I'm evaluating weather to switch to Comcast Internet Cable in San
Francisco. I currently have their Cable Digital TV Cable and can get a bit
of a deal using their Internet Cable. A couple of questions:

Is their cable quite reliable as to speed - I previously reviewed cable
options and saw comments that cable slows down as the load increases
(particularly in the evenings). I currently have DSL.

What about downtime? So you experience a lot and is it easy to get tech
support when problems arises?

How are they at maintaining a top variety of Newsgroups? Some providers
filter newsgroups and I prefer to do that on my own. Is it easy to request
additional newsgroups, etc.

I currently use a router to connect my laptop as well - is that a problem
with Comcast and their tech support?

Any other issues I should look into in evaluating whether to switch?

Any thoughts/suggestions appreicated.
Charlie
************************************************** ****
Charliec

Charliec wrote:
I'm not in San Francisco, but I can tell you that in 1999 the system in
the city wasn't ready for two-way cable, and limited one-way cable was
introduced to hold off DSL from locking the market. If two-way cable is
now available, you're someplace where the system has been completely
rebuilt in the last couple of years. Experiences of anyone except those
in your neighborhood won't apply.

--
Warren H.

==========
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Blatant Plug: What does a new kitchen need?
http://www.holzemville.com/community...hen/index.html

In article <q884l0lc7l57i9ujrni1fgalfeajab4mle@4ax.com>, Charliec says...

I am not a Comcast user. I do believe that the load slowdown is a bit of a
hoary old myth from the early days of cable. The cable companies reportedly
to a better job of load balancing these days.

I wouldn't know, personally. But enough users are splitting from SBC Yahoo!
DSL Service to Comcast that I suspect their uptime is reasonably good.

This is one area where the cablecos seem to be equally inept as the telcos.
NNTP service is a "value added" service which is used by only one percent of
the user base. The providers are more interested in the glitz and pizzazz of
web access, so that is where they concentrate their support effort.

From the posts I see, this is another area where the cablecos are the same
as the telcos. Routers work just fine, but there is no provider support;
unless the provider issues routers (SBC does), in which case they will only
support the issue router.

Not much that I am aware of. But I get the feeling that the difference
between Comcast and SBC is a fire/frying pan kind of thing. OTOH, if you are
with an ILEC DSL service, like DSL Extreme, you will probably be better off
sticking with them.

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint

Norman/Warren,
Thanks for your replies. It helps! I'm fairly pleased with my DSL
(regarding speed, newsgroups access, support, etc), but keep getting these
offers from Comcast, since I am a Comcast TV Digital user. So, continuing
to evaluate!
Charlie

************************************************** ****
Charliec

Charliec <charliec@invalid.address.com> wrote:
You're only going to switch if it's sunny? :-)

-Larry Jones

Summer vacation started! I can't be sick! -- Calvin

I would agree with Warren that it is helpful to check with your neighbors to
see how the service is in your immediate vicinity. If the cable plant
servicing your neighbors Internet Service has upstream problems or if a CMTS
(Cable Modem Termination System) servicing your area is oversubscribed,
that's one of the best ways to find out. If local performance is suffering
at a peak time of day (early evening or late afternoon for instance), it is
likely to be a sign of performance problems for your household as well.

However, Comcast has been pretty good about reviewing their CMTS usage and
staying on top of explosive growth that has occurred in many locations. But
ordering up the components for more capacity, scheduling upgrades,
decombining/recombining cable plant and performing equipment upgrades can
happen in slow motion from the point of view of the consumer. Experience
with my service and those I've talked to in other locations has been that
there have been occasional times when peak usage periods slowed things down
for users in some places, but within 3-6 months these problems were usually
well rectified.

That's just the view from where I sit. I have had Comcast Internet service
in the East Bay for the past 8 years or so throughout the periods when it
was AT&T Broadband, TCI@Home, and Viacom Cable (cable modem test bed). Over
that time, the service has gradually gotten more and more robust and
reliable here, though it had some notable short term set backs along the
way, with corporate transitions the foremost among them.

These days in my neighborhood performance is great and is noticably quicker
in some respects than the DSL experiences I have had at other locations.
Access to the Internet occasionally goes down for very brief periods - and
is usually back up within a minute or two with the rare worst case being
30-60 minutes of either no access or slowness. Sometimes I'll have to
recycle power on the cable modem to get back online, but it doesn't often
come to that. There were times a couple years ago when DNS, email and news
servers were troubled or oversubscribed, but those issues seem to have
subsided completely here.

A router works fine if you choose to use one, though you are on your own for
support of self-installed home networks (best to check the current customer
agreement on this). The only time routers have been supported has been if
they've installed it and charge you for the privilege - including monthly
incremental for each additional PC and component).

The 1st tier centralized tech-support services of these high speed Internet
providers have always had frustrating competence, quality and responsiveness
issues. It seems that no sooner is someone competent in this area of
technology, that they no longer want to work as a lowly telephone jocky - go
figure. It can be a challenge to wait for, keep and maintain a phone
connection with a genuinely helpful person on the other end. I tend to
avoid them at all costs unless I experience a hard down time for an extended
period of time. It has been probably 4 or 5 years since I had to place a
call to them for help with a service outage.

Comcast now provides membership to Giganews which seems to be pretty robust
here and though I'm not a TOTAL newsgroup-junky, I'm not aware of anything
missing (I'm sure there are those who can enlighten me).

Good luck with your selection process.
FWIW,
Robert


"Charliec" <charliec@invalid.address.com> wrote in message
news:krg4l0dhr1he4sj3dcuec1puq5bahjjs2c@4ax.com...

Thanks Robert,
Great response with details.
Charlie

************************************************** ****
Charliec