
Comcast internet speed improved with non-Comcast hardware - jmartens
http://www.jeffreymartens.com/blog/2017/4/is-comcast-intentionally-ripping-you-off
======
thedevil
Comcast ripped me off much more than that. My HOA signed a (incredible bad)
deal with Comcast to provide basic channels (the ones nobody wants) for
$35/unit* * for 3 years. Then, Comcast's rep allegedly* forged the contract to
last 8 years instead of 3.

The stupid manager lost the emails, Comcast insisted on the (allegedly*
forged) 8-year contract and so the HOA paid it until the manager found the
original signed contract (years later) and compared it to the forged version.
Then Comcast still pressured the board on the 8-year until we hired a lawyer.

I estimate that this alleged* fraud was worth $378,000.

* It was never proven in court but the evidence is pretty strong. The forged pages have inconsistent numbering, scanner marks, wording, and date format.

* * It was actually a rate that increases over years. $35 was last year's rate.

I'm not under any NDA so I'm exposing it but making sure all my details and
wording are correct so I don't get sued. Please forgive the edits.

~~~
driverdan
Another reason to never live somewhere with an HOA.

~~~
thedevil
As an HOA board member, I approve of this comment.

~~~
spullara
Indeed. I became HOA president of my loft building as a defensive measure.

~~~
briandear
Great move!

I wish more of us would run for government office as a defensive measure!

~~~
zymhan
Look no further than POTUS.

------
Steeeve
This is interesting. I had the same experience in Mountain View - paid for
100mbps+ service, and only got 30 - and even that was haphazard.

I went through a series of support requests. I eventually complained to the
FCC and cancelled service. Once I involved the FCC, I had a rep call me, say
they absolutely understood why I would cancel given my experience and wish me
well. They provided me a partial refund for service levels that they never
provided me with, and for days which I received no service.

I'm on Sonic now and I've been happy with them. The few times I've had
problems they have been very responsive, and you definitely get the sense that
their techs know what they are doing. They scoffed at the idea that they would
ever sell their customer's data after the recent bill passed, and pointed out
that although they resell AT&T service, their contract prevents AT&T from
selling it either. It's the only ISP that has made a statement about their
intentions publicly. I get a lower service level than what comcast promised,
but I actually get that speed, and sometimes burst higher than promised.

~~~
plopz
Thats where competition benefits the consumer, its unfortunate that for large
areas of the US, there isn't any competition.

------
r1ch
"Pretty poor coverage" sounds like the author was relying on Wi-Fi for
connectivity. I wouldn't trust an ISP-provided combo modem/router to do
anything more than the bare minimum when it comes to wireless, most likely a
single chain 2.4 GHz network (and 5 GHz if you're lucky). Replacing it with
Google Wifi which is a Wave2 802.11ac 5 GHz device with Beamforming will make
a world of difference.

Intentionally supplying old hardware that can't reach high speeds (eg a DOCSIS
2 modem) is actually bad for them as it wastes frequency.

~~~
rhino369
In many apartment buildings the 2.4 Ghz spectrum is just too crowded. Just
using a cheap 5Ghz 11n without breamforming would likely solve the problem.
I've got at least 40 bss's on 2.4 and I'm the only one on 5Ghz. It's crazy.

I'd say Comcast should use 5Ghz but then that spectrum will get crowded too.

~~~
gtdawg
All devices going forward (especially isp routers) _should_ use only 5ghz.

Consumers should have to spend extra on 2.4 AP gear to support legacy client
devices. 5ghz has reduced propagation and there are so many more channels
available that it is actually optimal to use in dense evvironments. Mesh wifi
is pretty much a requirement for a lot of users to keep the same coverage with
multiple rooms compared with their existing 2.4 ghz network.

~~~
manacit
5GHz isn't a panacea, at least in my experience. It doesn't penetrate walls
well enough to reach to the edges of my (quite small) apartment, so my laptops
and other devices drop down to an acceptable rate on 2.4GHz.

In addition, I think Sonos still sells devices without 5GHz radios (and
probably plenty of other companies).

