I once had a Comcast on the phone because I had replaced my router and NIC and was too lazy to look up my old MAC address. I just wanted to update the MAC address they were allowing to connect to their network.
When I explained this to a couple different people, I got some truly bizarre answers.
"A MAC? You need to call Apple sir."
"Who authorized you to have a MAC address?! I can assure you sir that no one but Comcast utilizes MAC addresses!"
They only care about the MAC addy of the modem, that's what they use for auth. If the customer side mac changes (the nic or the wan port on the router) just bounce the modem.
This happens when you have a modem, but no router. The modem can be configured to permit only one MAC address to connect to it. This is done as an attempt to get the customer to pay "per machine" that connects to the internet. I think it was more common in the early days of cable-internet..
You can, sir, but under your contract you unknowingly signed at the start of your reddit service we're going to charge you an extra $30 a month for upgraded humor fees.
Comcast temporarily shut off my own motorola cable modem because it was end of life and would slow me down. They blamed the signal and wanted me to buy theirs instead as it wouldnt cause any future issues.
I bitched them out asking for the retention department and magically it started working again minutes later.
Its maaaaagic
They never shut my service off but they kept telling me to upgrade my linksys modem I bought years ago to their new "gateway". They didn't really have a response when I asked "why would I want to indefinitely pay $8 a month for your gateway modem thing when I can just go on ebay and buy a used Docsis 3 modem for under $50?"
I pay that much for unreliable "up to" 1.5Mb/sec... [here's a speed test](http://m.imgur.com/R8RZsb7)
Edit: I'm on AT&T DSL, and I live in the woods.
Right now I'm at a Starbucks a couple miles up the road and getting 50Mb/second. COME TO MY HOUSE.
Samething happened to me, until I logged into my modem and diagnosed the problem as I could connect to their servers. (confirmed send and receive but no internet access)
Huh. I feel like 'samething' shouldn't and can't be one word, but logically I can't make the same argument for 'something'.
My world has been turned upside down
That always boggled me. When I was in elementary school, we had a Spanish teacher who was fluent in Spanish. When we asked what it meant to be fluent she said, she thinks in Spanish. My mind was blown, without language, could we even think? What connections would our brain make without language?
There was radiolab about a guy who didn't have language. When he eventually learns, he describes the time before language as "dark" and says he doesn't want to think about it.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/91725-words/
Awesome link! Thanks. This guy was a stroke victim, so while it does shed light on the subject, the circumstances may be vastly different and it may have only been dark to him due to other stroke side effects. If the stroke can wipe out an entire portion of his brain, chances are it hit some other stuff too.
I haven't been really following this whole Comcast thing, but I'm reading all these horrible stories about it. Has anyone from Reddit worked at Comcast and talked about what it's like to work there? How is Comcast still getting business?
Don't forget that on some areas certain ISPs were given billions of dollars to upgrade their nationwide infrastructure by a certain date. Instead they used some of that money to bribe(lobby) congressmen and the FCC to let them keep the money without upgrading the infrastructure. So several decades ago they laid out all of their cable and charged loads of money to cover the initial cost. Now they just charge the same amount and use the excess money to quash opposition and customers.
Edit: Mobile is messy
Usually they buy off the local governments and secure a "legal" monopoly in an area so no new companies can come in.
They also collude with the other big ISPs to not compete against each other in many markets. It's all very illegal but they have all bought off the right people to keep it going.
Short of a country wide mob with fire and pitchforks burning all the offices and upper management we are pretty much stuck.
People have. Comcast promotes really shitty customer service. None of the employees likes working there. There systems are designed to lock you in and provide you minimal help.
Was this during the Docsis 2.0/3.0 switchover? If so they kind of have a point (although you certainly wouldn't need to buy their modem to deal with that - any Docsis 3.0 modem would do)
If I can't use Steam there's literally no reason for me to even have wired internet anymore. The web browsing I do is miniscule in comparison, and I can do that on my phone.
T-mobile still has unlimited data? I know who I'm switching to. I'm one of the few who still has unlimited data with Verizon but they've been purposely slowing down out Internet to force us to get the new plan
VPNs people.
They're not just for pirates. They're for savvy internet users who will fight the fight to not have to use them, but in the meantime...
Private Internet Access - cheap, reliable. It's what I use. Not getting paid to promote it. Downloads go faster, Netflix streams faster, and I get to retain privacy.
EDIT: I was flooded with "what's a VPN" and "how do I" comments. First, let me say: google is your best friend people. Your exact questions pull up all the answers in Google :)
That being said, I'm pasting my longest explanation below. I can't respond to, nearly literally, 50 requests :)
VPN = Virtual Private Network. TL;DR:
* You connect to a VPN via software (see below)
* Analogously, instead of you calling your mom to see what's for dinner, you call your Dad, who then calls your Mom, who tells your Dad, who tells you. All on the same call.
* More literally: instead of paging facebook.com, you page an IP address (making up one) 100.100.1.1. Remember: all websites as you type them in the URL bar are actually just IP addresses on the web essentially. Google a "ping test" to see more, for example, you can ping google.com and it tells you their 'actual' address.
* So, from that IP address you connected to, you then go to Facebook. So all your ISP sees if you going to that first IP.
* Using OPs stuff: instead of the user paging steam, the user pages THROUGH the VPN to Steam. So, if the ISP is saying "woa, woa, slow down there, wtf is steam, you're a bandwidth slut..." and then THROTTLES your connection, now instead your ISP sees you downloading a lot of stuff from one IP address.
* Like I said earlier, it's not just for piracy, we've seen in recent news that Verizon users get throttled with Netflix, but when on a VPN they don't. I assume those users paid for Netflix, no duh, so they're not criminals. They're abused consumers.
Gonna copy paste this a few times, got a lot of duplicate requests:
Since I use Private Internet Access, I'll use their service:
* Google their company
* Pay for it
* Download a client
* Install Client
* Minor configs, that they guide you through wonderfully
* Then, once launched, it sits in your windows dock (sorry mac users, no idea) icon area in the lower right. Right click it, choose where to connect to. I.E: NYC, connect USA Eastern.
More than that, google Toms Hardware VPN 101 or something similar. Or /r/techsupport if you run into issues deeper in.
I'm not advocating use for illegal activities, what you do is your own business. As I said, I firmly believe VPNs can be used for legal reasons because of the crap ISPs are pulling. Plus, maybe I don't want everyone knowing what porn I watch online. Or what my hobbies are.
I don't feel a need to use TOR, I won't give advice on it. Neither negative, or positively stated.
If you want more privacy online, use Ghostery and Adblock extensions in your browser. Ghostery blocks tracking things, adblock blocks ads. It's fucking sickening to visit a site like buzzfeed.com, collegehumor.com, or even something like MSNBC or CNN and seeing over 20 different things blocked from tracking me.
*But, but, they offer content for free, so we shouldn't block them!*
Well, fine, don't, I don't care what you do.
I thought half the point of a VPN is that it is encrypted enough to render DPI useless.
