Early in 2007, Comcast sent out a letter to its customers (this was
Massachusetts) that they were raising the speeds of the basic tier; Download
was going to (I think) 6 Meg, upload to 1 Meg.. The letter was a nice piece
of 4 color printing on slick and heavy paper, as I recall.

Well, they raised the speeds, which was a wonderful thing, since I was able
then to watch my slingbox from remote locations with much better pictures
than with a 384K cap.

Then, a few months later, after I'd tossed the letter, they reverted to 4
Meg/384K. Calling Comcast, of course, provides nothing. They have no way
on the phone of saying "yes, sir, we remember that free upgrade for our
customers, and we'll reinstitute it". To the contrary, they deny any
corporate memory.

Does anybody have any similar experience with that "promotion" and its
disappearance from Comcast? Or prehaps even somebody saved the letter and
can scan and post it somewhere? I don't want to have to pay the extra $10
per month for high speed DOWNLOAD that I don't need.

Thanks

[This followup was posted to comp.dcom.modems.cable and a copy was sent
to the cited author.]

In article <2J6dnWEAkbpeYjXanZ2dnUVZ_uWlnZ2d@comcast.com>,
exray@amexol.com says...
Do you have video service from Comcast also? In many areas, if you don't
have video, you only get 4000/384, with no PowerBoost.

--
If there is a no_junk in my address, please REMOVE it before replying!
All junk mail senders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law!!
http://home.att.net/~andyross

Andy, thanks for your reply. The email address I have in newsgroups is
bogus, so your response to me via email should have bounced.

I don't have comcast video, and won't.

The issue is that Comcast sent out this letter to its customers where I live
saying they would raise the speeds to 6 (I think) / 1.

Then they did the change. Then a few months later they undid the
change.....and they have completely forgotten about that letter.

I am just hoping somebody has a copy of that letter.

In article <g9KdnRSaU_zN5jbanZ2dnUVZ_qSonZ2d@comcast.com>,
exray@amexol.com says...
There was probably a policy change, or your upgrade was a mistake that
they later caught. You need to check exactly what speeds are available
to those without video. As it is, you are probably paying $10-15 more
than somebody with video. It may be practical to pay for the lowest
basic video you can get, even if you don't use it, and then you can get
any speed you want.

--
If there is a no_junk in my address, please REMOVE it before replying!
All junk mail senders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law!!
http://home.att.net/~andyross

On Thu, 7 Feb 2008 16:42:41 -0500, exray wrote:
How rude.
$ host amexol.com
amexol.com has address 12.29.100.131
amexol.com mail is handled by 10 wppim001.aexp.com.

You want to use a bogus address use ones made for that activity.

exray@mouse-potato.com or
exray@nomail.afraid.org

On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:59:15 -0600, Bill M wrote:
Go ahead and
ping mouse-potato.com and
ping nomail.afraid.org

All you people who don't like my using amexol.com:

A while ago, AMEX provided free email to its customers. They assigned us to
the amexol.com domain for those email addresses.

Then they decided to stop.

So it was a valid address and I didn't bother to change it in my outlook
express setup for newsgroups.

For some reason I don't feel guilty about it.

Andy, the real problem is that they sort of deny ever having had such a tier
as 6/1 available in eastern massachusetts. And of course it's very
difficult to find complete information on current available services and
even more difficult to find information on past available services online.
Communication companies don't seem to want to just tell you "send us $XX per
month and we'll sell you $YY". Everything is a bundle. The only two places
I ever saw the service were first, the letter they mailed to customers, and
then second, for three months in action.

Then they made the service just disappear without any notice at all. If it
was a mistake it was a doozie....giving away a tier of service for a while
that they assert does not exist and they don't remember giving away.

It all makes me wonder if perhaps I am just making it up (they are winning).

In article <k4onq3p434u2rcuceuuim2lda264eongq7@4ax.com>,
Bill M. <wbillups@hotmail.com> wrote:
Ralph Sims, the owner of mouse-potato.com, set it up for just this kind
of thing.

--
--Tim Smith

On Feb 5, 4:30*pm, "exray" <ex...@amexol.com> wrote:

I'm in the Washington DC Suburbs. I currently have both Comcast
Internet and Verizon DSL (copper).
Using speedeasy.net/speedtest (washington DC server) my speed test
results at this time is as follows:

Verizon DSL 741 Kbps(download)/ 137Kbps (upload)
Comcast Cable Internet 5136 Kbps(download)/ 362 Kbps (upload)

f/f, you are, of course, completely correct. Even if they DID promise the
upgrade as a forever, there must have been some way they'd be able to weasel
out of it.