~~~
rhino369
Maybe you have thicker walls, but 5Ghz should really be able to work in a
small apartment.

Lack of support is a huge problem though. Tons of devices are sold without
5Ghz support.

~~~
manacit
I live in NYC with old, thick walls (and a lot of interference, even on 5GHz).
Even though my apartment is small, there are 3-4 walls separating where my AP
is (at one end) and the other end of my apartment (the bedroom).

------
Merad
I used my own modem from the start with Comcast (bought specifically for their
service), but after about 6 months I was having problems with the modem being
disconnected multiple times per day, and sometimes unable to reconnect for
hours at a time.

Comcast support insisted that my modem was unsupported, despite it being
present on their supported modems list. After about 3 calls I gave up and
started researching on my own, and eventually discovered that some of the
incoming signal strengths were way off what they should be. Crossed my fingers
and checked the box outside the house, and yup, Comcast had wired it up with a
single cheap 6 way splitter. Replaced it with a quality 2 way splitter, and
now I can at least get decent service for the absurd price I pay.

~~~
rev_bird
Ran into a similar problem with my modem -- the website clearly said it was
supported, but three different phone service reps said it wasn't. I went out,
spent $100 on a new surfboard modem, didn't help. When they finally sent a
tech out, he said my original modem was fine.

~~~
larzang
This is a part of their sales playbook. Even if you have a top of the line
modem that just came out and is on their support list, they will tell you its
either unsupported or about to become unsupported and push you to rent garbage
from them instead.

You can never trust anything a phone/chat rep tells you because they're
aggressively pushed by management to integrate sales into support.

------
chrissnell
Don't use Speedtest.net. The major providers all prioritize their traffic and
it gives unrealistic results.

I built a graphical console-based speed tester (client+server) that you can
run yourself to get a more accurate picture and test between your home and
servers you actually use:

[https://github.com/chrissnell/sparkyfish](https://github.com/chrissnell/sparkyfish)

~~~
cpeterso
Netflix's fast.com speedtest uses Netflix's nflxvideo.net CDN servers and
HTTPS so it should be a good model for real-world Netflix video usage.

[https://fast.com/](https://fast.com/)

~~~
Flammy
Sadly still only providing download speeds, as Netflix (understandably)
doesn't care about upload speeds.

~~~
mikeyouse
I like fast.com for friends and family since it's so unambiguous, and then
[https://speedof.me/](https://speedof.me/) for anything requiring more detail.

~~~
Flammy
Thanks for the recommendation.

------
vkdelta
Comcast supplies any new customer with a D3.0 modem from one of their
suppliers (Arris, Cisco (now Technicolor) or Technicolor). Some of these
models are known to have horrendous wifi. If you get one of the old models,
Please please turn to "BRIDGED" mode and buy a decent dual-band 802.11ac
router.

OR

go ahead and purchase one of the retail modems and a seperate. If you want
option of upgrading the Firmware and controlling your Router, buy a separate
modem and separate Router. A customer CANNOT upgrade any Firmware on the modem
or if is a Combo device. If one of the Favourite vendor has a bug with
Portforwarding or something, your modem is pretty much paperweight unless
Vendor is willing to fix it quickly and Comcast can push the FW to you
quickly. All this can easily take 3+ months for Urgent bugs.

If you are buying new modems and are on service tier > 100 Mbps, Please buy
16x4 Bonding Modems as minimum

If you are on extreme 250 or 300 Mbps package, Please buy atleast 24x8 or 32x8
modem. 32x8 modems based off INTEL puma6 had a critical latency bug but I have
heard it is fixed in the field now.

If you are on Gigabit, you kind of stuck with Comcast modem for now until they
let people active DOCSIS 3.1 modems. They can activate for other tiers but NOT
gigabit.

edit: grammar

------
manyxcxi
The best thing anyone can do is swap out the junky cable modem + WiFi router
combos they rent to you. They're horrible under standard usage, bad when lots
of clients are connected, bad wifi range, low memory, require frequent
reboots, etc.

For about $70 (about 5mos of rental charges) you can get a Surfboard barebones
Docsis 3 modem that will vastly outperform whatever junk they rent out.

After that you could get a TP-Link Archer C7 for sub $80 that will have good
range and performance for that price point.

So within about the first year you've broken even with vastly superior
components and you'll be able to take them with you to any cable provider you
wind up using in the future.

I get why most people don't do this, they don't even know it's possible, but
I'm amazed when colleagues in the industry are still running the company
hardware.