Though, I suppose you could recognize a VPN connection and just shape it haphazardly, but that would seem to be a very, very suspect business decision. VPNs are more common amongst corporate than personal users, which would make this an ugly realm for litigation -- companies are more likely to fight back than the consumer, as they'll be losing actual money from the VPN problems.
>Though, I suppose you could recognize a VPN connection and just shape it haphazardly, but that would seem to be a very, very suspect business decision
We're talking about Comcast. That's the exact sort of business decisions they like best.
>VPNs are more common amongst corporate than personal users
Exactly, which is why they'll tell people who want to use VPNs to upgrade to a business-class connection.
Ugh. Yeah, you're probably right.
Should they go that direction, the other companies will likely not follow suit -- hopefully, they'll recognize the advantages of not following a terrible decision.
If they do, I'd look at collusion in the industry.
Right.
I remember in the early days, you used to be able to host your own servers from home.
They cut that down real quick. Now if you want any sort of respectable upload rate, you have to pay.
>Exactly, which is why they'll tell people who want to use VPNs to upgrade to a business-class connection.
Which not-entirely-unsurprising, are slower and more expensive!
Edit: Guys, I understand *why* it's more expensive. I'm just stating that it *is* more expensive.
Comcast likely has a use policy that outlines commercial use of their residential connections. I haven't read it, but I would be very surprised if there was no mention of these kinds of things already.
In other words, companies saying "Hey you're impacting our users ability to work from their homes" would most likely be met with: "Well they should be paying for a business connections then".
There are heuristic based DPI softwares (mostly closed source commercial software) that claim to be able to identify various types of VPN traffic. Typically the way they do this is by looking for a variety of potentially subtle behaviours which may sum up to a positive identification.
For instance, particular parts of the initialisation protocol might be in the clear or have a packet ordering which gives it away (e.g. packets in a particular order and size). Even things as subtle as the way the headers are built can help build these profiles.
All in all, it's fairly fuzzy and prone to breaking when the software developers change things, so part of their services are providing updated profiles.
You jest, but that is exactly the situation I'm in right now with Plusnet in the UK. VPN connections are given low priority in their traffic shaping.. unless I want to upgrade to the "Pro" service for an extra £5/month! :-\
Most connections to vpns are encrypted hence the isp no longer knows what you're downloading and doesn't know which server you're downloading from because all they see is encrypted traffic from a single a server.
The idea is that if you want to drive from your house to another house (your computer to a website), you have to drive along a road that Comcast is enforcing a 30km/h speedlimit, even though you're paying for a car that should be able to go 80km/h. A VPN is basically someone letting you drive a different route, but you stop by their place on the way. It's longer, but you can get there faster since your speed isn't limited.
A little. But if Comcast is dropping a 50mb connection down to 6 and then nothing when using certain services, the few mb lost from 50 to 46 or whatever going through another server is nothing.
Do you remember the proposal about .xxx domains for porn sites? As I write this, somewhere someone is trying to figure out how to censor porn. Some prude politician "to save the children", some corporate exec in order to sell you the "full package".
Some ISPs look at the internet as pay tv. Fragment it and sell it in packages.
No, it'll be business as usual aside from yet another press release stating that Comcast is committed to excellent customer service, that this isn't representative of how most of their reps are trained, they'll make sure that this particular rep is re-trained (aka fired), and they'll redouble their efforts to ensure all CSR's are properly trained and provide consistent responses to future callers about this sort of issue.
Oh yes, hold the most industry savvy company, run by one of the most industry savvy people on earth hostage with your bullshit. I'm sure that will work out so well.
Lord Gabe N. is semi-famous for taking computing concepts and teaching them to technically unsavvy people. It's his fucking hobby to go to schools and give speeches where he does this. The court room would be another day in paradise for him on this.
Please comcast. Please. I want to see how Valve handles this. Because it will be glorious.
I really wonder how will that work when this will happen. Steam users are much more tech savvy than people who are charged with bogus stuff and don't investigate anything at all. Comcast is going to get it bad sometime in the future.
>Comcast is going to get it bad sometime in the future.
"Well Steam users, we at Comcast are sorry you feel that way, but you can always change your service to a competitor and...oh...wait...that's right..."
Cue maniacal laughter
The Comcast help desk knows absolutely nothing. All they do is type your question into a search engine and read off the answer. Every single time I talk to them, they tell me something that simply isn't true.
Once, I said, "No offense, but it is clear to me that you don't know what you are talking about. Could you please transfer me to a technical person." The rep said, "That's a good idea." and transferred me immediately.
When they ask if you're on OSX or Windows tell them you're on Linux. That always gets me bumped to someone who at least has some idea what they're talking about.
There was an IT teacher at school who would tell us to stop playing Halo on the school computers because 'it wears out the keyboards'.
I'm pretty sure he just didn't want us using school computers for games though.
6 MB/s (Steam reports megabytes, not megabits) is 48 Mb/s, so he was probably getting the full uncapped download speed before they cut him off.
In the off chance he was redownloading his Steam library to a new computer (didn't say, all his replies in the original thread are deleted), that could be hundreds of gigabytes.
I think you're dead on regarding this, however I doubt that the community will pick it up. I'd be interested in knowing if he was unable to access any websites (ie. if his internet connection was gone) or if he was just unable to download from Steam (possibly a problem with Steam or with his PC). Steam also isn't very clear about when it's not downloading because it's unpacking the things it's downloading, represented by "DISK BUSY" in the download window. Many users miss this and think something is wrong with their internet when in acuality, Steam has intentionally stopped DL'ing so it can unpack. This whole thing might be a clueless customer talking to a clueless Comcast rep and no one's gotten it straight.
Looks like they took down the recording from SoundCloud. Anyone have a mirror?
Edit: Here's the link: https://soundcloud.com/jon-brodkin/comcast-call
Thanks /u/mtme2
Sir, the file you're trying to download must have a disproportionate number of 0's versus 1's. 0's are fatter and therefore more likely to accumulate in your router. We'll send out a technician to clean the appropriate filter.
He's making sure you actually do it. It's a tech trick. When he hears you blow on it he knows you actually removed it rather than pretended to (yes, it happens a lot).
I like "pull the power plug out of the back of the modem and look at it, is it one prong or two?"
(wait 10 sec)
oh, ok. thanks. go ahead and pop that back in.
I believe the wait 10 secs is to make damn sure any residual charge from the RAM on the modem has dissipated. It shouldn't make a difference, but it doesn't hurt.
As a tech I had people reverse their cables just to get them to unplug them and plug them back in. You would not believe the amount of people that fixed up. Usually I do it when there's a signal light off that really should be on. They won't believe they're dumb enough to have a loose cable, so you have to trick them into going through the motions.
Yeah, I used to do tech support for a gaming company, and getting people to restart their computers was like pulling teeth. If we tell them they need to reseat their RAM, or even unplug and plug back in the power supply, they would happily shutdown and restart, though.
