Review by Time4aNAP 
Posted: 1.3 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 58 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
 Des Plaines,Cook,IL
 $70 per month (12 month contract)
 "Good"
 "I couldn't get other rooms wired. (I'm renting), no static IP available."
 "Beats RCN in every way, except static IP availability."
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(ratings match consensus)
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I've come to depend on the Internet for work and play. As a professional consultant, I can't be offline ever. As part of a multiple redundant connectivity plan, Comcast has proved to be surprisingly reliable. If they offered a static IP address, I might even think of dropping the expensive (but reliable) business DSL connection. (My EV-DO card provides acceptable service for most tasks.)
I'm no fan of asymmetric bandwidth services, whose sole purpose is to cripple all in order to stop a few cases of abuse. Upstream speed is very important for TCP, which is the bulk of Internet traffic. Big downstream numbers are meaningless when you're unable to SYN/ACK as fast as the servers. Now that loading a single web page can require thousands of separate TCP connections, the basic 128 kbps upstream rate simply will not do.
When I ordered my service, I asked for the least expensive package at the highest upload rate. The phone agent said that there was a 6M/768k package, which I said yes to. (The Comcast website was somewhat hazy about advertising hard numbers.) Only after the service was established, and I received subscriber materials from Comcast did I discover that only the top (8 Mbps) tier offered 768 kbps upstream rates. That was fixed at no extra charge with a brief phone call and cable modem reboot. Still, it would be nice to have had the information up front. This is a problem with almost every business website these days--too many visual gimmicks and too little information.
Installation was hampered by a leasing office that refused to allow me or the cable installer entry. This was 100% the property management company's fault. The Comcast installer was there on-time at every attempt, and when the SNAFU was resolved, the installation went well.
I own an old Toshiba cable modem, but it was still in use at my old place. I had planned on doing the provisioning over the phone after I had moved in completely, but when I saw the nice, compact Motorola box that the installer brought, I decided to use it instead.
This is maybe the fourth cable provider that I've dealt with, and my second cable modem installation (third, counting the one at my mom's house, which I supervised). This has been the best service / service level that I've seen thus far. There's always room for improvement, but I have to say that those who are complaining about Comcast might not realize how good they have it, compared to the others in this area.
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