Anyone had experience with Comcast SMC modem/router?

[Dan Jenkins]

Ben Scott wrote:

> On 1/3/07, Paul Lussier <p.lussier at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> And this is the difference between a "television/cable company" and a
>> "Communications" company.  Not to say that Verizon and that ilk don't
>> have they're own problems, but Comcast still thinks of itself
>> fundamentally as a cable company ... call with a networking problem
>> and they're all but useless.
>
>   I guess Verizon thinks of itself as a "extorting money from the
> consumer" company.
>
>  I've dealt with Verizon, with networking problems, and they're all
> but useless, too.  Unless it involves bringing 48 volts along a wire,
> they're incompetent.  And if it does involve 48 volts, they're merely
> adequate.

I've dealt with both Verizon and Comcast many times over the years. For 
installation or support, they've each varied from barely adequate to 
ludricous. Good, let alone excellent, simply doesn't come into play - 
even in their own domains.

Ob story in the ludricrous class:

Comcast came to install cable and Internet service to a friends place. 
The cable guy found the cable had not been run from the street to the 
building. He didn't know how to do that. So, my friend climbed the pole 
and pulled the cable for him. When he went to get the cable modem and 
network card from his van, he couldn't open the door. My friend helped 
him open it, whereupon a cascade of loose network cards and cable modems 
smashed onto the pavement. (Several of the network cards had been 
crushed in the door track.) I can't say it got worse from there, but it 
didn't get much better.

When we moved into our new building, Verizon cross-connected one of our 
lines with an elderly lady in the neighborhood - who was understandably 
flustered to receive computer technical support calls in the middle of 
the night. Fine, mistakes happen; it's how you solve those problems that 
matters most. Verizon claimed that someone (the little, old lady or us) 
had climbed the pole and rewired the connections and they would charge 
$1500 to fix them. They eventually solved the problem - after a year - 
at no cost.

The Comcast service has been exemplary though, as long as we haven't 
needed to call them. We finally replaced all our Verizon lines with 
Vonage, as Vonage had far better sound quality and reliability than 
Verizon's voice wires could provide (at less cost).

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support Excellence for over a Quarter Century