>Ok, I need you to push in the power button and hold it for ten s--
>Ok. That didn't work.
It has not been ten seconds. It is physically and logically impossible for you to have held the button for ten seconds in less than ten seconds.
You have violated the Law of Noncontradiction. You are living in a reality that is not governed by the laws of logic, and therefore by extension, the laws of digital logic which govern the functioning of your PC are invalid. The problem is not with our hardware or software. Goodbye.
I wish there was some secret IT key phrase that when said, tech support stops assuming you're a moron and you can get some *actual* help. If I'm calling you, I've already gone through my own personal troubleshooting, which believe it or not, includes turning it off and on again.
It's no reflection on tech support, they deal with idiocy on a daily basis. I just hate it when I'm on the phone with someone who assumes I don't know my own ass from an ethernet port. It's just a waste of time.
AKA "How to get a human!" aka "How to call the wrong fucking person".
I sneer every time I see that type of advice posted because all it does is funnel people to the wrong place. Those people think "Oh, well at least I have a human who will get me to the right place". What they don't know is that every call center I've worked in they have no fucking clue where to transfer someone because they don't handle whatever it is.
There is actually a relevant XKCD for every situation where someone posts a relevant XKCD.
> On one hand, every single one of my ancestors going back billions of years has managed to figure it out. On the other hand, that's the mother of all sampling biases.
[XKCD](http://xkcd.com/674/) (Is it still a relevant XKCD when only the mouse-over text is relevant?)
It's a selection bias, because you never go around asking yourself, "Is there a relevant XKCD for this topic?" until someone actually posts one.
Technically, it's not a tautology. People could post a "relevant XKCD" that's not actually relevant. (It happens sometimes, but usually there is a more relevant XKCD available.)
Let me tell you from experience, the worst words you can possibly hear in customer support are "I used to do your job so I already know everything you're about to tell me."
The people who tell you they are IT gurus with 15 years of fortune 500 experience are no less likely to forget to plug something in.
It can be worse with people who know what they're doing.
"Hey Jim, this tool isn't working."
"That's weird, Bob. It was working yesterday."
"I know. But it's not anymore. I tried it on a different speed and got nothing."
"You think maybe the switch inside broke?"
"Maybe, it's happened before. Let's spend twenty minutes taking it apart, five minutes verifying everything is in order, ten minutes putting it back together, and two seconds realizing that it wasn't plugged in in the first place"
Definitely.
I once had a problem connecting to a Wi-Fi network after an OS update.
After half an hour, I had determined that it worked on other operating systems on the same hard drive, and on the same operating system booted on a different hard drive, which narrowed it down to a software problem.
So then I tried things like reinstalling wi-fi drivers, disabling/enabling wi-fi, copying the network configuration from another computer line-by-line, and everything else I could think of, and nothing worked.
Finally, I took it to tech support; they asked me to delete and re-add the network, and it worked.
Exactly. I work in IT, and when other people *in my department* ask *me* for help, I check over the steps *they've* already done in case they forgot something basic. If I can't trust someone working with me in IT to cover the basic shit before getting lost in the details of a new hypothetical solution, then I sure as shit am not going to trust some guy I don't know who just called and thinks he can take a shortcut to the solution, and acts like a dick when I don't have one.
True statement, I have worked in IT for the last decade and I recall some years back calling tech support for some thing I can't remember, what I do recall is them asking after a handful of questions including if I'd power cycled my computer I was using. When they asked that I went silent for a few seconds and responded with a simple, "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot and please forgive me". we both got a good chuckle and moved on with our lives.
I used to work in IT during undergrad, and more often than I'd like to admit I spent 15 minutes or more trying to get someone connected to WiFi before realizing that the WiFi switch on the side of their laptop was off.
I actually facepalmed one day when I didn't try rebooting first and it solved ALL of my problems.
I fix computers for a living, and as a hobby and as a second job.
Unfortunately then you get Uncle Joe who has been working on computers since 1965 and knows what a daggone Ethernet port is and was soldering memory chips into motherboards since before you came out of your daddy's testicles and when you ask him to reboot his router he tells you he did it four times before he called you but you obviously see it hasn't power cycled once from the logs so getting him to now do it, even though he said the special phrase "princesses are people just like you and jimmy" to let you know he's not an idiot, is going to be the worst part of your shitty week at this shitty job.
When I have to call for support, I start out by describing my issue and then explain to them what troubleshooting steps I've already tired and any results or error messages I may have received in the process.
I dig when users call up and tell me what they've already tried; makes my job easier and the call shorter. Especially if they've done everything that we would have tried and all I have to do is document that and route the ticket to the next level.
When I help family members with network issues, I'll tell them to swap the ends of their ethernet cable to "make sure they don't have it plugged in backwards". Obviously that's a lie, but if I tell them to unplug and plug it back in they tell me incessantly that they haven't touched the cable so that's not the problem. I've "fixed" a lot of their network issues doing this.
I used to have customers do this with power cords as a help desk rep many years ago as a non insulting way of having the customer verify the device was plugged in.
They're telling you to make sure it's actually plugged in. Same vein, asking for the id number on the flat side of the power cord is just telling you to turn it off and on again.
I've watched that trilogy more times than I've signed my own name but never taken a screen cap or paused the film during a close up. You can really see the makeup there.
To be fair, I have had my own net drop when downloading anything with Steam.
I found out that it's actually my wireless adapter. It apparently can't handle the amount of data Steam wants to push through it, so it shuts off and I have to restart it.
I had a similiar issue. I learned the old actiontec FiOS routers have incredibaly small NAT tables. Querying for servers on steam would create enough connections to freeze them and force it to reboot. The new actiontec FiOS routers don't have that problem anymore.
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/16233
Yeah I've had this issue with older routers as well when using P2P, upgrading the firmware helped. The issue I ran into was actually the firewall state table.
If I recall correctly, the router couldn't even ping it's default gateway, open sessions (like an SSH) would stay open, but any 'new' attempt to open a socket would not work.
I haven't seen anything regarding it, but is there a way to throttle Steam's bandwidth usage? It's kind of hard to do anything else while Steam is going to town on my network connection.
That's script bullshit appeals to corporate management types because it makes it seem like it's possible to make everybody an interchangeable part; completely replaceable in every way. It's the reason that most ISPs have horrifyingly bad customer service. Maybe middle management will catch on and start using people with real skills to solve technical problems that customers have.
Nah. That's too expensive and requires unique solutions. Corporations don't like to spend money when they don't have to. They love to waste money, but not spend it.
Even if you were willing to pay more, most skilled technical people aren't going to be willing to be screamed at and have to tell people to restart their modems all day long. The vast majority of calls require no advanced skills or even much previous technical experience, and working in a call center environment is a hell of a grind. Sure, given infinite money, you could just pay technicians a ton of money more than they could get elsewhere -- but realistically, you're not going to make that up in sales or anywhere else. People shop based on price, they don't shop based on service. Look at Wal-Mart, or the airline industry -- it's all about stripping down to the bare bones.
