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JTC
Always Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA
 ·Comcast Workplace
 ·Integra Telecom
|  [Business] Less than stellar install...
Never heard of a rain loop apparently... | | 
Wow, direct inside to outside air flow, it's a bug hidey-hole now... *growl* | |
Well, comcast was out to install my 'business class' service, and I've not been able to set it up yet and actually make use of it.
My story:
I had scheduled the install for yesterday, and the installer called asking where the house was. Apparently the address has been recorded incorrectly (335 vs 355). This doesn't inspire confidence, especially considering the order form had the correct address listed.
My plan: Have the guy setup the modem/router thing in the front room where there is more space to work (and where the machines are going to be moved to), then move it to the bedroom where the machines are currently located.
Original wiring:
Comcast drop => four way splitter (three bedrooms and the front room)
Each room has one of those faceplates with the F barrel connector in the middle. Bedroom jacks are wired straight to the four way outside. The front room line (which was a long longer than I care for, but since the comcast drop is on the opposite side of the house, it can't be helped) went from the four way to a barrel connector to another line to a double F plate (one for the comcast line, one for OTA).
The barrel connector is there as the rest of the house used to be attached to the antenna, but I split it off in preparation for the comcast data drop (as well as making sure the antenna doesn't become a broadcast antenna).
Once he arrived in front of the correct place, he takes a look at the existing wiring and proclaims that there are too many splices and needs to rewire it. I'm fine with this, who am I to turn down some new wiring. He also ran some new wire from the access post at the corner of the yard, and said that he would get some guys out later to bury the line (this was confirmed to have been done when I talked with tech support later last night). So out comes the enclosure and it's screwed to the side of the house.
Now, the new wire run looks very good, and is secured well. Looks nice and professional. However, there are some things that tweak me more than a bit...
As you can tell from the "inside install" picture, he ended up yanking out the old wire, removing the comcast connector, and running the new line straight into the front room, leaving several feet hanging loose in the front room (I'm still debating if I want to clip it and connect it to a barrel connector in the faceplate). At no time did he ask if I wanted to keep it as it was, or offer to put it back together after it was removed, nor did he even mention resealing the outside hole that was sealed after the new cable was placed (see the outside install picture, new comcast line is on the right side) or the new holes that were drilled into my house when the enclosure was attached. Heck, the old coax clips on the outside of the house are still nailed to the siding.
(He also apparently has not heard of a rain loop, or cleaning up. I picked up a handful of coax trimmings, coax clips, coax ends and old splitters, as well as the tangled knot that was my original coax, that had been left on my front doorstep.)
So he comes in, drops off the paper listing the install order and the IP/network info, makes some comment about he doesn't know if I will understand the info (but here it is), and attempts to take off. Before he does, I ask him what exactly is that black SMC thing, he says it's a router. I tell him turn it off, I want a bridge or the SMC provisioned as a bridge as I have my own stuff and will not be using that thing, he says I need to call tech support as he's not allowed to do anything beyond the basic install.
Did I mention that he wrote the IP's down incorrectly? Skipped a number in the sequence and wrote down a network broadcast IP as one of my available statics (that made for a few nervous chuckles from the tier 1 rep when I was on the phone with support).
So I do some tests from the front room on my laptop, things look really good. There seems to be a bit of a delay on the initial connection to a given IP, but I'm willing to chalk that up to a new install and no info on the comcast side of data coming from my location, so the switches, routers, and carrier pigeons need time to recognize it. Either that, or the Comcast DNS machines really stink and are just that slow.
During my call to tech support is when I find out the weirdness that is comcast business with static IP's.
* The best way I can describe it is that instead of the connection router being on the ISP's side (like what a DSL line does) and the DSL modem being a simple bridge, the SMC thing they sent out is the connection router, as any machines that are assigned a public IP use the IP of the thing as the gateway. Considering some of the stories I've heard about these things, this makes me a bit apprehensive. Hopefully it won't be too bad as I'm not going to be using the thing for anything beyond a router for the statics, all my client machines are behind my firewall/PAT device. Of course, this took some time for me to wrap my head around as it was relatively bizarre to me, so I just didn't get it. I didn't figure out the above description until some background thinking on it.