~~~
recursive
This is a thing I would kind of want to do, but I've never bothered to figure
out how. Like how will I know if it's a compatible modem, or better than
what's there? How do you configure it?

So those are my reasons.

~~~
manyxcxi
The beauty is that (as far as my experience for the last ten years with
Comcast for home and business in Seattle and Portland) I've never once had to
do any configuration other than plugging it in while on the phone with support
and reading off the various IDs.

The only thing I've ever needed was the serial numbers and such that are
printed on the bottom of my modem.

Pro tip, the chat is much faster, tether to your phone for internet and do it
via their web chat.

~~~
dubya
I replaced my router a few weeks ago (lightning!) on Comcast and the
configuration was completely automatic. Maybe I had to enter my comcast id and
password, but I didn't have to call anyone and it was done in just a few
minutes. This was in Knoxville, TN.

~~~
manyxcxi
I've been back on FiOS since we moved back to PDX last summer, so my last
cable modem switcharoo was about 5 years ago in Seattle. It's likely they
could've made it easier.

To that end, I've done the modem switch probably a dozen times for myself,
family, or friends and I've never encountered any resistance from Comcast
during the process. Though they did fat finger a MAC address or serial number
one time.

------
exounx
This is definitely not a reliable test. You're doing a speed test, over WiFi
on an iPhone 6s. There are so many factors that could contribute to slower
speeds including frequency, interference, range, and devices connected (If
they went from 802.11n AES+TKIP it can be bottlenecked to 54Mbps.) Also if
they're on 802.11b/g/n compatibility mode and a 802.11g device is connected it
can also bottleneck the device. I'm sure there are issues with Comcast but
this blog post identifies none.

~~~
acdha
This is not a widespread, comprehensive test but that doesn't mean it's not a
reliable test of the limited situation described in the post.

The major different I have with your comment isn't the technical aspects but
the fact that the average user isn't – and arguably shouldn't be – aware of
any of those details. If everyone can get significant speed improvements
simply by swapping out the access point because the defaults on the ISP-
managed equipment aren't appropriate for normal usage, that's a big deal —
especially since they charge $150 + $10/month for that service, which would
more than cover some basic config management.

------
saboot
Is it possible your wireless channel was overused? Most of my neighbors have
comcast, as do we. I've had poor coverage and connection also, couldnt even
get our wireless printer to work anymore. I used a program called WifiInfoView
and viewed how many nearby wireless networks there were, their signal
strengths, and set my router to a channel that wasn't being used.

Cleared up all of our problems instantly. I would check this, perhaps his
google modem was preset to another channel.

------
b34r
This is likely just the difference between a DOCSIS 2 vs DOCSIS 3 modem.

Regardless of which modem you use, Comcast pushes its own firmware patches
that likely have rate limiting built in.

------
colemannugent
On the subject of class actions: it's most likely impossible.

In their terms of service they will undoubtedly state that you agree to go to
arbitration rather than court, and they have you explicitly waive your right
to a class action.

Also the terms of service makes it very clear that the speeds they quote on
their ads are essentially entirely theoretical.

~~~
peeters
> they have you explicitly waive your right to a class action

Almost certainly not going to be upheld by a court if there is evidence of
fraud.

> Also the terms of service makes it very clear that the speeds they quote on
> their ads are essentially entirely theoretical.

Completely irrelevant if you can prove that they purposefully implemented a
scheme to throttle your speeds.

------
nodesocket
I'm with you, my Comcast bill is now $160 a month for internet and TV. However
perhaps the old modem was not DOCSIS 3.0 and the new one is? I'm guessing the
new modem is just better hardware thus the increased throughput. No grand
conspiracy.

Go buy your own DOCSIS 3.0 modem from Amazon and stop paying the monthly
rental.

