Comcast switch going off without a hitch By BRAD HEM Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle About 75 percent of Comcast's Internet and e-mail customers in the Houston area have been switched from the Time Warner Road Runner system to Comcast, and remaining customers will be there by Friday, the cable company said Monday. The switch gives cable Internet customers a download speed boost from 5 megabits per second to 6 Mbps — an increase that isn't necessarily noticeable to the naked eye but does register on Internet sites that measure speeds. In addition, Comcast's PowerBoost feature is kicking in, providing speeds up to 12 or 16 Mbps when there is extra capacity available on the network. Some customers may have noticed temporary outages during the transition in recent weeks, but spokesman Ray Purser said the problems have been minimal. "It's all gone very smoothly," Purser said. "I think it's been a lot easier than people thought it was going to be." Customers get the faster Web-surfing speeds without having to do anything, but those who used Road Runner e-mail — houston.rr.com — need to register comcast.net addresses. Comcast is sending e-mail users a message telling them they will need to change their addresses and providing a link to do so. Losing the old addresses, and the hassles that come with changing an e-mail address, have been the most common customer complaints about the switch to Comcast. They haven't been happy about needing to notify everyone in their contact lists about the address changes or updating information for automatic bill payments. Automatic notification Comcast does give users the option to automatically notify contacts in their address books of the change, and messages to old Road Runner accounts are forwarded to the new Comcast addresses. Philadelphia-based Comcast took over the Houston cable market from New York-based Time Warner Cable on Jan. 1 as part of some territory-swapping that followed the companies' joint purchase of Adelphia Communications, which entered bankruptcy in 2002. Comcast customer and Houston resident Richard Weck is among those who are happy with the faster speeds. "I was surprised at how easy it was to switch the e-mail," he said. "The forwarding is working out very well." Comcast has been sending customers an e-mail giving them 60 days to pick a new e-mail address. If customers don't pick one within 90 days, Comcast will pick one for them, and customers can change them later. Any messages in an existing Road Runner inbox, sent mail or other folder is automatically transferred to the new Comcast account if the user asks for it. After switching, customers can't get into their Road Runner accounts anymore. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4992658.html
With my craptastic service this past month on my internet I called to complain and got $40.00 off this months bill.. I still have intentions of switching back to a dish when my contract is up..
I haven't necessarily noticed the speed increase, but going from 610 KB/s to 732 KB/s isn't a bad thing. Now, give us non-premium internet users 8 Mb/s speed (or 1 MB/s down), and I'll be happy. Just for comparison's sake, I've been getting about 170 KB/s (1400 kb/s) using Verizon's (WWAN) BroadbandAccess EV-DO Rev A card. It's pretty dang fast for surfing on the go. I've yet to test the service in my car, though, to see what I can pull down while going like 70 on the highway (well, not me, but whoever is in the passenger seat).
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5007753.html Not all upbeat about switch Some Comcast customers say change anything but smooth By BRAD HEM Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle To Comcast's top executive in Houston, the recent migration of customers from the Time Warner Cable system to Comcast has been a great success. For some customers, their recent experiences with the cable company have been anything but what the company's upbeat commercials describe as "Comcastic." Tony Speller, Comcast senior vice president, said less than 1 percent of the 750,000 Comcast customers in the Houston area have experienced problems during the technical switchover to Comcast's network in recent weeks. As of Thursday morning, all Internet and digital phone customers had been switched to the Comcast network, Speller said. "What has happened to date has exceeded our expectations in terms of our success rate of over 99 percent of our customers' devices have come over with no challenges at all," he said. "When you do a transition of this magnitude, obviously you're going to have some fallout. We don't want to see any fallout, but for those customers who have, we've definitely been very active to get someone out there as quickly as we possibly can to get those resolved." Dozens of customers have told the Houston Chronicle about problems with Comcast in past weeks. These have included failing Internet or phone service, hourslong waits for technicians who never showed up, holding more than 30 minutes for a customer service representative, a modem that would not work with Comcast's network, or being unable to send or receive e-mail since being switched to Comcast. A problem is a problem Some of those complaints are typical of the daily challenges facing cable operators and are not related to Houston's transition from one company to the other, Speller said. Customers, however, don't differentiate. To them, a problem is a problem. "Four days in a row, they said they'd send someone out, and no one came," said Houston attorney Randy Rule, who reported he was without phone service for 11 days and was told Comcast wouldn't fix it until Aug. 2. When he called in to ask why the appointments kept getting missed, a Comcast employee told him they'd tried to call him — at the number he'd reported wasn't working, Rule said. He had given the company his cell phone, but no one called it. During the migration, Rule's home phone number wasn't switched to the new system, Comcast spokesman Ray Purser said, apologizing for the poor service. After Purser was asked about Rule's situation, a technician showed up at Rule's home and service was restored Friday morning. "He has had an unfortunate set of circumstances," Purser said, adding that the company plans to use Rule's experience in training as an example of how not to handle such problems. Equipment and Outlook Rule's southwest Houston neighbor Mary Conrad also reported problems with her phone service, and they persisted after several repair attempts. While her Internet service was restored Thursday, it was down again Friday afternoon, she said. "They all say they're going to fix it, and then it still doesn't work," she