* They won't delegate reverse DNS control to my DNS servers. When I was connected to tier 2, I was asked why they needed my mail server IP and such, to which I got a quick rundown on what a PTR is. *annoyed* I had to interrupt him and tell him that I think we were talking two different things as what I was wanting had nothing to do with what he was telling me. After we established what I was wanting (which he said that he had only heard of once before. This is supposed to be a tier 2 rep??), I was informed that no, it can't be done and that it's not possible. I asked why as my current provider had no issues with this request (the are forwarding them to my servers), and after making sure that he understood that yes, my servers handle all the reverse lookup requests, and yes, it can be done, I got a response of something to do with keeping spammers from hiding their mail servers... after he expressed surprise that it could be done.
So I get off the phone (I didn't have them set up anything yet) to think about if I want to even bother with keeping the service (how much of a message would that send, canceling the same day that my install is done). After calming down a bit and running some errands, I move the modem into the bedroom and proceed to try and set things up to give it a fair shake.
The modem will not connect. I call tech support, they can't see the modem. During some troubleshooting, I went to unscrew the modem from the coax to try it in the front room, and exclaim 'Wow, that's hot!' when I grabbed it.
(It was a heck of a lot warmer than I expected. If this is normal, why the hell is it passively cooled? Something that runs that hot should be actively cooled, or at least have more vents in the case, not just on the sides.)
I check at the jack directly with a shorter coax line, as well as my kids room, nothing. The only room that the modem will sync in is the front room, and these rooms were formerly live jacks. I'm thinking that the first person installed some kind of filter or something.
(Having a formerly function coax distribution system wired up suddenly not working after some installer comes by really pisses me off. Anything coming after the enclosure is my responsibility and he has no business adding anything to it without my knowledge and consent, especially when it's in an enclosure that requires some kind of special tool to open and all the coax leads running from the house are going into said enclosure).
So the rep schedules a tech to come by tomorrow (aka today) to look at the SMC and 'take a look at the jack'. I think I temporary broke his brain when I said that I could take care of that, all I need is the modem swapped out (if needed) and someone to open the enclosure to see how my house was/is wired to the drop. The visit is scheduled for sometime between noon and four.
Today I'm woken up a few hours before noon (I work swing, so I'm usually up until 3 or 4AM and don't wake up until around 11AM) by the comcast guy trying to find the house (somehow, the house number changed to 365). I tell him the correct house number, get up, get presentable, and grab coffee and cig.
After about 15 minutes of this person sitting in the van (I find out that this one was on the phone trying to get the address corrected), he comes over and I explain the situation about the original install, moving the modem and the lack of connectivity on any of the other jacks. He immediately had a theory as to what was going on and went right for the enclosure.
What happened was that apparently this is considered SOP as additional active jacks for television on a 'business class' account is an extra 13 (approx) a month. I ask if there is some kind of filter or something, and he says nothing like that. He asks if I have their television service, to which I tell him no, I use a homebrew DVR and receive the OTA digital signals (one of my daughters was disappointed that we are not getting more channels. I told her too bad, she watches too much television anyway). I find out exactly what was done when the enclosure is opened...
NOTHING! In fact, the bastage that did the install cut my wires and didn't hook them up to ANYTHING! NOT A SINGLE DAMNED THING was EVER mentioned by the first installer on this (why yes, I'm freaking pissed about this). So inside the (largish, I would guesstimate about a foot square and perhaps half a foot deep) enclosure is the new drop from Comcast, the cut ends of the cables running from the bedrooms and a surge suppressor.
The tech who came by did get the bedroom jack working (which I tested by plugging the thing in with a cheap, short coax jumper and waiting to see if it synced, which it did), checked the modem (he even did smell it after I did it in front of him and said all I can smell is new electronics that might have gotten a bit hot), and went on his way.
I plan on trying to get the servers and such moved over tonight and trying to get a ticket open for tier 2 so that the reverse lookups can be set up. I don't expect them to be in around 11PM, and would be surprised if they were.
(If it matters, the first person was in a white Comcast van, and the second one was in a black one).
At this rate, I'm going to be using that 30-day cancellation policy in a few weeks, if not sooner. Overall, I am *very* unimpressed with Comcast, especially for what is supposed to be a 'business class' service.
Granted, one gets what they pay for (current provider is more expensive due to the need for a voice line, which is taxed semi-heavily for a 'business line', but tech support knows their stuff and after hours if I call, I'm talking with the NOC staff directly), but come on, this is pretty sad. I'd be embarrassed if my techs, or myself, was doing this kind of crap and calling it installed.
I've still got toward the end of the month before I make a decision tho and either keep comcast or renew my contract with my current provider, so I do have an exit plan, as it were. I'll post a proper review for the front page once I get everything configured and have time to actually put it through it's paces.
