[semi-OT] Review: Comcast Workplace cable Internet

[Jarod Wilson]

On Tuesday 11 September 2007 08:44:55 am Matt Brodeur wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 03:56:25PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote:
> >   We're paying $64/month.  $59/month base, plus $5/month for a static
> > IP address.  (I was told a block of 5 addresses would cost $10/month.)
> >  This is an introductory offer.  After a year, the price is supposed
> > to go up.  Supposedly to $105/month if it happened today.  We'll see.
>
> FWIW, I've had Comcast Workplace Standard w/ 5 Static IPs for just
> over two years.  The cost is now $112.35/month after fees and taxes.
> I have no complaints about that, since my 144k IDSL was $170/month and
> Workplace was closer to $250/month for the first nine months.

I throw out my business fios service details too: 5 static IP addresses, no 
blocked ports, 20Mbps down, 5Mbps up, flat $99/mo, including all fees and 
taxes. Haven't had a single outage in the time I've had the service (getting 
close to a year now, iirc).

> >   There were some one-time costs related to getting a line run on the
> > poles to our facility.  These will not generalize to anyone else's
> > experiences, so I'm not going to post them.
>
> Since it's already being discussed...
> If you're getting a residential install (which really confuses their
> sales and support folks) to a house with existing cable it'll often be
> free.  At the last house we had a relatively new drop from a recent
> (free) video service install.  At this house we only have the
> Workplace service, and they still replaced the ancient drop line for
> free.
> Well, there is that 6-12 month contract thing...

I had zero install costs as well, just that 12mo contract thing.

> >   In short, if you need or want an SLA, Comcast is not the right choice.
>
> Comcast changes thier ToS about every three months as they constantly
> reinvent the service.  My $105 6.0/768 includes the "refund if it
> stops working" SLA.  The catch is that I have to report the outage,
> and I have to actually request the credit.  I keep forgetting the
> second part, so I've missed out on something like $30 in credits.  Oh
> well.

I still don't really know what my SLA is, haven't bothered to really look into 
it. Just haven't had reason to spend the time doing it, too many other things 
going on, and the service has never been down.

> > RELIABILITY
> >
> >   Insufficient data.  We just put the Comcast feed into production for
> > web surfing a few days ago.
>
> As I hinted at above, I've had approximately two full days of total
> outage in two years.  Unfortunately, at least 24 hours of that was in
> one shot.

I haven't even lost my connection when power in the neighborhood goes out.

> At least thier business tech support is better than the residential
> clowns.  When I call to report an outage it's:
> "Did you power cycle the router?"
> "Yes"
> "Hmm... There are currently zero subscribers on your head end.  This
> is our problem.  Here's a ticket number if you need to call back..."

My only knock on Verizon is some of their tech support people. They are still 
quite new to the whole fios thing. That, and for some of them, its apparently 
a hard concept to grasp that I don't have phone service with verizon, and 
that its a *business* package at a residential location. (Though most of this 
confusion was related to my trying to get residential TV service paired with 
my business data service, which ultimately ended up requiring two fibers, so 
they're completely separate from one another).

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com