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Comcast Customer Service Rep Just Won't Take No For an Answer
RevWaldo writes: The Verge and other sources report on how AOL's Ryan Block ultimately succeeded in cancelling his Comcast account over the phone, but not before the customer service representative pressed him for eight solid minutes (audio) to explain his reasoning for leaving "the number one provider of TV and internet service in the country" in a manner that would cause a character in Glengarry Glen Ross to blush. Comcast has now issued an apology.
That's probably what they meant...
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What is this, backwards day?
Probably something like "as you wait for confirmation that the service has been terminated, continue your attempts to save the customer". With no consideration given to the fact that it takes 8 fucking minutes.
How much do guys in Glengarry Glen Ross blush?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
where else can you get hundreds of channels of TV i hate and crappy internet for one low price of $200 a month?
what else would i do if i didn't have 400 channels of TV? how else would i watch commercials?
Comcast simply will not accept being second place in the competition for the worst company in existence.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
don't understand why this is not more widely understood.
Someone astutely put it somewhere else that a cancelation is probably a "failed customer problem resolution" and negatively impacts a performance review or bonus consideration.
They're only sorry they got caught.
As for instructing the bot to personally apologize, that wouldn't cut it with me. If a rep were to call me after I just got through firing his company. He will never get a chance to apologize. And yes my coworkers have heard me do things like that to other reps who have called after their companies were fired.
I mean granted, maybe some people here can tell me how a single family home can use that much bandwidth (downloading several dozen torrents simultaneously?), but my family doesn't even use half of our 30 Megabit/second bandwidth.
Two words: Minecraft Server.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
They've done this to me. They interurpt you, they refuse to let you speak until you scream. They just keep talking. They make excuses, they contradict themselves. They are just unbelievable.
This recording is a great example of how Comcast representives are trained to talk you. Obviously, a monopolist can just abuse you and treat you any way they want.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
I listened to this earlier today. I had to stop listening after about a minute because just listening to it made me angry enough to want to break things and kill people (not exaggerating).
Had I been the caller, I'd have been frothing at the mouth at this jackass. Or I'd have hung up before I threw the phone, and called back to talk to someone else.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Exactly like the slimeball "sales manager" at a car dealership who tries to sell you the extended warranty and other overpriced crap after you've agreed to a price. He demands that you justify your refusal, because he knows that if he can get you on the defensive, he can bully you into submission.
I once tore up a negotiated deal in front of one of those. That wouldn't work in this case, because this customer was already cancelling service, but it might be fun to say "Why I'm cancelling is none of your damned business. I will pay no more bills. Remember when your robot told me this call would be recorded?"
marketing gimmick for nerds to think they have a big penis
just like giant SUV's, graphics cards that give you 10,000 FPS in some game, etc
i was visiting some family with comcast and netflix on their 5mbps service was better than my 20/2 time warner at home. same with youtube. and same result with other family i have with cablevision.
comcast has a direct connection to netflix and is youtube HD certified. cablevision has open connect. having an ISP that links directly to your content will give you better results than some number that only works on speedtest.net no matter what the network neutrality morons will say
i like sports too, but hate ESPN since it's mostly college sports which i don't follow
but the NY Yankees and Mets suck this year. the knicks will suck for years to come. Nets are so so. same with the Giants.
only reason i'm paying is i'm on a bundle and i ran the numbers and it's cheaper than buying a la carte cartoons for my kids that netflix doesn't have
...and a free month of service. Just call to cancel if you don't wish to continue.
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -George W. Bush
Where is my apology and when is comcast going to re-sod my lawn?
You don't have to 'explain' a goddamn thing to them or anyone else, and you damn well TELL them that. You are paying them, not the other way around, and if you want to cancel your service with them or anyone else for that matter, it's not their place to badger you or bully you. Being asked, once, politely, why you're unhappy enough to cancel is one thing, but if you don't wish to explain why then they MUST accept that. Arguing, bullying, badgering, or any other hard-sell tactics, is just plain bullshit. Anyone gives you that kind of guff? You tell them you want to speak to their supervisor, RIGHT NOW, and YOU don't take 'no' for an answer, either. Their supervisor is being a hardass about it, too? Go over their head. And so on. The only way you get shithead companies like Comcast to knock it off is to not sit back and take shit from them.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I had little or no problem cancelling Comcast recently when I moved. I used the phrase "moving out of the Comcast service area" when they asked why I was cancelling, and they put it right through. Had a little more trouble returning their boxes, however.
Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
Netflix Ultra HD requires 25 Mbps per stream. Also that 105 Mbps is basically the connection between his house and the ISP. The actual speeds you will get depends on where the data is, and the peering agreements, Netflix's of-quoted data on comcast before and after their deal is itself good example
Normally threatening to cancel always results in a lower bill, but man, after hearing that, I should be able to really get a low rate! All the reps probably have a quota per day of how many people they can turn around from wanting to cancel. We can use that to our advantage!
Does anyone else remember the AOL Cancellation video from years ago? I just now noticed that it was an AOL person trying to cancel their account. COMEUPPANCE.
It's not about average usage, it's about instantaneous usage. Most of the time my connection is pretty idle, but when I want to download something big (e.g. multiple gigs) I don't really want to wait around for it. That's what I'm paying for - not having to wait.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
You don't know how he uses it or what his income is or if he's even paying for it (work might reimburse it) so how could you possibly know if it's a waste of money. Maybe he needs to download gigs of data for work... Also download speed isn't the only aspect of a connection, perhaps they wanted higher upstream bandwidth or lower latency.
I would have just said "Look, you know that I want to terminate my contract, so if you keep going this way, I'm gonna end this discussion and just not pay your company's bills anymore. Is that really the way you want this to go, or can we do this properly?".
this customer service rep, I would eat my hat! :)
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and are contacting him to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives. We are investigating this situation and will take quick action. While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect.
If you read this carefully, they aren't sorry for the content, merely the delivery.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
In an area with good over the air reception the signal is not compressed heavily as it is over cable. Here, Comcast is the worst, followed by the satellite services. FIOS has the least compression but I still see it on some fast moving stuff.
Over the air can be as good (to me) as BluRay.
I think he means that Over the air (OTA) broadcast is a pure uncompressed signal of HDTV 1080i quality. The cable company has to compress the signal to get so many channels to get to the subscriber. Some feel there is a loss in quality vs OTA but depending on who you talk to it's not something people will notice.
Companies don't want to hear this, but that's just the way it is. People are lazy. They don't go around and call you to fake-cancel their accounts hoping to get a better rate. The few that do are well known and blacklisted. So when a long time customer calls you and cancels, you might want to test the waters and ask for a reason, maybe he got a better deal that you can still beat (though if you did that with me, my reaction would be to cancel on principle because you ripped me off all the time, if you can lower your rate now, why couldn't you before? And I certainly have zero reason to continue business with a company that very obviously has no problem with ripping me off). But that's pretty much all you could possibly do.