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others | |
jaminus
join:2004-10-14
Arlington, VA | man that is a lot to read. maybe post a 150 word "abridged" version for the lazy ones? | |
anony
@comcast.net
| reply to JTC
By the looks of that hole where the wall plate is, he couldn't get the wall plate to stay even if he wanted. Dude, they don't carry dry-wall plaster or wall-plate back plates. Fix your house man, don't blame the tech for your crappy walls that were damaged before he started.
Comcast always gives out those SMC for static IP's. Give the tech a break, he made a mistake by one digit of your IP, boo-hoo. You should have already known your IP's before he got there.
You should cancel now, you seem to be one of those customers that will never be happy.
I wish Comcast had the 3-strike rule. "Sir, you are way too anal, "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" | |
JTC
Always Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA
·Comcast Workplace
·Integra Telecom
1 edit | said by anony :
By the looks of that hole where the wall plate is, he couldn't get the wall plate to stay even if he wanted. Dude, they don't carry dry-wall plaster or wall-plate back plates. Fix your house man, don't blame the tech for your crappy walls that were damaged before he started. First: It was flush and working fine previous to the installer showing up.
Second: Nothing was asked nor mentioned that it would be left flopping free like it was/is.
Third: It does fit flush with the cable running out like that, never once did the installer offer to put it back the way it was found. Leaving a cable loose like that, especially a few feet of cable, is not what I call a professional install no matter how one looks at it.
When I was involved in a large network upgrade for the Mentor Graphics corporate HQ, there were two main rules when installing anything in an office:
•Put everything back the way it was when you walked in
•If it can't be put back the same way, let the person in the office know before leaving and get a 'sign off' with what has changed. Do not leave without some kind of understanding.
Apparently I am correct on these rules as I did this work in the offices of everyone on the campus from the techs in the helpdesk up to the CEO of the company. I wasn't fired, no one complained, and my boss wanted to keep me around but couldn't due to budget (yes, it's not a line he fed me, I knew the state of the IT budget at the time and it was severely messed up due to someone putting a heck of a lot into the wrong cost center).
said by anony :
Comcast always gives out those SMC for static IP's. Give the tech a break, he made a mistake by one digit of your IP, boo-hoo. You should have already known your IP's before he got there. And how would I have received the IP list before the install was done?
Any ISP I've ever been a customer of, I received the IP's when the install was done, not before.
Yes, boo-hoo on the IP's. Do you know the kind of hell that can happen on a network if a machine is trying to send traffic on the broadcast address of a subnet? That's what was listed on the list of usable static IP's: A broadcast address.
Yes, I know they give the SMC's for static accounts. What's your point? Doesn't change anything that I think their method of static assignments is strange or that I don't trust the hardware Comcast has chosen for this purpose.
said by anony :
You should cancel now, you seem to be one of those customers that will never be happy. Hardly. I'm quite happy with my current provider, they just can't provide me with the speeds I'm needing due to overly long loop length. If there was a way to fix it, I'd stay with them. Just because I know what a business class line of service is supposed to include doesn't make me someone who will never be happy, it makes me someone who knows what makes a business class service and doesn't roll over and settle for whatever is given. If no one says anything about the shortcomings of a given service, chances of it changing for the better are next to none.
said by anony :
I wish Comcast had the 3-strike rule. "Sir, you are way too anal, "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" And I wish that DSL Reports had a way to ID people who appear to be apologists and apparently don't have the courage to sign up and post under an account. I'm not hiding behind an anon posting, and considering you are coming from a comcast address (according to the post), I'm afraid that your comments and opinions are suspect of being a shill.
Thank you, drive through.
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others | |
gar187er
Premium Alcoholic
join:2006-06-24
Dover, DE | reply to JTC
smcs are standard, and from every business install ive been on the IP is already in the customers hands...also, you signed up for business class internet, not TV service, so why would you think he would hook all jacks? hes there for one modem... | |
JTC
Always Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA
·Comcast Workplace
·Integra Telecom
| said by gar187er  :smcs are standard, and from every business install ive been on the IP is already in the customers hands...also, you signed up for business class internet, not TV service, so why would you think he would hook all jacks? hes there for one modem... Why not? When I had my copper moved from VZ to Integra, I didn't expect only one jack to work with the DSL modem.
Also, Why not leave all the jacks working? If I don't have the TV service, why go through the trouble of disconnecting the jacks and then hiding it inside the enclosure?
I was informed of why it was done, fine, I understood that. I'm mad about it because I was not informed before and after it was done.
