Total Outage - Essential Services Unavailable.

From mid November to Christmas Eve I counted 28 Comcast outtages in my
area. On Christmas Day, they added another 9 total seperate outtages
to that number. Since July, I've had 6 Comcast techs come to my
house, which is pointless since it isn't JUST my house that is having
outtages...it's the entire neighborhood. The tech left this morning
only to tell me that he found some issues and were going to have his
guys fix them but he couldn't guarantee that it would fix the outtage
problems. I shut the door, picked up the phone, and ordered FiOS.

Essential services: I do not feel that it is an unreasonable
expectation that when I am paying for phone service and 24/7 broadband
internet service that those services be available. Just to have phone
service I had to pick up a pay-as-you-go cell phone because my Comcast
Digital Voice has been out so much. In one month, I had to put an
additional $50 on that cell phone to just contact Comcast customer
service...and of course this is in addition to the monthly fee I'm
paying to Comcast for the Digital Voice service that never works.
While one person may say that "essential services" are different for
each person, the truth is that it is completely moronic to think that
it is NOT an essential service to get the basic item you are paying
for to begin with. As for internet, I had a 20Mbps downstream
connection that Comcast decided to downgrade me to 12Mbps, without
notifying me or lowering the payment, and I'm lucky if I see 8Mbps.
With the TV, I'm getting 240 channels with no premium channels. All
of this was costing me $190/month with Comcast. On FiOS, I get 25Mbps
down and 25Mbps up, 355 channels plus Stars and Encore, two DVRs and
Digital Voice that is NOT tied to my internet connection and I'm only
paying $125 per month. FiOS is better service, MORE service, and at a
cheaper price.

Hey, don't even think about keeping comcast for another minute. Fios
is 100 times better in every single way. Faster internet, better
quality TV. Comcast has horrible service. I remember having to call
back 3 or 4 times to find the right person to speak to in order to get
my issue resolved. Once I had an outage that they told me it would be
5 days before they could get someone out to look at it. Fios has
always answered my calls quickly and the issue is resolved immediately
over the phone without transferring you to five different people. If
Fios had a larger install base Comcast would be out of luck. Make the
switch - and do it ASAP!! (By the way I promise I really don't work
for Verizon).

"1) What is comcast doing to make sure we do not have this kind of
outage in the future"

Nothing. They can't possibly guarantee that outages will never
happen.

"2) I lost valuable work time (I work from home) . What exactly is
comcast going to do to compensate for that?"

Nothing.

"Why was I left in complete LIMBO for an hour without even means to
talkj to customer service?"

Because you are not Comcast's only customer in the area, but you might
be their only customer in the area using residential service for
"critical" business work.

And their phone lines can only handle so many calls at once.

Since you are working from home and it's so important that you stay
connected, you should have ordered business class service. It would be
pricier but would have a real SLA. You can't really hold cheap
residential service to an SLA that does not exist.

Comcast was recently voted as one of the worst companies in America
(another consumer website). In my part of the country – New England –
it is common for us to lose video or audio at least once a night. I
cannot recall the last time we managed to watch an entire 1 hour show
without having some disruption. Other issues with cable service
include poor picture quality, pixilation of picture, and lack of
coordination between audio and video and frequent flicker when the
channel is lost and then found within 10-25 seconds. Our Internet
service is similarly affected and daily outages and disconnects are
normal.

Recently we experimented with FIOS and I have to say that, at least by
our experience - Verizon is far worse than Comcast, hard to believe,
but true. Frankly, we have pretty much given up on decent television
reception. We live in a well populated area only 20 miles from Boston,
so remoteness is not an excuse. Unfortunately, based solely on our
experience, Comcast is awful; they talk a good game but play by
completely different rules. Verizon makes Comcast look good and, in
our area, there is not other choice for high speed Internet other than
going to satellite and that is still far too expensive. In short:
Comcast has all of us (you as well) over a barrel and they know this
and behave accordingly.

Was this weather related or due to storm damage, or was it just a
random outage. If it was storm damage, 1 hour without your Comcast
service seems like pretty decent amount of time to get the services
back up again.