said. "More than one technician has complained to me that they don't have the tools available to fix the problems." Even though Rule and Conrad said several neighbors have had similar problems, Speller said there have been no trends in the kinds of recent problems. They have not been in certain parts of the city or suburbs or been related to particular services or equipment, he said. Several people told the Chronicle they have had problems with their modems and getting and receiving e-mail through Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. Customers with modems older than four years can't benefit from faster downloading speeds that come with Comcast, and they should trade them in for new models, Purser said. Comcast isn't aware of any incompatibilities with Outlook, he said. But customers said Comcast employees have told them the company does not work with Outlook. "It sounds like we have a training issue there," Purser said. "We are compatible with Outlook." Staffing complaints Rule, who is a candidate for district judge, criticized Comcast for not hiring more employees ahead of the switch. Purser said Comcast has hired 230 employees since officially taking over the Houston market, which also includes 60 surrounding communities, from Time Warner on Jan. 1, and the company continues to hire call center workers and technicians. A Comcast technician, speaking anonymously for fear of losing his job, said the company has been caught short-staffed during the transition, leading to long waits for customers and long hours for workers. He said many technicians have been working 15 to 20 hours of overtime per week over a six-day week. Some have been working 70- and 80-hour weeks. "I just don't see how they can expect the techs to keep up this pace," he said. Reason for the waits Although Comcast has been hiring, the company did not add workers solely for the transition period, Speller said. That, combined with new customers signing up and existing ones asking for programming upgrades, has contributed to longer waits for service, he acknowledged. "I wouldn't necessarily call it being short-handed," Speller said. "You've got to remember there's going to be a peak during the transition. You can't hire to the 30-day peak. You have to hire what you're going to need for the long term." Speller said response times would improve now that the migration is complete.
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5100353.html Comcast raises rates for cable subscribers Increase will average 6.1% on September bills By DAVID KAPLAN Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle The cable bill for Houston-area Comcast customers will soon go up an average of 6.1 percent, the company announced Friday. Exactly how much more customers will pay depends on the cable services received. Comcast's phone and high-speed Internet rates are not going up. Starting in October, Comcast's standard cable bill will increase $3, from $44.99 to $47.99, the company said. Digital Classic, its most popular digital package, will jump $5 to $60.99 from $55.99. Customers will be given information about their particular rate increases when they get their September bills. A portion of the increase in the cost of digital service will be offset by the fact the digital converter box monthly rental fee is being dropped from $7 to $3.99, the company said. The reason for the hike is the "increased value of our services" and the company's investment of $200 million to improve network reliability, said Ray Purser, the company's spokesman. Those improvements include increasing the number of high-definition channels, installing a new network monitoring system, the hiring of 200 employees and, beginning in two weeks and being rolled out in phases geographically, increasing its on-demand platform from 1,000 hours to as many as 9,300 hours of programming. Comcast took control of the Houston cable system this year from Time Warner. Though it's been running the system since the start of the year, it put its brand name on the operation in June. Comcast is competing for customers with satellite cable services like the DirecTV, and even AT&T has begun entering this business with its U-verse service, which offers cable and high-speed Internet.
Just signed up for Triple Play. So far so good. The digital voice service has the potential to blow AT&T out of the water. It's about 1/2 the price and has more features. I should also add that I despise SBC (now known as AT&T) intensely. If my phone service on Comcast works well, I'll be the biggest unpaid salesman they've ever had.
What torrent sites are they blocking for you? I've had no problem with Oink, Btjunkie or Torrentz. My main complaint is every night, the internet lags to a near halt for at least 15 minutes ever since Comcast took over.
They don't block downloads, they block uploads. Look at your upload while you are downloading. The torrent is uploading as you download. Then when the torrent is finished there is no more seed. I have a lot of seeds with hardly anything is uploading. The only upload they allow is from another Comcast subscriber. I get the late night stoppage too, plus random other stops.
Was it just installed? Has it worked OK before? Are you the only one with a problem calling him? One thing they made clear is CDV only works when you have a good enough signal, which I do. The concept of digitalizing telephone service is long overdue and I think it poses a huge threat to the incumbent phone companies just like wireless service. This reminds me of when Sprint PCS finally came to Houston and long distance and roaming charges suddenly disappeared from all digital mobile service. Up until that time, Houston Cellular and GTE Mobilnet nickel and dimed you to death with extra charges for everything. CDV cuts through all of that garbage and I can block/screen specific phone numbers I don't want to reach me, speed dial plus all of the stuff SBC offered and it costs nothing extra. I think a second phone number (with the same features) only costs an additional $10.00/month on top of the $39.95 regular price. As your brother illustrates, there are some bugs to work out. In a couple of years, hopefully CDV will represent enough of a competitive threat to force a reply from SBC.
I'm dumping (monday morning)... Digital phone HBO and adding NFL network In 1 1/2 months, I won't be around anymore, and will be dumping two digital boxes, (one regular HD one DVR), dumping NFL Network, and switching to the standard cable service, with the low end Comcast High speed. Hopefully that'll knock down my bill that's currently 170, down to about 65-70 bucks when I head out of here (it'll be up to my dad at that point)
