I'm a fan of Comcast -- namely their total lack of countermeasures aimed at cable modem modification.

Unlike some of the Cable ISPs in Europe, they don't:

  * Make any attempt to fingerprint / forcibly upgrade your firmware
  * Restrict routing to unauthenticated modem MAC addresses
    * All they do is give you a walledgarden config
    * The MAC address database is global and lock-free
      * The only real authentication is locally in Layer 2
  * Ever change the locations/names of their config files

Hey, I was careful to say that my experience of Comcast has been good, and it is clearly an atypical experience. Still, in the vacuum of my experiences, Comcast has been good.

I have no idea why everyone hates Comcast so much. I've lived in SF for more than three years and had Comcast the whole time. I have had exactly zero issues, from reliability to speed to torrenting to customer service. It could be a bit cheaper and a bit faster, I guess, but I never really think about it, which is 95% of what I want from my internet provider.