If this was a random outage, I can see your frustration. You are
paying for their services, therefore they should be up and running. An
hour outage for no apparent reason is completely unacceptable. I
completely agree that they should be looking into exactly what went
wrong so it does not happen again. I also think you are owed a partial
credit, since it likely was their own fault. I do not think that you
are owed additional compensation though.

This is clearly not a case of bait and switch. False advertising, yes,
but not bait and switch.

I do agree that one hour without phone service is not acceptable, but
I disagree that this is worse than a land line. Land lines can get
knocked out all the time if something such as a tree lands on the
wires and knocks them out. Also, I think the audio quality is less
good on land lines.

You will have the same problem with FIOS as well. These things just
happen sometimes. One hour without those services is really not that
bad (and yes, I work from home as well, so does my husband, we both
need the computer and phones). Sometimes, the problem has NOTHING to
do with your provider. It can be weather related as well. Sometimes,
city workers doing work (road work, line work, pipe work, etc) can
cause problems.

If you can not be without the internet or phone for more then one
minute then the only suggestion I can make is that you buy a
generator.

What will you do if your power goes out?

As previous posters have said, outages happen. In my experience with
Comcast, if you call after the event, they will credit your bill for a
portion of your monthly charge and that is it. It you pay 120.00 or
so a month, perhaps they will credit you a few dollars for the outage.
They have done so for me in the past when my service was out for 12
hours. I simply gave them the date and time and they credited me 5.00
whole dollars, no questions asked. I'm unsure of why it was so hard
for their billing dept to do that for you. When you think about it,
with 24 hours in a day and 30 or so days a month, one lost hour of
service doesn't amount to a huge refund.

My best guess is that the phone lines were busy because others were
reporting the same problem.

I hate to say it, but I think you should thank your lucky stars that
it wasn't something like an electricity outage- then you'd loose not
only your phone, cable, and internet, but also your fridge, microwave,
and a host of other electronics, not to mention heat or a/c! Now
there would be a complaint letter!

No company can guarantee that their service will be operational 100%
of the time. You can have the same experience with FiOS. It sounds
like your area had an outage which is why it was tough to get through
to them. Outages can happen for a number of reasons. I recently lost
power because of a car accident. One of the cars hit a power pole and
they had to cut power so they could repair the pole.

I don't even know what you are talking about with Service Level
Agreements. No company has SLA's with individuals. At most, your
state may mandate that outages must be resolved within a certain
amount of time or they could be fined or have to issue credits.
However, no state I know of has a 1 hour SLA. Usually they kick in
after 24 hours.

You are not going to be compensated for lost work, receive a guarantee
that your security system will be up 24/7 or get out of your contract
without an ETF. A one time minor outage does not warrant any of
this.

If internet access is crucial to you, I suggest putting in a copper
landline, hardwired into the wall, as a back up. You can always
access the internet via dial up if necessary.

As a side note, FiOS is going to tell you that they have battery back
up and they do but all that gets you is dial tone. No internet, no
TV.

No service can promise to be up 24/7. They all use equipment and
services that sometimes fail. Honestly, an hour outage hardly seems
mentioning.

I know people who have FIOS, and yes, they have issues sometimes.

What is "essential" varies by individual. I wouldn't consider
security essential, as I have no security system and don't need one.

What about an infirm elderly person, with medical equipment in the
home?

Is COMCAST service guaranteed to be up and running 24-7, every day?
My guess is no. I have a land line, and it becomes noisy every once
in awhile, degrading service. But it has never gone out completely.

You say to "guarantee essential services." It sounds like there is no
guarantee currently. Therefore, I don't see why COMCAST would have to
compensate you for anything.

What is meant by COMCAST phone service being "even better than a land
line"? Reliability, quality?

You were not the victim of bait and switch. Perhaps false
advertising, if you were told COMCAST service is 100% reliable.

You ask if COMCAST has a minimum SLA, and then state you should be
able to leave because they didn't meet the minimum SLA. I can't
figure out if they have one or not...