If you continue afterwards, be prepared for abuse. It is actually amazing how civil the person remains. "This is a simple yes or no question, even a monkey can answer that so I'm kinda hoping you could as well: Can you cancel my service? Yes or no. No other option available. CAN. YOU. CANCEL. MY. SERVICE?"
Every answer besides yes or no will be met with verbal abuse, followed by the repetition of the question.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Explain this one, I don't get it.
It's the dirty little secret of cable TV: Pixel resolution and compression are two different things. You may be getting a channel in 1080, but by the time a cable company delivers it to your TV, it's be recompressed so much that it being 1080 doesn't matter anymore. You see it most when things in the picture are moving, they get blocky, and in aliasing around things like text on the screen. They do this to fit more channels into the available bandwidth of their network. Over-the-air from local stations isn't recompressed within an inch of it's life; you're getting the highest quality you can get that way short of having an actual digital copy of a program physically sent to you on some sort of storage medium. I suspect that satellite TV compresses the hell out of things, too, for the same reason: fit more channels into the available bandwidth, so they can make more money. Try paying attention to all this the next time you're watching cable or satellite, you'll notice the compression artifacts. Sorry in advance for ruining it for you, BTW. Then go watch TV where it's using an antenna for OTA broadcasts, you'll see the difference.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
it's not a problem where they got rid of the analog channels on cable like time warner in NYC. as soon as time warner got rid of the analog channels they got more bandwidth for internet service and the picture quality is better now
Sadly, then the company will send your unpaid bills to a collection agency who will hound you for payment and which will ruin your credit score. The burden will be on you to prove that you told them to cancel your service and they didn't. It won't be impossible, mind you, but you'll need to fight to clear your credit because some company refuses to stop billing you in the hopes that you'll just send them more money because it's easier than trying to cancel.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I was thinking more along the lines of ...
. /Oblg. South Park - Cable Company
TL;DR: I don't need it, therefore no one does.
About 4 or 5 years ago, all the broadcast TV in the US changed over to a digital format, and the digital format includes HDTV broadcasts. If you have an HDTV and an antenna, and you live in a place where you can receive the signals, you can get the HDTV of all the broadcast networks over the air (OTA) with no cable.
It has been reported that Comcast re-compresses the digital HDTV streams, cramming them into a smaller digital channel in their cable system, in order to fit more channels in. This leads to reduced quality in the picture you view on Comcast compared to the OTA HDTV broadcast. I don't know about other cable systems. Here is one such report, though it seems to be specifically about other non-OTA HD channels (where the FIOS broadcast was used for comparison).
Just stop paying the damn bill. Eventually, it will be terminated and then you get a bill. Pay the bill and do not look back.
I play hockey. I also like to watch hockey. I don't live near Canada.
Please explain how you'll solve my problem.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
TFA says he's a producer at AOL. Seeing as how he's an AOL employee, he probably needs a lot more bandwidth than you do, as you're someone who probably just works in I.T. Go figure. I don't understand anything about AOL either.
Obviously he needs way more bandwidth than he can get via an (AOL) dial-up modem, which explains why he's been with Comcast for the last 9 years.
Someone that works from home might opt for a larger package to obtain greater uploading bandwidth. I did that to advance from 1.5 to 6 Mbps recently myself, and I'm glad I did.
Maybe this is just AOL picking a Telecom fight with Comcast. Seriously, since when is it ever legal to record a call like this? But I suppose it becomes legal when you're on hold and the recording played to you says they'll record you first.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Cable services re-compress signals in order to cram more channels into whatever transmission capacity they have. Sometimes they even monkey around with the size of the frame. This is all to save space/bandwidth.
What you get off of an antenna is the pristine version of whatever that broadcaster sent out.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Upload is what matters. He is married to an internet personality who probably uploads video often. The ability to upload hd video in 1/20 the time is a big benifit. You don't want to wait 20 min to upload a 20 min vid. Not when it can take 1 minutes. The 19 min difference can get your content out before other sites.
Comcast can burn in hell. I really really hope the merger with TWC is blocked.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
I had a 150Mbit connection and i found uses for it all. Having that much extra headroom is very useful.
Just because you can't find a way or can even fathom why someone would want that speed doesn't mean there aren't good uses for it.
I really don't understand the need to say no one needs more than 640k of memory. It plainly makes you look dull.
One word: Bittorrent.
Imagine Customer Service as the Early Space Program.
You have Astronauts and you have Monkeys.
Astronauts have problem solving skills that can ultimately sink or swim a mission. They hear orders from mission control but can offer suggestions or even take direct action based on spacecraft feedback if necessary for overall success. They're the guys you send to the moon and back to get moon rocks.
Monkeys see a red light on a console initiated from mission control, which corresponds with pressing a red button on the console. If they press the red button when the red light is on, they get a banana. if they press the button when the light is off, or press any other button when not instructed to, they get shocked. This continues with multiple lights corresponding to multiple buttons to get the desired result. In no way does the monkey have any say so in the control of the spacecraft lest he gets shocked.
Most CSR tier 1 centers consists of Monkeys. The keyword to tell is if you hear "I'm sorry" or "Thank you" a lot. They're saying that cause their screen says to say it. Usually a robot like script reading session follows the keywords. the "Shock or Banana" is the Feedback call / Survey you get after calling one of these CSR's. you vote 1 he gets schocked (fired) and if you vote 10 he gets a banana (paycheck)
CSR tier 2's Still have monkeys but a Astronaut may be lurking around somewhere. The Astronaut is going to sound like a normal human being. he may converse with you outside of the issue at hand. he may skip a few steps to get to the actual problem if he feels that he can without causing issues. This is who you dream of as a CSR. A human with real problem solving skills.
Tier 3 Consists of mostly astronauts. Getting here takes some time but it's your best bet to get your issue resolved.
Just Remember that you have to go through the Zoo first before you can get to NASA.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
You shouldn't need to say anything.
I meant to add, boy is it fun maxing out my 150Mbps connection, getting 15 Mega BYTES per second on a 1GB file.
Me: "Hi, I need to cancel my service."
Rep: "Oh? [insert marketing speak that boils down to 'Why do you want to cancel our awesome service?']"
Me: "I'm moving out of your service area and I'm already set up in my new place."
Rep: "Oh. Okay then."
Doesn't matter if it's true or not. There's not really much they can say to that. They might fish for details about where you've moved to. Just don't be stupid enough to bite.
I'm seeding a couple of torrents and they use up my 500mbps connection quite well (current upload speed 52MB/s).
When I needed to cancel Comcast a few years ago because I was moving to a new apartment, they wouldn't let me go without giving them a forwarding address, which I did not want to provide. (The bill was already paid in full.) The solution I finally found was to lie to them. I called and told them that I'd found Jesus, and he didn't want that filth in my house anymore. They let me cancel without complaint or argument.So there are two lessons here: (1) find an excuse they don't want to fight with, and (2) don't tell them you're moving unless you want them to stalk you.
Gather all the equipment up.
Go the local service office at the busiest time of the day.
Wait in line.