The annoying thing, as I have said, is that they seem to have no corporate
recollection of the 6/1 that they were giving.... and when I call and tell
them that they are only providing upload of 384, they tell me they have
never done anything else and would I like to buy blast...or maybe I
shouldn't be using a Toshiba 2200 Modem that I own and they'll send a guy
out to check out the system....or maybe my computer settings are wrong....or
perhaps it's the phase of the moon.

It would be refreshing if they were able to send me a copy of the mailing
and point out that it was clearly (or even obscurely) as promotional and
perhaps temporary.


"f/fgeorge" <ffgeorge@yourplace.com> wrote in message
news:63arq3ll54tb88vc6ujdn2gqj92l2hfmsj@4ax.com...

f/fgeorge wrote:
Geez - take the corporate stance why don't you. 6/.5 is the normal on
our cable - don't see why Comcast couldn't manage the same. Oh, and
it's not 'free' - I pay $40-45/mo for mine (forget the exact amount).
That's a lot of money for a lot of people to pay every month for
something as basic as internet access. The problem with internet access
is we still don't have enough competition to get a reasonable pricing
structure - it's still pretty much a monopoly in many areas.

Japan gets at least 10 times the throughput for the dollars
than we do. You can get TV/Internet/Phone there for $30/mo
and that's 100Mbps download. Phone is by minute charge
rather than unlimited.

Check this out - it's a couple of years old, but still looks
pretty accurate:

http://www.freepress.net/docs/bbrc2-final.pdf

Note figures 9 and 10 for US ISP broadband speeds.
Figure 11 for triple-play rates around the world.
Iceland has the greatest market penetration for internet access
(and pretty much the lowest pop. density).
Cablevision has 10Mbps download compared to 4-6 for Comcast/TW.
45% of non-broadband users in US say it's too expensive.
83% of CA low income families would subscribe to BB at $15/mo

But $Bill, that's really a different issue from the one I raised.

I believe that I have a right to demand that my service providers behave
somewhat rationally, and that they live up to their advertising. At the
same time, I also have a right to demand that such services as BB not be a
monopoly.

In the case of my original issue in this thread, it's not really a matter of
money, it's a matter of the service that is available and the honesty and
competence of the provider in just doing what they say they will do - and if
they are going to change what they will do, to acknowldge that and provide
notification. That is competent business practice, and competent customer
service. To me, customer service if handled properly is just about as
important as the actual service or its price.

exray wrote:
I know - I just found that link and thought I'd share in this thread since
it was related.

$Bill <news@spamolatodbe.com> wrote:
Japan also has a much higher population density than the US, which
greatly reduces their costs. Lack of competition has kept rates here
higher than they could be, but not wildly so. None of the cable
companies are making windfall profits on their internet service.

-Larry Jones

I don't NEED to compromise my principles, because they don't have
the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway. -- Calvin

f/fgeorge wrote:
I consider this OP's description as Comcast overcharging.

Well, you can't compare business service (or whatever yours is called)
with basic home service. 5/.5 should be the absolute minimum for base
cable access. I pay $94.22 for mine (TW 6/.5) with basic TV - that
includes modem (used to be $3 when it was Adelphia).

The rest of this is off subject:

Other countries are doing a lot better than we are in getting their
people reasonable/fast internet access.

I've been getting AT&T ads in the mail offering AT&T U-verse (Yahoo! HS)
for $84/mo (shows $74 online) for 200 channels and a slower internet speed
(I think you can pay for faster access). 100 channels only $59/mo. (only
1 receiver and no DVR).

Supposedly, you also get a 4 tuner DVR and 3 HD ready receivers and wireless
home networking support + professional installation with 200 ch and up.

On Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:10:14 -0800, "$Bill" <news@SPAMOLAtodbe.com>
wrote:

that's where verizon FIOS comes in, which will, thank god, kill
comcast.

f/fgeorge wrote:
AT&T U-verse too, but they don't compete speed-wise without an $35?
upgrade.

Nothing could be better for us users than a nice little price war.

Oh my.....did Comcast actually send you a letter telling you they will raise
speeds at no increase in price?

How incredibly familiar that sounds.

What did they say? Did they tell you how long they'd keep the new speed
before quietly denying they'd ever done it?

DO NOT THROW AWAY THAT LETTER.