As those of you who may have read my recent posts on my switch from a Verizon landline to the new TMobile@Home landline replacement service have read, I ran into a problem during the switch to the @Home service: in order to have the @Home service I needed broadband, but my broadband was via Verizon DSL, which of course comes through the phone line. I’m an idiot for not thinking this whole thing through *before* jumping into the @Home thing, but in the end it’s working out quite well. Why?
Well…..first off….kudos to Verizon for now seemlessly offering ‘dry loop DSL’ (ie, where you can get DSL without landline service). But with that was also a pretty big price increase – from the $29.95 per month I was paying, to $41.95 per month. I decided to ask around, including the great folks who frequent the PANMA listserv, in regards to their experiences with Comcast broadband and whether the speeds they advertise are really truthful. After getting virtually all positive responses, I went for it and picked up a cable modem from my local Comcast office.
Before I get to the results I want to mention some history between myself and Comcast. About 8 years ago, when I first moved into my current home, I signed up for the @home broadband service (not to be confused with the new TMobile@Home….the ‘@home’ broadband I’m referring to was basically the first broadband available in my area…they turned out to be one of those dotcom busts even with the huge infusion of cash via an IPO). I had that service for about 18 months. Back then, I played lots of online multiplayer games, particularly MOHAA (the first one!). So lag and constant speed was important. The @home service was TERRIBLE. It was really laggy, and worse, it would drop for hours at a time. No internet. Or sometimes it would just be no email for 5 minutes here, 3 hours there, etc. Really annoying.
Then, Comcast bought them. The service did get better. Much better. But it was still real unreliable. Then, Verizon offered DSL for much cheaper, so I jumped ship. I’ve had DSL since then and can’t remember a single outage other than one time when it went down for a day (and IIRC, it was just email that went down). Verizon credited us proactively.
So I was leery about going to Comcast broadband again. But it’s supposedly reliable now, and after having it a few days (for what that’s worth…not much) it’s been solid. For just a couple of dollars more than the cost of keeping the DSL service from Verizon, I’m getting a HUGE bandwidth increase, and quite frankly I’m regretting I didn’t make the switch a couple of years sooner.
What is the speed difference? Well, the Verizon DSL was rated at, I believe, 768kbps. To their credit, I consistently got 2.8mbps down, and 350kbps up. The Comcast service is rated at 6mbps down. The speed tests vary with the Comcast service, but I’ve not seen it go below 7mbps yet. In fact, amazingly, it usually is in the 25mbps range!
As you can see from the screenshots above, there is no contest. The Comcast broadband test was done while my wife was upstairs surfing wirelessly or else I would have expected it to be in the mid-20mb range. It’s that much of a difference in speed between it and the DSL. Also, I’m not sure if I have the ‘Comcast Speedboost’ upgrade or not.
So…my point? DSL is a bad value now. Unfortunately FIOS is not available in my area, but unless it can guarantee me a steady bandwidth of greater than 20mbps down, and the cost is equivalent to the Comcast service, then I’ll be sticking with this for a while.
I can’t believe I’m a Comcast fanboy all of sudden.
8 Comments
*sigh*… comcast.
comcast’s broadband has been pretty good for me over the last 4 years or so, with fairly constant uptime and download speeds. the problem is the customer service and outrageous pricing.
when it comes to billing, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing: payments made online will NOT be reflected in your online statement until the NEXT month! according to an employee i grilled one day, this is because they use an antiquated billing system that’s left over from their old cable company days, and the backend isn’t robust enough to handle a modern web frontend (or something to that effect).
BTW, they bill in *advance*, so you have to pay for July’s service in June. annoying.
but what i really find insulting is their pricing: they CONSTANTLY show TV ads with special pricing for new customers (up to 12 months discount) while refusing to give existing — and loyal — customers any kind of price break at all. i pay $125/mo for broadband and the lowest level of digital TV… no premium channels, no HD. new customers can pay $99/mo for a year AND get a higher level of service (phone service is included in that package).
i should note that they also increased their rate on me about 3 times in the last 2 years *without notice.* my bill (with the exact same levels of service) went from about $105/mo to $115/mo to $125 a month with no explanation. sneaky bastages.
but apparently i should feel blessed because they give me a price break on broadband since i have a ‘package’ of sorts… the broadband portion of the bill is $45/mo. if you also have cable TV, whereas broadband-only service is $60/mo.
comcast drives me absolutely NUTS. i think comcast is one of my least favorite companies in the entire world. no exaggeration.
i was actually investigating doing the complete opposite of what you just did: i was looking into switching to Verizon DSL! i’ve only kept Comcast this long because there’s no real competition in San Francisco without going to ‘the dish’, which i can’t do.
sorry for the rant! i pray you don’t ever need to call comcast’s support line, because they are absolutely terrible.