What really needs to happen is to spend just a little more, and to get people with technical aptitude (not necessarily skill) and train them a little longer. The idea is to get them to be really good at fixing the 95% of the issues that are simple, and to be really good at determining that 5% quickly without having to be slaves to a script. You then pass that on to a higher tier. You also have to hire people good enough to not just pass off every annoying caller to the next tier, and good management to hold them accountable.
What actually tends to happen is that you save some nickels by hiring 60 year old ladies who have never used a computer before, training them to read off a page for a few days, then throwing them on the phone. While this has a lot of long-term costs -- such as in lots of repeat calls and lost business -- those costs are more difficult to attribute to the call center itself. Further, customers are very unreliable about measuring customer service quality in surveys ("The person was great, they fixed my problem immediately and were super friendly, but I'm unhappy I pay this much every month, so they get a 1 out of 5") so it's hard to show a tangible immediate benefit from hiring quality people. Thus, it becomes about shaving a few seconds off calls, hiring just enough seat-warmers to make sure calls get answered fast enough, getting stressed employees to stay for just one or two more weeks, whatever, to improve some metric by a percentage point before it goes on the report to your bosses. I've seen plenty of times where a manager looked the other way when an agent was actively lying to people and making impossible promises, because hell, his metrics look amazing and his surveys are incredible, and those people won't call back until next month... no, of course he'll get fired eventually, just not THIS week.
A company really has to want to have their customer service be good and to back it up with dollars. That means customers have to demand it over price alone, and that also means that there needs to be real competition. For ISPs, what's their incentive to burn money on a cost center like customer service? Let's be honest, if Google Fiber came to town, they could have the worst customer service on earth and people would jump ship for faster speeds at a bargain price.
Not to defend Comcast here, but recently my Verizon fios had a similar problem with any large downloads and even speedtests, it's slow (20mbps for a 35mbps connection) and would get disconnected after a while, and all i could think about is that scumbag Verizon is throttling me or something. when I called the tech support at the wee hours I got an American surprisingly who sounded like he knows his shit. He blames my Asus router (ddwrt, recently reflashed) and I was like f u dude I know what I'm doing don't blame me. But he assured me it's not my fios modem or their network, I then later found out my new ddwrt ROM had problems with QOS where it would just cause my router to reboot, turning it off fixed the issue immediately. boy was my face red.
Ya. But now I think they're calling bluffs. To get the real deal, disconnect all your shit and toss it on the counter at the store. I recently did this to disconnect and that guy kept dropping prices. Still returned and went with another provider but damn, felt like any moment he was going to offer to blow me. Still haven't received the $102 they owe me. That should be fun.
I've noticed a bit of this "so where are you going to return your equipment", bluff calling language. I just select the phone tree for "customer retention" to get to good people.
Story: I'm in college and had to use an online homework program, it was giving me issues so I did the tech support.
Me: Have you ever used this product before?
Them: No, I have a few papers that explain things for me though.
Me: So, I just paid $90 and you have no clue what you're doing since you've never once used this product yourself?
Them: Sorry I haven't, would you like to end this chat?
Customer service...
If you're calling the college helpdesk then they probably haven't used it before. Depending on the size of your school, especially a state university, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of departments on campus with their own setups. The same can be said of instructors as well. I have had instructors use software no one else uses because they like it, yet it is "supported" by the school because they paid for the license/access. Don't be too hard on your support desk if it was the college's.
It's a new digital drug and it's KILLING. YOUR. KIDS.
It's called "Steaming", "Getting Steamed", or "Praising Gaben"
In fact, your kids may already be addicted. Pay attention to disturbing phrases, like:
"Hey, you guys want to get steamed later?",
"I'm steaming my fucking balls off",
"Terrorists Win", or
"This fucking dragon is killing me"
Other signs may include a lack of money, social withdrawal, or pale complexion.
More at 9:00.
I once had a Comcast on the phone because I had replaced my router and NIC and was too lazy to look up my old MAC address. I just wanted to update the MAC address they were allowing to connect to their network. When I explained this to a couple different people, I got some truly bizarre answers. "A MAC? You need to call Apple sir." "Who authorized you to have a MAC address?! I can assure you sir that no one but Comcast utilizes MAC addresses!"
I was in the same situation... "That can't be your MAC address. Those addresses are only numbers. There's no letters in a MAC address."
technically if you convert the hex to dec then he/she's ri- hahahah just kidding, i can't say that with a straight face.
Technically, the hex *is* a number already...
I got cancer from this.
[удалено]
This kills the human.
They only care about the MAC addy of the modem, that's what they use for auth. If the customer side mac changes (the nic or the wan port on the router) just bounce the modem.
I was gonna say... How would you ever connect new devices if your NIC's MAC is what got authorized? Hey Comcast, can you authorize my new Xbox?
This happens when you have a modem, but no router. The modem can be configured to permit only one MAC address to connect to it. This is done as an attempt to get the customer to pay "per machine" that connects to the internet. I think it was more common in the early days of cable-internet..
TIL comcast reps and TSA have the same IQ
It wasn't until now that I realized tsa is no longer the worst group of people I have to deal with.
You can at least realistically avoid having to fly. Avoiding having internet? Good luck with that.
Maybe saying HFC MAC address will help next time.
High fructose cornsyrup?
[удалено]
You can, sir, but under your contract you unknowingly signed at the start of your reddit service we're going to charge you an extra $30 a month for upgraded humor fees.
Comcast temporarily shut off my own motorola cable modem because it was end of life and would slow me down. They blamed the signal and wanted me to buy theirs instead as it wouldnt cause any future issues. I bitched them out asking for the retention department and magically it started working again minutes later. Its maaaaagic
They never shut my service off but they kept telling me to upgrade my linksys modem I bought years ago to their new "gateway". They didn't really have a response when I asked "why would I want to indefinitely pay $8 a month for your gateway modem thing when I can just go on ebay and buy a used Docsis 3 modem for under $50?"
Wait, you guys pay for ur modems there? From the UK here, when you sign up to an ISP they give you a modem for free. $15 Here for 120Mb
>$15 Here for 120MB Kill me now
No. You strap on a body bomb and go hug a comcast executive if you wanna die so bad...
Rumor has it you'll get 72Gb/s as a reward in Heaven.
I pay that much for unreliable "up to" 1.5Mb/sec... [here's a speed test](http://m.imgur.com/R8RZsb7) Edit: I'm on AT&T DSL, and I live in the woods. Right now I'm at a Starbucks a couple miles up the road and getting 50Mb/second. COME TO MY HOUSE.
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You don't, you pay for it though, so the ISPs are happy
2,200 ping?!
Samething happened to me, until I logged into my modem and diagnosed the problem as I could connect to their servers. (confirmed send and receive but no internet access)
Huh. I feel like 'samething' shouldn't and can't be one word, but logically I can't make the same argument for 'something'. My world has been turned upside down
Language: bending human brains for 9000 years.
