Comcast changing Service Tiers???

[Krazy4Real]

I just got off the phone with Comcast. About a month ago there was an outage in my area. I was down for 3 days. Since it's been back up I've been getting 90k / 4M instead of the usual 768k / 6M. Not to mention my ping times are now over 200 ms instead the 15 to 20 ms they were before. I lived like this for about a month and now I just got fed up with it anc called to complain. The day I call to complain there's a note about another outage in my area. I'm still able to get on the internet though so I don't know if it was legit or not. But they couldn't schedule a tech to come out and take a look because of that note in their system. Then the lady I'm talking to mentions that about a week or two ago they announced that their service tiers will be changing. This is the first I've heard of it. Apparently it's going to be 384k / 4M, 384k / 6M, and 768k / 8M. I was like WTF am I going to lose half my upload speed then? I'm paying for supposedly the "gold" package! She says that yea and to continue to maintain the higher upload I'm going to have to go to the next tier which is $20 more a month on top of the $53 I pay already. I really hope she just didn't know what she was talking about, and she's completely wrong or else I'm going to be royally pissed. She said she's not sure when it's going to take effect but she said "soon". Anyone else hear of this???

Sorry for the rant.

cliffs:
internet went down a month ago
sucked ever since it came back up
called to complain
get told my upload speed is going to be chopped in half soon
WTF!

 

[razor2025]

ahh... get a new ISP?

 

[Schadenfroh]

What area of the nation do you live in? Something similar to this happened to me (mississippi gulf coast)

 

[keldysh]

Cable company are worst!

They change CONFIG file sent to modem, charge more (rape?) for something that cost them NOTHING and ADVERTISE they are UPGRADE and IMPROVE (non) SERVICE!

What a crock-o-shoit theyare! So you have higher limit from modem and already overload network make NO DIFFERENCE to user UNLESS you lucky SOB in boony with cable modem with six farmer john on node get full tier speed up and down!

 

[Krazy4Real]

I live in Chicago. I am considering changing to dsl. I just need to get service with a high upload speed. I do a lot of file uploading to websites and remote connections run really nice with the added upload speed. Why can't FIOS be in my area?!

 

[Dulanic]

Originally posted by: Krazy4Real
I live in Chicago. I am considering changing to dsl. I just need to get service with a high upload speed. I do a lot of file uploading to websites and remote connections run really nice with the added upload speed. Why can't FIOS be in my area?!

SBC has a higher upload then comcast except possibly their top teir atleast here in Chicago area. I have their 3MB/512k package.

 

[Krazy4Real]

Originally posted by: Dulanic

Originally posted by: Krazy4Real
I live in Chicago. I am considering changing to dsl. I just need to get service with a high upload speed. I do a lot of file uploading to websites and remote connections run really nice with the added upload speed. Why can't FIOS be in my area?!

SBC has a higher upload then comcast except possibly their top teir atleast here in Chicago area. I have their 3MB/512k package.

That's cool. What's the price and how's the service? I have comcast's 6MB/768K package, and I pay about $53. I was grandfathered in from the early days of excite @home. I'd be looking for similar pricing for similar speeds if possible. I've been extremely happy with comcast for years, it's just this past month that has had me thinking.

 

[Dulanic]

Originally posted by: Krazy4Real

Originally posted by: Dulanic

Originally posted by: Krazy4Real
I live in Chicago. I am considering changing to dsl. I just need to get service with a high upload speed. I do a lot of file uploading to websites and remote connections run really nice with the added upload speed. Why can't FIOS be in my area?!

SBC has a higher upload then comcast except possibly their top teir atleast here in Chicago area. I have their 3MB/512k package.

That's cool. What's the price and how's the service? I have comcast's 6MB/768K package, and I pay about $53. I was grandfathered in from the early days of excite @home. I'd be looking for similar pricing for similar speeds if possible. I've been extremely happy with comcast for years, it's just this past month that has had me thinking.

Well I used to have SBC at 6Mb/608 but they never officially had that package, and its gone now. But I didnt need the 6Mb honestly and it ran me $45. So I went down to the 3Mb/512 and it costs $25 a month. As for reliability, Ive yet to have a more reliable service, it has gone down once in 2 years that I have seen. And that was for mantience at like 2AM.

