When we became frustrated with Comcast over their change of lineup (they dropped WGN denying us Cubs games!), we took our business elsewhere, first to Dish and then to DirectTV when I learned they were the better choice for catching all the baseball games that money could buy.

We kept Comcast only for our Internet access, and that service has been fine with only infrequent outages. But since switching to satellite for television, we've never looked back.

We've also been having a lot of problems since September and have called numerous times, had techs come out to "fix" the service, etc. We did have a small piece of line in our yard that was bad that they dug up and fixed but even after that, there have been so many issues.

The thing is that they always immediately tell us it's our fault yet the problem will miraculously fix itself by the next day. And there have been at least 3 (I think 4) times where we've had someone scheduled to come out and they didn't show! And then when I call to complain they say they canceled the appointment because service was back. Yet they don't call to tell us so we have to take time off to be sure someone was here! SO dang frustrating! And they owe us about $180 in lost time right now that they still haven't paid even though they said they were crediting our account.

The latest was on 2/26/07 when our service suddenly went down and I was on with a tech for over an hour troubleshooting. The IP address couldn't renew itself. So after a lot of testing, he said it must be the modem and we'd have to buy a new one. So off to CompUSA we went, and $80 later we had a new modem. Hooked it up and it managed to get online enough to let us download Comcast's install software. Couldn't get past the reboot and connect part. So I called again. They told us it was our signal and we'd have to schedule someone to come out...but couldn't get an appointment for 2 days. Even a stupid supervisor (who was a bit surly) wouldn't upgrade us even after all the problems and complaints we'd had in the past.

SO...about 4:40 am on the 27th, it came back and was fine. So I called late on the evening of the 27th to cancel our appointment and the tech that I spoke to said that it was actually a weird error their servers were having where instead of renewing the IP addresses every 5 days like it's supposed to, it was renewing them EVERY SECOND!! So that's why the computers couldn't hold onto an IP address because it was repeatedly being reset. Now, here's the rub. The techs that I spoke to the night of the issue were from the Silver Spring office. Apparently, the notice about the problem never got to that call center! So anyone who talked to that center got the run around! Everyone else got the mass mailing but the head folks at the Silver Spring call center never forwarded it to their tech department. The idiots! So almost 3 hours on the phone and $80 later...ARGH!

If we could get line of sight for satellite, we'd be ditching Comcast right now. I'm SO ready to file a complaint with PW County about these jerks. If they'd quit telling me every issue was my fault and just tell the truth and give me an approximate time of when it might be up, I'd be fine with that because I know that things can go wrong. But when they automatically blame the customer, it's just ridiculous! I'm completely OVER it! Somewhere I have the email address and phone number for the CEO. I'm about ready to publish it so that all the PO'd customers can give him a piece of their minds!

I'd love to set up some kind of phone tree or something that would allow folks in the neighborhood to contact one another when stuff goes down so that we can figure out if it's just our house or the street or the whole neighborhood. In fact, I was considering stuffing the notice boxes under our mailboxes on my street with flyers proposing just that!

Any takers on the upper end in the Spring Branch area?

I have to say that my personal e-mail webserver went down yesterday.. due to my ip address being changed (it has been the same one for 2 years). I changed it this morning in my DNS settings... but it might take 8 hrs for the DNS to update all over the major hubs and let me have my e-mail server/web server back up. Minor nuisance compared to service.

I guess I must be one of the lucky ones. I have had comcast cable since May 2001. I live in Southlake Cove diagonal from Dairy Queen. About 4 months or so ago.. we had problems with comcast internet going out and saw a couple of comcast vans in the neighborhood. I will say that after that week, my download speeds are much faster than our T1 line at work. I can download a 10mb file in 10 seconds. I think when I clocked it... I was getting 1.2mb/sec down and 725kb/sec up. This is incredible to say the least. Start that petition, I'll be on the other side of the street trying to keep comcast internet on this end of the neighborhood. This has also provided an even better signal for my Vonage connected home. My phone bill since December 2003 has only been 28.62 (until 2 months ago.. it went up another 1.00). We enjoy free long distance, call-waiting, caller-i.d., voice-mail, 3-way.. basically everything that verizon charged us $88.00+ / month.

As far as their cable line-up... we only use their internet for a reason. We switched to Directv and never looked back. I have 4 tivo boxes that I hacked and upgraded to 200+ hrs and an HD box from directv.(i would be happy to help anyone else upgrade) The only time Directv has been interrupted was during really bad torrential downpours.. and then it was only for a limited time.

I can say that I honestly believe the interruptions are due to upgrades and really hope that it gets cleared up for you immediately.

Part of the problems could be attributed to the Comcast Software. Way too much overhead.. but that is just my opinion. We bought the Surfboard 2 by motorola... as suggested by the tier 3 tech. I never speak or waste my time with tier 1 or 2 when troubleshooting any tech problems... I let them know that I've done all of the basic troubleshooting and will not be satisfied until I speak to tier 3 rep.. and that I'll know if they are NOT a tier 3. The tier 1 folks are sometimes great.. but also sometimes feel like they are reading from a manual.

I believe today is the day for the new, upgraded television lineup. Maybe that is why my internet connection is down... Is anyone else having troubles with their Comcast internet connection today? But then, if you are, you might not be able to read this message!