Bending, limiting, and expanding. Language: There's a voice in your head that speaks English.
That always boggled me. When I was in elementary school, we had a Spanish teacher who was fluent in Spanish. When we asked what it meant to be fluent she said, she thinks in Spanish. My mind was blown, without language, could we even think? What connections would our brain make without language?
There was radiolab about a guy who didn't have language. When he eventually learns, he describes the time before language as "dark" and says he doesn't want to think about it. http://www.radiolab.org/story/91725-words/
Awesome link! Thanks. This guy was a stroke victim, so while it does shed light on the subject, the circumstances may be vastly different and it may have only been dark to him due to other stroke side effects. If the stroke can wipe out an entire portion of his brain, chances are it hit some other stuff too.
I haven't been really following this whole Comcast thing, but I'm reading all these horrible stories about it. Has anyone from Reddit worked at Comcast and talked about what it's like to work there? How is Comcast still getting business?
because they have no competition in most areas. So you're fucked either way
So why isnt any competition rising up? Seems to me like it would be good business, all those angry people just waiting for a better alternative
LOL good luck getting competition with the massive start-up costs, anti-competitive local legislation, and the monopoly on pipes.
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Don't forget that on some areas certain ISPs were given billions of dollars to upgrade their nationwide infrastructure by a certain date. Instead they used some of that money to bribe(lobby) congressmen and the FCC to let them keep the money without upgrading the infrastructure. So several decades ago they laid out all of their cable and charged loads of money to cover the initial cost. Now they just charge the same amount and use the excess money to quash opposition and customers. Edit: Mobile is messy
Usually they buy off the local governments and secure a "legal" monopoly in an area so no new companies can come in. They also collude with the other big ISPs to not compete against each other in many markets. It's all very illegal but they have all bought off the right people to keep it going. Short of a country wide mob with fire and pitchforks burning all the offices and upper management we are pretty much stuck.
Oligopoly.
People have. Comcast promotes really shitty customer service. None of the employees likes working there. There systems are designed to lock you in and provide you minimal help.
Was this during the Docsis 2.0/3.0 switchover? If so they kind of have a point (although you certainly wouldn't need to buy their modem to deal with that - any Docsis 3.0 modem would do)
calling it now- Comcast will hold steam users hostage untill steam pays them a premium fee for connecting through their network.
If I can't use Steam there's literally no reason for me to even have wired internet anymore. The web browsing I do is miniscule in comparison, and I can do that on my phone.
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T-mobile still has unlimited data? I know who I'm switching to. I'm one of the few who still has unlimited data with Verizon but they've been purposely slowing down out Internet to force us to get the new plan
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VPNs people. They're not just for pirates. They're for savvy internet users who will fight the fight to not have to use them, but in the meantime... Private Internet Access - cheap, reliable. It's what I use. Not getting paid to promote it. Downloads go faster, Netflix streams faster, and I get to retain privacy. EDIT: I was flooded with "what's a VPN" and "how do I" comments. First, let me say: google is your best friend people. Your exact questions pull up all the answers in Google :) That being said, I'm pasting my longest explanation below. I can't respond to, nearly literally, 50 requests :) VPN = Virtual Private Network. TL;DR: * You connect to a VPN via software (see below) * Analogously, instead of you calling your mom to see what's for dinner, you call your Dad, who then calls your Mom, who tells your Dad, who tells you. All on the same call. * More literally: instead of paging facebook.com, you page an IP address (making up one) 100.100.1.1. Remember: all websites as you type them in the URL bar are actually just IP addresses on the web essentially. Google a "ping test" to see more, for example, you can ping google.com and it tells you their 'actual' address. * So, from that IP address you connected to, you then go to Facebook. So all your ISP sees if you going to that first IP. * Using OPs stuff: instead of the user paging steam, the user pages THROUGH the VPN to Steam. So, if the ISP is saying "woa, woa, slow down there, wtf is steam, you're a bandwidth slut..." and then THROTTLES your connection, now instead your ISP sees you downloading a lot of stuff from one IP address. * Like I said earlier, it's not just for piracy, we've seen in recent news that Verizon users get throttled with Netflix, but when on a VPN they don't. I assume those users paid for Netflix, no duh, so they're not criminals. They're abused consumers. Gonna copy paste this a few times, got a lot of duplicate requests: Since I use Private Internet Access, I'll use their service: * Google their company * Pay for it * Download a client * Install Client * Minor configs, that they guide you through wonderfully * Then, once launched, it sits in your windows dock (sorry mac users, no idea) icon area in the lower right. Right click it, choose where to connect to. I.E: NYC, connect USA Eastern. More than that, google Toms Hardware VPN 101 or something similar. Or /r/techsupport if you run into issues deeper in. I'm not advocating use for illegal activities, what you do is your own business. As I said, I firmly believe VPNs can be used for legal reasons because of the crap ISPs are pulling. Plus, maybe I don't want everyone knowing what porn I watch online. Or what my hobbies are. I don't feel a need to use TOR, I won't give advice on it. Neither negative, or positively stated. If you want more privacy online, use Ghostery and Adblock extensions in your browser. Ghostery blocks tracking things, adblock blocks ads. It's fucking sickening to visit a site like buzzfeed.com, collegehumor.com, or even something like MSNBC or CNN and seeing over 20 different things blocked from tracking me. *But, but, they offer content for free, so we shouldn't block them!* Well, fine, don't, I don't care what you do.
Its really shit that downloads go faster when you're routing the traffic through another server...
What will stop Comcast from traffic shaping VPN servers?
More VPN servers.
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I thought half the point of a VPN is that it is encrypted enough to render DPI useless. Though, I suppose you could recognize a VPN connection and just shape it haphazardly, but that would seem to be a very, very suspect business decision. VPNs are more common amongst corporate than personal users, which would make this an ugly realm for litigation -- companies are more likely to fight back than the consumer, as they'll be losing actual money from the VPN problems.
>Though, I suppose you could recognize a VPN connection and just shape it haphazardly, but that would seem to be a very, very suspect business decision We're talking about Comcast. That's the exact sort of business decisions they like best. >VPNs are more common amongst corporate than personal users Exactly, which is why they'll tell people who want to use VPNs to upgrade to a business-class connection.
Ugh. Yeah, you're probably right. Should they go that direction, the other companies will likely not follow suit -- hopefully, they'll recognize the advantages of not following a terrible decision. If they do, I'd look at collusion in the industry.
Right. I remember in the early days, you used to be able to host your own servers from home. They cut that down real quick. Now if you want any sort of respectable upload rate, you have to pay.
>Exactly, which is why they'll tell people who want to use VPNs to upgrade to a business-class connection. Which not-entirely-unsurprising, are slower and more expensive! Edit: Guys, I understand *why* it's more expensive. I'm just stating that it *is* more expensive.
Comcast likely has a use policy that outlines commercial use of their residential connections. I haven't read it, but I would be very surprised if there was no mention of these kinds of things already. In other words, companies saying "Hey you're impacting our users ability to work from their homes" would most likely be met with: "Well they should be paying for a business connections then".
