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 Review by JTC 
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 2028 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Beaverton,Washington,OR
 $68 per month (24 month contract)
 about 9 days
 "Cheap for a 'business class' service, flexable compared to the residental service"
 "It's Comcast with it's shared node design and weird provisioning setups"
 "Not bad, but not what I would call a 'real' business class service"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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My previous ISP (Integra Telecom), while being a very good role model for what a business class service should be, sadly could not provide me with the speed that I needed and wanted. Due to loop length issues and an aging copper infrastructure that VZ really doesn't seem too concerned about doing anything with now that FIOS is in my area, just not my neighborhood, I was never able to get more than a 700/600 connection (I was provisioned for an up to 1.5 mbit symmetrical connection).
Enter Comcast Business. I signed up for two years with the low end to start (6 down, 1 up). Installation fee is waved for long term (two year minimum) contracts.
Pre Sales information - While the sales rep answered my questions and did seem to check with tech support on a few questions he didn't have the answers for, some of his answers were incorrect. He also failed to mention a few things on how billing was done.
Question: Can I run my own DNS, including reverse lookups?
Answer (after checking): Yes
Correct Answer: Forward DNS yes, reverse lookups are handled by Tier 2 tech support, they will not allow someone to handle rDNS on the client side.
Question: The modem, can I put it into bridge mode and use my own router/firewall/$FOO device?
Answer: Yes
Correct Answer: After a fashion. Due to the way static IP's are provisioned, the modem (a SMC-8014) does have router and firewall functions, but they do not have to be used. Machines that are to have a public IP are to be configured to use them and attached to the SMC, after the firewall functions are turned off. The default router for the machines is the IP assigned to the SMC. Best way I can explain it is that the router that connects to the world is the SMC at the customer site, not some black box on the ISP's side.
Billing: Comcast uses a pre-paid method of billing (pay the monthly bill and you have service for the upcoming month). This resulted in a surprise to me when I received my first bill stating that was past due on my account and I owed two months worth of service, never mind that I have had the service for less than a month. This detail was never communicated to me. Also, when I received my bill, I saw that the credit that I was promised by exec escalations (a 'sorry our installer screwed up so badly' credit) was not applied. When I called billing, I was told by a nice person in billing that it appeared that it was not approved yet and would probably take a billing cycle to kick in.
Fortunately, one call to my contact as exec escalations fixed this issue and the full amount was credited to my account.
Install Co-ordination - While the installer showed up on time and didn't take a long time to get everything working, the install was a mess for many reasons. I won't go into details, as it has already been posted to the forums (see »[Business] Less than stellar install... for more), but in summary, the installer disconnected all the existing jacks in my place, didn't clean up, and left a very unprofessional install behind.
Connection Reliability - As I've only had the service for less than a month, I can't really comment too much on this, but I did mark it above average as the connection is very clean and strong (»Finally got around to checking my signal levels...), does seem to have the speeds that were sold to me, and has not gone down yet. Pings are pretty good and doesn't appear to fluctuate much (I'm monitoring the connection using smokeping).
Tech Support - Support for Comcast Business is 24/7. I've had to call tech support a few times (get the correct IP's ranges, figure out the fake bridging setup, set up rDNS), and after we were all sure we were talking about the same thing, they were helpful and actually seemed to know what they are talking about, what they are doing, and how the 'net in general works. I received no hint of script monkeyness with these guys, even when I called in at 1AM to get a new rDNS setup, which was up and working that afternoon.
Services: 6 mbit down, 1 mbit up (personally, I'd rather have a faster up, but my options are limited), five statics (you get your own /29 subnet) for an extra $10 a month, no caps, no blocked ports for under $70 a month. Usenet access is available, I apparently just need to talk to tech support to get a @comcast.net account set up (which I've not done yet). The rest of the stuff listed on the Comcast business site, I can't comment on as I have not tried to use it, nor do I have any use for them.