Turn all the equipment in and cancel on the spot.
The is no "customer retention service" there.
In the last 15 years, AOL has been pulling the same thing on customers wanting to cancel their services. Hurts to wear the shoe on the other foot, eh?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I cancelled XM a while back and the rep kept trying to get me to stay with various free offers. He kept asking "Don't you want free service for 2 months?" and English was clearly his 5th language because he failed to understand NO. I finally got him to cancel by asking for a supervisor since she couldn't seem to do a simple cancellation. I must have caught him when he was on the edge of losing a bonus. Had he simply said "Hey. Help me out. If you cancel I lose a bonus. How about hanging up and calling back" I would have don that. Wouldn't with Comcast because it takes 20 minutes and multiple phone trees to get to human.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It's not about average usage, it's about instantaneous usage.
For some of us who play peer to peer games, it's not really about bandwidth usage but how long it takes to get the packet from here to there and back. It's about latency. Generally higher bandwidth means lower latency, but it's not a hard and fast rule.
If you are just downloading or streaming stuff, it's all about bandwidth then because a latency of even a few seconds won't matter much.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
1) "Because every time I call you guys, you try to get me to change. You give me a run around and refuse to provide the service requested.
2) "Because whenever I turn on the TV, it tells me to carve up people that don't do what I tell them to do. So my psychiatrist told me to stop watching television."
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I recently moved out of Comcast's service area and am in the process of trying to have improper charges removed. Fortunately I live within a reasonable drive of their SA, where there is a physical office. Thus, I was able to employ the tactic of actually meeting a rep face-to-face. Like I said, I'm still in process though. She said I'd get a check. Both of us were very polite, because of being in person. She even did as I asked and printed a screen capture of her terminal, gave me her name so I would be able to properly document this in case the check never arrives and/or the charges aren't cancelled.
It's sad that you have to do this. I pity those who can't drive back into the SA and employ this tactic. They will probably have a much harder time.
BTW, allegedly the first rep that I cancelled with only changed my address, didn't cancel the account. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to change address outside the SA without cancelling. (sarcasm).
According to another source (not sure if this is true) reps get a +1 when somebody signs up and a -1 when somebody cancels. If this is true, then it's easy to see how the rep would be tempted to just change the address so that their rating wouldn't be affected. These aren't sales people, they are just order-takers. Sales incentives like that have no place in such situations, since the best sales person in the world cannot provision outside the SA!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
They bounced me around through escalation teams for 45 minutes before letting me cancel. I bought a house in an area that isn't serviced by them and they tried to get me to agree to paying $200,000 to run cable to my new house. Bastards!
Netflix is a direct competitor to comcast. You need pay for 105 megabits/second just to keep the low def buffering to a minimum.
call center employees are being thrown under the bus
but it's a really nice bus that the CEO's are riding...does anything else really matter?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
My experience with Comcast as an ISP is that the service itself is actually pretty good, if a tad expensive. I have a high-speed, low latency connection with native IPv6. However, I cringe whenever I have to contact their customer service for any reason. Their policies seem designed to make any customer interaction as painful as possible, and I have never had a positive experience when I have had to call them. This recording does not surprise me at all, as the representatives that cancel service probably have metrics that state they must save a certain percentage of those that call to cancel (my guess is that particular rep had been threatened by his boss that if he didn't do better in that regard that he'd lose his job).
If they want to fix their bad CS, they need to make fundamental changes to the way they approach customer service. A good starting point is to give their reps more authority to deal with issues themselves and not be beholden to policy. If the company doesn't trust their employees to make good judgement calls on what's good for the customer and the business, then they shouldn't have hired them in the first place. When someone calls to cancel, it is OK to politely ask why once, but if the person refuses to answer it should be left at that. Remove any metrics that are in place about how many saves a rep must perform.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
The premise of the parody was funny. The delivery of it was too over the top to be funny after the 2nd F-Bomb was dropped.
And the word of the day is: Amature
Life is not for the lazy.
This same article was recently posted on Techdirt. The call wasn't 8 minutes. The RECORDING was 8 minutes. There was 10 minutes of call prior to the recording even starting.
This happens to everybody every day... The poor SOBs in the retention department (notice the name), are rated based on how many people they can RETAIN. They can be fired if they have a bad day and a whole bunch of folks actually manage to cancel.
... and the word of this day is: Amateur.
The correct hard ball approach is: I am recording this call and forwarding to my local cable franchise authority.
This is the entity that your local franchise must go through to offer service in your area and they are the ones that set rules like the number of seconds you may be placed on hold until you get a human without them having to pay a fine.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Yeah, but it gives Comcast the wiggle room to say exactly what they said.
Police officer: Oh my god, this guy's TV has an off-switch!
Other officer: He'll fry for that!
For those of you who never got to enjoy this fabulous series from the mid-1980's Max Headroom took place is a dystopian society where TV ruled the land, and being able to shut it off was illegal. Even political offices were voted on via ratings. Being "blank" (unable to be tracked via computer, no credit history, no marketing history) made you a terrorist. 20 minutes into the future my friend.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If I am hearing correctly, this guy was signed up for 105 megabits per second... Do you know how hard it is to use 105 megabits/second? Netflix in HD only uses up 5... unless this guy has a family of 20, with each person watching HD content, 105 Megabits/second is a waste of money. ..
Unless you are paying his bill, what is it to you what level of service he decides to get for himself?
I suspect the Comcast Rep was following his script just as he was instructed. But the Rep is an easy scapegoat for Comcast.
If I am hearing correctly, this guy was signed up for 105 megabits per second... Do you know how hard it is to use 105 megabits/second? Netflix in HD only uses up 5... unless this guy has a family of 20, with each person watching HD content, 105 Megabits/second is a waste of money. I mean granted, maybe some people here can tell me how a single family home can use that much bandwidth (downloading several dozen torrents simultaneously?), but my family doesn't even use half of our 30 Megabit/second bandwidth.
I have a far faster home connection than I ever need for more than 90% of my internet usage.
But when I instal a new Steam game that wants a 10 gig download, its nice to be able to pull on a hilariously fast connection and not wait half an hour to start playing my new game.
Not many places will let you max out your pipe. Steam is one of them, and its useful.
Seriously, since when is it ever legal to record a call like this?
Firstly, only 12 of the 50 States require that all parties to a telephone call consent to it being recorded. To quote wikipedia, those States are California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii (in general a one-party state, but requires two-party consent if the recording device is installed in a private place), Illinois (debated, see next section), Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana (requires notification only), Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
Secondly. one of the first things you get when you call a customer service department for any large telecom is a recording that states that the call may be recorded.
"His name was James Damore."
After listening to this call I'm just laughing because I've been experiencing this for years. It's all about maintaining those subscribers and it shows that the Comcast rep was probably a used car salesman in a prior life. Maybe he's going back there after this episode but who knows. What's funny is that people are actually surprised about this because every major company in the US, especially those who sell subscription based services, have these kinds of last ditch sales people to keep you hooked up. It's all about customer relationship management 101, keep them in the relationship.
