I refuse to ever live somewhere Comcast-only.
I’ve had the exact same equipment scam happen. I ended up paying the first time. The second time I had a full video of me walking into the office (because at the time you had to return the equipment to the actual office, couldn’t ship it) and it took only a few months to get resolved.
I don’t think there are many places that aren’t Comcast only. I briefly lived in an area with fiber-to-the-home. It was the same general cost as Comcast, but so much better and the service was rock solid reliable.
They are a national disgrace, especially after all the money put into rural broadband initiatives and fiber optics rollouts somehow managed to produce basically… nothing. But I’m sure they weren’t involved.
And what’s happening is plain as day. Check this quote out:
> Comcast’s lack of broadband growth started last year, when the largest U.S. internet provider reported no additions in the second quarter of 2022 for the first time in the company’s history. Since then, Comcast has reported net broadband losses in three of the last five quarters.
> Comcast executives have pushed investors to focus on broadband’s rising average revenue per user (ARPU) growth, driven by price increases and upselling packages, rather than net additions. Comcast’s residential broadband ARPU rose 3.9% in the quarter.
> “As we continue to manage this balance, we expect ARPU growth to remain strong and our primary driver of broadband revenue growth with somewhat higher subscribers losses expected the fourth quarter compared to the 18,000 loss we just reported in the third quarter,” Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said during the company’s earnings conference call Thursday.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/26/comcast-broadband-worries.ht...
They’re not even interested in expanding broadband footprints anymore, just getting more revenue out of existing customers. And they are completely upfront about it.
Sorry, but I haven’t had one good interaction with this company, and I don’t think I’m alone.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/comcast-is-americas-most-hated-co...
Really? There are entire states (and countries) without a Comcast presence.
> You already knew that home broadband competition is sorely lacking through much of the US, but a new report released today helps shed more light on Americans who have just one choice for high-speed Internet.
> Comcast is the only choice for 30 million Americans when it comes to broadband speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream, the report says. Charter Communications is the only choice for 38 million Americans. Combined, Comcast and Charter offer service in the majority of the US, with almost no overlap.
> Yet many Americans are even worse off, living in areas where DSL is the best option. AT&T, Verizon, and other telcos still provide only sub-broadband speeds over copper wires throughout huge parts of their territories. The telcos have mostly avoided upgrading their copper networks to fiber—except in areas where they face competition from cable companies.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/comca...
Also, “broadband” being 25 mbit is their lobby’s choice and definitely should not be a legitimate threshold in the modern world.
Then add that even though others operate in different regions, they generally do not compete for high speed service or are very poor at delivering it, thereby not actually presenting an alternative even though they “officially” do.
Also, be clear that these two companies, that dominate areas of the US, collude.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/comca...
https://corporate.charter.com/newsroom/comcast-charter-annou...
https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-charter...
> At least 49.7 million Americans only have access to broadband from one of the seven largest cable and telephone companies. In total, at least 83.3 million Americans can only access broadband through a single provider.
> Over the past two years, federal stats suggest that Charter and Comcast have an absolute monopoly over fewer households, but we think this is mostly a mirage resulting from how the FCC reports data. A significant number of the census blocks showing new competition are likely only partially served.
https://ilsr.org/report-most-americans-have-no-real-choice-i...
That’s more accurate but much of the “good data” comes from the providers themselves.
Don’t know why you’ve got such a pro-Comcast / Charter bent, but I assure you they aren’t worth defending.
> Don’t know why you’ve got such a pro-Comcast / Charter bent
Kindly go fuck yourself. Stick to facts without baseless accusations.
Of those 70 so million with fiber available about 30 million actually use it.
The FCC map is not reliable at all. You only see that fiber is not available when you search the address on the ISP website and it returns with the option for DSL. Even in the region I live now, the FCC map says fiber available in most of the city, but in reality, it’s only the newer housing developments. 90% are older homes in developments from a couple decades ago, and they only have coaxial.
The common factor in fiber availability is a housing development built after 2005 or even 2010, or built so long ago that the utilities are overhead and maybe they could string up fiber for a sufficiently low price.
Any home in any development built 1970 to 2010 with underground utilities that did not already have fiber will most likely not have fiber.
Also, any apartment building from before ~2010 will not have Ethernet wired to the apartment, only coaxial wires, and the apartment building owner is not going to wire it up for fiber, even if fiber is run to the building itself.
I would personally never buy a house with comcast only and would likely not without fiber (I currently live in a Uverse/Shitcast ghetto which essentially leaves me with only one option). I sympathize with the shittiness of US broadband but I see no reason to stretch the facts, they suck regardless. And we do not represent the normal customer. In reality wireless options and even comcast are options to people if they compete on price, and fiber does have to compete with those in the real world.
I don’t know why they would lie either, maybe they are using FCC maps since that is the best data they can afford. And given the low rates of new construction, I still doubt the figures, given the economics of a business installing fiber in older neighborhoods with underground utilities.
I would love to be wrong though, as I also nix living in any place only served by coaxial internet.
> In reality wireless options and even comcast are options to people if they compete on price, and fiber does have to compete with those in the real world.
Yes, which is why installing fiber has to be a taxpayer funded effort by the government, because it will never make financial sense for a business to spend all that money to install the infrastructure and have Comcast just lower their prices to below the fiber business’s installation costs.
I took photos of the gear in the UPS store. We worked for a few months with them to try to get it cancelled after that, eventually they said we didn't ship back all the gear, there were 2 wifi boxes we didn't return. We never had Comcast WiFi. We made a couple more back-and-forths saying this, and eventually they relented, but during this time I think we were charged $600-900 bucks (2-3 months of service) that we couldn't use (because we returned the modem) but they wouldn't cancel because we still allegedly had the WiFi gear.
I would love to hear more in details on this. I feel like I am going to have to do something like this but not sure where to begin the research.
I am writing in response to the FCC file received in our office on December 2, 2014 regarding your request for the disconnection of your Comcast Business Service. I apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this has caused.
I have forwarded your concerns to the Business Services Group and you should be contacted by a representative concerning this issue. If you have any further questions, please contact me at ----------, ext. ------- and I will be happy to forward any questions or concerns you have to the correct group. Thank you for your time.