Putting Comcast on Notice
photo credit: stephen.hackett
For the last few days around 10:00pm till sometime during the next day my internet connection is down. At first I thought it might be a fluke and reset the modem and it still wouldn’t work, well this Friday it wouldn’t come back on at all. I decided to get of the computer and give Comcast an ear full.
I call them up and am prompted with the worst automated system second only to Bank of America. After finally getting a human turns out it’s a sales rep who cant help me with anything technical nor can he transfer me to the tech dept. How utterly useless. I call back a few minutes later and get a tech rep on the line, and immediately ask for an appointment for someone to come out and check the line, (since I have already done the standard reset procedures as well as release/renew on my IP). Of course they don’t have an appointment on the weekend, so I ask for the earliest one on Monday.
I call back this Saturday and to confirm, and they tell me that my appt is on Tuesday. Um… what the heck? So I decide to give them a chance and troubleshoot over the phone, after 30 minutes of getting nowhere, they rep on the phone found out that a slot was available today at 2. Perfect! The tech will come and fix the issue! Too bad this isn’t a perfect world.
The tech shows up on time, which was great however he turned out to be the most condescending and unhelpful person I’ve ever met. When I would ask him any sort of questions, he would reply in a sarcastic and mocking manner. He fiddled around a bit as if he didn’t care or they weren’t paying him to be here.
Finally got up and went out and brought his “test” modem in. it looked like a new model, and he plugs it in and some of the lights start blinking and gets this “WooHooo! I’m a genius” look on his face, soon to be replaced by this “crap… I look like an idiot” face.
Obviously his test modem did very little. He decides it must be the line in the backyard, he’s gone for about 10 minutes, come back and says he fixed the filter out back, so I’m thinking… uh ok sure maybe that was it. At this point the unhelpful tech hooks up my original modem to my Mac and I have an IP address, hooray! So he was good for something. I’m online. Awesome. Well what about my other PCs and my router, well turns out he cant help me with that. I plug the modem into my PC and I get an IP but I still cannot get online. I ask him about this and says well maybe its your PC or your wire. My wire? O RLY? Ok we’ll use the wire that was working for the Mac on the PC. Oh guess what… still not working.
If it’s not the wire than what is it? His response is simply… you saw it working on you’re laptop… I’m done. And in 5 seconds he is downstairs and out the door. As he is leaving he says try restarting your computer… I wanted to hurl the Comcast modem at him.
I call up Comcast again to let them hear my thoughts about the condescending tech with the 7th grade education… well they cant help me on Saturdays… are you serious? Ok fine… then at least troubleshoot my modem, 30 minutes later… they still can’t figure out what it is, and am forced to I schedule another appointment.
Something crazy was going on. For those of you that know me, I’m pretty tech savvy and know what the heck I’m talking about. However I couldn’t put my finger on it. Why would it only work on the Mac. (And don’t give me that, Mac > PC) crap because after resetting the modem, the Mac wouldn’t get online either. So I start fiddling around and I push the “reset” switch on the back of the modem and connect it straight to my brothers PC laptop. Instantly he is online. What the heck? Ok… well know let me plug it back in to the router, and see if the rest of the computers can connect. Crap. Still not working. Ok now I’m slightly confused. Each time I reset the router and plug it in… only the first machine works, and usually its my Mac that works because it’s the one I’m testing wired/wireless on.
Well after messing around and trying different things, we (my brother and I) determine that the ridiculous Comcast modem (model: DPC2100R2) is caching the MAC address of the first machine you plug in. This happened to be my MacBook Pro.
Solution:
Well this problem was only solvable by cloning the MAC address of my MBP to my router. Making the modem think that it is still talking to my MBP.
Once we cloned the MAC address the router got an IP and we were on our way.
<sarcasm>Thank you Comcast for educating your techs on how to solve this issue with your craptacular equipment. </sarcasm>
</rant>
Heh, for the record they’ve been doing this for at least 4 years (well, Time Warner was, so now Comcast), so that makes it even worse that the tech had no clue what was going on.
On behalf of Comcast, I would like to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
I would like to learn more about your experience so that we may prevent any recurrence in the future. If it is not so much of a trouble, will you please contact me so that I could get your information?
Thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Mark C.
