[ale] Comcast not in the real world!

[J.M. Taylor]

Is your cable modem still showing all its lights? IE, is it still actually
*connected* to Comcast, or is it trying to connect, when it goes down?  If
its actually connected, I hate to say it but *have* you connnected a
machine directly to the cable modem or tested a different firewall to
ensure it's not the fw you're using?  If you've eliminated your wiring
from modem to firewall and firewall to main PC, the firewall itself, and
the PC as the problems, then it's obviously Comcast's problem. :)

What OS you use is utterly irrelevant.  That said, I find it useful to do
some legwork myself to prevent me getting frustrated when tech support
can't/won't be of any help because I use non-windows.

When talking to Comcast tech support I've found a few things very useful:
1) say whatever it takes to get thru the lower levels of tech support to
someone who actually has a clue.  If they say "is your computer connected
directly to the cable modem", just tell them yes. If they ask you to
reboot your machine, say "ok", pause for a minute and tell them it's
rebooted. When they can't help you, they will find someone with the next
few pages in the script for you to talk to.
2) keep the issue to the network and the cable modem. Make sure you've
totally eliminated *your* part of the network from the potential problem
list.  Usually, if you know what you're talking about, once you get to
someone clueful they can help you out.
3) If nothing works, and a local check of wires doesn't show anything
unusual, get a tech out to the house. Make it clear that you can handle
the computer bits, if he can look at the physical connection from the
cable to the modem and make sure nothing's wrong.

Good luck
jenn


Randal Jarrett said:
> I hace been experencing problems with my Comcast cable connection since
> a bad storm last week. My gateway keeps going away.  I see constant
> incoming data but cannot get out or even ping their gateway.
>
> I have put a new modem in place to make sure that thr problem wasn't on
> my end but this happens randomly a couple of times an hour.  I reset the
> modem and everything comes back.
>
> Well, I broke down and dropped an email to support. Here is what I got
> back.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Randal,
>
> Thank you for writing to Comcast.
>
> I sincerely apologize for any problems you have experienced with the
> Comcast Internet service. Please call us when the connection is down and
> we will be glad to troubleshoot this with you. Please be sure that the
> computer is connected directly to the cable modem (with no router/hub in
> use) when contacting us, as we do not support home networks and will not
> be able to troubleshoot until the computer is connected directly.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I gurss that I should do what they say.  I wonder what will happen if I
> call them and they find out that I am running a linux system and not
> windows ??
>
> Has anybody had experience with them ??
>
> Randy
>
> --
> Randy Jarrett  K4RSJ
> Randy's Ham Shack
> <rsj at radio.org>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale



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