I just wrote a post about my terrible experience with a comcast chat representative.  Comcast responded quickly with something that looked like a generic script response:

Hello there! Sorry for the experience. I work for Comcast and I’d like to look into your experience so that it can be addressed. If you don’t mind, will you please contact me with your information?

Thanks,

Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations
[REDACTED EMAIL]

Mark and Team,

You requested, through my blog, that I give you my information so that you could look into my problem.  Here’s my relevant information:

Ben Holt

[REDACTED ADDRESS]

Just signed up for 12 Mbit service.  Speedtest.net showed 4 Mbit service with an Xmission server.  I chatted with Jan Albert on your chat room (after using your telephone reboot prompt).  Jan “optimized” my connection and requested that I reboot the modem, router and computer.  After the reboot, my router was blacklisted.

I have since regained service by providing another MAC address.

I did some more tests this morning after I wrote the blog post.  As it turns out, if I use the Orem, UT (Fibrenet) speedtest.net server – I do get the speed I requested.  It appears that Xmission (Salt Lake City) was the bottleneck.

As for a resolution, I’m not sure what to say.  My mother always told me to apologize, look the other person in the eye and tell them that it would not happen again.  Although I’ve never received an apology from your corporation and especially your CSR’s, I’m not sure I’d believe it.  There just seems to be too much distance between those that appear to care (your section) and those on the front lines (your contractors and CSR’s).  I’m not sure your goals are even on the same playing field.  The only thing that has been easy in our relationship has been giving you money, placing my initial order (the fulfillment was a mess), and keeping the status quo (for the most part).

I guess a start would be to explain what the CSR did behind the scenes, including “optimizing” my connection and why my router was banned.  It would even be interesting to me to know what information and notes are on my account / stored about me.

Thanks,

—-====Ben Holt====—-

[REDACTED EMAIL]

www.doodgical.com

I’ll keep you updated with their response when I hear back from them.

–Ben

Sources:  Doodgical

UPDATE 6/3/2010:  I was really mad when I wrote this post.  However, since everyone has bad days – and since a comcast level one tech has looked into the records – I’m going to remove the CSR’s name.  Comcast didn’t ask me to remove the name, but I decided that I wasn’t after a personal shaming.  We all mess up.

I’ve organized this post into the fix and the rant.  As the fix is more important, I list it first.

FIX:

Problem:  Comcast was adjusting my speed because I requested an upgrade to 6-12 Megabit speeds.  I admitted having a router.  The chat representative ([REDACTED] – You’ve been warned of the name), requested that I power cycle my equipment including my computer and gave me a link to get back to chat with her.  I power cycle all my equipment and I can’t get back on the internet.  Guess that link she gave me isn’t going to be useful.

Fix:  Pick another computer on the network and log into the router.  Tell the router to use the MAC address of that computer.

Why:  She banned my MAC address of my router.  I could plug in with another computer directly into the modem, but my router MAC address (which was spoofing another computer’s address) had been banned.  She didn’t want me back on the internet.  You would think that a comcast representative would just have the decency to say that they don’t support the router and that they would wait for me to plug in directly or not help.  But a ban without telling me?  That’s just mean, shady and angers me.  When there’s a viable alternative, consider me gone – comcast.

RANT: I hate comcast.  Everytime I deal with them, I feel like they are sneaking around.  This time, I’m angry.  Unfortunately, they are less incompetent than our DSL line provider worse (Qwest).  So which is worse?

1. Being lied to or told half-truths, but being able to circumvent their stupidity because I have enough technical knowledge to figure out what they’ve done? (Comcast)
2. Being unable to access the internet because they’ve screwed something up on their part of my line, but they’re honest with me?  (Qwest)

I guess I’ll take option 1 and hate it.  I believe in honesty, but it doesn’t get the job done to admit the job is not done.  On the other hand, I hate giving business to someone who doesn’t do business in a straightforward fashion.  I can’t wait for Utopia (the new fiber provider) to reach me.  Then goodbye comcast.

–Ben

Sources:  Assinine Comcast Chatroom Help

There was a local business magazine that was slightly edgy and pretty fun, while providing useful information. It was called Connect Magazine. Connect magazine decided to gather the best of the local bloggers and aggregate them into one big feed on their website. Not only did it give a decent place to read about local and national issues, it gave many blogs (including this one) the push it needed to grow into decent traffic. After all, people just need to discover good content to want to come back to it.

It appears that connectblogs is off the radar for good.  Thank you Connect Magazine.  You put some great Utah bloggers on the map.

–Ben

Sources:  Broken Links and a Parked Page

Chrome is my default browser.  Its fast and in version 5, it just got faster.  It’s clean, secure and friendly.

Google apparently has a team that got bored and wanted to blow many thousands of dollars to show that Chrome was fast.  I suppose they want us all to purchase their FREE browser.  Yeah, lots of money spent to show that a free browser is really fast.  I’m scratching my head and wondering why.  I dunno.  Meanwhile I’ll go check my FREE gmail and ask a few of my friends through google buzz.

Google Chrome Speed Videos:

Google Chrome Making of Video:

Awesome

–Ben

Sources:  Computerworld, Chrome

UPDATE 5/21/2010: I apparently didn’t look too hard.  Its not a link – its a button, where the I’m feeling lucky button normally resides.

If you’re not living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed google’s banner.  If you wait long enough, it will load and become a playable game.  I’m told that if you click on the insert coin link (which I haven’t seen) twice, you can control a second player with “wasd” keys.

Google – You Rock.  Screenshot below.

–Ben

Source:  Google