This guy from Comcast represents once again while consolidation in the telecom and cable industries is a bad thing. Plus with Comcast controlling NBC and all its subsidiaries we now get such great entertainment as "Sharknado 2", this isn't better its worse.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Per their help page, HD is 5Mbps, Ultra HD is 25 Mbps.
https://help.netflix.com/en/no...
The correct hard ball approach is: I am recording this call and forwarding to my state attorneys general
FTFY. Large companies generally aren't afraid of most government agencies, due to regulatory capture. But tell them that you might be in touch with the office of an ambitious politician with subpoena power and suddenly they become very helpful.
The suggestion by the service rep. that the 105 mbit speeds were "guaranteed" is insanity!
Even in cases where a customer pays about 2x the normal price for Comcast's business class service, the speeds are absolutely NOT guaranteed! My workplace uses Comcast in a couple of our offices (pulled it out of others, where better options were available), and we suffer fairly regular service interruptions/outages which are very disruptive because our internal phone system runs over VoIP. Comcast never credits us a dime for the time the service is down, and even when it's simply under-performing, they'll remind us that "cable broadband is a best-effort delivery mechanism; not a guaranteed level of service".
If you're on a residential connection? Good luck with even reaching a live person to voice a service complaint! Unlike the business customers, residential users typically get tossed into a call queue that requires a 45 minute to 60 minute hold time to speak with someone.
I'm using Comcast broadband at home, myself (again, because no other options exist where I live except for Verizon's 6 mbit DSL - which IMO, hardly even qualifies as an option). I've found that the service is reasonably good at delivering what they promise (although I'd say it averages about one outage per month), but everything from customer service to sales is lousy. They've changed around programming packages so often, it can be difficult to even figure out which high speed options are offered in your area. (I initially wanted something at least comparable to the 85 mbit FiOS service I used to have at my old address, but the Comcast literature all claimed my options were getting 50 mbits with a "Blast" package, or paying somewhere close to $200 per month for some kind of 150 mbit "Extreme" package. Gritting my teeth, I decided to just pay the high cost and try the 150 mbit service, only to be told I wasn't even able to buy it if I was doing a "self install" (using my own cable modem), which I was trying to do. Comcast wanted to charge me $250 or so for a guy to come out here and do the installation, which there was NO WAY I'd pay for since the place was pre-wired from the previous homeowner and I had the best-in-class Motorola modem ready to use.
So THEN I found out if I just went with that 50 mbit Blast package, I'd actually get 100 mbits with it because Comcast "recently doubled the speeds, for free, in most of the Northeastern U.S.". Great, I guess?! But what lousy marketing to hide that from people and trick some people into paying far more to get the overpriced 150 mbit service they might not have even really wanted.
This is nothing new or unique to Comcast. Anytime you try to cancel service with anybody these days you get the hard sales pitch. No one wants to take "no" for an answer anymore. Customer service departments are really sales departments. Notice that you can never unsubscribe to anything online, you have to call a person.
Cancelled DirecTV and it sounded like the other guy was ready to cry because I was leaving. Asking what he could do to keep me around (well given that I was down to two shows I watched, he could have dropped the price to $10/month).
Cancelled the local newspaper and they gave me the hard sell too. Finally insisting they gave in and kept the deliveries until the current payment period ran out. Except that it didn't quite work, they didn't quite realize I had unsubscribed. When the payment period ended they left voice mail saying that my credit card was not validated and could I call them back to give them a good number, then a got the mail bill saying "First Notice" that I hadn't paid. Unlike their customer support website, the bill actuall had an email address so I sent an angry letter (I sort of regret it) and promptly had things cleared up.
And again, this is not new, it's been around for a long time. I cancelled ebay once, after a single purchase, and was told that cancelling my account would also mean me losing my buyer rating... A lot of online sites hide their unsubscribe information. Push a couple buttons on the remote and I can add HBO to my service for a month, but I have to phone up in person to get it cancelled again.
Back when I last had Comcast (around 2005 or 2006) the quality of PBS over the cable was so much worse than OTA. It was full of compression artefacts, dropped frames, audio distortion. I called them several times and they always told me their digital picture was perfect. It got even worse when they increased their compression ratio to up their cable modem bandwidth (I never used their internet service, I used DSL because Comcast didn't want to sell me service with a static IP and unfiltered ports) so it was a net loss for me and was the last straw. I cut the cord a week after they rolled out their faster internet service I wasn't using which made my television unwatchable.
Slight correction: the customer service representative pressed him for a further eight solid minutes.
He'd already been on the call for ten minutes before they started the recording!
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Would going to a hockey rink and watching people play solve your problem or is your problem more specific than "I also like to watch hockey?"
You are oversimplifying. In tech we reach plateaus of 'good enough' for the time and resources involved.
Good-bye
Local compression is faster than the internet is most places. Compress 10:1 or 8:1 and transmit. I get what you are saying, but there are many ways to skin that cat that dont rely on pure brute bandwidth.
Good-bye
If I am hearing correctly, this guy was signed up for 105 megabits per second... Do you know how hard it is to use 105 megabits/second?
Sigh.
Slashdot, how far you have fallen.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Impose quotas and QoS. Establish your nerd dominance.
Good-bye
When I reach resistance to a reasonable request, I begin chanting my mantra. You cannot help me, I need to speak to your manager. Sometimes there is an "obviously" inserted after the first word of the mantra. If I am not handed off after three repetitions or less, then I hang up and play again.
No one should ever waste eight minutes of their life talking to a sadistic phone monkey.
I've done phone support, it's not an excuse to be an ass. In fact, you have a responsibility to the customer, even if they are becoming a not-customer. They've paid for your time already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...and in case you missed the implication of what Rockoon is saying, once they say they're recording it, even in a two-party state, you've got their consent. They already know they're being recorded, so no issues.
There's some caveats about not being in the same state as the person you're recording, and it generally means you have to use the most restrictive law of the two states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
IANAL, TINLA
I became - not entirely by my own choice - a comcast customer last summer (I previously lived in a place with a different cable company who had vastly superior service in every aspect). Every time I have called for support I have had to deal with operators who were running on obvious scripts. I expect the 8 minute hard sell to try to prevent the customer from leaving was only another script.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
No, OTA is also compressed video (you have to compress it).
It's just that in a 6MHz channel, most OTA stations only broadcast one channel, so it gets the full 20Mbps available of that channel.
In a cable system, each 6MHz channel also gives around 20Mbps. however, instead of just having one channel take the entire bandwidth, they squeeze in three, four or more HD channels in that slot, so they get 6, 5 or less Mbps each. Even more now that they're switching to h.264 on a bunch of channels.
This results in much over compression as there just aren't enough bits left so picture quality degrades.
Generally higher bandwidth means lower latency
Could you explain how that is, please?
Actually...if you use a credit card, and dispute the charge after you tell them you want to cancel, it goes a bit better than that.
They used to make it impossible to disconnect from their service.
They already know they're being recorded, so no issues.