Comcast Executive Offices
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
The sad thing is, we don’t have much of a choice when it comes to getting broadband. It’s either cable or DSL and the services they provide are in general horrendous. To be fair, they do one thing very well, taking money out of my bank account every month.
I wish I had your simple resolution….I am on tech number 5. They state that they have a policy that after 3 techs in 30 days the issue will need to be bumped to a super tech or supervisor. Unfortunately the supervisors do not want to face me. Let’s just say that we have on average 125 modem resets over a 4 day period. They tell me that this is not normal…but do not know how to fix it.
Oh….and get this…they charged us on two of those visits they charged us a $19.95 service fee each. It took an act of Congress to get those reversed.
I share in your frustrations.
I’m stuck with craptacular comcast and to make it worse, a father who still uses early 90’s computer security tricks and knowledge. I’ve found the only way to deal with the issue is to get a wireless router that allows for a LAN connection to any necessary computers.
I have the same issue, comcast has a static entry in their dhcp server for the mac (media access control) address of my laptop and they refuse to acknowledge it. The only way I can get my lan connected is by cloning the MAC address of my laptop onto the router, which breaks other software I run on my lan (2 identical MAC addresses on same ethernet). These Communistcast idiots that answer the phone know nothing about networking so they’re 100% useless.
What the fuck comcast have to do with YOUR equipment! It’s like demanding from BMW that they fit in there your grandma’s rocking chair because that’s what you want it.
They’re only responsible for good signal to your modem and the rest is up to you!
Yes, I used to be tech for a subcontractor for comcast and assholes like you made my life impossible, because fucknuts like you, would expect that I’m supposed to sit there and resolve every issue that there is with their computer including virus removal!!!
Even before I was a tech I knew you have to fucking restart cable modem every time you switch your computer
What a retard assfuck you are! Learn something about computers yourself before you start blaming others!
First of all the modem doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to Comcast. The fact that they have it set to save the MAC address of the first device you plug in and you can’t clear it until you do a RESET (not a restart) that isn’t my fault. If you read the entire posting you’ll see that I “restarted” their modem plenty of times to get a proper signal. What angered me more is the lack of service from their tech that came to my house to fix the issue with their modem. I’m sorry you hated your job at Comcast. Dealing with the tech that came to my house and after reading your response I’m pretty sure Comcast does hire people with only a 7th grade education… But hey job security right? A modem should never save the MAC address of your device. It will result in complications when you plug-in a different device. As a tech you should know/understand that.
But hey… Thanks for the input.
The more I think about your retardation, the more it boils my blood. You’re the type of shit nugget that will call 911 because you didn’t get your pickles on your hamburger, aren’t you?
Let me ask you something. How many different models of routers is there? A 100? 200? 1000? 2000? So now you expect that that tech supposed to know configuration of every router of every model!? You fucking shithead, it didn’t occur to you that your model is not the only model in use, did it? What if you purchased brand new top of the line router that just came out previous day? Would you expect the tech to be aware of it and configure it?
Wrong! You motherfucker! This is what I would do, I’d come to your house unplug your shitty router plug in the modem directly to any of your computers, restart the modem, and if I’d get internet, just like that other tech I’d walk out of your piece of smelly shit person. Next time READ THE FUCKING ROUTER MANUAL! or call fucking tech support of the router they will tell you to CLONE THE FUCKING MAC ADDRESS.
Fucking asshole. Fuck you and every person that agrees with you!
Wow you’re getting pretty angry over something that has nothing to do with you. Who said anything about a router? The modem model is mentioned in the posting. Aldo I called and spoke to several techs and none of them could determine the problem. And the field tech had no clue either.
Yes I expect Comcast to train their techs with various equipment not just their own.
Personally I don’t like pickels. Seriously. Thanks for the input.
Your post just fixed my problem. Sure enough connecting to the Comcast modem directly from the computer so it picks up an ip. Then cloning the MAC on the computer that connected to your Router, then connecting the router to the Comcast modem and refresh the DHCP works. Just got off the phone with a tech who told me he was in “advanced” tech support at Comcast and that he thought to fix the problem that I should clone the DHCP IP Address Lease. UH……….. Yeah. And I hung up at that point. Customer Service is dead, and Tech Support no longer has technical skills.
