Comcast vonage dispute

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 16, 2006 Posts: 5

I've had Vonage/Comcast for 6 months. Sometimes when I call Vonage to discuss problems, they will blame Comcast. Later, I may call Vonage back and get a different tech and they will find the problem and fix it. The same happens when I call Comcast too - one person will blame Vonage and another will say that it might be on their end - they will send a tech out to check my area and then I never hear back from them.

What a headache!

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2006 8:28 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I think he meant to say if the power went out. The cable companies' phone adapters typically include an integrated cable modem and battery backup.

I'm not sure what good this would do. At least in my area, Comcrap's line amplifiers are utility-powered (rather than head-end powered), so if the power goes out, there's not going to be any signal passing to or from Comcrap. To their credit, Comcrap came through during the hurricane this year. They had outages, but were only a matter of hours, whereas the phone co was down for 7-14 days depending on where you were. Also, the cable modem/phone box Comcrap installs only has a 4 hr battery backup (on a good day). These cable modem/phone boxes usually get hard-wired into the house, so there's no taking your Vonage box with you on vacation. Scerruti also raises a VERY valid point that cordless phones also need to have power backup to be able to function during outages. Floridians learned this the hard way in 2004, with many people re-discovering old fashioned hard-wired phones.

Also, continuing in the spirit of the thread:
Comcast - Naples, FL, Bonita Springs, FL headend, and the "Bonita Springs Rebuild" areas were what I was using from ~Dec20-Jan 5 without any issues.

Posts: 63 · Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:29 pm Post subject:

dconnor wrote:

By the ports used.

For example, many ISP's block port 80 to prevent you from running a web server.

Thanks. I don't suppose there is a way to "mask" what port you are using or any other ways to subvert their monitoring of how I'm using my internet?

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 06, 2006 Posts: 11

Hi,

From my own thread (search for speli) but reference for all of you here:

Well, after reading about the early cancellation fee... Sad

, I decided to try again.
I found a GREAT guy who was really helpful at Vonage. I spent half an hour on the phone with him troubleshooting.
He sent me to speakeasy.net (speedtest at bottom right) and had me use Pingplotter.
From everything he explained to me, it became painfully clear that the problem was on the ComCast side.
He told me to not mention Vonage next time I call them, but rather tell them about problems with my web cam and my son's online gaming, which would display similar problems.
I called Vonage only to have the guy tell me AGAIN that everything was fine with our line. I insisted on having a line trace run, and he told me that would be a $49.99 charge if they couldn't find anything. After I weighed the options, I told him to go ahead and schedule us.
Turns out the tech that came out told us the line was "screaming at him", i.e. it was set too high. In addition, the hookup in our basement was not done right (nobody from ComCast apparently ever did this, but rather our builder). He said it is critical to have the Internet line be at the very first connector coming into the house, rather than further down (we had all rooms cabled when we built).
We have not had performance problems with our phone since, even though they still need to fix the outside line.
So, I encourage all of you to call ComCast again!
Smile

Posts: 14 · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 12:06 am Post subject: Re: ComCast Update

speli wrote:

........He said it is critical to have the Internet line be at the very first connector coming into the house, rather than further down (we had all rooms cabled when we built).
Smile

That seems a bit strange since Comcast's own STBs require a much higher signal level than does an internet connection, including the Vonage phone.

If you have a non-bidirectional signal amplifier in the line, that is a whole different story, though.

Posts: 227 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Dec 10, 2004 Posts: 227

rdstoll wrote:

dconnor wrote:

By the ports used.

For example, many ISP's block port 80 to prevent you from running a web server.

Thanks. I don't suppose there is a way to "mask" what port you are using or any other ways to subvert their monitoring of how I'm using my internet?

You would have to sign up for a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) service and sign up for "Port Redirection" services (most DDNS services offer this for a nominal fee). Currently, however, Comcast is NOT blocking ports 25, 110, or 80. From what I'm told they do this on a case by case basis. I'm not condoning or recommending doing this but you do so at your own risk. Smile

Posts: 277 · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:01 am Post subject:

Interesting that you state that:

VonageTPA wrote:

To their credit, Comcrap came through during the hurricane this year. They had outages, but were only a matter of hours, whereas the phone co was down for 7-14 days depending on where you were.

and:

VonageTPA wrote:

Also, continuing in the spirit of the thread:
Comcast - Naples, FL, Bonita Springs, FL headend, and the "Bonita Springs Rebuild" areas were what I was using from ~Dec20-Jan 5 without any issues.

and add in your profile:

VonageTPA wrote:

Total calls since Jul 24, 2005: 2610
Total Minutes since Jul 24, 2005: 14,162
(thanks Hurricane Wilma for the extra ~1,200 mins used because landline service was out for the entire area, Vonage worked fine.)

but persist in repeatedly referring to Comcast as "Comcrap." Sure sounds like their service and reliability has been anything BUT "crap" for you. <shrug>

For the record, I've been with Comcast here in Dallas for almost 4 years now - actually AT&T Broadband, which was bought by Comcast about 2 1/2 years ago. Service, speeds and reliability have been excellent, my Vonage quality is great over the Comcast link as yours apparently is too; and you sure won't hear me referring to them derogatorily as "Comcrap" while receiving great service.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:36 am Post subject:

DallasFlier: Whilst quoting lines, you convienently left a one out:

Quote:

VonageTPA:... what I was using from ~Dec20-Jan 5 without any issues.

So, 7 days of use during the hurricane, 16 days during the holidays, 23 days that I said Comcrap & Vonage worked happily together. I left out all of my tales of woe of connectivity issues with Comcrap. I figured the thread was about Comcast & Vonage working togther, not reliability of Comcast in and of itself. I also left out that Comcrap was without service for ~2 weeks after Hurricane Charley. I lost some of my Sprint lines, but not all of them. Out at the beach, I used a microwave link to the mainland (to a Qwest fiber) for 'net access after Charley and ended up using it for the rest of the other hurricanes of 2004, as Comcrap was usually the first thing to go out (even before power). When Comcrap was running, any power hit anywhere in town seemed to knock the internet service offline. So, while I was running on full generator power, my Comcrap internet signal would randomly cut out for 2-3 minutes anytime the utility power flickered. Sprint had things right (so it seemed) for the rest of the 2004 hurricanes after Charley, but apparently changed/forgot something in 2005.

Just looking over my list of Comcrap problems over the past 60 days:
*cable modems wouldn't sync, (multiple times)
*cable modems locking up,
*cable modems incorrectly provisioned, (multiple times)
*cable modems shipped with inadequate power supplies,
*cable modems not capable of handling the ordered speeds,
*DNS servers convienently die,
*DHCP servers not handing out the proper IPs,
*Comcrap upstream routers dropping packets, (multiple times)
*Comcrap techs randomly changing account settings which weren't requested
*incompetent Comcrap sales & tech staff who "forget" to do things, like file change-of-service requests, installation requests, etc. (multiple times)
*and Comcrap sent a cable TV tech out to one of my sites without calling ahead. The tech calls me wondering where I am (out of town) and he didn't even have the proper equipment on the truck to solve the problem and didn't have the training on the Comcast-provided equipment we have at that facility.

Problems experienced with Verizon DSL over the past 90 days:
*occasional packet loss very late at night (3am-4am, happened for 3 days) Verizon says they were performing maintenance.
*NO outages this past Friday, despite receiving 12" of rain in ~3 hrs.
*NO outages during the 2004 hurricane season

Problems experienced with Qwest over the past 90 days:
none
*NO outages during the 2004 hurricane season

Problems experienced with Cogent over past 30 days:
*12 hour outage 2 weeks ago when they apparently lost power at their local switching station (non-weather-related).

So, as you can see, they've been the biggest pain in my arse as far as ISPs go. I'm sure there's plenty of people who have good luck with Comcast, but I doubt they're in my area. I'd rather work with Comcrap than Sprint, but that doesn't mean I like them. It's more like comparing a Fiat to a Yugo... "Fix It Again Tony."

Posts: 76 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: May 18, 2005 Posts: 76

Problems over the past 7 year with Excite@home serivce which became ATT Broadband which became Comcast at my Parents house:

None

Problems over the past two years with Comcast at my house:

None

**** that Comcast has had problems in your area. Hopefully they can get their crap in a pile and get their service to a more acceptable level for you.

Posts: 21 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 20, 2006 Posts: 21

Well I had a Vonage customer on the line one day. When she pluged in her Vtech phone comcast gave her some 67.x.x.x IP that would just loop between two servers until the TTL expired.

Plug in her PC and she gets a 24.4.x.x IP that works perfectly.

I got her Vtech phone to get thr 24.4 IP by doing some trickery. The fun part is I was loged into her device and I had her reboot it and it went right back to the 67.x.x.x "bad" IP. Except I was still logged into her device with the 24.4.x.x IP and was able to browse in her device's configuration pages. However she had no dial tone and could not get on the internet. Making our device look like it's broken.

Take that as you will about Comcast's relationship with Vonage.