So obvious everyone knows it.
I know everyone who has even heard of Comcast knows that their customer service sucks worse than the service or even the price we have to pay for said service.
Yesterday I was so fed up with the crappy, lagging internet service that I finally decided to write to Comcast directly. Well at least as direct as their webpage allows. I go and fill out the page they have for customer service. I enter in the details about my problem, and then I get into specifics of recent problems. When I go to post, I find out I am nearly 1000 characters over their 1500 limit. So I start looking through what I wrote and what could be cut. I didn't want to cut the specifics, those are proof I need them to fix my service. So first goes the niceties in the letter. I think that brought it down to just 700c over limit. Then went some of the soft wording about the problem. That ended up around 500c over. Then it was down to chopping some specifics. I figured the specifics about the approaching out of spec upstream power was not real necessary, so I chopped it. Finally down to the right size they accept it.
Received my confirmation email from them at 9:08am Thusday. It had the promising phrase, "One of our Comcast customer support representatives will get back to you, likely within just a few hours." I was thinking maybe I could finally get some where. So here it is after 1pm on Friday and I am still without a response.
And just to publicly humiliate the comcast support I have talked to so far, I know what it is I am talking about. I also know that I am using data provided by your service, and while it is less prescise as what you have access to, it still shows a pattern that proves that I am having problems.
Since October 16th when I came home to have now digital cable TV and no internet access either, I decided to write a simple logger script. The script hit the cable modem up for the signal strengths and other stats. and then wrote them to a csv file. I then croned that script up to run every minute on my machine. So I have minute by minute entries of what the signal has been doing. One of the other nice side effects is that the cable modem doesn'trespond to the script if the cable service is down fully.
So, DOCSIS cable modems require a downstream signal strength from -13 dBmV to + 13 dBmV as absolute spec. The acceptable is to get it to read under +- 10 dBmV to allow for some signal strength drift due to changing weather conditions. More ideal is to get closer to 3 dBmV.
As of this writing, I have 82,106 recorded samples.
samplesdBmV readingPercent of samples
502150.6
2753143.4
6394137.8
140651217.1
132871116.2
137931016.8
12203914.9
8599810.5
304373.7
282263.4
161852
137541.7
119231.5
46020.5
12% at 13 dBmV or above.
62% at 10 dBmV or above.
All that just for the downstream.
Upstream isn't supposed to exceed 54 dBmV, and you should shoot for a mid 40 reading so that there is plenty of room to move around if the weather changes. Mine shows almost 25% in each of 51, 52, and 53 dBmV readings. With the remaining in 50, 54, and some even in the 55 readings.
All this points to my service needing a tuneup. So far I can't get Comcast to respond that this is even a valid concern. Even when pointing out service outages that happen as the readings exceeded spec.
I keep offering them access to my csv file as a way for them to verify and correct the problem.
Yesterday I was so fed up with the crappy, lagging internet service that I finally decided to write to Comcast directly. Well at least as direct as their webpage allows. I go and fill out the page they have for customer service. I enter in the details about my problem, and then I get into specifics of recent problems. When I go to post, I find out I am nearly 1000 characters over their 1500 limit. So I start looking through what I wrote and what could be cut. I didn't want to cut the specifics, those are proof I need them to fix my service. So first goes the niceties in the letter. I think that brought it down to just 700c over limit. Then went some of the soft wording about the problem. That ended up around 500c over. Then it was down to chopping some specifics. I figured the specifics about the approaching out of spec upstream power was not real necessary, so I chopped it. Finally down to the right size they accept it.
Received my confirmation email from them at 9:08am Thusday. It had the promising phrase, "One of our Comcast customer support representatives will get back to you, likely within just a few hours." I was thinking maybe I could finally get some where. So here it is after 1pm on Friday and I am still without a response.
And just to publicly humiliate the comcast support I have talked to so far, I know what it is I am talking about. I also know that I am using data provided by your service, and while it is less prescise as what you have access to, it still shows a pattern that proves that I am having problems.
Since October 16th when I came home to have now digital cable TV and no internet access either, I decided to write a simple logger script. The script hit the cable modem up for the signal strengths and other stats. and then wrote them to a csv file. I then croned that script up to run every minute on my machine. So I have minute by minute entries of what the signal has been doing. One of the other nice side effects is that the cable modem doesn'trespond to the script if the cable service is down fully.
So, DOCSIS cable modems require a downstream signal strength from -13 dBmV to + 13 dBmV as absolute spec. The acceptable is to get it to read under +- 10 dBmV to allow for some signal strength drift due to changing weather conditions. More ideal is to get closer to 3 dBmV.
As of this writing, I have 82,106 recorded samples.
samplesdBmV readingPercent of samples
502150.6
2753143.4
6394137.8
140651217.1
132871116.2
137931016.8
12203914.9
8599810.5
304373.7
282263.4
161852
137541.7
119231.5
46020.5
12% at 13 dBmV or above.
62% at 10 dBmV or above.
All that just for the downstream.
Upstream isn't supposed to exceed 54 dBmV, and you should shoot for a mid 40 reading so that there is plenty of room to move around if the weather changes. Mine shows almost 25% in each of 51, 52, and 53 dBmV readings. With the remaining in 50, 54, and some even in the 55 readings.
All this points to my service needing a tuneup. So far I can't get Comcast to respond that this is even a valid concern. Even when pointing out service outages that happen as the readings exceeded spec.
I keep offering them access to my csv file as a way for them to verify and correct the problem.