Also, due to the ambiguity of words, they are giving permission. "This call may be recorded..[by you]"
"His name was James Damore."
From their website at http://customer.comcast.com/he...
If you are looking to completely cancel your XFINITY service, we ask that you call us at 1-800-XFINITY (1-800-934-6489). We want to make sure weâ(TM)ve done everything we can to give you the best experience, price and package. We would also love to hear any feedback you have so that we can improve our service.
The call agent was just true to what Comcast told him to do. To be SURE everything has been done possible.
Fun thing is that when you go up one level to http://customer.comcast.com/he... you won't find the information on how to cancel. In fact I needed google to find the page.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I recently had the promo period for my service expire and the price go up $40. I had to yell at the rep for five minutes just to get him to admit that they had lower price tier packages. His excuse was "Well normally people don't want to lose any speed." Yeah? What part of "I don't care about speed I just need a lower price" didn't get through your thick skull?
Know whats really sad is that kinda stupid blind company support will get him nothing...... Here,s a guy who really love the company he works for, but Comcast would lay his ass off in a heartbeat to bring costs down. This Guy must be a new hire because only a new hire talks and acts in such blind support of his/her company. Sad, corporations take advantage of such blind support.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Sadly, then the company will send your unpaid bills to a collection agency who will hound you for payment and which will ruin your credit score.
Some people made the point that they can't ruin your credit score because they never extended credit -- a loan of money -- to you.
It's just that in a 6MHz channel, most OTA stations only broadcast one channel, so it gets the full 20Mbps available of that channel.
Every OTA in this area that I know of has at least two, and usually three, streams on one channel. Why wouldn't they? With relatively moderate compression the bandwidth becomes free and they can charge advertisers double or more.
In a cable system, each 6MHz channel also gives around 20Mbps. however, instead of just having one channel take the entire bandwidth, they squeeze in three, four or more HD channels in that slot, so they get 6, 5 or less Mbps each.
I've seen typically 2 or three HD per "channel", so they're doing as well as or better than most of the OTA.
That's what happens when you write a multiplayer video game using TCP/IP with minimal client side prediction.
Hitting 100Mbit/s peak? Well, today I bought Divinity: Original Sin on Steam and of course that was faster. And it's July, if I want to go to our cabin (no fixed line, barely 3G w/mobile cap) I need to download anything I'd like to bring with me for a rainy day. After a trip with some friends I sent him the videos we'd made (raw 1080p/60 from the camera) and that maxed my line.
Of course, I didn't need 100 Mbit for any of that but on the other hand what's the savings to the ISP if I up/download the same number of GB slower? Across many thousands of subscribers in my city it evens out anyway and they still have to maintain the fiber line and modems at each end so there's no last mile bottleneck, in fact they can switch speeds at will with a simple software update. I suppose with higher speeds I might become a bit more careless about bits and bytes but for the most part it's just convenience, not total throughput.
I think that's reflected in the pricing too, the lowest they offer here is 5/5. Next level: +400% bandwidth, +30% price. After that: +150% bandwidth, +23% price. Finally to reach 100/100: +100% bandwidth, +18% price. Unlike water, electricity or other utilities the higher speeds you got, the faster you're done and the line returns to idle and the premium is not even remotely close to the theoretical increase in bandwidth.
Over the next couple years they'll be rolling out gigabit Internet, do people need it? Of course not, but it's nice to have. I'll probably get it if the premium is not too high, with fiber it could become as standard as GigE on motherboards and all you really pay for is bulk bandwidth. I ran into that on my cell phone this month (vacation time), cap used up so I'm on slooow connection until next month rolls around or pay more this month for increased cap.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In my area they can't even bother to get the aspect ratio correct for PBS! Unless you pay to rent a HD set-top-box, you end up with that channel being letterboxed (or maybe "windowboxed" -- I can't quite remember since I cut the cord months ago). The commercial channels, however, display in correct widescreen 480p; it's only the public station that Comcast doesn't give a shit about.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Some feel there is a loss in quality vs OTA but depending on who you talk to it's not something people will notice.
Comcast subscriber here, and I can definitely tell in some programs. There are certain types of scenes that the compression algorithm doesn't handle well at low bitrates, notably when there's a lot of detail changing from frame to frame. I was watching "Planet Earth" and when it showed a large flock of birds taking flight, the TV looked like a checkerboard pattern of flickering grey squares. So it's usually ok, but often noticeable, and occasionally ugly. I may hook up our old rabbit ears for the OTA channels.
As for the customer service nightmare, I guess my experience has been anomalous, as I've never had a problem with them, even canceling TV service once or twice in the 6 years I've subscribed (TV+internet currently). I rarely have to call, though; service here in Chicago has been extremely reliable. It is very expensive, though.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Sure, but when I say that my reason for cancellation is I'M MOVING OUT, stop hounding me.
Also, when I call to inquire at my new residence, telling me that your downstream speed is 25 megabytes/sec is a good way to make me ask "Ma'am, do you mean megabytes, or megabits?"
An answer of "Oh, we mean megabytes! Our competition measures their speeds in megabits but we have megabytes, which are eight times as much!" won't inspire confidence.
That is *exactly* what would have been happened. Companies call them "missed opportunities". This is an internal culture/training/systemic issue, not a rouge agent. Unfortunately, it's likely only that agent that will suffer.
While I agree the whole thing was ludicrous, but one thing that stuck with me when I first heard about this was the recording - it's not legal everywhere to record a call without letting the party know (it varies wildly by state), and even if the other side notifies you they are recording (like most customer service) I think in some places it would have to be notified on both sides. Not a big deal, just something that made me think. I also find it a little odd that they had a recorder hooked up - I have one I use for occasional phone interviews with subjects, but I don't have it hooked up all the time.
Again, probably nothing to that - and in any case, it's an issue Comcast should be held to address internally regarding retention, no excuses for that, but if can't shake the nagging "this is very convenient, isn't it?" questions, either.
In tech we reach plateaus of 'good enough' for the time and resources involved.
And then someone comes up with some kind of outlier use case that exceeds the requirements of "good enough", and sometimes that use case becomes more and more common over time. "Good enough" is constantly redefined.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
They also oversharpen the shit out of it.
The worst is grass, where the blades are close to the limiting resolution. The compression algorithm can't decide whether it's worth it or not to capture the detail in the grass blades, so you either get a smeary mess or holy shit oversharpened artifacts.
As a general rule, higher bandwidth connections are "faster" end to end, this is NOT universally true, just normally. Consider the latency of sending 100 bytes over a 2400 baud modem verses the same latency noted on a gigabit link (extreme example, I know). It will take a LONG time to transfer that 100 bytes over the modem link then receive a similar reply just because the physical layer takes so long. Higher bandwidth will lower latency.
How much difference is this physical layer delay considering say 10BaseT to 100BaseT? Minor but measurable, all things being equal. But, in general, getting higher bandwidth means newer equipment, which means lower latency, at least on your link.
