Yesterday I endured yet another Comcast internet outage. I pay an outrageous amount of money to Comcast for “business” internet service. It… works. Most of the time. But in spite of the high price, it is the second worst internet service I’ve ever had. (Number one was also Comcast.)
From blatant, deliberate violation of California’s net neutrality law to deceptive billing to poor speeds to frequent unscheduled and unacknowledged outages to extended outages scheduled during business hours, this service is not fit for purpose.
Yesterday’s outage was presaged by a letter telling us how grateful we should be for the outage. By shutting off the service, they assert, they’re making it even better. Yeah, right. But, of course, now that it’s back on, everything is still the same. These extended planned outages have been happening every few weeks, filled with pure marketing bullshit like “10G”. (“In October 2023, the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Better Business Bureau ruled that it considered Comcast’s use of 10G to be false or misleading, as it constituted an express claim that Comcast was using a tenth-generation network or was promising 10 Gbit/s speeds to all customers.“)
This is on top of shorter outages that occur more than once a week. The service supposedly has cellular backup but that has never worked. At all. Of course, Comcast has a monopoly in this area so they don’t have to care. And believe me, they don’t.
I have Starlink to use as a backup, but (like 5G cellular service) it isn’t suitable for hosting servers. The island home has gigabit fiber: five times the speed of this Comcast crap for 1/5 the price (a 25x improvement!). Even though it’s a bit precarious because I’m at the end of six miles of fiber, it will be a relief.
—2p