Friday, March 21, 2008
Open Letter to Comcast (Mountain View, CA)
To: Rick Germano, Senior Vice President of Customer Operations
Comcast
I am disgusted that I had to install your invasive software on my computer to “activate” my cable high-speed internet connection. You are an evil company, and I would happily pay more to any competitor for the same service if and when such a viable competitor sells service in my area.
This is my computer, not yours, and I especially resent your “by comcast” branding on every window. I had to spend significant time excising your inane, obnoxious, and intrusive software and settings from my system. I sincerely hope that I will soon have the opportunity to express my extreme dissatisfaction in a way that damages your business.
I have said as much in a phone interview after installation. Do not bother me with further surveys; I believe I have made my opinions regarding your business abundantly clear.
-Andrew Yates
PS: Whoever designed this email form should be fired. Your incompetence is only exceeded by your shameless and empty hypocritical “customer service” branding. “Here at Comcast, providing excellent customer service to you is our #1 priority.” Fuck you. Since your website is broken, I’m just going to post this message on my personal website where people will find it via Google until the end of time, FOREVER.
I hope that my letter published here negates the business decision you must have made that paying “customer handlers” to blunt the frustration of unhappy customers over the phone so that you may pursue evil business practices with minimal brand damage.
Again, this is Comcast high speed internet service in Mountain View, California.
Update: Basically, I was told that I had to install all this software (and enable about 3 active-x controls) before the cable modem would work. I was running Firefox at the same time, and I did check to see if the internet worked without installing the software (it didn’t). As far as I can tell, the modem won’t get a MAC address until the IE software install web application reports that you machine has been “installed.” There probably is some way to bypass this if your Comcast technician is savvy, but mine was not, and he’s paid to do what Comcast tells him to do, which is install the software as given. (no fault of the technician, it’s not his fault his company is evil. Getting upset at a technician or operator is a waste of effort and just makes the world more unhappy for no good. They have no power to make or influence policy, though they may be a jerk back to you and not help when they could have.)
Once Comcast has your MAC address, then you can uninstall everything and/or move the modem to a router with the same MAC address (which is what I did). This is far and above what should be expected of the average computer user, though.
ALSO: I had Comcast install the same service a year ago without incident, so this is a new policy.
Shagata Ganai said,
March 21, 2008 @ 8:46 pm
Part of the Fascist infrastructure, THEY DON’T CARE . But we do. Any thing that was associated with Warner Cable is an instrument of the Devil. Loose your service for three days? Too bad, no pro-rated billing, pay up, or we shut you off. I despise Verizon for cooperating with the Fascist Bushco, but I have hated cable companies a lot longer and a lot deeper. Good luck, hope you get some competition in there soon. SG
DH said,
March 21, 2008 @ 11:50 pm
I agree. Fuck you Comcast. You have two seperate websites; comcast.com and comcast.net, make one of them fucking work.
Chico, CA.
James M said,
March 22, 2008 @ 12:14 am
Comcast in Chicago (the city) will lie when you order and run you in circles refusing to let you order internet service unless it is the 82 dollar per month version of the service with the bare minimum local tv channels. Not one penny less.
But I do not mind that part. It is very very fast.
The part I hate is that BEFORE the technician showed up i did not want them to polute my macintosh. I created a non priviledged account, and additionally changed the internal MAC ethernet hardware address in case they wanted to phone home at start and spy on me (which they soon tried to do).
Typing in terminal “sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:30:65:d3:82:04″ can change you mac address, for example.
Anyway… they guy installs my stuff, cuts direct perfectly good unfilterred wires off the building forcing me to share a coax looped through 6 apartments, and then proceeds to ask me to type in my admin passowrd to install the comcast spyware onto my mac and possibly install low level rootkits for the feds.
But I had a sham os setup and virgin account just for this event. Then the technician REBOOTS my machine and spends an hour trying to get the rebooted mac to get on the net.
It cant. The reason is that the MAC hardware bytes on reboot are the real machine, but the cable modem was using the faked ones as typed above.
The solution? You need to unplug the cable modem power a solid 15 minutes and 20 seconds between MAC hardware changes.
We figured it out in the long run. And as soon as they guy left I switched back to my other os. The cable modem works fine with no need for software. It uses DHCP and is tied to one MAC at a time, with 15 minutes rest between mac changes.
I do not hate comcast. I hate their attempts to install spyware on my machine and I learned why it needed a password. Apple requires admin passwords to create any new multi-user shared connections in the NETWORK CONTROL PANEL. Its a apple issue. No code was injected into my os at a deep level other than modem scripts and their normal runtime app spyware. But who knows? I burned the os they tried to corrupt.
Do not hate them, just do your comcast install on a machine that you restore with a partition restoration after they leave.
tico said,
March 22, 2008 @ 1:07 am
Nah. They’re evil. I do hate them, and hope they all die slow, painful deaths.