~~~
johnbellone
I just decided to jump on the cord cutting bandwagon. My bill was ~$180 and I
was able to get it down to $97 for the "best Internet". My cost for
PlayStation Vue is $29.99 plus $15 for HBO. It streams to the PS4 and Amazon
Fire TV. I am very happy with the change simply because I am not giving
Comcast more money than I have to.

~~~
nodesocket
I need sports though, that's the problem.

~~~
derrickrose
You can opt for the league-provided services, or if you look on the internet
you'll quickly find services that are better than the officially-provided ones
themselves.

~~~
jessaustin
In my experience the league sources usually black out local teams, which makes
them useless for fans of local teams.

------
loser777
It's almost hilarious how cheap and bad the Xfinity modem/router combo is. Any
kind of configuration via the web interface is a dice roll on whether or not
the settings actually take. If you're lucky, your configuration changes get
applied, but don't expect them to be displayed.

I guess whatever little money it cost to build went into the annoyingly bright
white LEDs on the front of the case.

------
3guk
Not really sure what the author is trying to achieve with this one - first off
appears to be comparing wifi speeds which we all know is a fairly poor way to
test a connection.

Second of all the speedtests shown are 3 months apart...

------
narsil
Switching to 5 GHz instead of 2.4 GHz has made this magnitude of difference
for me in the past.

Today, at home, I haven't had dedicated internet connectivity for 4 years. I
log in to the xfinitywifi SSID that some of my neighbors in my apartment
complex are probably broadcasting via my parents' comcast account and get good
speeds. I'm on it right now and speedtest.net shows 30 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up.
Plenty enough for my purposes, including Netflix.

I switch to tethering on my AT&T device if needed for 15-25 GB 4G data each
month; the "unlimited" plans offered by carriers today don't provide more than
10 GB of high speed data in contrast. Not sure how much longer this setup will
work, but I plan on continuing it for as long as I can; the cost savings
really add up.

A side-effect of this that I've noticed is increased operational awareness on
my part. Comcast MITMs any unencrypted HTTP traffic and injects in a "powered
by xfinitywifi" banner that is a great reminder to not trust the network. :)

~~~
hbosch
Yes, this "xfinitywifi" public hotspot is enabled by default on many (all?)
leased Comcast router-modems. Seems like many people in my complex are unaware
or leave it open. I turn mine off.

------
eapen
You can find the best channel to use using one of these techniques:
[https://www.howtogeek.com/197268/how-to-find-the-best-wi-
fi-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/197268/how-to-find-the-best-wi-fi-channel-
for-your-router-on-any-operating-system/)

Although, that article says you need a jailbroken iPhone to find the best
wifi, it is possible to identify high traffic networks with your iPhone using
the Airport Utility - [https://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?6603-TIP-
Choosi...](https://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?6603-TIP-Choosing-the-
best-WiFi-channel-using-iPad)

------
yeukhon
I was in CA for a summer. My girlfriend at the time lives in SF. She was using
AT&T until she had enough of the DSL performance, so I helped her switch to
Comcast. Comcast would even charge us for WiFi, but we were able to keep the
Wifi off the modem. Luckily we had a nice rep from Portland to work with us.
The price has only gone up since signing up with Comcast, and service hasn't
been good.

I live in NYC so TWC (now Spectrum) is a choice in my area. The service has
been pretty good since their first major service line upgrade (probably around
2013, 2014). I get to speak with a customer representative and get a discount
promo price every 12 months (very known trick for ISP, just call and tell them
you wanted to cancel your ISP account, they will likely offer you a promo
price). TWC even have a mobile app which I can use to check service status and
even chat with the representative directly from the mobile chat! The app
itself is slow kind of a crappy version, but hey, it's amazing.

When I moved to my new home, I bought motorola sb6141 modem instead of the
stock version. I can tell you that the speed is consistent and noise level is
low compared to my old modem. I understand environment (where I live) may
matter, but I am happy with my own equipment.