Value for the Money - All things being equal, they are a good value for a business data service. However, what they call a 'business class' I would call somewhere in between a true business class and residential class service (Integra is a hard act to follow, much less beat). One doesn't have the limits that are put on the residential accounts, but the cost for a given speed is higher than said residential.
Overall, I'm OK with the service so far. The speeds are much nicer and the connection, so far, is stable. I do have reservations due to the billing issues (not being told how it works, the missing credit), the way the network is set up (business runs off of the same infrastructure as residential accounts), and the questionable rep that the SMC modem/gateway has (will a tech deliver a new modem to me if it goes out at 8PM at night? I won’t hold my breath. A traditional setup would have their NOC techs at the keyboards working to get everything back up ASAP and not forcing their customers to wait until business hours), but these are not enough cons for me to drop the service.
Looks like I'm going to have an account with Comcast for the full two years I signed up for.
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Review by buee
Posted: 1.4 years ago
member for 1.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.4 years ago
Rockford,Winnebago,IL
 Business customer
$59 per month (24 month contract)
"Speed"
"Everything Else"
"I wouldn't recommend them to a competitor"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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Kindly check the "Days from order to success" category and you'll understand. I had "BUSINESS CLASS SERVICE" installed 3 months ago, and I've had about 50% down time. After being forced in to a contract because they don't offer Static IP addresses for residential customers. I had one static IP address. It took them about 3 weeks to discover a "line problem" that wasn't there the date of install. This "line problem" wasn't there when I had my old trusty Motorola Surfboard modem. Once they installed the SMC Gateway, it all went downhill. After speaking to numerous representatives, a couple saying it was an outage, I finally got one that was willing to send out a tech. The tech came out and said they needed to send out a line technician which would happen that same day. After having no improvement in my service, I called and they rep informed me that the line technicians are dispatched 5-10 business days after the work order is put in. Can your business be down for 2 weeks? Can your residence be down for 2 weeks? That situation, after 2 weeks of hell, was resolved.
For the time being the service was fine after that. Good speeds, not very consistent, but way above what I was expecting for the most part. Then I decided to add more servers, so I would need more Static IPs. I called in, they sent me an "IP Justification Form" via e-mail. They're fax machine didn't work and I sent it back via e-mail to the rep I was on the phone with. 2 weeks go by, and I completely forgot that I even sent the form in. I e-mail her back, she says I have to call a specific number to get a status update. That number took me to an Airport Cleaning Business. I can't even make that up. So I call back in, they have no record of the order, or me even calling in. I make a new order, luckily I had someone with a working fax machine and I still had my original "IP Justification Form". I sent that to him, he tells me 3-5 business days. I call on the 5th business day when I do not have my Static IPs, after sitting on hold for 1 hour and 15 minutes, the lady kindly informs me that the first business day didn't count but the original rep I spoke with said he would follow up with me the next day! So here comes business day number 6 or 5, technically I'm at business day 18 I think. He has not called back. I call, I'm on hold for 1 hour 25 minutes and finally gave up and hung up. I call right back, ask to speak to a supervisor, no dice, he apparently stepped away from his desk 10 seconds prior to me call, but I can go to his voicemail. I opt for that. So I'm hold for an additional 5 minutes waiting for a voicemail. I hang up. I have magma coming out of my pores at this point. I call back, I speak with a nice hispanic gentleman, who I feel really about about cussing out, and he promises a call back in 5 minutes while he gets ahold of the people that hand out IPs. 15 minutes later, he calls back and says he will follow up with me the next day if no one else calls me. 5 minutes after I leave my business, Sherman calls me, to inform me that they have my Static IPs. I said "great, e-mail them to me please and make the necessary changes on your end." He e-mails them to me, I go back to the office, make the changes in my router, reboot, can't connect. Set it to DHCP, can't connect. Try the static again, can't connect. Rebooted everything, repeated the process, can't connect.