Also, a couple posts up. Pretty shameful talk. You are an embarrassment. A sure sign of intelligence is the number of F bombs you have to drop to try to prove a point. Clean it up.
Thanks Zelf. Glad it worked out for you.
Thanks a bunch for posting this. I believe this may have solved my problem too. I wont’ know until I can try it once I get home, but at least it explains to me why nothing was working on any computer except the one that the install tech had set their equipment up for.
Unfortunately, I know I did try to reset the modem, but I’ll try once again, in case I had accidentally done it while the computer wasn’t connected.
In response to “omg you are the biggest retard” and “Comcast Rep” who posted earlier in this post
The biggest issue with your tech people is that they know absolutely nothing about “tech”. You sub-contract out these low-life people who can’t even pass their Cisco tests. I admit, there may be some comcast techs who are actually worth a damn, but I haven’t met one in Chicago.
The experiences I have had required me to switch all my services to AT&T because I was so disgusted with service. The sub-contracted company has asked for gas money after being 2 hours late, I’ve had numerous issues with packet loss even after checking my own lines and the tech “checked the lines”. The more people hate comcast the worse they do, you’d seem to think it would be the other way around.
Don’t give me your words of disrespect either, it is rather funny how the “comast tech” above posted all of the profanity, it just shows his true IQ level.
In conclusion, I can actually label myself a tech due to the certifications I’ve received from Cisco.
I have to say that the technician from comcast is a retard. Im a technician in Arizona for Cox, sub also, and we do not treat our customers like that down here. You do tend to get the asshole customers, but as a tech you learn to deal with it. Also with that he should have never left without it working properly. It does not matter what modem or router you have they all work the same. Im sorry you all have to put up with techs like this guy.
I’ve had the same issue a few months back, except it wasn’t just my internet but everything on the line in general. I had four different technicians come out to fix the issue. After the fourth person the issue was still not resolved and they sent out a “Supervisor Technicians” as what the phone rep clearly stated. Well being that I manage three apartment buildings I found that they did not send out a “super technician” it was just a normal Comcast technician that just played with the line and saw that the last four technicians either never checked the box or never hooked up my service in the box located in the basement. And they kept asking me why I wanted to cancel my service… Go figure!
I have to jumpstart my router. Cloning the computers nic to the router alone doesn’t get me online. If I hook the computer to the modem, get a comcast ip# unplug the computers e-cable from the modem then hook the cloned router to the modem and the computer back to the router. The router will then perform at least until lease renewal or power loss. At which time I have to jumpstart again. PITA . Comcast says router isn’t supported, but they also said that about my modem ( not a comcast modem). Still working on finding the correct and complete solution that doesn’t involve cable swaps.
Well I am sorry you had these problems. The solution is to plug the router into the cable modem and reset the cable modem. This way the cable modem uses the mac address of the router. Then the router (using DHCP) will give out the local addresses for all your other computers. If that doesn’t work then something is wrong in the router settings. Reset the router (they all default to working settings) You will, of course, lose all those tables for your firewall. ***NEVER PLUG A COMPUTER DIRECTLY INTO A CABLE MODEM*** It takes seconds to get hacked.
My Comcast service came with directions to plug cable from modem into my mac. Where do I get info on what to do to avoid directly plugging computer into cable modem? I would love to plug my pc laptop into Comcast line, but fear it will take days (and blood pressure points) to get it working again. I understand Comcast only wants you to use 1 computer per cable modem….
And I am trying to learn about computers, but until I get there, I have to rely on the help of people who know more than I do.
I just went through a similar situation with my setup. Everything was working fine until yesterday when my internet connection was lost. Thankfully, I didn’t have to mess with puffed-up Comcast techs since I found a few wonderful posts like this one. Thanks for the info!
I have to say, I did try calling Comcast when I first discovered my internet connection was down. If you go through the prompts that deal with your internet connection, you’re forced to listen to a recording that walks you through the typical steps of unplugging/rebooting everything. What a hassle! To add insult to injury, after I suffered through all of that I was told that my call could not be taken and to go to comcast.net for more information! Thanks for the ridiculous recommendation, Comcast, considering I called because I can’t get online.
coldinnh You need to go get a router. Then you will be able to plug in 4 computers and have a hardware firewall.