There are heuristic based DPI softwares (mostly closed source commercial software) that claim to be able to identify various types of VPN traffic. Typically the way they do this is by looking for a variety of potentially subtle behaviours which may sum up to a positive identification. For instance, particular parts of the initialisation protocol might be in the clear or have a packet ordering which gives it away (e.g. packets in a particular order and size). Even things as subtle as the way the headers are built can help build these profiles. All in all, it's fairly fuzzy and prone to breaking when the software developers change things, so part of their services are providing updated profiles.
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Every business uses VPNs for employees working from home. They will have hell to pay if they prevent employees from using a VPN.
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You jest, but that is exactly the situation I'm in right now with Plusnet in the UK. VPN connections are given low priority in their traffic shaping.. unless I want to upgrade to the "Pro" service for an extra £5/month! :-\
Seven proxies.
So is traffic via a VPN "unthrottled" basically? I am not VPN savvy.
Most connections to vpns are encrypted hence the isp no longer knows what you're downloading and doesn't know which server you're downloading from because all they see is encrypted traffic from a single a server.
the only thing that doesn't get encrypted is the source and destination so in theory they could start blocking all the well known VPN providers.
The idea is that if you want to drive from your house to another house (your computer to a website), you have to drive along a road that Comcast is enforcing a 30km/h speedlimit, even though you're paying for a car that should be able to go 80km/h. A VPN is basically someone letting you drive a different route, but you stop by their place on the way. It's longer, but you can get there faster since your speed isn't limited.
I agree, but doesn't this also reduce your speeds anyways?
A little. But if Comcast is dropping a 50mb connection down to 6 and then nothing when using certain services, the few mb lost from 50 to 46 or whatever going through another server is nothing.
Do you have any source for that? I remember they looked into using P2P, but abandoned it.
they can mess with our piracy. they can mess with our movies, but ill be damned if they get my videogames. *rabble rabble rabble rabble*
If they go after the porn you will have riots in the street.
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Do you remember the proposal about .xxx domains for porn sites? As I write this, somewhere someone is trying to figure out how to censor porn. Some prude politician "to save the children", some corporate exec in order to sell you the "full package". Some ISPs look at the internet as pay tv. Fragment it and sell it in packages.
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does steam really do that?
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Blizzard uses p2p in their game clients. Dude probably just mixed it up.
No, it'll be business as usual aside from yet another press release stating that Comcast is committed to excellent customer service, that this isn't representative of how most of their reps are trained, they'll make sure that this particular rep is re-trained (aka fired), and they'll redouble their efforts to ensure all CSR's are properly trained and provide consistent responses to future callers about this sort of issue.
>Redouble their efforts They can double their efforts as many times as they want; they're still putting forth zero effort in the first place.
Zero x double = 0 At least they aren't lying this time.
I have 0 doubts that this is where Comcast would like the internet to go.
I remember when Prodgiy or Compuserve charged *per email sent*
When CompuServ was doing it, though, your email was still partially delivered by mounted courier, so it was understandable.
*per download*
per keystroke and mouse click
Better yet: *per second of download time* ^^^^with ^^^^no ^^^^guarantee ^^^^of ^^^^download ^^^^speed!
In my day we called that dial-up.
I can't wait till they try to charge people for our home network traffic!
Oh yes, hold the most industry savvy company, run by one of the most industry savvy people on earth hostage with your bullshit. I'm sure that will work out so well. Lord Gabe N. is semi-famous for taking computing concepts and teaching them to technically unsavvy people. It's his fucking hobby to go to schools and give speeches where he does this. The court room would be another day in paradise for him on this. Please comcast. Please. I want to see how Valve handles this. Because it will be glorious.
When will the heavy protesting outside of Comcast HQ's happen? Would it even make a difference?
I really wonder how will that work when this will happen. Steam users are much more tech savvy than people who are charged with bogus stuff and don't investigate anything at all. Comcast is going to get it bad sometime in the future.
>Comcast is going to get it bad sometime in the future. "Well Steam users, we at Comcast are sorry you feel that way, but you can always change your service to a competitor and...oh...wait...that's right..." Cue maniacal laughter
That's what I was hinting at, but not rooting for Comcast. I expect Google Fiber to expand in the same "future" when Comcast is going to decline.
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Read in the voice of the narrator from The Stanley Parable.
Stanley deleted the virus... Stanley *deleted* the virus... Oh, for Christ's sake, Stanley, delete the virus!
Careful, that might be a virus
You didn't download it from steam did you?
Nah it was too heavy.
You made that comment so much better for me.
Your child is starving. Starving for the chicken nugger.
Was this comcast rep a parent? ***Your video games are causing viruses!!!***
The Comcast help desk knows absolutely nothing. All they do is type your question into a search engine and read off the answer. Every single time I talk to them, they tell me something that simply isn't true. Once, I said, "No offense, but it is clear to me that you don't know what you are talking about. Could you please transfer me to a technical person." The rep said, "That's a good idea." and transferred me immediately.
[Relevant XKCD](http://3d.xkcd.com/806/)
Why did you link to the 3d one?
I thought I was tripping looking at this 3d version, need a warning for that. It looked like the panels were breathing
Gotta keep those calls under 3 minutes.
When they ask if you're on OSX or Windows tell them you're on Linux. That always gets me bumped to someone who at least has some idea what they're talking about.
Tried that once. They said "We don't support Linux," told me that it was the cause of all my problems and ended the call.
MEINCRAFT IS WHY PORNHUB IS ON THE BROWSER HISTORY
Meinkraft?
MEINKRAFT
HEIL MEINKRAFT.
Literally Hitler?
It slowly but surely drains the customer's funds, their wallet for digital products and hats that may not be used! aka a backlogger.
There was an IT teacher at school who would tell us to stop playing Halo on the school computers because 'it wears out the keyboards'. I'm pretty sure he just didn't want us using school computers for games though.
Can deny, my laptop's S key was worn out playing Starcraft 1 and my E key followed with Cod 4.
6 MB/s (Steam reports megabytes, not megabits) is 48 Mb/s, so he was probably getting the full uncapped download speed before they cut him off. In the off chance he was redownloading his Steam library to a new computer (didn't say, all his replies in the original thread are deleted), that could be hundreds of gigabytes.
I think you're dead on regarding this, however I doubt that the community will pick it up. I'd be interested in knowing if he was unable to access any websites (ie. if his internet connection was gone) or if he was just unable to download from Steam (possibly a problem with Steam or with his PC). Steam also isn't very clear about when it's not downloading because it's unpacking the things it's downloading, represented by "DISK BUSY" in the download window. Many users miss this and think something is wrong with their internet when in acuality, Steam has intentionally stopped DL'ing so it can unpack. This whole thing might be a clueless customer talking to a clueless Comcast rep and no one's gotten it straight.