TWC let me keep the factory modem in case I needed a replacement which is a
nice touch. I have more faith in TWC than in Comcast. Just another customer
rant.

------
jdeibele
Replaced my Motorola/Arris SB6121 with a Zoom cable modem, going from 4
channels down to 16.

A month later, I saw that Comcast was billing me $10/month for not returning
"their" modem. Called and raised a little hell because I've never rented a
modem from them in 20 years of service. Got some minor credits for the next 3
months.

Got the Zoom because I figured it would deliver more consistent bandwidth when
the family is doing lots of Netflix at the same time. No real problems with
the SB6121.

------
joshfraser
Another way to get the advertised speeds is to regularly call and complain.
From my experience, they'll dial your speed up, just to stop you from calling
in all the time.

~~~
johnbellone
You also need to keep in mind if you bought your own modem that you may need
to upgrade the firmware (or worse case, a new modem) to get advertised speeds.
This generally is advertised as 8x4 channels or better. My old surfboard tops
out at 150Mbps.

~~~
gergles
You as the end user can't 'upgrade the firmware' in cable modems, it's all
sent from the CMTS.

It's how they enforce "supported modems" \- no firmware for your modem, you
can't use it.

------
ajaimk
I've had a similar experience with Comcast in the past. The biggest problem
with using my own Modem is pretty much every time I call support, they blame
it on my Modem. This includes the time when the cable wire outside the
building was disconnected by one of their Techs who was working on the
neighbor's connection.

Class actions against Comcast should be a dime a dozen.

------
joecool1029
We had a Comcast SMC-D3G on Comcast Business. It's garbage. Once we pushed too
many connections through it, it would crash and packet loss would skyrocket
requiring a manual restart (unplug/replug). This is because it's also a very
poor router that can't be changed to bridge-only. There's still plenty of
these pieces of crap in the wild, and they also can't properly route ipv6.

If you're a business class customer that needs static ip's, you're stuck with
Comcast hardware. Fortunately all my locations now can get away with dynamic
ip's so we run our SB6121's (deprecated, but fine for 50/10 or 75/15 tiers).

The final bullshitty thing that's started in the past year is $100 per on-site
visit if they can't prove the issue was caused by their network. I used
careful wording there because if this is a peering/intermittent issue they'll
come out next day just to pocket that charge and blame you.

------
JustSomeNobody
Why not call for a technician? I mean if you're using their equipment and all,
at least give them the chance to fix it.

~~~
loeg
They'll bill you more for an hour of a technician's time than the cost to just
buy a new modem/router.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Not if it is their fault/equipment.

~~~
MertsA
>Not if it is their fault/equipment.

That depends entirely on the technician you get. At least for Cox, it's up to
the technician to determine if the customer foots the bill or not and while
you might get a competent technician who will happily redo all of the outside
wiring while he's there for free you might also get a technician from some
third party contractor who doesn't even have the equipment to test anything
and is just relying on the customer's modem for troubleshooting.