Marcin said,
March 22, 2008 @ 2:04 am
In Canada, we have the Comcast equivalent named Rogers. There are alternatives to internet access that you probably don’t even know about. Search “isp providers” on Google to find one in your area. I found one which has amazing customer service, gives me more bandwidth, fast speed, and for $20 less! I was soooo glad to look.
just the basics said,
March 22, 2008 @ 2:43 am
I bought an HP P3 computer at a church yardsale for $15. Took it home, put more ram in it, cleaned the Windows 98 off the harddrive and installed the newest Ubuntu Linux and gave to my friend who is beginning the same doctoral program as me. He ordered Comcast cable internet. When it came to activation, I went to his house and called Comcast customer service and got very direct with them. No windows, no software, now, “activate the modem.” I ended up with some tech customer service guy in India who knew what I was doing. He activated the cable by remote control. The modem lights blinked on one by one and went through the set-up, then the connection was made and has been working ever since. No software install. It occurs to me you could do the same thing with a windows or apple machine connected to the modem. My concern with Comcast is that where I live they have a monopoly on cable modem and I think $50./month is a little steep. Also, they send threat letters to a customer when they detect BitTorrent download. I agree, fuck Comcast big time. They’re doing the for-profit Big Brother corporate business model. I have one word for that: you fucking asshole that makes shit.
Kevin said,
March 22, 2008 @ 2:59 am
James M: dude, you’re paranoid.
Verizon has the same kind of software to activate. You don’t really have to use it though. If you look up the right URL, user name, and password at dslreports, you can just do it in browser window.
Pranav Negandhi said,
March 22, 2008 @ 3:34 am
I’ve had to put up with similar shit from Reliance WiMax in India. They took my installation money, then forgot all about installing the connection for a good 2 months, in spite of my repeated calls. I had to send emails all the way to the nodal officer in order to get the wheels rolling on the installation process, and in spite of that I continue to have connectivity problems several times a week.
A complete rant is posted on http://www.notadesigner.com/2008/02/review-of-reliance-wimax-internet.html.
gergle said,
March 22, 2008 @ 3:38 am
While I agree crapware is excessive and irritating, no one forced you to purchase comcast services. Agreed that cable monopolies should not exist. It is a utility like any other and should be open to other operators to use the infrastructure. Go complain to your municipality.
I use sprint mobile G3, and WiFi at home. I pay more but I don’t contribute to an assinine corporate dreg like Comcast. In fact, stealing cable services are a virtue, in my opinion. They make ad revenue and are paid by content providers. Why do they need to rip off their customers, too? To become a larger corporate dreg and pay their executives exorbitant fees for being dregs.
Don said,
March 22, 2008 @ 3:42 am
I am a fairly new customer to Comcast high speed internet as well.
However, I don’t run their software. So, I dont’ have to deal with that annoying “by Comcast” logo.
My problem is my Symantec firewall won’t work with their modem. It cuts off my internet service. That never happened with Verizon.
But I assure you, you don’t have to use their software. And I only use my gmail, not their email accounts.
Paul Hammant said,
March 22, 2008 @ 4:00 am
With a router in between you and Comcast, my Comcast technician a month ago, only activated via a web interface. He did not install any software nor need my admin password (I logged in twice as we tried reboot as an option).
What is broken utterly is their DHCP. It is tied to one device at a time, and only resets through a very choreographed power cycle…..
Power down all, power up cable modem (wait 5 mins), power up router, then power up your devices connected to the router.
Its all a bit anal, and the devices, I’m sure, could be on already, but the cable modem must be first on, and must be up for a few minutes before a device connects and immediately seeks an IP address via DHCP. That device must forget its previous lease and renew on first connection.
Why does Comcast ship equipment that is partially compatible with DHCP ? It costs them a fortune in service personel wages. I made three calls to Comcast over two days, being on the phone 90 minutes in all. They sent an engineer who replaced my cable modem (most likely needlessly) - all because we powered down a all the devices on one power strip when we went on vacation for a week.
Powering back up the strip in one go was our “mistake” of course. Though I worked that out, not them. If they had that in there first line support workflows, they could offer early in a call, make sure you power up the cable modem first, then the device you plug into it next (which must be off initially).
My second “mistake” was removing all the router & Apple Airport Extreme stuff from the network before going on a call with the Comcast helpdesk. I wanted to eliminate things that would confuse the picture. So on the phone with one comcast helpdesk person, I could get it working with Powerbook wired directly to ethernet, but not take that cable and put it in an iBook without suffering that MAC address lock.