Here I am, 3 months after installation. I've spoken with upwards of 30 representatives, 2 of which were helpful, and I can't connect to the internet. This is supposedly business class service. I currently work for an ISP that I cannot get and let me tell you something. If a business calls in at 11 PM on a Sunday night and we can't get them back online, there is a technician there by 2 AM. I can't connect on a Tuesday morning and I can't get a technician out until April. I put in an order for Static IPs in April, and I don't get them until June, just to find out that they don't work. Hmm, interesting. The truth of the matter is, the actual internet service is great when it works. It's the getting it to work part that is like a proctology exam while having your hand closed around a lit cigar. There is only one company than can top this experience in worst customer service, and that's HP. I can't say CommunistCast is the worst, but I can easily say, they're well on their way. If I'm not working by this time tomorrow, I'm filing a better business bureau complaint. I'll use my cell phone for a modem if I have to, this is ridiculous.
The funny thing is, I'm going through all this trouble TO PAY THEM MORE MONEY, isn't that crazy?
I'd stay away from Comcast at all costs, it's not worth the headache.
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 Review by cybermud
Posted: 2.1 years ago
member for 9.2 years, 3077 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Chicago,Cook,IL
$95 per month (24 month contract)
about 8 days
"Easy install, much cheaper than my SDSL line"
"None so far, but my last experience with Comcast internet was not pleasant."
"Really nice bang for the buck"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Was going to get 6M/768K package, but if I added the basic cable for $20, I got a $75/month credit on the faster plan, so that was a no brainer. So far it is MUCH faster and cheaper than my old 1.5 SDSL line....time will tell if its as reliable.
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Review by elevenx
Posted: 2.4 years ago
member for 4 years, 5 visits, last login: 2.4 years ago
Pontiac,Oakland,MI
$144 per month (36 month contract)
about 10 days
"sometimes very vast"
"mostly very slow and very unreliable"
"I'm glad we have a 30 day window to opt out."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
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We have the highest speed they'll give us (because we need the higher speed in the opposite direction) Costs us about $150/month and to avoid the $250 install charge we went with the 3 yr contract
Took about 10 days for them to get around to installing us. they sent people out twice to "check" that everything was ok.
I'm very disappointed. It had so much promise and has, on average, been slower than our DSL - in both directions.
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 Review by deblin
Posted: 2.7 years ago
member for 8.2 years, 4377 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Folsom,Sacramento,CA
$99 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Reliable, static IP(s), better QoS than residential"
"Pricey"
"If you want statics and can't get high speed DSL, consider Comcast business"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I spoke to a sales representative on the phone and got the low-down on the Comcast Workplace service. He was extremely helpful and friendly and later worked very closely with my via email for other questions and to coordinate the agreement and installation.
The plan includes:
6Mbps down
768Kbps up
1 static IP
SMC 8014 DOCSIS Cable gateway/router
1 year agreement
Actual speed tests are great: 6320 down, 819 up. The upstream is actually faster than on the residential cable side. So far, the QoS has been great and the speeds fluctuate much less than when I was on residential Comcast cable.
The sales rep was able to cut the installation fee to $50 since I'd already paid $50 for the residential installation, which was great.
The installation was coordinated fairly well, I received an email with an installation date and a window of 9am-4pm. While this seems like a large window, it's for a business service, so I guess they figure a "business" would be available all day.
On the day of installation, the tech showed up at 10am for the 9-4 window, and the setup went fairly smoothly. But because the install date was very close to when it was scheduled, the static IP configuration for the modem had not yet been built. A quick call from the installation tech, and the profile was built and pushed to the modem. This was great, but the technician said it's not necessarily typical - sometimes folks have to use dynamic IPs until the profile can be built.
So far, so good. The service has been very consistent and reliable. The SMC 8014 router has been rock solid, but beware! I have heard of major problems with the Netgear device some Comcast business markets ship. And the older SMC 8013 is stable, but has issues under high load (e.g. a lot of connections).
Overall, very satisfied to this point!
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Comcast Workplace
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Time Warner formerly Comcast