Dealing w/ 6 weeks of Comcast XFINITY Internet Interconnectivity & Poor to No Phone Service | Bob's Blitz

Dealing w/ 6 weeks of Comcast XFINITY Internet Interconnectivity & Poor to No Phone Service

Don't expect the Comcast internet speeds you pay for via WiFi or for a CSR to call you back during a modem reset

This is a text only summation of what you might get if you sign up for the future of awesome. The latest indoctrination with graphs, charts, and video/audio is available here.

Don't expect to receive the Comcast internet speeds you pay for via WiFi or for a CSR to call you back during a modem reset. We here at the Blitz have a 50Mb/s download package. Using Xfinity's Technicolor TC8305C telephony WiFi modem, wired, we can pull 50. But wireless? We average around 20. And that 20 is whether we're 50 feet or 6 inches from the signal. And that 20 is when it's working. 

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. A second test via DSL Reports fails as well. And that's with decent download and upload speeds (19.39 & 11.10). A neighbor says he's noted packet loss for months and Comcast won't agree with him (he's an IT guy) that it is from their side. 

2/18/14 -- Perhaps there's also a reason for our average low speeds. Here's a
 failed line quality test packet loss and latency report via DSL Reports...while we're up and running at 22 mb/s downloads.

The post 3:30 PM ET blues have set in as
 these tests here and, horribly, here. DLS Reports 
Line Quality / Ping Test : Results?
 Fail.


2/19/14 -- Reminder, our service is the 50MB one. Wirelessly we average right around 20 Mbps. 8:42AM ET we test and that is what we just
 got via Speedtest. Basically, that's as good as it gets. With Comcast internet running as well as it ever does for us, how do you think another 'Line Quality / Ping Test' turns out at this time? Correct, it failed. Because there's a problem at Comcast.

'Frank' called to see if our phone issue was resolved. It was. Asked if he saw an order to check the node to the pad, Frank answered, "No."

2/20/14 -- The 'credits' we were to receive for the service issues were instead logged as charges. Doubling our bill as due for March. Called billing to get that remedied and we notice a 30 dollar charge for the initial modem, a self-installation kit. Nice. Got that fixed. As we say good-bye, our HDTV service goes down. Because billing 'switched' what TV had the HD package attached to it. You cannot make this up. For fun ran a speed test (remember, we pay for 50 mb/s): Yep,
 18 or so.

12:30 PM ET -- Our 2nd floor 'small box' is only delivering channels to 29. 30+ read "this is not included in your Comcast subscription.' 25 minutes on the phone with a nice CSR who doesn't know what they heck the previous CSR did. Has to go to another computer to reassign our boxes. Working now.

3:15 PM ET -- Our internet is running right now with no modem errors so we decided to run some tests for a baseline. Wireless (50 ft from modem) speed: 20.86 down, 11.08 up. Wireless from 1 foot away, 14.11 down, 11.01 up. Repeated (computer is next to the modem) 14.81, 11.06. Explain that. Wired ethernet -- 55.50, 11.11. 1 minute MTR (hop loss analysis) from Central - USA and West Coast both fail.

4:16 PM ET -- Both TV boxes are out. Phone call made. By time CSR is on (no, don't want to order the UFC...), service has returned.

4:59 PM ET -- DL speed
 crawling at 13.44, rendering video work almost impossible. Can get 19 (like that's good) from a non-Comcast server in Scranton but Plainfield, NJ Xfinity? 14.52

2/21/14 -- 7:43 AM
 Download 2.5, up 2.2 and now 1.70 down, 2.07 up. Great. And our DSL Reports line monitoring? Latency readings of 1087, 80 and 980 with a 10% packet loss percentage.


Have new ticket opened for service. They're going to finally check the node to the pad. Time Warner customers...this is the incompetency you might have to look forward to. (At least know, the NY Post is still reading this account.)

1:34 -- the always odd
 10 down, 3 up followed by 27 down, 3.5 up. Now that's consistency.

2:42 -- Packet loss is high. Repeat, Comcast packet loss is high.


Before moving on to the NJ Board of Public Utilities, emailing brian_roberts@comcast.com because this can't be the world's best WiFi.


4:00 PM -- Folks are indicating that when we make an outbound call to them, CallerID is reading our town and not our name. Another ticket opened. The CSR we spoke to wanted to refresh the modem. We said no. She added, "I can't even see your modem with my software right now." Sounds legit.

8:00 PM -- Our resolution specialist doesn't seem to take incoming calls. Left messages over the past 2 days. Tonight, for some unexplained reason, she returned the calls - by calling one of our cell phones...not the Comcast main phone line we have so...we didn't get an update.