(i’ll save my story about the installation guy coming 4 hours late then billing me for “free installation” for another day!)
Hi Philip,
I’m unfortunately well aware of Comcast’s horrible customer service. I spent an hour on the phone yelling and cursing at them, years ago, for not giving me the discount that new customers were getting.
I don’t know why, but amazingly a few months ago I went into the Comcast office to pickup an HDMI-equipped HD receiver and the lady behind the bulletproof glass (no kidding) proceeded to tell me she was gonna cut my bill in half just because I smiled when I walked in. Long story, but she wasn’t lying. My bill went from $120 per month for just digital cable and HBO, to $63 per month. But now I’ve noticed the last 2 months that the billing is screwy – I just got a bill from them saying I didn’t pay last month. I checked my instance of MS Money and my bank statements and sure enough, I did pay it.
If Comcast didn’t have a lock on the local sports teams here (they own 2 of the Philadelphia sports teams – the 76ers and the Flyers), I think half of the population here would have moved to the dish. But unfortunately without Comcast cable, we won’t get Phillies games, Flyers, or 76ers on television. Which sucks.
Rant aside…..the speed of the Comcast broadband is so much faster than Verizon DSL that I’m happy I made the switch, even knowing that I am getting in bed with the devil.
Here in Canada we have Bell sympatico just lately they started offering ‘naked’ DSL.My only concern is 911.yes you save some money but what if you need to dial 911?
You pick up the phone and dial 911 : )
I have the T-Mobile@Home phone service, and that service requires a cell phone. So there is redundancy so that even if the @Home service were down (which has become an increasingly rare occurrence after the first firmware update), I could always use the cell phone if I had to.
Marks last blog post..T-Mobile@Home Monthly Bill – How Much It Really Costs (Me)
It’s hard to be a Comcast fanboy, especially with the new bandwidth caps they just instated in my area. But, AT&T sucks more, AND my DSL speeds would top out @ 1.5mb. I’ve got 6 with Comcast, so that’s where I stay. Rumor has it that the new fiber optic “Uverse” will be here “soon”, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
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I was waiting and waiting for Verizon FIOS in my area. I live less than a 2 minute drive from a mall where they have a big ole Verizon FIOS kiosk, yet it’s not available here….
So that’s why I switched to Comcast.
I’m happy with the service. I haven’t had any outages that I’ve noticed since I got the service, which is a relief since I was really concerned that it would be similar to back when I used to have cable broadband. I had originally signed up for it with a company named “@home”, and the service was terrible – constant drops, and constant variations in bandwidth. That company went bankrupt and Comcast scooped em up and it didn’t get any better. A year or so later I switched to DSL and was really happy with it. I got the 1.5m down consistently, which I was thrilled with since they only promised/sold 384k or 768k at the time I started (I can’t remember which).
I don’t notice any difference in speed since switching to Comcast even though the bandwidth I’m getting according the the speed tests is > 6mb now. I’m sure that for larger downloads it is faster, but I don’t recall ever thinking the DSL was slow.
So far, Comcast has done me alright since switching. But I’m well aware that I’m ‘in bed with the devil’. Unfortunately now these companies are locking people up with contracts – I’m under contract with T-Mobile for my cell and landline service now, and Comcast is pushing their ‘triple play’ which requires a 2 year commitment, and I believe Verizon is doing the same.
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Comcast should be alot faster than verizon. The best speed you can get from verizon all depends on har far away your computer is from the main line .
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Good stuff. I’ve ‘sworn off’ Comcast 3 times already and now I’m going back stricktly for the broadband. My Verizon phone service has been down for 6 days (DSL still working)! When they called to confirm the repair appt. they said someone (an adult) needed to be on hand to sign autorization for the work and to provide access inside the home. When that appt. was made, I was told specifically that it was NOT necessary that anyone be home because we had already confirmed that the problem was outside! I’m done with the landline and Verizon. I could write a book on my experiences with Comcast in times past but I’m beggining to realize they all display a lack of competence and we have to learn to stand our ground as consumers until the whole thing collapses which I believe isn’t far off.