We have had ongoing problems with our Internet service. A new modem was sent out 2 weeks ago which did not fix the problem of intermittent internet (and phone) loss. Last Thursday (February 6,2014) a technician was dispatched with yet another new modem. He also found a tear in our cable so we have a temporary orange line run right now directly from the box. Within four hours of him leaving, the Internet was unusable yet again. How do you like this speed? How about this one?
A phone call to tech support resulted in a refresh signal being sent (since we’re on a telephone modem the technician asked for a cell phone number to call us on because the Comcast phone would drop during the process. She never called us.) which fixed the problem temporarily (interestingly enough the Internet had gone down at exactly the same time the previous day). Would estimate that that signal was perhaps the 10th refresh signal (not to mention the 10 or so modem resets we had done ourselves) over the past two weeks.
Saturday, 8:30 AM, we were back at this speed. That happened again Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, and, again, this morning.
A letter to corporate has 2 techs coming out tomorrow (and a very nice US based contact to boot). So one might wonder how the phone calls this morning to get a refresh signal went. One might expect our case is marked and a CSR might want to give some above and beyond attention as they have to know we're in contact right below Brian L. Roberts, Bill Gerth, and Tom Karinshak presently.
Twice this morning we called (twice should already be your hint) and spoke with a CSR (the 2nd was ‘Jocelyn’...in Manilla). Both took our phone number with the promise of a call back in either 2-10 minutes following an modem refresh.
Neither called back. And their refresh signal was worthless. A physical reset of the modem jump started it for now.
That is why you don't put CSRs in the Phillipines and call them IT support. Back after this.
Update -- here are some of the typical error codes we've pulled.
TLV-11 - unrecognized OID
Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out
Resetting the cable modem due to docsDevResetNow
WiFi Interface [wl0] set to Channel 11 (Side-Band Channel:N/A) - Reason:INTERFERENCE
New tech come out 2/11/14. More professional than the first, he changed all couplings and several splitters. Also installed a video/audio filter on the back of the modem. As he was leaving we pointed to the speed tests we we're running at the time. Since he had seen a maintenance truck in the area, he was hopeful that that would resolve itself. We did a reset of the modem and 10 minutes later had DL speeds of near 20 (he pointed out that those wireless promotions you see on TV don't guarantee wireless speeds). He said next step if not resolved would be running a new direct line to the room the modem was in. After that? Maintenance would need to look at the underground line to our outside box.
Day after tech we've had looping speed variations from 20 to 16 to 5 to 1.14 Mb/s downloads -- you can check out all our results here. The most common critical event in the modem's logs continues to be 'Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out.' Waiting for Comcast corporate to call to discuss. (They were supposed to yesterday but...no call.)
2/13/2014 -- Internet out at 8:30 AM ET and again at 2:30 PM. Call to Ruschelle in Manilla was fruitless. Comcast wireless support was able to get us back online, again. During the 2:30 outtage we connected via ethernet and the story was the same -- the internet was unusable.
2/14/14 -- Internet down at 7:30 AM ET this time. Wireless tech remarked, "Wow, that is really broken." After he did his thing the problem was not resolved. Tech suggests A) Speaking to billing for a bill reduction and B) Having a new line run from the splitter to the modem. He transfers us to Shelley in, wait for it, Manilla. She informs that "she wants us to know that there may be a charge for the new line and didn't want that to shock us if it shows up on the bill." At that point we ask for a supervisor. She says there is no supervisor on the floor with them. How is that possible?! OK, we're stuck with her. As she reads the escalation ticket number, her speech is very unclear. She literally cannot communicate the number clearly enough for us to write it down. We get her name and hang up. We follow that up with a call to corporate. We know our contact is not in at this time so we follow the prompts to speak to another executive resolution agent. Currently? We're 11 minutes and waiting.
2/14/14 -- Tech came out and replaced the last bit of outside cable that the modem is involved with. Immediately things are clear right now. So...we wait.
2/14/ -- Our executive resolution specialist called in the evening but we missed the calls. We called back, however, her mailbox is full and not accepting any new messages. Her voicemail indicated she would try to call Saturday.
2/15/14 –- The Internet has worked for almost 24 hours. Now we have an interesting additional issue, however: Phone problems. Wednesday after deleting a voicemail on Comcast phone we continue to receive the stutter tone and the visual indication that we had a message waiting. Customer service indicated that the best way to remedy the situation was to call our number and leave another voicemail…often that will fix the problem. It did not. A reset of the phone modem did not either. The CSR opened a ticket in which Comcast would fix the problem on their end. Thursday all was clear. Friday, coincidentally enough, our Executive Resolution Specialist's voicemail to us became an issue. The message was left at approximately 7:45 PM. It was deleted at 8:05 PM. At 8:45 PM another call came in from a different party who did not leave a message...of course that miraculously somehow resurrected the aforementioned deleted message and we now have a phone blinking and stuttering and indicating that we have new voicemail...
2/16/14 -- 2 days straight with no outages. Can't get in touch with our Executive Resolution Specialist as her voicemail remains full. Getting 20mb/s down via wireless (on the 50 MB package) and even though Comcast doesn't guarantee wireless, still want to pursue a refund for a) the 1.5-2 hours offline per day over the previous 30 days and, as now recommended by 2 Comcast employees b) for the much lower than what you'd anticipate speeds.
2/16 -- NY Post is reading this account.
2/16 -- Internet up though we had some slowing - Download speeds of 10, 11, 12.
2/16 -- Corporate called. We've noted the excellent tech we had come out twice this week and we've been given a minor credit towards the bill for the issue. Comcast Executive Resolution needs to be in charge of Comcast CRSs...especially the ones in Manilla.
2/17 -- 11:30 AM ET - cannot ping Comcast.net (time out) and speeds dropped to all over the place. Downloads of 9.43, 6.23, 0.07, 0.45 et al. Phone call to wireless support indicated 'upstream noise was all red.' Tech said maintenance would now need to check the node to the pad (Comcast to our outside box).
Phone is indicating Voice Mail again when there is none. Ticket opened.
5:15 PM we're down with packet loss.
We failed a ping test over at DSL Reports as well. And, as has happened during these outages in the past, the Speedtest.net server hosted by Comcast in Plainfield, NJ completely disappeared from view.
We'll continue chronicling our Comcast internet & phone problems here.
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