
It’s Comcastic, Or: I Accidentally Bought a House Without Cable - Deinos
http://www.loomcom.com/blog/2015/02/22/its-comcastic-or-i-accidentally-bought-a-house-without-internet/
======
encoderer
When I was 18 I worked in a call center for AT&T@Home broadband cable. This
was 2000, when the business was in its infancy and there were often technical
issues.

I worked the "supervisor" desk (i was not a supervisor, just a somewhat more
knowledgable rep) so would take almost exclusively irate calls.

I tried to help everybody of course, but a few people stood out from time to
time as having exceptionally bad service. Bury requests that were cancelled
for _months_ \-- so you have to mow your lawn around a cable and it trips your
kids and gets chewed by rodents. Techs that hang a "we missed you" card on
your door and then run back to the truck without ever knocking. Installers
napping. Installers looking at porn. Installers going through peoples things.

For those people, I gave them free service "for life".

Deep inside the GUI app that I believe was called ACSR was the service
provisioning and in every market there were all the paid services and a fairly
similar list of free services that were used when the equipment was just being
installed and users were brought online to test it. So they had "1.0 MB
Broadband" and "1.0 MB Broadband Pilot". By moving users from one to the
other, their bills would just drop to $0.

I have no idea how long this benefit endured. You'd think at some point there
would be an audit or migration that cleaned it up. But I hope not. Steve Roach
in Memphis and the 1/2 dozen others: I hope your cable is still free.

~~~
fixermark
My university was apparently grandfathered into that category (for their off-
property students) when the local ISP company was bought by Comcast; the
original provider had put the uni into their "Other" billing category as it
was a special off-rate annually-negotiated contract, and when they unified the
IT systems they got moved into that "billed 0" category in Comcast's backend.

Yep, sure enough, an automatic cleaning script came along and killed all those
cost-0 connections, cutting many student residents off from the network for a
few days. My understanding is that the meeting between the Comcast rep and the
head of campus IT was an instance of _legendary_ restraint on the part of our
IT head (in that everyone left the room with all their limbs still attached).

(I'm sure it helped the uni's bargaining position a lot that we were in a
metropolitan area; Verizon was champing at the bit to get those accounts).

------
nathantotten
File a complaint with the FCC. I have done this twice now with comcast and
both times somebody from their "executive support" contacted me the next day.
It seems that their "executive support" might be the only people in the
company that actually can solve problems and the FCC complaint is the only way
I know of to get in touch with them. Clearly a very effeciient system Comcast
has over there. [https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-
us](https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us)

~~~
chatmasta
I was also able to get ahold of "executive support," and received A+ customer
service. All my issues were resolved and bill was discounted ongoing.

I spent a few hours putting together a single .pdf with all the evidence of
comcast wrongdoing compiled together. It was 10+ pages of screenshots and
explanations proving comcast fucked up and was charging me for it. I emailed
Comcast explaining I was ready to forward to techcrunch if they didn't resolve
the situation A.S.A.P.

Within two hours I had an email from a real person.

~~~
therealdrag0
In what ways had they "fucked up"?

------
windexh8er
As someone in the comments section noted to the author - there are plenty of
short haul, unlicensed spectrum, wireless bridges available today that are
very affordable. Even if he went with something more long haul oriented he
could easily clear well over 30 miles LoS at over 500Mbit
([https://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber5/](https://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber5/))
in real-world expectations. I would put the money into building a tower on my
property and find the closest fiber plant Comcast has for the HFC node that
services the general area and make them give me a L3 drop to this bridge.
Having done this working for a cable provider in the past, it's trivial and
inexpensive (costing well under $10k for the expensive equipment, generally a
5 mile link can be done for under $2k).

Reliance on Comcast won't get you anywhere in most cases, but there are
options for this guy other than selling his house.

~~~
rohansingh
Long-haul LoS can be pretty much impossible in parts of the Pacific Northwest
due to the geography and ecology (read: hills and trees). The short point-to-
point option with a cooperative neighbor could definitely work.

~~~
dagw
It's been 15 years since I last had anything to do with long range LoS
wireless bridges, but at least back then they also tended to flake out during
snowstorms and heavy rain.

~~~
mikeash
My wired Comcast connection sometimes did this too, back when I had it. Might
not be any worse!

~~~
MertsA
That's probably not their equipment up on the poles causing that, you can
probably fix it for good by replacing some old splitters around your house and
just re-terminating all of the coax connectors.

~~~
mikeash
I don't think anything in my house was getting wet. The stuff outside seemed
to be in pretty poor condition, and was underground where it could get
immersed and such. Their techs liked to just forget to put covers back on
things after they were done working, which I'm sure didn't help. In any case,
I don't live there anymore so not a problem I have to deal with now.

------
fixermark
There aren't a ton of major differences between Verizon and Comcast as
companies, but this one is sometimes (as indicated here) key:

Verizon still employs its own unionized workforce of service technicians for
cable connections; Comcast outsources that to multiple competing front-line
service contractors.

This isn't a system that _can 't ever_ work, but Comcast has not yet solved
the problem of keeping communications channels clear and coordinated among
different competing contractors who have no incentive to cross-communicate
with each other (not only are they not rewarded for it, but the incentive
system of free markets is actively structured so that if one contractor looks
bad, others indirectly benefit). It leads to all sorts of little micro-
aggressions; when I had Comcast hooked up at a previous residence, the
contractor had to climb the ladder to the pole twice because the junction
plugs that should easily wire my house to the main trunk were not only
detached, but removed (likely by a previous contractor, because hey, free
plugs). He had to go down and get new plugs and splice them in.

In contrast, everyone is on the "same team" at Verizon, structurally and
legally. You leave the junction plugs there because the next guy who comes
along and needs to connect the service again is your coworker.

It's a shame that none of that matters to this individual because of the way
the service local monopolies are structured in the U.S. Living near a major
metropolitan area, I'm lucky enough to have my choice of the two vendors
around here.

~~~
true_religion
Living in the D.C. area, I can only speak for experience but Verizon seems to
operate two groups of techs.

One as you said are in-house and unionized, these guys seem to mostly handle
the apartment complexes and large installments.

The other group handles regular houses, or off-one jobs when the market is
exploding.

I've spoken to techs on both sides, and they both confirmed with mild disdain
the existence of the other group.

Just an anecdote.

~~~
fixermark
Tragically, the anecdote I've heard from our local techs is that Verizon
corporate would love to switch to Comcast's model, and are applying attrition
pressure to make it happen; their mobile business arm isn't unionized, and
they're looking forward to switching out their retained employees with
contract staff for all of the hookup work.

... which is a shame, because it's actually something I consider to be a
distinguishing factor in their service options.

~~~
pyvpx
Verizon Wireless outsources literally everything but customer service.
Everything.

------
ZitchDog
This reminds me quite a bit of my situation when we built our new house. Our
local cable company is Mediacom, which serves smaller markets. They were
extremely flaky about running cable just 2 blocks from an existing drop.
Fortunately after extensive research, I discovered that our local telecom
ordinance (which gives Mediacom exclusive rights in our city) requires them to
run cable to new houses in a timely matter. After months of delays, once I
threatened to file a formal complaint with the telecommunications commission,
they ran a cable to our house within two weeks.

The problem is, it's fairly expensive to dig cable to a single house, and it's
just not worth it for the cable company to dig. If we decide that broadband is
a necessity, some sort of municipal broadband or government oversight is
absolutely required to guarantee that each person has access, because the
market sure won't.

~~~
rayiner
> I discovered that our local telecom ordinance (which gives Mediacom
> exclusive rights in our city)

Do you have a copy of the ordinance, by chance? Exclusive cable franchises are
illegal under federal law. If you're litigious, you might be able to get the
ordinance overturned.

~~~
extra88
Do you have a copy of the federal law, by chance?

~~~
rayiner
47 U.S.C. 541(a)(1).
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/541](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/541).
Part of the 1992 Cable Act:
[http://www.lib.niu.edu/1994/im940207.html](http://www.lib.niu.edu/1994/im940207.html).

"A franchising authority may award, in accordance with the provisions of this
subchapter, 1 or more franchises within its jurisdiction; except that a
franchising authority may not grant an exclusive franchise and may not
unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise. Any
applicant whose application for a second franchise has been denied by a final
decision of the franchising authority may appeal such final decision pursuant
to the provisions of section 555 of this title for failure to comply with this
subsection."

Theoretically, a pre-1992 contract negotiated before the law was passed might
still be in effect. In practice, these contracts had 5-10 year terms and
expired long ago.

~~~
glesica
I have a small amount of experience with this, having observed the
negotiations between a city government and Mediacom. The deal, in that case,
wasn't technically "exclusive", but it did require that any additional
franchisee provide equal or better service.

In practice, this meant that the deal with Mediacom was "exclusive" since the
market was small enough that no other provider would be willing to roll out
the full set of services offered by Mediacom (another provider might have been
willing to offer basic services to capture cost-conscious consumers). I'm not
sure what the federal law says about this sort of thing.

~~~
rayiner
I don't think that's been litigated. A few years ago, the Sixth Circuit upheld
FCC rules that put an end to some of the more egregious municipal licensing
authority requirements, though those rules didn't address the situation you
raise:
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=132938372903668...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13293837290366870260&q=alliance+for+community+media+v+fcc&hl=en&as_sdt=20006).

------
pivo
I know a woman who works selling advert time for Comcast. She showed me what
she described as a very special "just fix my problem and don't bullshit me
about it" card that she had.

She told me she gets two of these cards a year to hand out when she's trying
to sell someone advertising time but that client isn't buying because they're
upset about some problem they have with their personal Comcast service. She
gives them a card, Comcast then forces themselves to fix the problem, and she
can make a sale.

So I asked her why Comcast doesn't treat all their customer's problems this
way. She laughed.

~~~
towelrod
When you hand over the card, make sure to say "Valar Morghulis".

~~~
true_religion
Valar dohaeris, meaning 'all men must serve' would be more appropriate, I
think.

------
kiscica
In a situation like this, the key is to get a contingency in the house
purchase contract -- and have the work done before the closing.

We bought a house that didn't have cable or DSL in a somewhat rural area --
the sellers were using 3G, satellite Internet, and dialup (!). They assured us
that the only reason they hadn't had cable installed was the high cost they'd
been quoted for running cable on the property (understandable as the house is
almost 1/4 mile back from the street), and the cable company concurred that
they'd be able to do the work, "no problem," and quoted a fee that didn't seem
all _that_ bad in the end (we took it into account when negotiating the price
of the house).

Nevertheless, we made the sellers agree to a contingency - cable co. would
successfully complete the work (on our dime, of course) and hook us up before
the closing, and the total amount wouldn't exceed what we had been quoted. If
the contingency wasn't met, the sale would fall through and we'd get our
deposit back.

That contingency clause relieved me of a lot of stress over the next few
months. Everything turned out OK in the end, but it was touch-and-go for a
while.

Cable co. accepted the order with no problem, did a survey I guess, called us
and said they wouldn't be able to do it. They were persuaded (not sure how --
agent took care of it) to reconsider, but then came back with a quote that was
at least five times higher than before. Cue lots of emails and phone calls. It
was helpful having an agent who lived in the community. In the end a local
contractor dug the trench for us at a very reasonable price, cable co. came
down on their estimate, and the work actually was completed at just under the
original quote. The dirt was literally being shoveled back over the trench on
the day of the closing.

As I recall it was actually a few days later that the cable guy came to do the
inside wiring and "flip the switch," so strictly speaking the contingency
(cable installed and working) wasn't satisfied by the closing, but we assumed
we'd be OK at that point, and there were in fact no further hitches. We moved
in and have enjoyed a (mostly) reliable, fast connection ever since. But we
would absolutely have walked away, even though it was our "dream house," had
we not been able to get the cable pulled. The contingency clause gave us the
assurance that we could do that with no penalty. And, had it turned out that
the work _could_ be done but only at 5x the price, we could potentially have
used the clause to negotiate a concession from the seller to cover the costs.

~~~
fixermark
In general, yes.

In this instance, the buyer was 100% convinced that the property had the
service of interest and was told it did by the local monopoly in charge of
providing such service. There was no work to be done before the closing
because Comcast won't hook up Internet to a property for someone who isn't the
property owner or resident.

What you're describing would be a bit like taking out a contingency on the
house actually having running water after you physically walked through the
house and checked the taps and toilets, just on the off chance that the water
is actually not coming from the local muni water source, but instead from an
on-property aquifer that a previous owner had tapped and painstakingly routed
into the house's internal plumbing, and immediately after closing the sale
that aquifer runs dry.

Real people don't go to that level of contract detail.

~~~
kiscica
Well, at least he will know to go to that level of detail next time! Once
burned, twice shy.

I guess my point is that being "100% convinced that the property had the
[feature] of interest" based solely on a phone call is pretty risky when
you're talking about a purchase as large as a house and a feature as important
(to him) as ability to get broadband internet. I totally understand and
sympathize with his plight (I was screwed in basically the way, actually, many
years ago, though it was a rental rather than a purchase, and DSL rather than
cable, and it did work out in the end in that case too). And the degree to
which he was jerked around by Comcast here is almost unreal. I could feel my
blood boiling when I read the story. But in the end, I don't think he is going
to have any actual legal recourse. He said this was his first home purchase; I
imagine next time he will insist on seeing the connection in action next time,
or getting that contingency clause in if not!

In any case, your analogy doesn't really fit the situation. The seller didn't
have cable, or, presumably, any fixed broadband internet service. (That in
itself is a bit of a red flag; I'd think most households who can get internet
service at a reasonable price these days already have it.) The situation you
describe -- well, it's hard to imagine it happening, because the seller would
clearly have been legally obligated to disclose that the water was from a well
and not municipal, and in any case the buyer would, one hopes, have hired a
home inspector who would have noted this (and probably detected issues with
the well as w... umm, in addition). But it doesn't sound like the seller hid
the fact that there was no internet service _currently_ at the house, which
means there's no liability there.

So this is more like buying a house with no running water at all, with the
knowledge that this is the case, and then getting a verbal promise from the
local water company that they'd be able to hook you up. If you were to buy a
house under conditions like this, I maintain that you probably would want a
contingency clause on installation of the water.

And for what it's worth our cable company (not Comcast, but another big one)
had absolutely no problem starting the work (once they agreed to do it) for us
before we were the owner or resident. If they had, we would simply have made
the contingency something like "seller is obligated to have internet
installed, for which the buyer will pay, prior to closing."

------
rayiner
> I think this was the most productive call I’ve had so far, because I finally
> got the clear picture of what’s going on. Somewhere in Comcast’s system,
> there’s a check box that says that I already have cable service to the
> house. Every time I call to ask about new service, someone looks at this
> checkbox and concludes that I don’t need construction. Whenever a ticket is
> opened in regards to construction, it’s closed automatically because the
> system believes it’s not necessary. So I am literally in a Catch-22

This is what Kafkaesque actually means.

~~~
tzs
What I think I would try I that situation is to change the address. Pick a
nonexistent address on the same street, and order service at that address.
Change the numbers on the house to match and make sure they are prominent so
any people dispatch there will find it.

~~~
slayed0
This actually fits in nicely with the Comcast "rinse and repeat" method. Keep
calling back asking the same question until you get the answer you want.

Maybe he should have just submitted phantom requests from every address on his
street under different pseudonyms. Eventually someone might have made the
mistake of initiating the construction... or a regional manager may have
unlocked the project due to perceived demand!

------
jamesbrownuhh
I wonder if the writer is being too quick to dismiss satellite - it certainly
has its limitations but it could be a useful addition to the mix of limited
connectivity that DOES serve the house.

The Verizon hotspots may have a 30gb/month cap - so buy two. John Woo rules
apply - use the first 'till it runs out, then switch to the second.

Try combining multiple sources of connectivity with a load-balancing router,
or similar. These can be set to send certain types of traffic via more optimal
routes, so you reserve scarce/expensive bandwidth for
applications/destinations which need it, and send other traffic across
cheaper, slower or uncapped routes, etc etc. Combine satellite, mobile
(cellular) Internet, wireline DSL, community wifi, even dialup into the mix.

Look at wilder wifi options too - if there's no connectivity at the house, do
you have line-of-sight to somewhere which is better connected? Point to point
antennas, high gain receivers, etc. More and more options to throw into the
pot.

Obviously, it's all a lot of trouble, and is bound to be expensive - but given
that the author was already considering paying some or all of the substantial
Comcast buildout fees, even the most complex of these alternatives is still
likely to be cheaper - and if it means not having to sell the house you love,
then that has to be worth a thought.

~~~
beauzero
30GB month on Verizon is $120. That gets expensive fast.

------
zdw
Contact the local municipality that Comcast gets it's cable license from and
complain. The also hit the corporation commission, and other licensing
agencies. Then sue them.

Basically, they have a monopoly on a service covering an area, and they're
refusing service. That's utterly stupid.

~~~
rayiner
> Basically, they have a monopoly on a service covering an area, and they're
> refusing service.

They don't:
[http://www.codepublishing.com/wa/kitsapcounty/html/Kitsap14/...](http://www.codepublishing.com/wa/kitsapcounty/html/Kitsap14/Kitsap1432.html).

See: 14.32.010 Terms of franchise.

"(2) Any franchise granted pursuant to this chapter _shall be nonexclusive and
shall not preclude the county from granting other or further franchises_ or
permits or preclude the county from using any roads, rights-of-way, streets or
other public properties or affect its jurisdiction over them or any part of
them, or limit the full power of the county to make such changes, as the
county shall deem necessary, including the dedication, establishment,
maintenance and improvement of all new rights-of-way and thoroughfares and
other public properties."

If he's 2,500 feet from the nearest equipment, he's probably living in a low-
density area that's not worth anyone's while to serve.

------
cletus
This is a pretty awful situation. I feel bad for the author. I've had two
similar incidents in the past, although not quite as bad.

Years ago I lived in an apartment block with 9 apartments in the front
building and 9 in the rear. This was the dialup era and I wanted (and assumed
I could get) a 2nd line so I didn't tie up my primary line all the time. Turns
out the telco had only run 10 lines to the rear building for whatever reason
and I guess someone was using the "spare" already.

Interestingly, this was in the deregulation era. The guy I spoke to felt bad
and explained to me how now they couldn't by law provide more lines for free.
In the spirit of "competition" they had to price it "fairly". Oh well. It was
a rental and I moved a year later anyway.

The second time was in the DSL era (which is still the case in Australia). The
ACCC (sorta like an FTC/FCC hybrid) had decided that ISPs were allowed to
install their own DSLAMs in the telephone exchanges.

Well that worked well in some exchanges and not well in others. Some ran out
of space for racks very quickly. There was no spare capacity for me there.
However I did get put on a waiting list that resolved very quickly. Now this
was in the very early days of ADSL where it was still pretty unusual. I've
heard some horror stories about how it is now in some parts of the country.

Anyway...

There must be other people in their street/area who also aren't serviced by
Comcast. Can't Comcast justify wiring up the street by adding a bunch of new
customers?

Also, the author mentions reading the franchise agreement but doesn't say
anything more about it. I assume that means Comcast isn't required to service
his area or at least isn't required to provide 100% coverage?

And Comcast wants to merge with TWC? They can't manage their current network.
Why on earth should we trust a combined entity will be any better?

~~~
malka
> Why on earth should we trust a combined entity will be any better?

Yeah. If I crap on a pile on crap, I wont get gold. I'll just get more crap.

------
eropple
Calling this an "accident" is entirely too kind to Comcast. They're happy to
claim they'll serve almost anything within particular geographic areas,
whether or not they can or will.

(He mentioned DSL providers, too, which are their own brand of fun.)

~~~
mikeash
Once I was getting fed up with Comcast, so I called Verizon to see if they
could give me DSL, how fast it would be, etc. Their response was basically
that they had no idea, but they could put in an order and see what happened.
They literally could not tell me whether or not they could provide the service
at all.

~~~
300bps
_They literally could not tell me whether or not they could provide the
service at all._

As silly and frustrating as that is, "I don't know" is a much better answer
than, "Yes, absolutely" that turns out to be false.

"I don't know" would've saved OP tens of thousands of dollars that he will
soon be paying to sell a house he just purchased.

~~~
mikeash
Oh yes, you're totally right. Just illustrating another small way these
companies can be ridiculous.

------
poulsbohemian
I used to live in Kitsap county and this story is very familiar. We had a
house not far from the bridge where there was no (and probably will never be)
cell phone coverage by any provider, dsl also wasn't an option, and comcast
was the only game in town. You were lucky to get an FM/AM radio signal. Some
of the problem is that houses are built sporadically outside Poulsbo and
Bremerton proper - there really aren't neighborhoods so much as somebody
bought an acre in the woods and put a house on it.

But, this is certainly not isolated to Kitsap county or Comcast. Now I live in
the other side of the state, in Walla Walla, and I assure you that Charter is
just as bad, even when you pay for a business-class connection. It seems once
you get outside Portland/Seattle, the population density isn't such that the
cable providers (or other potential internet providers) are much interested in
the infrastructure investment. For the big guys like Comcast, Charter, etc -
HQ is far far away and has _no idea_ of the local situation. The only option
I've found is to become buddies with the local field guys (and there are only
like 2 for the 4 county area over here...).

Frankly, while the isolation and quiet of the peninsula is nice, you are
better off selling your house anyway unless you are willing to hold it for 20+
years and hope that King/Pierce/Snohomish are finally so full that people have
no choice but to move to Kitsap county. House sales are horribly slow and
values barely move.

~~~
wiredfool
I'm on Whidbey, and thankfully, the situation is totally different (at least
on the south end). We've got a good local telecom company that provides pretty
decent dsl and phone service. Best of all, they've got local tech support and
their techs will go the extra mile to make sure everything is working.

------
jgrowl
I still really believe that the big cable companies would be so much better if
their internal systems weren't so broken. The problem is that They bought up
so many small companies and have never completely integrated their processes
and data into their main system.

I had very similar experiences with Time Warner depending on who I talked I
would get different results. It seemed like the main corporate office was not
able to see notes that the local office entered and vice versa.

~~~
ericras
Absolutely never do online chat with Time Warner Cable and never call their
national phone number. Only call your local office. I've had appointments
scheduled through online chat that never showed up that the local office
didn't know about. Also have had the local office successfully debug problems
remotely on the phone that the main corporate number claimed they couldn't
fix.

------
drcube
Couldn't you sue? Your home purchase was predicated on Comcast's word that
they could service your new home. You require it for work. Now you've bought a
home, have to sell it for a loss, all due to Comcast. I don't see why you
can't stick them with the bill. Call a lawyer, have them talk to Comcast, and
maybe they'll change their tune about extending their line to your home.

~~~
Filligree
Only if they had that as a contingency clause in the contract for the house.
Which they probably didn't.

~~~
natch
No... a contingency is between the buyer and the seller. It just gives the
buyer an out if certain things don't happen. It doesn't give Comcast any
obligations in the matter.

Comcast could be held accountable for other reasons, but not by a contingency.

~~~
Filligree
That was my point. There's no way to force Comcast to serve them, but they
could have gotten out of the purchase.

------
yummybear
Even I hate Comcast. And I'm european.

~~~
teh_klev
And I thought BT were a shower of shits.

------
HarryHirsch
When I grew up the telephone company was still a state-run monopoly. To get
telephone service connected you had to pay a nominal fee, independent of
whether there was trenching and laying of cable involved, or if they just had
to connect at the patch panel.

Today's unregulated quasi-monopolies are some progress. Can we get the
government monopoly back? The thing is - it worked extremely well!

~~~
ghaff
It was very reliable and simple in any case (talking about AT&T). Long
distance phone calls were also about 50 cents/minute interstate (and even
longer distance intrastate) in the early 1980s and for a long time you
couldn't even attach your own gear to the phone lines in your house. You had
to rent AT&T phones. Some of this is a function of the general technological
advance between then and now of course but Ma Bell was certainly not a fast
moving organization.

From a 1976 SNL skit: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone
company." Government monopoly wasn't nirvana by a long shot.

------
dublinben
Wouldn't the easiest way to verify cable internet service for a residence be
to simply ask the current owner? They will know better than anyone else
(including the ISP) whether their exact location can be serviced.

I'm a little shocked that the author would go through all this back and forth
with a company with a reputation like Comcast, and never once ask the previous
owner of the house.

~~~
duskwuff
He did ask the realtor, as well as Comcast themselves, and all were under the
impression that it already had service. (First question in the FAQ.)

~~~
maratd
That is not what the parent said. He said ask the owner.

Realtor couldn't care less, no wait, they have an incentive to lie. Comcast
couldn't care less.

The owner does care, because they become liable if they misrepresent the
property.

Never spend a ton of money without doing the leg work yourself. Don't trust
other people, especially people who have zero incentive to be accurate or
truthful.

------
jellicle
It's nice that cable companies claim they need rate increases, monopolies,
subsidies and so on because of all the work they do putting up infrastructure
to serve everyone, and then also charge the residents for putting up that same
infrastructure.

------
jason_slack
This happened to me in December 2014. I bought a house in way upstate NY. I
called Time Warner to verify they could get internet to the location before I
bought the house!! They said yes. I packed up, moved across country to then
find out that Time Warner "made a mistake" and no internet is available. Not
even DSL.

So, I am now the proud owner of a CradlePoint LTE modem, upped my data through
AT&T since they were having a promotion to 30gb a month. It's a change in my
browsing habits but 30gb is more than enough for work stuff and at the end of
the month if I have 10gb to spare I go after those videos I wanted to watch.

------
shanecleveland
Also live in Kitsap county. I am sure you have looked, but is Wave Cable an
option in your location at all? The business I am at in Silverdale utilizes
Wave. I know others in the county that have Wave, as well. I am not sure how
coverage is dictated between the providers.

------
regehr
I bought a house about 1 mile from downtown Salt Lake City in 2008 and it took
until last year to get a decent internet connection (from Comcast). First
world problems!

~~~
pavel_lishin
What did you have before?

~~~
regehr
512 kbps DSL -- just barely, frustratingly capable of watching Netflix at the
worst quality level

------
Paul_Dessert
I only had time to read about half of the article, but wanted to let you know
this EXACT same thing just happened to me.

We verified service (twice) before buying the house. Called to schedule an
install and found out service wasn't available to our house.

Long story short, I was lucky enough to get a great technician and he schedule
a drop bury VERY quickly. I got a call from Comcast's corporate office within
minutes of his request. It took about 3 weeks for them to run a new RG11 line
from the street to the house, but it's all up and running now.

I also work from home, so I was forced to use my 4G connection briefly as I
waited.

I feel your pain. Good luck!!

------
kyleblarson
Does anyone here work remotely on a satellite connection? How has your
experience been? I live in an extremely isolated town of 200 people in the
North Cascades (Washington state as well) and currently use CenturyLink DSL.
Because the line to my little community is saturated, they can only offer us
1.5 down. It's slow, but I make it work and thankfully the bandwidth is very
consistent and my work isn't super bandwidth intensive. I have often wondered
if it would make sense to put satellite into the mix as well. We already have
Dish for TV.

~~~
bobdvb
I used to work in the business of supplying satellite links like this in
Europe and the Middle East, so not the same as the USA. It is a good
alternative if you have no practical alternative such as a landline but I
would only call it a basic alternative to ADSL.

The biggest problem is latency and there are two factors that impact latency:
1) Distance (the satellite is really far away) 2) Contention (it is often a
TDMA system so your packets have to wait for the next available time slot, in
a busy network this can cause problems)

Bandwidth isn't the primary concern, it is usually quality and latency. They
are tightly related but latency is something that always limits you because it
makes VoIP, VNC and gaming difficult.

------
jccooper
I moved my office to a complex that was supposed to have both cable and DSL
internet available. Neither was installed yet so we bought a Clearwire device
to fill the gap.

The DSL was a slightly better deal, so we had them in to install it, and it
wouldn't push more than a few bits. After several service calls, they
eventually gave up. We were too far away, even though their modelling showed
our distance as fine.

So we call up the cable company (Comcast, of course) and our unit is too far
from the service point. They set up an appointment with engineering to install
a new pole and such. Six months later, we have cable service finally run. Not
speedy, but at least they didn't give me the runaround.

It's too bad Clear didn't work out; saved my bacon. These days I'd have to get
wireless internet service through one of the mobile phone companies, which is
not nearly as good a deal. But it would still work.

Anyway, it's a mess. And a good lesson to assume you can't get service until
you actually have it, both in residential and commercial settings. But then
there was the time with my home service where the DSL office got slowly
further away until they couldn't give me service any more...

------
leklund
Maude: Lord, you can imagine where it goes from here.

The Dude: He fixes the cable?

Maude: Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey.

------
ulfw
Honestly that is exactly the kind of service experience I have been getting
from Comcast, at&t and Verizon in all the years I lived in the States.

Not sure where the reputation for great customer service comes from. At least
in the telco/cable space I have not witnessed it.

Most was customer service reps who didn't care, were powerless, badly trained,
outsourced or (often) all of the above.

------
j_s
Up until last November, one solution would be to buy an old Verizon contract
with unlimited data on e-Bay (no longer transferable?).

[http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/verizon-unlimited-data-
plans...](http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/verizon-unlimited-data-plans-no-
longer-transferrable-effective-november-13/)

------
clarky07
I'm currently gearing up for a similar headache. I'm planning on building on a
piece of land that is ~20 minutes from the city. Comcast's website is happy to
sign up in my zip code and even my neighbors address, but they don't actually
get there. Now I have to figure out exactly how far away it is, and how much
trouble it's going to be (if even remotely possible) to get them to come down
our street.

There are obviously other options. My neighbor uses a Verizon hotspot.
Satellite is technically an option. But the data caps are really sad since we
like having Netflix and other streaming services as our primary entertainment.
25-30 gb is really not something I'm looking forward to. Might settle for bad
DSL I guess. I hope at least that is in the area.

------
Roboprog
It's funny. We moved, about 10 miles from old house to new house, about 2
years ago.

At the old house, Comcast was utterly incompetent (took forever to finally get
a wire run from the street over a pole in the yard and stapled to the house,
but they never did follow up to install wire and a modem in the house), and
AT&T was the bomb.

At the new house, AT&T was utterly incompetent (could not even get voice to
work, let alone internet), and Comcast rocks.

Every neighborhood has its weird historical setup, I guess.

------
thumbtackthief
How about contacting local news stations? Seems like an interesting piece for
them.

I feel your pain--Comcast is the devil.

------
ohitsdom
And people are worried net neutrality will mess up the internet with
governmental regulation.

~~~
gojomo
Net neutrality regulations don't help with this issue – and could make it
worse, because new ISPs will face extra compliance costs. Also, if a potential
new ISP has novel business model ideas (involving cross-subsidies from other
service providers), their ideas may be made illegal by the FCC's rules.

So the dynamic we have (and expressed to some extent in your comment) is:

(1) Comcast is a crappy company that people hate/distrust;

(2) Because of that hate/distrust, people support policies like federally-
mandated net neutrality; but…

(3) Such federal regulation, even when it provides some consumer protection,
also makes the crappy monopolist even more entrenched and sluggish, as was the
case with 'Ma Bell', the 60s/70s airline industry, 20th-century rail/truck
shipping, etc.

------
deeviant
I've had wonderful experiences with the BBB when wronged by various companies.
Although comcast might certainly be an exception to that, everybody already
knows they have crap customer service.

------
ak217
They are going to sell the house on account of this?! I wish there were more
places like this, with their property values dinged by lack of cable. I would
jump on such a discount.

~~~
fixermark
I hear there's a guy in Washington you could make an offer to. ;)

------
droque
Seems to me that there could be a big market for an AirHelp-like service that
focused on telecoms. A private, for-profit consumer protection company.

------
cpkpad
Sue for misrepresentation. Will you win? I don't know. But it will likely be
cheaper to give you service than to defend against the law suit.

------
Mithaldu
I must honestly say:

I'm angry at Comcast about this shit.

However i'm even more angry at the author about it.

He did not even try once to even get a supervisor, when he should have been
throwing the book at Comcast by week 2 latest. How is a company supposed to
learn and improve if people like this guy let them get away with literally
lying to customers without punishment?

Don't blog about it on the internet. Record phone calls, pressure agents to
give you their full legal names, push to get supervisors. And get a damn
lawyer.

~~~
fixermark
The first rule of being in business over the Internet is this:

Every bug report you get, you had better be damn thankful for. Each one
represents an uncounted number of customers who just gave up on your product.
Comcast is lucky this guy decided to document the precise way in which the
system failed him; he gave them a roadmap for improving it.

~~~
Mithaldu
That's the point. For big companies bug reports are meaningless unless they
result in loss of sufficient quantities of hard cash. In fact, i'm pretty sure
comcast is happy about the outcome of this so far, since the conclusion of the
author is: Do Comcast's job yourself first.

