. And they actually call up to ask if everything is working ok. How often does *that* happen?

Not to beat a dead horse, but I've been using Speakeasy for 4 years, through 2 different locations. I will be the first to concede they are much more expensive than the local Ma Bell DSL or Cable hookup, but every dollar is entirely worth it. Live support is friendly and accessible, and they go out of their way to make sure customers are satisfied. Every person I've talked to sounds like they enjoy going into work and love being a part of the Speakeasy team, which undeniably contributes to a better experience for the customer.

The thing I like about Speakeasy the most is how unrestrictive they are with providing service. While other companies are quick to lock down options (My girlfriend's ISP prohibits using my external SMTP server for mail), Speakeasy encourages users to enjoy their service however they'd like. Run a server? Sure. Voice over IP? Go ahead.

If Speakeasy could manage to reduce costs to customers, I think they'd be able to find an even larger audience... but of course, that might be exactly why they keep they're prices higher to begin with.

What I like most about speakeasy, essay #312:

When I signed up for DSL, I got the URL to this kick ass webpage that tracked my entire order, including all the correspondence with other companies. I could see *exactly* where my order was, and after about a week, everything was good to go.

It's funny, though -- I try to recommend Speakeasy to friends and family but they generally say "well, [crappy company x] can do it cheaper", and end up going with the cheaper, crappier alternative.

I guess Speakeasy is what you eventually move to after getting yanked around too long. I think many of us would rather pay more up front to not have to worry. Which is why I use a Mac.

Jumping on the speakeasy bandwagon......we run a 65,000+ user email service through their 768 SDSL plan....nary a hiccup in nearly 2 years. Couldn't be happier. Tech support humans are top-notch and very helpful.

ive been with my broadband (and cable TV) supplier for about a year now and although the company seems to have no idea that when they advertise broadband as "Always on" that they have to have their server running all the time to actually let me connect to the internet.

if i have to phone them i always ask to speak to the on shift network admin as he's the only guy who seems to know what he's doing.

a great example of their ineptness was the other day they upgraded their servers and so i was cut off for a day - didnt mind as i was reformating my own pc that day anyway - however my ip address was changed and my router didnt pick it up as i set it to be a dedicated IP as thats what iw as told it would be. I know i had to do the ip release and renew thing in command prompt but even though i knew exaclty what to do the damn support folk had me wait 2 days for an "engineer" to come out and do the ipconfig stuff for me! bloody hell people i know what im doing!!

:P

hope everythigns gets sorted out for ya.

I was all set to cancel my Comcast digital cable in favor of direcTV (compared to our cable, it's cheaper), when the rep at comcast tells me that if I cancel, our cable modem charge will go up to $59 a month... highway robbery! The other option she gave me was to keep basic cable for $5 a month, so I can keep my $45.95 price on cable modem access, but that still chafes my hide.

Excuse me while I go stew over this. I'm considering Speakeasy, for sure.

I live in Utah and as you know AT&T was just bought out by Comcast. I have excellent service wtih AT&T and was very happy. Comcast has now ruined that. From the start they tried to charge me to connect, we have called a number of times to hear "We will take that off immediately". It still shows. The tech had to come out and reinstall our modem and did not use the wizard because it was not time, in result he gave a temporary account name and told me I could call and change it. LIE. You cannot change it, oh sure you can add a new one. Since then I have had nothing but problems and the techs are complete idiots. If you finally get through the countless number of people who are trying to do the same thing you are (that should tell you something) then you get to talk to one person who can't help so that he/she can put you on hold for hours. COMCAST SUCKS.

Correction on my above comment. They want to charge us $15.49 per month for basic cable. Argh. I'm still going with DirecTV anyways, since we can have it in multiple rooms for the same price.

The sooner I can get Comcast off our backs, the better. I just have to convince the better half that DSL is the way to go...

COMCAST, UGH!!!! I have no other choice where I live (deep in Southern Maryland). I have had nothing but problems from COMCRAP! The people (techs?!) are idiots. The billing nightmares are endless. Try running a small family business while being force fed this COMCRAP "service". Thank you for letting me spew.

whoa, why do you guys lie so much? they do not keep you on hold for hours ( 2 min max). also it makes me laugh when i hear all you guys saying attbi worked great until comcast took over. you do realize when comcast took over, absolutly NOTHING changed server wise or other! including tech suport. Exact Same network. and the only reason that sas reg does not work is when we get idiots calling in that do not meet sys req's ( 128-bit cypher for ex). anyway, just to clear things up.

I,m a tech for comcast in Key West. CHSI was launched here in Jan 2004. I actually trouble shoot problems in peoples houses. I have not encountered may problems that are actually Comcast's fault. Many if not most are system problems caused by illegal hook ups, computer system problems caused by spyware, and just plain I D 10 T behind the key board.