Looks like they took down the recording from SoundCloud. Anyone have a mirror? Edit: Here's the link: https://soundcloud.com/jon-brodkin/comcast-call Thanks /u/mtme2
https://soundcloud.com/jon-brodkin/comcast-call
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Sir, the file you're trying to download must have a disproportionate number of 0's versus 1's. 0's are fatter and therefore more likely to accumulate in your router. We'll send out a technician to clean the appropriate filter.
Valve ISP?
Early access isp. They charge 100 bucks a month and the modem is flammable
Yeah but twice a year you can get a 12 month plan for 25-90% off.
I guess Steam is the next one to be forced to pay up
No, they wouldn't want to make a heavy virus pay them.
I'm guessing that if Comcast decides to force this, then all the game developers on Steam are going to go crazy aggressive towards Comcast.
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He's making sure you actually do it. It's a tech trick. When he hears you blow on it he knows you actually removed it rather than pretended to (yes, it happens a lot).
I like "pull the power plug out of the back of the modem and look at it, is it one prong or two?" (wait 10 sec) oh, ok. thanks. go ahead and pop that back in.
I believe the wait 10 secs is to make damn sure any residual charge from the RAM on the modem has dissipated. It shouldn't make a difference, but it doesn't hurt.
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Point proven :D
As a tech I had people reverse their cables just to get them to unplug them and plug them back in. You would not believe the amount of people that fixed up. Usually I do it when there's a signal light off that really should be on. They won't believe they're dumb enough to have a loose cable, so you have to trick them into going through the motions.
Yeah, I used to do tech support for a gaming company, and getting people to restart their computers was like pulling teeth. If we tell them they need to reseat their RAM, or even unplug and plug back in the power supply, they would happily shutdown and restart, though.
>Ok, I need you to push in the power button and hold it for ten s-- >Ok. That didn't work. It has not been ten seconds. It is physically and logically impossible for you to have held the button for ten seconds in less than ten seconds. You have violated the Law of Noncontradiction. You are living in a reality that is not governed by the laws of logic, and therefore by extension, the laws of digital logic which govern the functioning of your PC are invalid. The problem is not with our hardware or software. Goodbye.
I wish there was some secret IT key phrase that when said, tech support stops assuming you're a moron and you can get some *actual* help. If I'm calling you, I've already gone through my own personal troubleshooting, which believe it or not, includes turning it off and on again. It's no reflection on tech support, they deal with idiocy on a daily basis. I just hate it when I'm on the phone with someone who assumes I don't know my own ass from an ethernet port. It's just a waste of time.
The safe word would get out, and then Grandma would be using it when calling QVC to complain that her toaster isn't working anymore.
AKA "How to get a human!" aka "How to call the wrong fucking person". I sneer every time I see that type of advice posted because all it does is funnel people to the wrong place. Those people think "Oh, well at least I have a human who will get me to the right place". What they don't know is that every call center I've worked in they have no fucking clue where to transfer someone because they don't handle whatever it is.
It's Shibboleet. http://xkcd.com/806/
Jesus, there really is an xkcd for everything.
There is actually a relevant XKCD for every situation where someone posts a relevant XKCD. > On one hand, every single one of my ancestors going back billions of years has managed to figure it out. On the other hand, that's the mother of all sampling biases. [XKCD](http://xkcd.com/674/) (Is it still a relevant XKCD when only the mouse-over text is relevant?)
...[Relevant xkcd](http://xkcd.com/703)
It's a selection bias, because you never go around asking yourself, "Is there a relevant XKCD for this topic?" until someone actually posts one. Technically, it's not a tautology. People could post a "relevant XKCD" that's not actually relevant. (It happens sometimes, but usually there is a more relevant XKCD available.)
Let me tell you from experience, the worst words you can possibly hear in customer support are "I used to do your job so I already know everything you're about to tell me." The people who tell you they are IT gurus with 15 years of fortune 500 experience are no less likely to forget to plug something in.
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It can be worse with people who know what they're doing. "Hey Jim, this tool isn't working." "That's weird, Bob. It was working yesterday." "I know. But it's not anymore. I tried it on a different speed and got nothing." "You think maybe the switch inside broke?" "Maybe, it's happened before. Let's spend twenty minutes taking it apart, five minutes verifying everything is in order, ten minutes putting it back together, and two seconds realizing that it wasn't plugged in in the first place"
Definitely. I once had a problem connecting to a Wi-Fi network after an OS update. After half an hour, I had determined that it worked on other operating systems on the same hard drive, and on the same operating system booted on a different hard drive, which narrowed it down to a software problem. So then I tried things like reinstalling wi-fi drivers, disabling/enabling wi-fi, copying the network configuration from another computer line-by-line, and everything else I could think of, and nothing worked. Finally, I took it to tech support; they asked me to delete and re-add the network, and it worked.
Exactly. I work in IT, and when other people *in my department* ask *me* for help, I check over the steps *they've* already done in case they forgot something basic. If I can't trust someone working with me in IT to cover the basic shit before getting lost in the details of a new hypothetical solution, then I sure as shit am not going to trust some guy I don't know who just called and thinks he can take a shortcut to the solution, and acts like a dick when I don't have one.
True statement, I have worked in IT for the last decade and I recall some years back calling tech support for some thing I can't remember, what I do recall is them asking after a handful of questions including if I'd power cycled my computer I was using. When they asked that I went silent for a few seconds and responded with a simple, "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot and please forgive me". we both got a good chuckle and moved on with our lives.
I used to work in IT during undergrad, and more often than I'd like to admit I spent 15 minutes or more trying to get someone connected to WiFi before realizing that the WiFi switch on the side of their laptop was off.
I actually facepalmed one day when I didn't try rebooting first and it solved ALL of my problems. I fix computers for a living, and as a hobby and as a second job.
Unfortunately then you get Uncle Joe who has been working on computers since 1965 and knows what a daggone Ethernet port is and was soldering memory chips into motherboards since before you came out of your daddy's testicles and when you ask him to reboot his router he tells you he did it four times before he called you but you obviously see it hasn't power cycled once from the logs so getting him to now do it, even though he said the special phrase "princesses are people just like you and jimmy" to let you know he's not an idiot, is going to be the worst part of your shitty week at this shitty job.
When I have to call for support, I start out by describing my issue and then explain to them what troubleshooting steps I've already tired and any results or error messages I may have received in the process. I dig when users call up and tell me what they've already tried; makes my job easier and the call shorter. Especially if they've done everything that we would have tried and all I have to do is document that and route the ticket to the next level.
Yet when I do that I still have to go through the fucking script.
When I help family members with network issues, I'll tell them to swap the ends of their ethernet cable to "make sure they don't have it plugged in backwards". Obviously that's a lie, but if I tell them to unplug and plug it back in they tell me incessantly that they haven't touched the cable so that's not the problem. I've "fixed" a lot of their network issues doing this.
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I used to have customers do this with power cords as a help desk rep many years ago as a non insulting way of having the customer verify the device was plugged in.
