Still going …

Today Comcast officially closed my case and I think I can close the book on this whole thing too. It’s been 6 days since the maintenance tech came out and made some adjustments to my line. Since then I haven’t had a single problem. No dropped connections, no noticable slowdowns, nothing.

It took a while and certainly some measures (such as this blog) which would probably be considered drastic, but in the end Comcast fixed the problem. And today they closed the case with promise to credit me a full month’s service, which is really about two months’ worth of Internet service.

So unless they fail to come through with the credit or suddenly my service problems return, this is me signing off. A final thanks to Doug and Chris, Andrea, Angie, Cathie, Wayne, and especially Scott and Rich.

3 days later … still going

Three days after the maintenance technician stopped by and my connection has stayed strong.

Angie called back yesterday to see how it was going. She said that she would check in on Wednesday, just to make sure we’re all good. So far, so good.

Could it all be over?

I’m probably jinxing myself by even wondering. I had a technician stop by this morning. As I mentioned yesterday, Rich from Comcast called yesterday and offered to get someone to my house this morning by 8 a.m. to fix the issue. Originally, I was to have a tech swing by on Saturday with a new modem. However, Rich was kind enough to free someone up ASAP.

True to his word, Rich made it happen. At 7:45 a.m. this morning, Scott arrived. He started out by measuring the signal going into my house on his own laptop. Then he made some adjustments to my connection outside and said the signal increased on his laptop dramatically. Scott then showed me some power levels for my connection, explaining that I was barely within range when he arrived and now was much better. He offered to change my modem anyway – an idea that was previously only brought up because we couldn’t come with anything particularly wrong and that seemed like a good place to start.

But Scott seemed pretty confident that his adjustments had fixed the problem and he didn’t appear to be someone who was guessing. He looked like he knew what he was doing and was very professional. Most likely one of their best technicians. So I told him that I trusted his judgment and if he didn’t think the modem swap was necessary I would take him at his word. “If this doesn’t fix it I’ll come back out and switch out the modem,” he said.

I had to run to work so I couldn’t test the connection all day, but it seems good now. I don’t think it will take more than a couple of days to tell whether or not the problem has been resolved.

If these changes don’t turn out to be the fix, though, I am not concerned about being able to get someone back out here. Rich called me back this afternoon to make sure the problem was taken care of. After describing the visit from his technician he confirmed that I had his direct number and said “if you have any more problems, you call me and I’ll have someone out there in less than 30 minutes.”

Wow, now that’s the way to make someone feel good about your service. And when I returned home this evening I had a note on the door from Scott. He left a copy of the work order along with the message “don’t hesitate to call the Maintenance Supervisor” (that’s Rich) if I have any more problems.

So far, I’m impressed. Knock on wood … hopefully the problems are all behind me now.

Getting closer

Got a call this morning from a man named Rich at Comcast. I’m not sure which department he’s in, but he sounded like someone with the power to get things done. He asked if my problem had been resolved and I explained how Doug would be stopping back by on Saturday to install the new modem. Rich said “I want to get this taken care of today” and said that he would have someone at my house by 8 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday) with a new modem.

Like I said, he didn’t seem like the normal Comcast people I’ve talked to. Not that they haven’t been nice, but it usually takes someone with some decent pull to guarantee that a tech would be at my house by 8 a.m. the next day. Not between 8 and 11; 8 a.m.

Works for me. I must say, I think Comcast is doing everything they can to fix my issues. Hopefully the new modem will do the trick.

I wonder if they have made any other changes. I have to admit that the connection has been better the last day or two. It slowed down yesterday a couple of times, but didn’t really drop. And today it’s been fine all day.

Ran a speed test on a site I saw on Digg. It saves your tests and allows you to save PNG files of your results. I’ve been testing a few times a day just to see what I get. One thing I noticed is that my latency varies greatly. Don’t know what a good or bad number for latency is, but I got a 66 (ms) around the time it was running slow. Later when it seemed fine, I got a 13. This evening I got a 36.

Don’t know if any of that means anything, but I figure the more info the better.

Making progress

Well, we’re making progress. I had a technician visit today. Doug and Chris arrived this afternoon and checked out a few things, but couldn’t find anything wrong. Luckily, the connection was dying when he arrived, so they could see the trouble I’m having. We decided to try swapping out the modem, at least eliminating one possible piece of the puzzle.

Unfortunately, the only modem they had left didn’t work. To Doug’s credit, he offered to stop by on Saturday with a new one. (He actually offered to stop by sometime during the week, but I get home too late in the evenings and I said Saturday was fine.)Even though we weren’t able to get it fixed today, I am satisfied that they are doing all they can. It can be difficult to find a problem like this when there’s no rhyme or reason to it.

I also received a call from Angie at Comcast, who was just checking in to see how the visit went. A nice touch. I explained the visit and how Doug was going to stop back by on Saturday to try the new modem. She thanked me for my patience and said that they would call back on Saturday to check in again. Then, assuming the modem could be installed OK, she would check in a few days later to see how the new modem was working.