There is also the "store and forward" part of switches/routers, which if a link is saturated may queue up packets where having more bandwidth will result in less saturation of the link, and thus less queuing. So again, bandwidth can lower latency.
Normally the biggest driver for latency is router performance and the number of links between the two points, unless there is a saturated link, then you will see queuing delays being the major driver. There are lots of special cases... But that's what network admins are paid to understand and deal with.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
...Until you sit down ready to play your game and it decides to download a big patch instead of letting you log in.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
That's why I think internet speed should be measured in Gigabytes per month. Seriously. About once per week I get snailspam from CenturyLink, wanting me to upgrade from 7 bullshit units to 20 bullshit units. Except each "plan" is the same number of Gigabytes per month. So how it is an "upgrade?" Oh, if I give you more money, I'll be able to hit my cap faster? That's silly.
Now if you're telling me my cap will change from 200GB to 571GB, that is an upgrade I might be willing to pay for. Because then you'd be talking actually-relevant numbers.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Don't tell them you're transferring to a competitor. That gives them all the excuses to 'save' your account.
My father was canceling his cable Internet service and reconnecting with another provider. I knew about all these tricks they use to retain customers. He had tried calling before and was put on hold, transferred, then spoke to someone for a few minutes and was again put on hold. He ended up hanging up the phone in frustration.
My solution to him was provide a different reason to cancel.
Told my father a better excuse. The next call lasted less than 1 minute. No transfers, no retention reps. A CSR cancelled the service. The reason: carpal tunnel syndrome. As soon as he said he can't use the keyboard/mouse anymore they immediately cancelled no other reason needed.
Hope this helps others! :)
If you read what he posted as well as listen, you would see that he hooked it up 10 minutes into the call already. So the first 10 minutes are not recorded.
As for recording in general, you are correct that it varies wildly from state to state. Some have no requirement to inform, some have a requirement that at least one party be informed and others have it that all parties must be informed. That is why that recording saying, "This call may be monitored for quality assurance" is always given out on customer facing lines.
It should be noted that there are exceptions to the notification requirement most notably 911 and other emergency services phones don't have to notify callers that they are being recorded.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Send a letter to their registered head office stating that you do not want their service from xxx date. Then cancel the payment with your bank. Job done.
Your new provider can do whatever work is needed to take the line over. Send them a copy of the letter that you send to your old provider.
"This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes" means that you have their permission to record it, too, even in California.
"Cancel my account."
"I can't do that unless you give me a reason."
"I'm recording this conversation, so I have proof that the account has been canceled. If I receive any more invoices, the next phone call will be from my lawyer, or the police."
Click.
The better method, though, is to do it in writing, by registered mail. End of equation.
Nothing like having a recording you can play for the court. Then you can sue for attempting to collect a fraudulent debt.
In his defense on the recorder, it does sound like he's simply recording a speaker phone with something, such as another cell phone. At the beginning of the recording you can hear a bit of him fumbling around to get it going.
Yes - this exactly. I did the same. The lady that helped me was quick, courteous, and clearly not a trained sales person. Saving me as a customer wasn't in her job description. Getting things done quickly and efficiently in order to help the next customer in line was. If you have a Comcast service center in your area this is the only way to go (not to mention it makes equipment returns much easier).
Fuck the employees. Call center employees I've talked to are always on the side of the company, and will defend it to the death. They're not just working for a paycheck, they really believe the shit they spew. We like to believe that most employees really are just working to make ends meet and feed their families, but it's really not true; most people become emotionally invested in the power structure they're part of. It's the same phenomenon that drives patriotism, defending "your side's" political candidate, etc.
The notice doesn't usually say anything about them recording you... It literally says "this call may be recorded". In English, that's expressly granting permission.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ryan Block is a writer you retard. He works for AOL because the company he was writing for got bought out by AOL. Its not like he's some executive for the company
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
I bet when they apologized to him they offered him 1/2 price service for 3 months.
We need to get this dude (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj2oXMdZ4sk) and this rep from Comcast on the same line.
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
Aside from the general rule that newer, faster network equipment tends to be faster, there's also the bandwidth delay product. The bandwidth delay product means that as bandwidth increases, it high latency tends to cost the ISP money.
Assume you have a 1mbps link and a 100mbps link.
Let's say they both have latency of 100ms. If you're pushing 1mbps and there is 100ms worth "in the pipe", that's 0.1mb stored in the router queues. At ten times the throughput, 100ms of data is ten times as much data stored in very expensive Cisco routers at any given time.
No, really, I mean they actually horrify me. It's special.
And note http://i.imgur.com/77HxH2g.png (one second long from the video) that it is on Time Warner Cable (TWC).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I did exactly this a couple of times and my credit wasn't ruined. I just attached the little protest note they let you attach and then no one gave a crap about my $50 argument with Verizon. I suppose my score would have been higher without that on there, but it was by no means ruined.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Hello,
Completely unsurprising. Comcast billed me for imaginary hardware, twice.
I set up cable Internet service with Comcast at a vacation home with no TVs in it about two years ago, just to be able to surf the web, etc., while there. Sometime around December, 2013, Comcast apparently decided that we needed TV service and shipped a set top box to the address, where it apparently sat, covered with a light dusting of snow for months (it's a vacation home). And, of course, they billed us for TV service and a rental fee for the box for months. I got that straightened out, and a credit issued.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked at my bill from them, and, lo and behold, they have been charging me an $8.00/month modem rental fee. I bought my cable modem from Fry's for less than the $96/year that would have ended up costing me.
As far as I can tell, when they removed my non-existent TV service and took back their set top box for the imaginary TVs, they stuck on a modem lease fee.
I have finally gotten that straightened out, and, no doubt, will have some new billing failure from them in a few months for hardware or services I did not request, own or otherwise purchase from them.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Regulatory capture can and does happen but is not a rule so much as it is a possibility.
That's only because your local agencies lack teeth. In some countries they are most definitely afraid of them, and best of all the agencies often act as consumer advocacy groups.
Many areas with NO second choice for broadband
+
Many people with no second choice for employer
=
Unhappy customers on the phone with unhappy employees who REALLY need this gig, and could be replaced before close of business
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
You haven't priced NHL tickets lately, have you? Or hockey equipment/ice time/league fees.
Cable's cheaper.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Who are you going to send the letter to? I don't believe Comcast has a method to cancel your account in writing. Usually in the contract they state you must call them to cancel your account.
Could you elaborate on this?
In the USA at least, if there is some black mark on your credit report the credit agency has to allow you to put a comment on it. In one of my cases I put "Verizon told me I could get DSL, then later told me I could not, and still expected me to pay a setup fee"
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Just a quick link for more details here
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
One more thing. I didn't mean to say that no one gave a crap because of my consumer statement, I meant that no one gave a crap because it was a $50 dispute with Verizon
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Nice find !
That's why you don't tell them until after you've told them to cancel the account. If they reserve the right to record it - which they did before the human came on the line - there is no expectation of privacy, and you don't need to tell them. You only tell them at the end to reinforce that you can prove you did.