Just because it's their fault doesn't mean that they'll admit it or even fix
it.

~~~
acdha
… and even if the technician does the right thing, there's no guarantee that
the charge won't mysteriously show up on your bill next month unless you live
in a city/state with very consumer-oriented regulators.

------
tzakrajs
This person seems very confused as to how to verify the truth of something
before calling for media attention.

------
jhallenworld
I know Verizon at least is preparing for the day where each family member is
watching their own 4K TV stream: 15.6 Mbps is required per stream for Netflix.
It would be interesting how their "quantum gateway" performs, this one:

[https://www.verizon.com/home/accessories/fios-quantum-
gatewa...](https://www.verizon.com/home/accessories/fios-quantum-gateway/)

Fios is great, but they were focused on the 4G LTE network for home internet
instead of further fios rollout. Here is the router for this:

[https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-office-
solutions/verizo...](https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-office-
solutions/verizon-lte-internet-and-home-phone/)

------
decisiveness
Never rely on your ISP to provide great wifi equipment. This is not something
specific to Comcast. Generally, it seems residential ISPs are only on the hook
for providing quoted speeds via a wired connection to their gateway.

This is why I always either disable the wifi from my ISP's modem/router combo
and branch off my own wifi router from the modem's LAN or request a modem only
device from the ISP and use my wifi router's LAN. The downside to the former
case is that your wifi devices are now double NATed (unless you use a wireless
bridge) which can be annoying if you want to forward ports (you now have to do
it twice). The modem/router combo might not support disabling its LAN to act
as a bridge very well.

------
mschuster91
That seems to be common practice, also in Europe, across providers. And a
single look at the GPL source code for your cable modem usually offers the
reason (ancient kernels, slow CPUs, more security nightmares than you ever
wanted to see)... replace your provider-supplied modem by an AVM FritzBox
Cable and boom, gone are the wifi and cable speed problems.

Not to mention that AVM has quite a good track record when it comes to
security fixes... way better than every other SOHO router vendor I have
encountered.

Downside: newer FritzBoxes are way less open than they used to be (no Telnet,
no selfbuilt firmware support), and they can't do VLAN.

(Not employed or business related with AVM, just an extremely happy customer)

------
peterwwillis
You pay for service, and the equipment is optional - the rental fee can be
waived and you can provide your own equipment. The fact that your equipment
works better is not a violation of their contract, unless they specifically
said you would get 120Mbps with their equipment. Which they would never say,
because there is no guarantee _your computer_ can even handle that speed, and
it's always been known that cable speeds vary per neighborhood and household.

So, no, there's probably not a class action case. Just stop renting crap
equipment and buy a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and a router that does at least 150mbps.

------
QUFB
I'll counter Jeffrey Martens' anecdotal evidence with my own. I've had Comcast
in my last 3 residences, leasing equipment provided by Comcast. In each case,
performance was as advertised.

------
lph
I signed up for Comcast basic cable a few years ago because I was hosting a
Superbowl party. I signed up in person at an xfinity store because I didn't
want to wait around for shipping. Right after I told the dude at the desk I
had a brand new HD TV that I was eager to watch the Superbowl on, he tried to
send me home with a cable box that only had one output: (standard definition,
analog) coax. I don't even know why they would still offer such a thing, but I
had to fight with them to get a box that output HDMI.

~~~
EduardoBautista
The Super Bowl is available through antenna.

~~~
krallja
...in HD!

------
matt_wulfeck
Honestly it's bad everywhere. I'm lucky enough to have U-verse 1Gb fiber. I
get around 95% of the speed, which is awesome. EXCEPT for some awful reason
I'm required to use their modem/firewall combo. Even if I forward all IP
traffic to my own router I still have to keep the AT&T router in front because
it authorizes me on the network.

To make matters worse it exposes a management port for who-knows-why. I'm
hoping somebody picks the thing apart and dumps the 802.1X certificate so I
can use my own modem.

------
gambiting
If you are in the UK and using Virgin, the very first thing you should do is
buy any router other than their garbage SuperHub 3.0. I was getting a ~50ms
ping on LOCAL NETWORK, and weirdly high packet loss over internet, after
complaining to virgin they sent me another router, was exactly the same -
there's plenty of threads on their forums complaining about the same thing.

Just buy anything other than their own hardware and the connection is
brilliant.

------
tmaly
I did the same thing, swapped out an xfinity provided cable modem for my own.
I definitely have better speeds now. My modem supports more channels

------
danielparks
I get 120 Mbps down on a 75 Mbps Xfinity plan. I think.

My bill says I have “Performance Pro Internet”, which appears to be specced
for 75 Mbps download.

I'm using an Arris (née Motorola) SB6183 modem. fast.com and speedtest.net
both report that I'm getting 120 Mbps down.

(I'm pretty sure that I signed up for 75 Mbps down, but Xfinity makes it
really hard to figure out what service you're using.)

------
BostonEnginerd
Comcast's business practices aren't great, but I will give them credit. I get
every Mbps that they claim I am supposed to get. This is plugged into my
router (Turris Omnia) and my cable modem (self-owned Arris SB6190).

[http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/13090043](http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/13090043)

~~~
jbuzbee
Of course, there's always the suspicion that ISPs, including Comcast, give
priority to the various speed-test sites...