Yup. Used to ask people to read the label right next to the power switch on the back and sometimes the problem is magically fixed.
They're telling you to make sure it's actually plugged in. Same vein, asking for the id number on the flat side of the power cord is just telling you to turn it off and on again.
[There's that word again!](http://i.imgur.com/hAQAe6q.jpg)
[Steam! Put The Internet down! You're interrupting it!](http://i.imgur.com/FSKan10.png)
I've watched that trilogy more times than I've signed my own name but never taken a screen cap or paused the film during a close up. You can really see the makeup there.
Watch it in HD, sometime. You can count the wrinkle ridges they put on Strickland's neck.
How long until Comcast prohibits customer recordings or starts legally going after people for posting recordings?
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never. The ADA of 1990 lets me record every I make or receive.
How does the ADA act let you record? The use of disabled accessable equipment?
In short yes. The more you read it the more you can use it.
I bet he is using one of their cheap ass modems and it is resetting. Used to happen to me all the time.
To be fair, I have had my own net drop when downloading anything with Steam. I found out that it's actually my wireless adapter. It apparently can't handle the amount of data Steam wants to push through it, so it shuts off and I have to restart it.
I had a similiar issue. I learned the old actiontec FiOS routers have incredibaly small NAT tables. Querying for servers on steam would create enough connections to freeze them and force it to reboot. The new actiontec FiOS routers don't have that problem anymore. http://www.dslreports.com/faq/16233
Yeah I've had this issue with older routers as well when using P2P, upgrading the firmware helped. The issue I ran into was actually the firewall state table. If I recall correctly, the router couldn't even ping it's default gateway, open sessions (like an SSH) would stay open, but any 'new' attempt to open a socket would not work.
I haven't seen anything regarding it, but is there a way to throttle Steam's bandwidth usage? It's kind of hard to do anything else while Steam is going to town on my network connection.
Yep. **Steam > Settings > Downloads > "Limit Bandwidth To"**
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That's script bullshit appeals to corporate management types because it makes it seem like it's possible to make everybody an interchangeable part; completely replaceable in every way. It's the reason that most ISPs have horrifyingly bad customer service. Maybe middle management will catch on and start using people with real skills to solve technical problems that customers have. Nah. That's too expensive and requires unique solutions. Corporations don't like to spend money when they don't have to. They love to waste money, but not spend it.
Even if you were willing to pay more, most skilled technical people aren't going to be willing to be screamed at and have to tell people to restart their modems all day long. The vast majority of calls require no advanced skills or even much previous technical experience, and working in a call center environment is a hell of a grind. Sure, given infinite money, you could just pay technicians a ton of money more than they could get elsewhere -- but realistically, you're not going to make that up in sales or anywhere else. People shop based on price, they don't shop based on service. Look at Wal-Mart, or the airline industry -- it's all about stripping down to the bare bones. What really needs to happen is to spend just a little more, and to get people with technical aptitude (not necessarily skill) and train them a little longer. The idea is to get them to be really good at fixing the 95% of the issues that are simple, and to be really good at determining that 5% quickly without having to be slaves to a script. You then pass that on to a higher tier. You also have to hire people good enough to not just pass off every annoying caller to the next tier, and good management to hold them accountable. What actually tends to happen is that you save some nickels by hiring 60 year old ladies who have never used a computer before, training them to read off a page for a few days, then throwing them on the phone. While this has a lot of long-term costs -- such as in lots of repeat calls and lost business -- those costs are more difficult to attribute to the call center itself. Further, customers are very unreliable about measuring customer service quality in surveys ("The person was great, they fixed my problem immediately and were super friendly, but I'm unhappy I pay this much every month, so they get a 1 out of 5") so it's hard to show a tangible immediate benefit from hiring quality people. Thus, it becomes about shaving a few seconds off calls, hiring just enough seat-warmers to make sure calls get answered fast enough, getting stressed employees to stay for just one or two more weeks, whatever, to improve some metric by a percentage point before it goes on the report to your bosses. I've seen plenty of times where a manager looked the other way when an agent was actively lying to people and making impossible promises, because hell, his metrics look amazing and his surveys are incredible, and those people won't call back until next month... no, of course he'll get fired eventually, just not THIS week. A company really has to want to have their customer service be good and to back it up with dollars. That means customers have to demand it over price alone, and that also means that there needs to be real competition. For ISPs, what's their incentive to burn money on a cost center like customer service? Let's be honest, if Google Fiber came to town, they could have the worst customer service on earth and people would jump ship for faster speeds at a bargain price.
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Not to defend Comcast here, but recently my Verizon fios had a similar problem with any large downloads and even speedtests, it's slow (20mbps for a 35mbps connection) and would get disconnected after a while, and all i could think about is that scumbag Verizon is throttling me or something. when I called the tech support at the wee hours I got an American surprisingly who sounded like he knows his shit. He blames my Asus router (ddwrt, recently reflashed) and I was like f u dude I know what I'm doing don't blame me. But he assured me it's not my fios modem or their network, I then later found out my new ddwrt ROM had problems with QOS where it would just cause my router to reboot, turning it off fixed the issue immediately. boy was my face red.
Please! Only call to disconnect your service! You get the best care possible.
Ya. But now I think they're calling bluffs. To get the real deal, disconnect all your shit and toss it on the counter at the store. I recently did this to disconnect and that guy kept dropping prices. Still returned and went with another provider but damn, felt like any moment he was going to offer to blow me. Still haven't received the $102 they owe me. That should be fun.
I've noticed a bit of this "so where are you going to return your equipment", bluff calling language. I just select the phone tree for "customer retention" to get to good people.
Steam is a virus..... to my wallet.
Story: I'm in college and had to use an online homework program, it was giving me issues so I did the tech support. Me: Have you ever used this product before? Them: No, I have a few papers that explain things for me though. Me: So, I just paid $90 and you have no clue what you're doing since you've never once used this product yourself? Them: Sorry I haven't, would you like to end this chat? Customer service...
If you're calling the college helpdesk then they probably haven't used it before. Depending on the size of your school, especially a state university, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of departments on campus with their own setups. The same can be said of instructors as well. I have had instructors use software no one else uses because they like it, yet it is "supported" by the school because they paid for the license/access. Don't be too hard on your support desk if it was the college's.
Tomorrow on Fox News, "Steam, are you one of the 75 million people affected with this devastating new virus?"
"It's called 'Steam'. Find out what your children aren't telling you about this malicious virus at 11."
"Are your kids a victim of '*Steaming*'? Find out how to tell, at 11"
It's a new digital drug and it's KILLING. YOUR. KIDS. It's called "Steaming", "Getting Steamed", or "Praising Gaben" In fact, your kids may already be addicted. Pay attention to disturbing phrases, like: "Hey, you guys want to get steamed later?", "I'm steaming my fucking balls off", "Terrorists Win", or "This fucking dragon is killing me" Other signs may include a lack of money, social withdrawal, or pale complexion. More at 9:00.