Overall I doubt youll beat Comcast 6Mb/768 package. Thats about the fastest avail around here, but I did wish SBC would offer the 6/768 package, they have the capability to offer it, but dont. I think they would get alot of buisness if they offered that speed at $40-45 a month.

 

[Vette73]

Well the SC just ruled that the cable companies DON'T have to share their lines now. So now there is even less competition, so now rates will start to go up.

I have earthlink over time warners lines and whonder how long before my rates go up and/or earthlink is shown the door and I have to use road runner.

 

[Dulanic]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Well the SC just ruled that the cable companies DON'T have to share their lines now. So now there is even less competition, so now rates will start to go up.

I have earthlink over time warners lines and whonder how long before my rates go up and/or earthlink is shown the door and I have to use road runner.

Well that sucks, I hadnt heard that. As if Comcast wasnt expensive enough.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Dulanic

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Well the SC just ruled that the cable companies DON'T have to share their lines now. So now there is even less competition, so now rates will start to go up.

I have earthlink over time warners lines and whonder how long before my rates go up and/or earthlink is shown the door and I have to use road runner.

Well that sucks, I hadnt heard that. As if Comcast wasnt expensive enough.

Yep. Here ya go...

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/27/technology/broadband_ruling/index.htm?cnn=yes


So now they can kick earthlink and other providers off their lines and raise rates.

 

[Dulanic]

Doesnt seem fair to me, force phone companies to do it, but not cable companies?

 

[thomsbrain]

the word is they will *supposedly* grandfather old 6/768 accounts.

also, if you have basic cable: 8 Mbps/768kbps will cost $52.95 a month. So you will get 2 more mbps download free for your $52.95 that you are already paying.

basically, no matter what your tier, if you have basic cable, you are getting faster speeds for the same price. if you don't have basic cable, i guess prices may go up, but i don't know what the previous prices were for those.

 

[feelingshorter]

verizon is REALLY GOOD in some areas (i cannot say all but its probably all) , they got a CRAZY 100 kilobytes, i do not know how that translate to kilobit but basicly my comcast lets you upload 40kb/s so..there you have it, i hope my comcast upload doesnt get cut.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Comcast is fine here....

 

[Krazy4Real]

I just connected to my home computer and did a speed test. I'm back up to 700kb/4.5mb with ping times in the 50ms range. That's the best it's been all month. Hopefully it'll only get better and back to what it originally was. I just hope I do infact get "grandfathered" for my current rate and speed if they do in fact change pricing and speeds.

 

[JasonK]

Copy Paste from dslreports, Here are the new plans to be rolled out thro the summer

New Service/Price Chart
With these new speed offerings, Comcast will be offering the High-Speed Internet at the following tiers of service.

If you currently do not subscribe to any Comcast Cable TV or Comcast Phone services, you will have the following options for HSI available to you:

(Mbps) (kbps) Price

4 384 $57.95

6 384 $67.95

8 768 $77.95

If you currently subscribe only to Comcast Limited Basic Cable TV service; Comcast Digital Voice; or Comcast Digital Phone, the following HSI options are available to you:


(Mbps) (kbps) Price

4 384 $42.95

6 384 $52.95

8 768 $62.95

If you currently subscribe to at least Comcast Expanded Basic Cable TV service or above, the following HSI options are available toyou:

(Mbps) (kbps) Price

6 384 $42.95

8 768 $52.95

Roll-out Schedule
At this time, the following markets are the only markets that have officially been confirmed to have the new speeds shown above. If your market is not in this list, please continue to check back in this thread periodically to check for updates.

MA - all of MA
ME - all of ME
NH - all of NH

 

[GTaudiophile]

Damn. I currently pay like $53/month for the 6/768 plan. And I like my current upload speed, so I'd have to spend $10/month to keep it.

:|

 

[Krazy4Real]

Thanks for the info Jason. I guess I'll just need to keep tabs on it to see when it's coming to chicago.