Contract provision or no, they're a corporation, and that means they are required by law, in every state, to have a business address published (usually with the secretary of state for the state they're incorporated in).
They'll claim the contact prohibits notice by mail, but that's unenforceable to begin with, and when you describe the phone call - their flat refusal to accept the cancellation - or play the recording of it, even if it were technically enforceable the contract would be ruled unconscionable.
You can believe in the ultimate, unchallengeable power of the Mighty Corporation(tm) all you want, but their only real power comes from your belief. If you stand your ground, and bother to know what the law is, it's on your side.
No, thanks to the higher S/N ratio of cable versus OTA broadcasts, less error correction is needed, and much more aggressive and efficient modulation can be used that provides more bits per symbol. So in the same 6MHz, they might be able to fit 40Mbps of content, not just 20Mbps. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Cable companies still compress the video to hell and back, because 2X as many channels isn't good enough for them... They want MORE, MORE, MORE. It's so bad that 1080i broadcast over cable often looks worse than a 480i DVD.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Do you pay up-front for your service BEFORE they give it to you? If not (hint: no you don't), they're extending credit to you, EVERY SINGLE MONTH.
I like the pre-paid model, and it works well for any predictable bill like "unlimited"-anything plans. But for something billed based on consumption (electric, gas, water, etc.) it's somewhat impractical.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Or... You could just say two words: "Too Expensive". Comcast asked me why I cancelled my service 2+ years ago, and that's the answer I gave them. Apparently, they believed me, and I was a comcast customer for longer than 9 years before I cancelled.
Now here is the interesting part: Ryan Block is an internet celebrity, and his wife is Veronica Belmont, also an internet celebrity. I would not be surprised if Comcast had a note of this in his file, and that is why the rep was so adamant about getting a good reason from him. It's almost like Aquaman calling the local water works company and telling them that he doesn't want water anymore. They wouldn't believe him.
I doubt that. Suppose after 7 minutes, the customer agrees to keep the service? Then you already have a pending deactivation in the queue, and the service would be cut, possibly BEFORE the customer hangs up. If the customer finds out that his service has indeed been cut even after agreeing to keep it, that would just give him more reason to cancel the service.
I did exactly this a couple of times and my credit wasn't ruined. I just attached the little protest note they let you attach and then no one gave a crap about my $50 argument with Verizon. I suppose my score would have been higher without that on there, but it was by no means ruined.
I suspect your score is indeed lower, and that companies will take that bad report into account (and ignore your protest letter).
Your credit history doesn't just impact your ability to get loans - it also impacts the interest rate you pay on those loans. So, disputed charges can cost you real money - quite a bit of it if you're talking about a mortgage.
Big companies don't care whether you had a legitimate reason to dispute a charge. When they want to impose some illegal contract change on you they don't want you legitimately disputing their charges either.
"I'll need a copy of his death certificate and proof of your power of attorney over the estate as I'm not permitted to deal with anyone other than the account holder, or authorised by the account holder"
How do they get 40Mbps in a 6MHz channel? That sounds like it would be above the Shannon limit unless the SNR is ridiculously good.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
"We're the Phone Company. We don't care; we don't have to." -- Lilly Tomlinson, pre-AT&T monopoly break-up
You will be assimilated into the collective.. resistance is futile.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I had a little hassle with my Cable Company over cancelling my service, so I just hung up and redialed. The second call was to "remove the cable drop" because the "house was being demolished". They actually gave me a little grief over this, so I said "either you remove it or I will, and I won't be careful". This costs them (around here) about $200 because they contract this to a third party company. Don't worry if you want cable again in the future, they will happily re-install the drop. Costs them ANOTHER $200). You can do this any number of times you want. They will always remove and reinstall at their expense.
Been there done that, I sat down with a friend who was dropping AOL because the computer store he bought the computer from never mentioned that "3 free months of Internet" meant that they took his credit card and signed him up for AOL. The credit card company started from the assumption that since AOL was an established company that they would not need to charge back and we should talk to AOL about it.
Que an endless "no sir we had no way to know you never used your account since we don't go into customer accounts without permission"
The credit card companies are not always on your side.
As a former call center worker (multiple centers), I can tell you unequivocally that that is bullshit. Your average CSR does not give a single fuck about the company they're working for (or the company that their company has a contract with). They're paid to absorb anger and read scripts. There is no intellectual input other than saying what they're told accurately. The first time your manager at the call center chews you out for doing a fantastic job and resolving the problem to everyone's satisfaction, but going over your handle time by 3 seconds, you run out of fucks to give.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
If you just stop paying the bills and they don't cancel your service, they'll just send you a bill every month. Eventually, they will turn these bills over to a collection agency which will hound you for payment and which will, in turn, ruin your credit score.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
There are other things to do on the internet other than watch Netflix. I can saturate my 80mb/s connection fairly consistently without thinking about it when doing GIS stuff.
Time to offend someone
Not surprised. This is what happens when you let monopolies grow unregulated. Comcast is the new Ma-Bell. We need to demand congress break up the cable giant.
When I tried to cancel AOL (over 15 years ago) they were just as bad,if not worst.
What we really need is a corporate breakup service as part of a credit/debit card. They can send a nice letter like
Dear Comcast, We are sorry to inform you that John Smith wants to end his relationship with you. He feels that you're growing in different directions and the chemistry isn't the same. In short, he's just not that into you.. He wants to see other cable providers.
Then to avoid any boiling rabbits and such, they should refuse all further charges from them to their ex-customer's card. As a premium service, they should also file a restraining order keeping the ex's marketing department at least 500 feet away at all times.
To fall, you have to be high at some point. Slashdot has always been a pandering to the freesource zealotry.
There's nothing low about "freesource zealotry", particularly among those who actually contribute their time and skills to free software. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Even simpler solution:
Act all distraught, make it sound like you're sobbing just thinking about it, and explain that you're cancelling the service for the account user who has recently Died.
Any telemarketer calls I've ever gotten I start sobbing and claiming I don't have time for them because I just lost my family to some tragic accident of type . I get an apology and my number is removed from the lists immediately.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
How the heck can you browse slashdot on a 640kbps connection? Ah, I kid the Slashdot.
I feel for you, limited online gaming, and slow youtube cat videos. I'm with Mediacom, their "Prime" 15/1 service, which is never actually 15/1...for some reason it's always faster, more like 17/2.5 most of the time. The price is at the "sweet spot" too. They do offer a 50/5, but it's not at the sweet spot yet.
Mediacom has effectively no competition for internet, not because they don't have any competitors...it's because their offering is just simply so much better than any other locally available service. You can "maybe" get 6mbps DSL...if you're lucky enough to live where the wiring is really new.
It's bad enough that one of the dish based TV providers now partners with Mediacom in a combined satellite/internet package. Did I mention t hat Mediacom is a cable company?
Yes clearly my recommendation is jurisdiction-limited. In most countries they would probably wonder why you are talking about a state attorney general in the first place, as I doubt it's a common title outside of the US. Of course, a customer service rep in plenty of countries would probably wonder why you are speaking in English to them in the first place.
