Eff Comcast
 

After seeing my bill with Comcast go from $90 to $180 over the past 5 years to get the same channels, I finally cancelled my Comcast account in March. Every few years they would give me new channels for "free" then six months later raise my rates and spread the 20 or so channels I care about across ever more tiers of service.

In my area, Comcast has a monopoly on cable service, and they behave like a monopoly. They pile on the crap and raise rates at will. Why the FCC would ever let them buy Time Warner is beyond me. (Well, the real reason is a discussion for PARF.)

When I cancelled my account, I was told that I would be issued a refund. That was five weeks ago, still no refund. I stop by the local Comcast office today and am told that no one in the building has the authority to issue a refund or tell me what is going on--I have to call the 800 number. (Why do they have a local office?)

I call the 800 number, and ask where my money is. They explain that I have a credit on my account, and that if I want it back, I have to call them and tell them so, and it will be another 4-6 weeks to get my money. Apparently cancelling my account with a positive balance doesn't cause them to automatically issue a check, I have to ask for it.

I explain to the customer (dis)service rep that this is a hot, steaming pile of dung. Why would they think they have the right to keep my money? I didn't get to not pay my bill until they asked for the money twice, why should they get to pull this bull**** on me? I also went on the explain that I will NEVER do business with Comcast again, under any circumstances.

Comcast is lucky that they have snuggled up to the current administration so well, because such behavior in a normal world should bring a reconsideration of the (monopolistic) privileges the company has been granted.

Cool. My wife just ordered Direct TV to replace the crappy Comcast bull!@#$ we have now.

LOL, this was already tabbed for reading: Comcast Time Warner Competition - Business Insider

I don't have cable, but just returned from a week of visiting relatives playing a couch potato in front of XFinity/Comcast.
It was the worst experience in a while.

I was literally fighting the t.v. for user control:
-Changing channels resulted in 10 minutes of new commercials. Every single time. Literally force feeding ads to the viewer.
-There were long pauses and annoying flashing routines when changing.
-There were random losses of signal (grey screen with fuzzy noise) when too much changing occurred. Huh?
-There were 'channel traps' when it would refuse to advance past certain pay-per-view channels. The viewer was now stuck for half a minute.
-Basic channels such as History/Discovery/Comedy were not included.
-'Authorized channels' were scattered across the spectrum but hidden in the menu.
-Press the up button to go higher, normally, but it's reversed in the menu guide.

It seemed XFinity was designed to dissuade usage of its product.
Worked for me.
Now I'll never buy anything from that company.

Comcast Sucks ComcastSucks.org ComcastSucks .org

comcast sucks balls

Seems you aren't alone...

We killed our Comcast TV a few weeks ago and all is well. Neither my wife nor I miss is at all.

I spent months and hours on the phone with Comcast as my internet dropped multiple times/day. I should have recorded some of the calls. There were times all I could do was laugh. In the end, centurylink upgraded their service in my neighborhood and I was able to switch. As Comcasts slowly sees viable internet competitors come in to the market, my prediction is they will lose customers big time. The solution to them in my opinion is not to prevent them buying time warner, it's in the adoption of alternative internet delivery technologies to coax. My DSL isn't quite as fast but it's been reliable, fast enough and the cost of that plus the direct tv bundle is way cheaper than my Comcast service.

I'm in the middle of a similar situation with Verizon. Same issues, price has almost doubled, channels I want are in different packages.... I either need to bite the bullet or stop watching racing and sports.

Stream what you want online. I've ditched all channel services for just internet. Having Cox they are pulling the same BS in their monopolistic areas. I am considering a switch to DSL as Cox has raised their rates for me twice now. I'm paying $75/mo for barely 10mbps. It was $50 when I moved in 3 years ago. Service has not improved, so why the price increases? Oh, look at that. No other cable providers in my area.

Were on AT&T and very happy. I'm a bit amazed they can push that much data down a DSL connection, but it works. Perfect HD, responsive controls, fast internet.

Keep an eye on the DSL provider in your area. When I moved in to my new house Oct of 2013 all they had was 1.5 mbps, now they offer up to 40. When I tested my speed connected with Ethernet after installation it was over 25 mbps download speed, close to what my super turbo Comcast was, when it worked.

Eff Comcast
 

Apple TV + Netflix + rabbit ears = everything I need and more, no commercials and no BS. For a while my internet was 3 Mbps max. Now 15. Life is good.

I did the same thing, read about it here
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/802624-dumped-my-cable-phone-time-warner.html
I found a site called couchtuner.eu and it allows me to stream a ton of TV shows without any ads in them!

I am about to go back to dsl - comcast sucks and always will suck. Apple TV and Netflix is all I need.

I have come to realize that anything that comes in on a piece of RG59 is not really worth paying for.

Internet+ antennae for local programming + Netflix + ruku. The older I get, my interest in TV has waned.

Interesting. I just cancelled direct t.v. Ten minutes ago. They were almost begging me to keep the service..you qualify for a discount, you qualify for increased channels.....B.S. I am sick of corporate t.v.

Ironic because if net neutrality goes away like the FCC is proposing, things like Apple TV and Netflix will be all but squashed by big telcos...