[http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28685577-Speed-comcast-
spee...](http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28685577-Speed-comcast-speed-test-
lies)

------
nnwright
I can confirm this on my end as well. Switching out Comcast equipment for my
item router and modem has effectively doubled my speeds.

------
prdonahue
Umm, they ship a crappy radio in their wifi device. They know this, the
technician "installing" it even told me not to use it.

I had nearly the exact same results after disabling wifi and patching in an
Apple Airport Express that I could connect to using 5GHz spectrum.. Speeds
jumped from 25Mbps down to ~95Mbps down and latency dropped from 20ms to 9ms.

------
username223
I wonder how much of that has to do with their providing "xfinity" wifi to
anyone nearby who wants to share your cable line?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfinity#Xfinity_WiFi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfinity#Xfinity_WiFi)

~~~
r00fus
I have a limited setback on my house and I swear when I replaced their combo
router I stopped having people (late at night eating burgers and listening to
loud music while browsing) randomly parked in front of my house (presumably
they got signal on the street).

I'll never go back to that configuration again so it's not like I can retest.

------
deeth_starr_v
She probably had an old DOCSIS 1 modem from a few years ago. You could only
get 30MBPS with that. They usually tell you that on the phone when you try to
upgrade, but they've been giving free upgrades without you asking in SF. I had
to buy a DOCSIS 3.0 modem to get the best speeds.

------
codezero
I complained about my speeds and they upgraded my router to a newer one. I
find it pretty unacceptable that when I'm renting equipment from them, they
don't provide me the equipment that is the speed of the pipe I pay for unless
I complain...

------
M_Grey
At a guess this is a result of Comcast using the absolute, most mindbogglingly
cheap hardware on the planet Earth. Second to that I would guess some kind of
incompetence, and only after that would I seriously entertain what amounts to
theft.

~~~
jmartens
You are probably right about cheap equipment and incompetence, but isn't it
still fraud if they sell you something that they knowingly can't offer?

If I rent a car and pay extra for a 4WD, but the 4WD doesn't work, I want my
money back. Is this different?

~~~
sjg007
It's the same. You can sue for breach of implied warranty. They may try to get
out of it by saying 'speeds up to'. But if the device can't do that then yes
you'd have a good argument.

~~~
M_Grey
Well, that's not quite the same as fraud, which is a much higher bar to prove.
I absolutely wasn't disputing that if you're not getting the advertised
service, you should seek recourse, I was just disputing "fraud". It's the
difference between being sold a lemon car, and being sold a car that someone
turned the odometer back on.

------
devonkim
The great, vast majority of Comcast users are ignorant and get fleeced
constantly (I firmly do believe the great majority are old people with their
primary bandwidth "hogs" being an SD-broadcast Netflix TV show, 3 iOS apps /
year, and a bank website login), so this practice of under-delivery visible to
the consumer will probably never really stop (they're cash cows) until we get
the FCC involved across the board showing it's a corporate policy to not
deliver an advertised service. Unfortunately, they probably get around this
too by putting so many disclaimers and exceptions in ads based around wi-fi
inconsistencies and system loads that it makes any lawsuit about service
levels impossible to prosecute successfully.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I'm not old or ignorant but I am a Comcast customer. Have to be because
they're the only game in town.

------
itimetrack
Before switching modems, try to turn off QoS, its a setting that optimizes for
voice and real-time communication... some how optimize for RTC means
everything else is slowed down.

------
digitalpacman
This happened to my friend too. He was arguing for a new modem. They said no
there was no problem. So he replaced it with a non-comcast modem and poof max
speed.

------
strictnein
> "What do you say, do we have a nice class-action on our hands?"

No.

------
bnolsen
Honestly I'd be shocked if comcast isn't ripping everyone off in mulltiple
ways. I hate that company.

------
exabrial
Yes.

------
1propionyl
Yes.