But seriously even if I had the choice between a bureaucrat in a well-functioning regulatory body versus an aggressive American lawyer I would still pick the attorney general to best protect my interests.
In Brazil we had a new set of rules in this regard issued by ANATEL (like the FCC). They made it so your can cancel your service through the internet or choosing a menu item on the call center, no need to talk to a human.
They also have to call you back if you get cut off, you can request and get the recordings using the internet, special packages must apply to new and old costumers etc.
It will take a LONG time to transfer that 100 bytes over the modem link then receive a similar reply just because the physical layer takes so long. Higher bandwidth will lower latency
Latency is the measure of how long a signal takes to reach the other end, no? High latency will reduce your throughput, but throughput has little (not none) effect on your latency. Is my thinking incorrect?
I did not realize you were specifically talking about the NHL, your original statement was more generic. One would think that telecasts would be cheaper as they can accommodate more people than a rink.
Think about what you just said for a few... Latency is about how fast you can get some piece of information from one point to another, so if you are only interested in "it's on" or "it's off" then what you say is true, it's about the physical layer and how long the signal takes to propagate physically down the link. But, for networking, we generally send data in "packets" which are always more than one bit. Modulation schemes exist that can send multiple bits per unique signal state (can send more than one bit at a time) but even a small "ping" packet will exceed what can be encoded in one signal state.
In the case where you have to send more than a one unique signal state to send your "packet" of information then the link rate matters because it says how long it takes between unique states at the physical layer. Think of it as sending each bit down the wire, one at a time, the faster you can put the bits on the wire and still receive them at the other end the shorter the transmission time for the "packet" will be.
So, to send 100 bytes on a 14.4Kbaud modem takes longer than the same 100 bytes on the ADSL link going over the same lines. Physically the speed of the signals going over the wire are the same, being electrical signals going over the same wires, but the 100 bytes go faster (and have lower latency) on the ADSL link because they get on and off the wire faster.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
When I moved into my current apartment, I discovered that Charter forgot to install a TV filter. I compared two TV's side by side - one OTA and one cable. And the difference was like VHS vs. DVD. Even from 10 feet away you could easily see blurry macroblocking on the cable source, and virtually no artifacts on OTA. On top of that, the contrast was missing, so the signal probably went through some analog equipment before being re-compressed.
OTA is compressed too, but you typically get one "main" virtual channel per real channel. PBS is one exception to that, but with NBC I get probably 15Mbps of picture quality on the main channel, and 1Mbps on the weather subchannel.
Cable usually has a very good SNR, but VSB is not used by cable - at least not without a cable box. The link they posted clearly says everyone's using QAM. And QAM-64 is going to put them at around 26Mbps.
I think it's worth restating. You will never get a better picture from cable than OTA. Cable uses the existing broadcast stream that already has compression artifacts - the best it can do is preserve that as-is, but that's not realistic.
Yes - it wasn't that long ago that VHS-quality video streaming was an edge case.
I reviewed as many comments as I could stand and it seems that a common solution is to "lie through your teeth". Is this really what the conduct of what should be routine business come to? It's no wonder there is no trust in the world anymore. This will be our undoing. It may actually turn out that AI instead of offing us may be our salvation. Welcome home Gort...
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
I believe there's a standard resolution policy that requires mail.
Whenever dealing with cancellations or things like that, always use registered mail and keep the receipt. I've had problems with companies ignoring regular mail.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Physically the speed of the signals going over the wire are the same, being electrical signals going over the same wires, but the 100 bytes go faster (and have lower latency) on the ADSL link because they get on and off the wire faster.
That's why I said it has little effect. I'm convinced that latency has a large effect on throughput but I am unconvinced that throughput has a large effect on latency. I get 16ms latency on my ADSL connection, which is 1.5Mb/s. I don't know anyone with 20+ Mb/s cable connections that has much lower latency than my connection. On the other hand, if you go to something like a 2400 baud modem then latencies are up noticeably.
So, am I misunderstanding? Gigabit fibre should have significantly better latency than a lowly 1.5Mb/s ADSL link? I am not sure it does (haven't tested one).
Yes, I would expect that in general a gigabit fiber link would be lower latency than a 1.5Mb/s ADSL link.
I don't think I disagree with your last statement. Except to say that there are reasons for higher bandwidth links to be lower latency which are related to the actual time it takes to get a data packet physically on and off the link (which was what I originally claimed) AND for other reasons which are not directly related to the link's speed (bandwidth). In order of increasing importance:
1. Link propagation delay (Cannot go faster than the speed of light, so how long is that path? If you have a satellite hop to a geostationary connection and back, you have a LOT of latency dictated by physics alone.)
2. Physical throughput/Bandwidth (how fast can we encode and decode data on the physical links).
3. Congestion in Switching (Higher throughput means less "store and forward" is happening. Buffering data increases latency.)
4. Number of network hops (Each hop means the packet got taken off the wire and put on another, which takes time. Routers look at the data, which takes even more time. Higher bandwidth equipment usually has faster hardware too.)
5. Driver/System software delays (Kernel time of the operating system. Higher bandwidth usually come with faster hardware and processors.)
So are we good?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
But (like 16-VSB) QAM-256 will put them at around 38Mbps.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
QAM-64 needs a SNR above 23, while QAM-256 needs a SNR above 28.
Modern cable systems are fiber-optic to the neighborhood, and only there do they switch to coax for a relatively short distance, so the SNR is actually very high.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Yeah, it will. Is QAM-256 in that wide of usage? That might explain why my cable Internet has been so flaky at times. There's a good bit of line noise where I'm at. I'll admit to not looking at my modem to see what modulation it's using.
I'm probably wrong - but a quick back of the envelope calculation would suggest the Shannon limit for a 6MHz channel with SNR of 28 would only be of the order of 20Mbit/sec
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It seems to be. Not exactly a definitive study of the subject, but plenty of user reports out there, even from quite a few years back, saying QAM-256. And would you really doubt that cable companies will do anything to squeeze double the channels into the available space?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I think it's great as long as they can keep the SNR in-margin. The problem is that at certain times of the year, my cable service is just plain unreliable - especially for VoIP - even when uncongested.
I don't subscribe to TV, because they really overcram. I wish they were just using better QAM, but they're also overcompressing the channels on top of that.
Quick and dirty... I get ~48Mbit/sec.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I don't think we ever weren't good. I was just learning because what I learned in signals and systems did not jive with what you claimed. It turns out you and I were using latency differently.
I was moving out of my house and needed to cancel cable service. I called them, and was put on hold and transferred around and spent no less than 45 minutes trying to get ahold of the right person to cancel my account and was disconnected twice.
In complete frustration, I transferred my cable bill to a separate credit card and cancelled that card. It was all I could do to get rid of comcast without another hour on the phone that I didn't have while packing the house and getting everything ready to go.
The experience was incredibly frustrating.
"No good deed goes unpunished"