2/22/14 -- 7:45 AM, download speed of
 3 and upload speed of 4. Monday, Board of Public Utilities complaint will be filed unless we get new communication from Comcast. Also have 2 new media members interested in the story.

We've chronicled our long term issues with Comcast's high speed internet service going out 3-4x per day over the past month here. And as that problem continued and, eventually, effected our phone too - we moved the diary here. Now it's time to start again. No, really -- it is.

50 mbps download package.

2/22/14 -- 4:18 PM ET. Still no call from Comcast as to whether the node has been checked. Speeds right now:
 6 down and 4.35 up (with a 82 ms ping to boot). So we ran a line quality test over at DSL Reports. 75% loss latency 61.1ms



2/23/14 12:00 AM -- DSL Reports indicates Latency ms of 1035 followed by 752.

Before leaving for vacation, Phil Mushnick of the
 NY Post fires a small salvo for us on the matter in his column.

2/24/14 11:25 AM --
 Down 7, up 0.09! Reporting latency ms of 369 and 330.

3:25 PM ET --
 .73 down, .44 up


4:25 PM ET -- Filing letter of complaint with State Sen. Linda Greenstein.

5:00 PM ET -- Phone sound quality has degraded. Then, we lost a dial tone. Power cycled the modem, tone back, sound still poor. Called Customer Service. Got disconnected. Called back. On now. Rep says, "Things don't look good. Need to send some signal to your modem." Boy, we've heard that before. Modem is refreshed, static sound remains. She's going to scheduled someone to come out and check this on Friday. If they show, and we're really not sure we really even want to do this, that would make 4 techs out.
 

2/25/14 -- Filed letter to U.S. Senator Bob Menendez urging him not to support Comcast takeover of Time Warner. Filed letter with our mayor.

8:55 AM ET
 


Followed
 by 3.6 down, 1.2 up. Followed by .92 down, .77 up

9:28 AM ET -- Spent 25 minutes with WiFi support. Tech 'could not see our modem.' Did a reset, again. Back up, now holding for 'Tier 1' support. Audio to follow.

9:55 AM ET -- Tier 1 support gives us a local number to call: 609-655-1300. That number is no longer in service. She says we have an appt Friday with that aforementioned tech again. Asked about our ticket that was to roll the truck to check the node to the pad, she indicates it is closed and we don't have any updated info there on what if anything they found. Despite evidence to the contrary, she denies any problem on Comcast's side. And nobody mentions this:


Or this.


Here is WiFi support this morning, about a month into us losing internet 3-4x per day for 20-45 minutes per day, 'fixing' the problem by having us reset the modem. Wait for the CSR's call back.



10:40 AM ET -- Less than 24 hours after emailing her, Sen. Linda R. Greenstein gave us a call.

4:30 PM -- Supervisor of tech who was out the past 2 times called. Good guys. They'll make a return today with a line technician.
 

7:30 PM -- Another corporate person calls.

2/26/14 -- Started a new smokeping. This doesn't look top notch.


DSL Reports provides what a good smokeping should look like.


In response to a note from the mayor, we've got 3 Comcast trucks outside. During the time they've been outside (9:00 to 9:30 AM) they see no issues and we've maintained avg 20 mbps downs (WiFi) despite the smokeping errors and this:


A tech is going to come back and hook up a 2nd modem in order to do a tracking. Just odd we could fail that badly (above) while they don't see anything.

12:30 PM ET -- The tech, very good by the way, hooked up a 2nd modem. A business class that should pull 110 Mbps for us to switch to if we have our low speed issue. IT, the new faster modem,
 fluctuates lower than our normal one. Call into supervisor. Leaving the modem here for now for use to monitor with.

2/27/14 -- Have had some slow DL speeds, to 9-10 Mbps, but not the low crashing speeds of above.

7:41 AM -- Phone call. No sound upon answering. No dial tone. Three times the phone rang and we couldn't connect with the caller. Called the tech from yesterday via cell phone.

7:51 AM -- Phone back.

9:30 AM -- Tech changed out all visible cable connectors. New dual 2.4/5GHz modem placed alongside our stock modem.

10:51 AM -- Getting 2 modems. One for phone, one for net. Rate codes were also wrong.

11:54 AM -- Tech and I hook up our old Belkin router. Same speeds. Move to within three feet of the modem. Same speeds. In addition to the interconnectivity issues which have no reared their ugly heads in the past day, rock solid WiFi speeds of ... 19Mbps are 30% lower than they should be. And, after 108 Speed wave tests '
COMCAST XFINITY FASTEST IN-HOME WI-FI' -- our averages are 14.09 down, 8.07 up, 22 ms avg ping.

