Comcast: hopefully a trend
I don’t know whether this is an isolated incident that can simply be attributed to luck, or if I’m simply witnessing a slow change in the level of service by the behemoth known as Comcast, but I’m hoping it’s the latter. A few days ago, I noticed a considerable dropoff in my broadband throughput and wasn’t able to figure out the cause. I called Comcast, had a fairly pleasant conversation with a CS tech rep who was able to dispatch a field tech out to me first thing the next morning (not too bad considering I called fairly late in the evening).
Waaaa! Only 3Mb/s?! What is this... DSL?
Now, for those who have had experience with Comcast techs, especially the contractors, you know it’s very hit and miss; usually miss. I’ve dealt with lots of them in various cities, and I was expecting a fairly similar experience, which usually involves some hand-waving and wire-wiggling combined with a BS explanation that doesn’t fix the problem. Well, holy cow, I ran into like the rockstar of techs this morning. Point-by-point, he ran tests on every point of the line, adjusted the signal where necessary to bring it within tolerances, made sure everything was working to spec, and then for good measure he noticed my drop cable from the pole was very old and poorly shielded, so he even ran a new cable to the house. I had been resigned to the reality that I’d probably never be able to get that replaced, but he just shook his head and said, “Why didn’t this get replaced before?” I know, that’s a good question, right?
Eventually, we nailed the cause of the problem, which turned out to be interference on my 802.11n 5ghz wireless band that was killing the throughput beyond 15 or 20 feet from the access point. Ok, so it wasn’t even an issue with the cable. But this guy totally spent a lot of time making sure everything was perfect with the cable regardless. Then for good measure, he left me his direct number and told me not to hesitate to call if I had any other problems. I felt like I was in the twilight zone.
After I complimented him as he was wrapping up for going “above and beyond,” he just shrugged and said, “just doing my job”. While this may be true, it just says something about the other techs and contractors out there, doesn’t it?
After adjusting some properties on my routers I’m happy to report that my download rates are now back to ludicrous speeds:
Back to ludicrous speed
Related posts: