Comcast Blunders.. 13% packet loss for 2 months. Games Unplayable, Streaming Video Unwatchable

I've actually gotten through at a corporate level through the customer service section of their website. A corporate rep named Jennifer contacted me, and apparently, she's actually got some more push over things.

Tony the maint. technician came out again this afternoon and checked out a few amplifiers to see if that would offer any improvement. Unfortunately there was none to be had.

Thanks to Jennifer though, Tony said that there are some new nodes being shipped into the area, and one is earmarked for my replacement. I'm going to stick it out for the new node and pray for the best. If there's no joy to be had from that fix, I'm bailing out for DSL.

Update Time:
Since Tony came out, I now have worse internet than dial-up. The packet loss is over 30%, so roughly 1/3 of all data traveling to and from me gets lost in the black hole of Comcast customer service. Adding insult to injury, it's a holiday, so, of course, there is no staff available to address the issue.

To top it all off, I just spoke to the rudest, most condescending rep to date. It must be in her job description to lose customers, because she's FANTASTIC at her job.

The site shows that there are 8 Comcast reps on the site. Why don't one of you speak up? The only thing this thread is doing is further tainting the already black customer support that so many here complain about. How about one of you solve MY issue as I've seen you do for others.

Oh.. Sorry, I forgot that you don't give a crap.

My problem is the same as yours and a trace shows that the problem for me is packet loss of up to 40% at the point where comcast connects to level3 in atlanta,ga.(te-9-1.car1.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.71.252.29)) Games are unplayable with this amount of packet loss and it is pretty idiotic to route from indianapolis,IN through alanta,GA to chicago. When you provide service in chicago also.

I have this same problem.

About two weeks ago I started noticing that internet speeds were slowing down; pages pausing a couple of seconds before loading. Then while playing World of Warcraft I noticed that latency was climbing. It used to be around 40 ms; I was getting latency up in the 600 ms timeframe.

I did the standard thing; called the order in last week and updated it over the weekend. Since I've had similar problems in the past, I told the customer service rep to make sure that the repair tech pulls the work order history for my address. That way he can see the previous problems and the work that was done, and save us all some time and trouble. When I had this problem before, it was a node / repeater station / something similar that was affecting an entire 8 city block neighborhood.

Then yesterday a technician came out. As I expected, he had no idea that there was any previous work order. So he vanished for 45 minutes to try and get it. When he returned he didn't have it. He and allegedly fixed a connection in the outside box; he claimed that the contacts were showing some sign of corrosion.

After he left my throughput went from mediocre (300 Kb/s) to around 40 to 50 kb/s. That's less than dialup. Pingplotter is showing packet data loss in the 30% to 60% range. (Image attached). I called him back directly and he was utterly useless; "I can see your modem and ping it just fine." I had to remind him that it doesn't what HE can see - because it doesn't invalidate what I'M seeing. Warcraft latency last night was routinely in the 4500 -5000 ms range (that's FIVE seconds of delay, folks) - utterly unplayable.

I spent two hours on the phone yesterday with various customer service reps, one of whom was being unhelpful so I asked for her manager. After putting me on hold for 15 minutes she simply hung up the phone. I finally got through to Marilyn in the Everett, WA customer office. We'll see how this goes, but I have my doubts.

Anyone suspecting a bad cable modem is the cause?

I can relate i spoke to a tech on the phone about not being able to play games on xbox live along with super slow web surfing.He told me a node was having power outage issues and until it gets fixed they wont send anyone out .I feel like the company doesnt really care enough do to the fact they get paid even when they fail to deliver there product.I am a patient man but i must admit Im starting to look at other options.

My favorite is when I was complaining about packet loss and all the tech could could understand was "slow." He tried to tell me that upgrading to their gamer package would fix the problem.

Heh, a funny anecdote came out of that conversation too. I kept talking about my 500ms - 1000ms latency. The tech finally told me he didn't know what that meant. I explained what it was and he said, "Oh, we refer to that as 'uptime'." Then it hit me. The reason comcast has so many problems is because their servers measure uptime in milliseconds! (Uptime is the term used to describe how long a server has been on, or "up" since it's last reboot).

I have the exact same problem Sheshonq... Ever since i have been with comcast, which has been for as long as i have lived in this house, 3 years, i have been having problems with my internet dropping for a brief second and then quickly reconnecting. I dont mind it too bad when i am surfing the web, but when in come to streaming video's and playing any games online it is extremely annoying getting disconnected every 5 - 10 minutes.

For the past month i have been trying to get a tech out here to take a look at the problem. Finally 2 days ago, after i might say getting hung up on by 3 different reps, i got a hold of someone that would actually listen to me. I told him that this has been going on for a long time now and that i have talked to many reps about this and the only one that would really help me was a guy that sent in a ticket for a tech to call me the next day that never happened. So this guy ran a couple diagnostics on my modem and there was nothing on the history, so he scheduled a tech to come out the next morning.

So when the tech finally got out to my house i told him the problem, and his response was "that we don't support gaming." So basically he was saying if he couldn't find anything wrong i was out of luck. But thankfully he did find something, the guy who installed the cable forgot to take off the filters or something like that, he wouldnt really explain it to me for some reason... so he left saying everything was working just fine now.

So that night i got onto a game to check how it was working. 10 minutes into the game i get disconnected. Dang... try it again... 5 min later i disconnect... so now it starts all over again.. Seeing that dial-up could do a better job at supporting gaming DSL is seeming like a good alternative right now... the last 6 years i have been loyal comcast customer, but when i need their help with something they give me the run around...

I have suffered through this problem the past six weeks. I, too, play World of Warcraft, but I also run datacenters for a living and am somewhat technically competent. The problems are intermittent, and so by the time one navigates through Comcast's phone tree (with new advertising I might add), the problem clears up. I run three ping tests- one to my router, one to the modem and one to my workplace website.

Packet loss to the website hits over 50% on occassion- enough to destroy any VPN connection to work, my wife's online schoolwork and, of course, Warcraft. The pings to my router and modem are unaffected. The problem is clearly upstream.

The thing is, Comcast has no feedback loop to its customer service people in that when you call them, all they can do is dispatch a tech. They can't look up your ticket or determine if any line techs are working on the problem. I've had three techs at my house who have replaced just about everything in the house.

Theoretically they've escalated to the line tech, but no one knows the status. In the meantime my connection is terrible. Finally, I sent an email to their support desk which promises 24-hour response. Nothing.

It appears that Comcast could care less about the problem. Inherently, their bridged network is inefficient for this type of service, and I bet they know it. I've been a Comcast customer since the attbi days, but it appears I will have to switch.

I have been going through the exact same thing. I have had 3 techs out and they all say...umm..well..your signal is fine. One tech even suggested that it could be my pc... I have a brand new $3000 computer and I have went as far as packing it up and heading to relatives house to see If it is my pc. NOT! I pay 60 bucks a month for what?? a lousy connection?? I have been playing WoW and Halo for about 5 years and I had this problem once before but nothing to this extent. I am about to tell comcast to take their equipment and part ways. I am sick of having to call them over and over and getting the same b.s. The last tech that came out sat at my computer and did a speed test from dsl reports and said well ...umm..duh... It looks good and LOOK AT THE SPEED!! IDIOT SPEED HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PACKET LOSS.. I get between 15-20% loss constantly. Tonight at one point it was up to 45! I get the feeling Im in for a long battle with them and ultimately I will have to switch to DSL. Unfortunately, the fastest DSL in my area is 1.5 MB DL. But, I would rather have 1.5 download and 0 packet loss than 12 and 40% loss. If any comcast reps are reading this...How do we get help?? What do we need to do to be taken seriously? Can we suggest a node be replaced??

Well.... Comcast did finally solve this issue. I took the problem all the way all the way to corporate, I was informed that 2 nodes were replaced, and my modem was replaced with a Scientific Atlanta modem. Haven't had any troubles since. Chock it up to American Engineering. SciAtlanta modems ROCK! I've done multiple installs for others since then, and have made sure that my customers request SciAtlanta modems by name, and nobody has modem troubles anymore.

Make the request... support American electronics. They work.

I can't play games cause of Comcast's High Ping latency Netflix BARELY plays...I have had a tech out 3x!

I have this same issue (cf: http://getsatisfaction.com/comcast/to...).

The problem with Comcast service is that they really have no context. When you call in, they can't seem to pull up your service history to see that this is an ongoing issue and requires more than the standard reboot response. They don't seem to understand what an intermittent issue is, so if they can get a response from your modem *that instant*, they think the problem is resolved. The front line techs are completely unable to do any technical troubleshooting (they think that being unable to ping your WAN gateway is the same kind of problem as, say, being unable to ping the Blizzard Warcraft servers). And finally, they look for any excuse to close the ticket or pass the buck -- the "we don't support games" response is a classic, especially since that's about half of their advertising base.

I have had a handful of contacts throughout the years with Comcast employees who were competent and actually wanted to see my problem resolved. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them just wanted to get me off the phone as soon as possible. The line techs who come by never seem to know the history of my service requests, and never seem to be willing to go beyond the most basic of testing.

The thing is that I see Comcast trucks in my neighborhood ALL THE TIME. I suspect that my neighbors -- who are all Comcast customers by necessity because there's NO *@#$*) COMPETITION IN SEATTLE (!!!) -- are all having connectivity problems, but because they (like most people) are not technically competent enough to diagnose their own issues beyond an "it seems slow/it doesn't work" point, they're just content enough with the runaround. However if you add all the individual Comcast trucks' cost together, plus whatever the attrition Comcast is getting from people who are fed up, the irony is that it would likely be MORE cost-effective for Comcast to just track down the root cause of the problem (which is likely a corroded junction somewhere under the street or a bouncing server/router somewhere) and FIX THE DAMN THING.

If you can't tell that I'm frustrated... I've been having email conversations with Patty Murray (about unrelated political issues). I'm going to see if I can get started a petition to open up Seattle to real competition in the ISP market. I can't see any other way to get Comcast truly motivated to help their customers.

It's a shame, really, because when their service works, it's great. It's just that "when it works" part...

I would highly recommend anyone who's thinking "big picture" about this (the fact that the internet is increasingly becoming a "walled garden" where only a few big monopolies -- Comcast, Verizon, etc. -- get to play, and no real choice for consumers) to support the Media Access Project.

http://www.mediaaccess.org/programs/b...

The United States is already 10-20 years behind other world powers in terms of access to broadband, average throughput (speed, roughly), and cost to consumers... precisely BECAUSE the tangled, anti-competitive, and ultimately broken laws and consumer protection agencies (I'm looking at you, FCC!) have failed us so badly. Nothing less than concerted citizen action can prevent the internet from becoming essentially under the control of the broadband monopolies.

Don't believe me? Then ask why the iPhone is only available with AT&T, and why nobody is suing over THAT little sweetheart deal... Our watchdogs have become complacent, our ISP's have become greedy and arrogant, and the only recourse left to us is direct action to goad the regulators to steer us back towards more competitive (internally, and with the world) waters.

I have gotten the same thing ... I can't watch streaming video anymore, or play flash games online ... this really sucks Comcast! What are you up to???

I've been having the same problem for over a year now. It comes and goes away, so it's easy to forget about it. When it comes it lasts about 2+ weeks with about 10-20% packet loss and unusably slow internet.

Comcast is clearly aware of this problem as I know several people in my area (Portland, OR) who have called in about it and it's also reported all over the internet. (just search "comcast packet loss" in google)

Apologies from comcast PR people in this site are great, but what really in order is for Comcast to solve this issue for good.

I'm getting this issue too, my stomach churns at the fact that I gotta call Comcast, I'm probably just going to move my service over to DSL and say screw it. Not worth the frustration.

Im gettign around the same issues, 5 montsh and still having issues, and i stream live video, video games rather and i play wow, only my problem seems to only happen when im streaming, id be playing WoW and the next thign you kno everything is running in place and 5-10 seconds after, i get booted, i grow tired of this, ive had 4 techs come out the last 4 months and all they did was replace a cable leading to my HD TV and said "your signals are fine, 40 bucks please!" thats not exactly what they said but i can tell they said in there mind, i bet there like "this guy is a dimwit doesnt kno anything"' i run 5 monitors, 1 a 20" tv i use for one of my PCs (i work in multimedia) and the other 4 are hook up as Dual Screens, im startign to get ready to swich over to DSL, the 7.1 Turbo plan from Verizon is in my area and i bet its a hell of alot more stable than what comcast has to offer.

To try and prevent this from happening any further ive had to edit my registry, which is RISKY BUSINESS ON ITS OWN and yet i still suffer from 10 - 17% packet loss. these are ping statistics for www.comcast.net:

Ping statistics for 64.215.158.59:
Packets: Sent = 1100, Recieved = 1083, Lost = 17 (1% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 534ms, Average = 22ms

^^^^^ that right there? ^^^^^ thats on a good day.