I had it all working and everything was arranged the way I wanted. Without saying a single thing about it, it was changed (and in a very negative way) and I was not told.
--
All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others | |
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| reply to JTC
I don't care what anyone says - your installation was poorly done, from start to finish.
I would recommend you contact the executive line and get this straighten out: 215-640-8960
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CheckSite.us | YourIP.US | |
JTC
Always Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA
·Comcast Workplace
·Integra Telecom
| said by Rob :I don't care what anyone says - your installation was poorly done, from start to finish. I would recommend you contact the executive line and get this straighten out: 215-640-8960 First off, thank you. I didn't think I was being unreasonable (it is possible). Also thank you for the number, hopefully I'll never have a need for it again.
Really, I'm not sure that there really is anything to be 'straightened out'.
The install is done and the jack I needed working does work.
What would you suggest I tell them? I don't expect them to roll a truck to come out just to put a connector on the line, I'm perfectly capable of that, and would be a waste of their time and money.
Besides, the connector I had to replace on the line from the antenna (it came off when I was checking the faceplate, still pissed about the entire install) is a compression fitting that is larger than the crimp one, so I need to get a spacer to remount it (either that or I dig into the wall to make room. Not the preferred choice).
I'm not looking for a handout from Comcast (but hey, if they contacted me and offered, I might not turn it down  ). I'm hoping that others who might be considering Comcast will find this and be able to know what to look for and what questions to ask. Also, I know that there are a few Comcast employees that read this forum, so hopefully they can take this and forward it on to the installer trainers (or something) so the next customer becomes a long term one, and not one that gets upset and cancels at the first chance they get.
Myself, I just moved my servers over to the new connection and called support last night to set up the rDNS records (why they don't allow a business account to handle this themselves, I don't know), so I'm just waiting for the changes to propagate. Then I'll be able to give it a fair shakedown and review.
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others | |
GLIMMER
join:2004-01-17
Urbana, IL
| reply to JTC
they just installed a smc 8014 here and they did not give the ips out before hand and they managed to give me the wrong 6 ips which I figured out on my own because our other business has a smc. Comcast is very poor for business service but when its all you got to go to what do you do. I want the routing issue here in IL fixed I should not have to goto atlanta to get to chicago when its only 100 miles away give or take. | |
Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
·Comcast
| reply to JTC
said by JTC :said by Rob :I don't care what anyone says - your installation was poorly done, from start to finish. I would recommend you contact the executive line and get this straighten out: 215-640-8960 First off, thank you. I didn't think I was being unreasonable (it is possible). Also thank you for the number, hopefully I'll never have a need for it again. Really, I'm not sure that there really is anything to be 'straightened out'. The install is done and the jack I needed working does work. What would you suggest I tell them? I don't expect them to roll a truck to come out just to put a connector on the line, I'm perfectly capable of that, and would be a waste of their time and money. Besides, the connector I had to replace on the line from the antenna (it came off when I was checking the faceplate, still pissed about the entire install) is a compression fitting that is larger than the crimp one, so I need to get a spacer to remount it (either that or I dig into the wall to make room. Not the preferred choice). I'm not looking for a handout from Comcast (but hey, if they contacted me and offered, I might not turn it down ). I'm hoping that others who might be considering Comcast will find this and be able to know what to look for and what questions to ask. Also, I know that there are a few Comcast employees that read this forum, so hopefully they can take this and forward it on to the installer trainers (or something) so the next customer becomes a long term one, and not one that gets upset and cancels at the first chance they get. Myself, I just moved my servers over to the new connection and called support last night to set up the rDNS records (why they don't allow a business account to handle this themselves, I don't know), so I'm just waiting for the changes to propagate. Then I'll be able to give it a fair shakedown and review. Sorry, when I meant straighten out, I meant for you to tell them your entire experience - let your voice be heard to the right choir.
While they will most likely offer you some type of discount, I think it's more important that you direct all the problems you faced (especially with the installer) the appropriate department. | |
JTC
Always Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA
·Comcast Workplace
·Integra Telecom
1 edit | said by Rob :Sorry, when I meant straighten out, I meant for you to tell them your entire experience - let your voice be heard to the right choir. While they will most likely offer you some type of discount, I think it's more important that you direct all the problems you faced (especially with the installer) the appropriate department. Ah, I understand now. I will attempt to do just that.
Thank you again for the number.
Mod Note: Appears to be continued here ---> »Finally got around to checking my signal levels...
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All hardware sucks, all software sucks, some just suck more than others | |
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