All in all, about as good of a job as I could ask for.

A light at the end of the tunnel?

Today started off the same as last week with no connection when I woke up. But today instead of calling Comcast, I emailed them a letter. I believe the letter was professional and mature, simply requesting someone help me with my ongoing issues. I described my recent troubles and suggested that they check out this blog for a more detailed account of my problems. I then sent that letter to a few people in Customer Service and Communications for Comcast.

Those emails went out at nearly 4 p.m. and by 5:30 I had received three calls from Comcast. At 8 p.m. this evening I received my fifth call from them. I must admit I’m impressed. I received calls from Cathie and Andrea, who I believe work in Customer Service. I also received a call from Angela. I’m not sure which department she works in, but she said that my modem had not be properly configured on their end and she fixed it. Wayne, who works with the field technicians, called to say someone would be coming out tomorrow to look over everything and find the problem. He also apologized for the past issues with the technicians and – without me asking – said I would be credited for the days I was out of service. Andrea bookended the calls with a follow-up to make sure that I was aware of my technician appointment tomorrow and to say she would check in with me after the appointment.

Very good customer service from all of them. They all were very professional and sincerely seemed to be disappointed with how my case had been previously handled. I was promised follow-up phone calls after tomorrow’s tech visit and I was even given direct numbers to call back should I have any further questions.

I was honest in my complaints and I want to be fair on the other side. Today I was very impressed with the quick turn around and the sincerity each Comcast representative conveyed. All I’ve asked for is someone to fix my service – or tell me what’s wrong with my computer or equipment if the fault lies with me. They now seem willing to do that and I am very appreciative.

Tomorrow between 2 and 5 p.m. my technician should arrive. I look forward to then and hope that I can report tomorrow on this blog that the problems have been fixed.

Comcast connection going to sleep, so I guess I will too

I’ve had a fairly relaxing day today. Amazing how much better I feel after a day where I didn’t fight with my ISP for several hours. However, it’s now 11:30 and my Comcast connection is dying for the second time today so I guess I’ll turn in for the evening too.

I wonder if I’ll get to read the news tomorrow morning when I get up?

Other people’s problems

A quick search on Technorati shows me that other people are blogging about their issues with Comcast.

A dedicated Ravens fan goes to a Internet coffee shop to get service since his Comcast connection isn’t working. Over at Geekster.org it doesn’t sound like he’s doing much better, and the guy at HaveYouMetTony.com sounds like he’s having the same frequent drop problems I am.

There’s even a woman in my neck of the woods (Atlanta) who wrote a poem about her troubles with Comcast before she switched to BellSouth.

Even famous people can have trouble with Comcast

Well, he’s famous on the Web, at least. Dave Winer, one of the first bloggers and the man widely considered to be the creator of RSS and one the creators of podcasting, recently had some trouble with his Comcast service.

First I have to convince them it’s not the modem, because every time they’re absolutely sure it is my modem, even though the seven times before it wasn’t. I ask them to check the other customers in my building. It seems about four times out of five this really pisses them off, because I get a lecture about how I have to make an appointment, and give up a day of my time so they can have a repairman visit, why I don’t know. So I usually say goodbye at that point, and try again. More often than not the second person is sympathetic, and we test the other modems in the building and (surprise!) find out that either they all failed at exactly the same moment, or there’s some other problem that has nothing to do with the modems. Even so, before they’re willing to investigate, I have to make an appointment.

Yep, that’s sounds about right.

Lazy Sunday for Comcast

I’m a little surprised it took this long, but at 4:55 on Sunday my connection dropped. I was able to do the Comcast Shuffle and revive the connection, but just barely. It’s horribly slow will often pop in and out while I’m trying to read my emails. Posting this and the previous post is taking forever trying to type a little, save, then type a little more and save again before the connection drops. (Most of the time I get bumped offline and just type in Notepad and then transfer to the blog later when the connection returns.)

Anyway, I called Comcast just so they have a record of my outage. I’m still waiting for a return call from the gentleman that Allie has supposedly put my case in front of so I don’t really even want to speak with Comcast and muddy any waters. However, I want them to have a record of every time my connection drops.

So, I talked to Daniel from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I suppose all Internet-related calls go to Ft. Lauderdale. I had thought it was randomly spread out through FL and GA, but I always seem to get FL. (Probably some kind of Karma thing since I fled the state 8 years ago.) Daniel was nice enough. I explained that I had what I hope for their sake is an usually bad case and that I was waiting for a call back from someone whose job it is to handle these type of cases. All I wanted from him was to mark down that my connection dropped again today and I would let him move on to another call.

That was easy enough for him. Before going he asked me if I wanted the ticket number. I have no idea what that is and the last number I got from Comcast was a “job number”, which didn’t seem to mean anything to the next person I spoke with. But I took it anyway. It’s cr068815896 (if anyone from Comcast should be reading this).