12:22 PM -- Tech is leaving. We now have to call billing because we've had a 'CCOWPS' code (commercial) added to our account due to the modem that was attached yesterday. The modem is gone but they won't remove the code FOR HIM.

12:56 PM -- Unusable internet speeds.
 .73 down, .95 up speeds have been like this for 6 minutes. At 12:58 PM we're back to our normal slow speeds of 20 / 10ish. At exactly the same time, modem log reads "Thu Feb 27 12:56:30 2014 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;" We leave a message with our tech because they are apparently monitoring our line.

2/28/14 -- Our mid grade WiFi speeds of 18-23 have been steady since yesterday. Phone call this morning, recipient could not hear us. We're going to swap in a new phone and see if that helps. Our caller-ID problem continues (recipients see our city instead of our name...meaning they don't often answer.

4:12 PM -- No major outages and no modem errors. Phone: While speaking to folks via XFINITY® Voice from Comcast...sometimes they hear phone key tone sounds. Sometimes we hear it.

3/1/14 -- 1:31 AM Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

7:38 AM
 6 down, 1.4 up. 15 down, 11 up. 17 down, 11 up. 19.52, 10.95.

4:27 PM -- Steady lower than they should be speeds today of 20/11. Charging new phone for hookup tomorrow.

3/2/14 -- Not on much today. Pulled a bunch of errors (below). Installed new telephone. Wait, watch.


Sun Mar 02 06:50:40 2014 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Sun Mar 02 01:07:45 2014 Notice (6) TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Sun Mar 02 01:07:45 2014 Warning (5) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response ;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Sun Mar 02 01:07:36 2014 Notice (6) Overriding MDD IP initialization parameters; IP provisioning mode = IPv4

Sun Mar 02 01:06:49 2014 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;

Sun Mar 02 01:06:31 2014 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Sun Mar 02 01:05:58 2014 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

3/3/14 -- "Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;" with speed of
 .73 down, .04 up. Calling WiFi support. Multiple Speedtest tests result in related unusable speeds.

Support had us wire up directly with an ethernet cable. Fixed nothing. Had us run the test on the Xfinity website, speeds of
 0 up, 0 down. I ask if he sees anything and the answer is 'upstream noise.' Recommends getting a tech. I say good-bye. 


Reset the modem. Error: "Mon Mar 03 07:03:15 2014 Notice (6) TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;" Followed by "Mon Mar 03 07:09:12 2014 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;"

7:13 AM ET we finally are back at our normal bad speed of around 20 Mbps. This weekend we were told 30% loss is expected when taking wired v WiFi speeds. We pay for 50 so 20 is...60% degradation.
 

11:56 AM -- New phone is certainly cleaner but...sounds of key tones heard on our end again, not on this caller's.

3/4/2014 -- 12:51 AM Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Will stop posting recurrent modem logs that are not different at this point. Waiting to hear from Comcast as to what they're going to do next.

6:46 AM -- On phone with Comcast. Unreal. Tech says modem is in timeout.
 Speedtest .54 down, .02 up. Interesting is the code from 12:51 AM is gone but there's a new one from 6:39. Tue Mar 04 06:39:55 2014 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Confirmed via
 Speedtest.Comcast.Net


Tech has us do a full one minute reset. Which means we have to go through all the changes to passwords, etc. Modem back up and we have our normal (not great) speeds of 20/10. Here is what a HSN modem reset looks like:


Tue Mar 04 06:53:25 2014 Error (4) SW upgrade Failed before download -TFTP Max Retry Exceeded

Tue Mar 04 06:52:20 2014 Notice (6) SW Download INIT - Via Config file d11_v_tc8305c_speedtierextreme2_c02.cm

Tue Mar 04 06:51:10 2014 Critical (3) REG RSP not received;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Tue Mar 04 06:51:07 2014 Notice (6) TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=44:32:c8:25:fc:ed;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:24:52:c2;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

'Andrea' remotes in and runs traceroutes, etc. Fine on her end at this point. It is now 7:29 AM. Wait for it - suggestion is ... get a tech out again.

3/5/14 -- 6:30 AM -- Internet is down and WiFi support Sal Sanchez cannot hear us clearly on the phone. 


Sal cannot see our IP address. Refresh signal sent.


Asked to do a full 30 second reset of the modem, we ask not to. Ask Sal to just put the notes in.

Yeah, Catherine Brown. The interconnectivity is really fixed now. And not surprisingly, checking in with DSL reports for the time right before we were online and working - this.




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