True - Comcast/TimeWarner is already salivating at the opportunity to shaft everyone both ways: You as the subscriber and also the content provider. They have been very open with their intent to charge content providers (websites; netflix, hulu, amazon, etc.) for unhindered access. Don't pay up? Your traffic gets throttled back or capped. I think it is only a matter of time before they throttle torrent networks and UDP traffic.

Good...do it. Nothing spurs innovation like "the man" screwing over the little guys. A ton of those little guys are computer programmers, web designers, etc who get pissed off just like us and create things like XBMC, Linux, Aereo, Android ROMS and a ton of other free stuff just to stick it to companies like Comcast.

Comcast is not big telco. They purchase transit from one of the bigger players. Net neutrality has been twisted into something it is not.

Eff Comcast
 

Fine, "things like Apple TV and Netflix will be all but squashed by big telcos and the sleazebag companies like Comcast that monopolize the distribution of bandwidth".

Better?

"like the FCC is proposing"

What are you talking about? The FCC has repeatedly promulgated regulations requiring net neutrality and the cable companies and other companies have successfully challenged those regulations in court. The FCC is currently trying again to require net neutrality, but is hamstrung by the governing law and Congressional unwillingness to address the issue. Comcast is a huge corporate donor to Congressional elections. Thanks to the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, companies like Comcast can make political donations virtually without limit. Their customers fund their donations.

No. Educate yourself on this topic. Net neutrality people are making stuff up. I have no idea where this stuff is coming from everything will be exactly the same as it ever was. Bandwidth will be better managed. The kids next door using massive amounts of data for their torrents will still be able to do that but hopefully their torrents will no longer impact your netflix experiance. If torrents and UDP traffic gets throttled it's not even going to be noticeable. If you hate comcast so bad why don't you just go get DSL?

Seriously, where is all this disinformation coming from?

Google Fiber is supposed to come to Portland, although I don't know if they'll come to my neighborhood. I'd be very interested in trying that.

I will put fiber in the ground for any one of you guys. Average cost is 20 bucks a foot.

ConEd, ConCast and all the others.... you do realize they have a license to steal and have full support by the local, state and fed gov.?!

Look at all the taxes piled on back of the utility and net/phone bills. And there's going to be a whole lot more piled on soon.

In the near future, will have to be a subscriber and pay for all Youtube and other video content.

FCC will vote this week:

Mozilla Proposes Third Way On Net Neutrality - Forbes

The FCC is pretending to back down from its controversial net neutrality plan

This is not true. I'm not sure why the net neutrality people are saying this. I guess to get people riled up. It is not true though.

It's pointless to try to tell people that they are reading BS when they are straight up foaming at the mouth with rage I guess.

Don't you work for Verizon? Talk about unbiased opinion... :rolleyes:

No I don't work for Verizon. I do work for one of the big telcos though. Why does it matter? Because I work in the industry does not make me biased.

Why are you attacking me personally?

Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. all compete directly with the cable companies' cable offerings.
Why would they promote a competing product unless they were forced to?

Would Pelican ever show advertisements for a competing parts site?

In markets where there's only 1 choice, TWC (for example) could say "no more netflix for our subscribers" and it wouldn't much affect subscription rates; I won't give up internet access entirely because of one site.

In markets with competing providers they could do it more subtly: slow down Netflix traffic so it's less pleasant to use, or cap bandwidth so usage during peak times is difficult. Would you, as a consumer, know enough to determine the problem was with TWC and not Netflix? Would you schedule a "some time between 8am and 5pm" appointment with FIOS just to find out? Then maybe another when FIOS is even worse? All you'd know is: TWC's movie channels and pay-per-view always work well so it's safest to stick to that.

I think its all a stream of piss.

They offer a competing service to neworks, but the cable co.s and telcos are not content providers. They provide the medium which you use to access the content. Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. don't give you a wire straight from their company to you - then they would be offering a truly competing product.

as i type this Pelican is showing an add at the top for NAPA auto parts. If ISPs start doing what you have just said they will do, customers will leave in mass quantity. Netflix requires about ~5 Mbps for an HD stream. average download speed in the US is like 24 Mbps. Once again, they will not be throttling netflix. They do not care about netflix.

Maybe this whole net neutrality BS is just a distraction from the real issue of them wanting to keep content off of netflix and itunes entirely.

Regardless of who creates the content they benefit from providing it.

When I sign up for the "HBO package", TWC gets a cut.
Pay-per-view movie, TWC gets a cut.

Netflix, TWC gets no cut.
Amazon Prime, no cut.

Are they not going to favor the "cut" services over the "no cut" services?

I specifically said competing. How many napa parts have you bought for your Porsche?

In markets with single provider, who will they leave them for? If cable were a competitive market why do cable providers continue to rank near the bottom in customer satisfaction? Shouldn't these unhappy customers have already left or service improved due to competition?

If a cable company doesn't care about maintaining control over content distribution they should fire the people in charge of caring.

To give you a concrete, current example: YouTube is consistently slower over my TWC connection than through other providers. While it's not simple throttling, it's a known issue with Time Warner caching YouTube content to reduce network load, the point is the same: providers can favor or punish sites and there's little consumers can do about it. And YouTube doesn't require 5Mbps.