Its an incredibly bad design, or a foolish saving of 2 cents on a crucial chip in the Surfboard router by Motorola.
unsub said,
March 22, 2008 @ 4:27 am
Thanks for the post. I have verizon dsl and was considering comcast broadband in my area (WV), but your story and the comments below it have definitely sealed it. I’ll stick with my current fascist corporate broadband provider.
black bellamy said,
March 22, 2008 @ 4:43 am
I’m not sure what the fuss is about. I didn’t install anything - I threw away all the disks that came with the kit. I called Comcast, told them to activate my modem - they did that while I was on the phone with them, then I plugged in my router and all my machines had connection. Total time - ten minutes.
AeroSquid said,
March 22, 2008 @ 6:07 am
I have Road Runner and they are decent as fas as huge corporations go. You should have had live Linux running on your box then the tech came to install. Watching them try to install their crapware to that would have been quite amusing.
alex said,
March 22, 2008 @ 6:22 am
What the heck is mac address lock? The modem gives an IP via dhcp to my router and that’s that.
Peter said,
March 22, 2008 @ 6:47 am
The fuss is that most people don’t know this and I assume that some how it’s cheaper in the long run for people to install the autoconfig software instead of having a tech configure your setup over the phone.
I use Linux and they don’t support it so I always do it over the phone.
gnubian said,
March 22, 2008 @ 6:49 am
@ alex .. mac lock means the connection gets locked to the first networked device connected to the cable modem. It’s usually transparent until you replace a router (or computer if you don’t use a router), at which point you lose your connection.
The upside is that everytime you change the mac address that the modem is set to, you also get a new IP address
You never have to install the Comcast software. If the modem has never been online before and the modem mac is registered with comcast, you hit the walled garden when you open a browser, which won’t let you do anything until the registration is completed via a series of webpages.
The Comcast install disk is for 2 users ..
1. The comcast installer .. they usually just know how to run the cable from the street to your computer and may be on a time crunch.
2. The self installer that bought a package deal through an electronics store, but doesn’t know that you don’t really need the disk in the first place.
gnubian said,
March 22, 2008 @ 6:54 am
btw, Comcast user .. My router is an IPCop box (linux) made from a throwout system with an AMD tbird 800 & 512MB. I don’t have to lie when Comcast asks me if my computer is directly connected to the modem …
Jim said,
March 22, 2008 @ 8:49 am
In chicago, the setup tries to get you to run a program from the web site. I never ran it and never will.
It’s a similar situation for their cable-tv. You order cable tv and they have always wanted to make you rent a controller box.
I don’t believe it’s deliberate fascism so much as a combination of idiotic engineers and management that take the attitudes that they need control, and that having control will eliminate potential errors on the part of stupid users.
The thing they don’t want to understand is that these are OUR computers, and we want to keep control. Just like cable-tv, for that matter… I don’t want a bloody tv box. Let me use my own freaking tv and vcrs (or tivo) to select channels. I don’t care if the easiest way to scramble the pay channels is with a box.
joe said,
March 22, 2008 @ 9:01 am
I hate fucking Comcast. They hijacked my IE, so that it shows their logo and so on. What the fuck? Who do they think they are. The fucking assholes. So I stopped using IE, and I only use Firefox. Microsoft should go kick them in the ass, because they are losing market share because of these idiots.
md said,
March 22, 2008 @ 9:46 am
It took them 3 times (visits, meaning I got off work 3 times) to successfully setup my internet connection.
Then they demanded to “do it” - meaning install the software on my computer or the internet would not work. I thought it would be funny to hand them the laptop with linux installed - and it was…
“Where is da Ie?” - they had no idea how to proceed. After they tried for like 10 minutes I told them that i would “do it”. They were amazed and asked all kinds of questions about my mac that looked like a pc.
short; -yes- you can get it to work with out installing their crap-ware. who knows what kind of spying that stuff does?
i hate comcast so so much. i see the RCN van making rounds in my hood — and i do mean to get setup with them when this sweetheart deal (30$/mo) expires to $60.
GD said,
March 22, 2008 @ 10:17 am
I’ve been using Road Runner, which then became MediaOne, and then - Comcast for many years already. Never had big problems with Comcast - I bought my own modem from a store, never installed their software, whenever had problems with connection called their customer service and they remotely restored it quickly. They even told me the internal IP address for my modem - http://192.168.100.1, so I can change settings myself, when I need. You can try that, too. Your IP maybe http://10.100.100.1 or something similar.
Also, I never had to hide from them the fact that I have my own firewall/switch connected to the modem and serving several computers at home.
My only concern is the price - I pay $58/mo for internet and basic channels.
Sometimes ago I tried to convert to Verizon FIOS DSL. For a month I had both services at home. The local connection speed was the same, however the DSL connection to the west coast and the world (Europe, Asia) was about 10% slower than Comcast’s.
So I asked Comcast to close my account, but they offered $19.99 for the next 6 mos and I stayed with them since.
I’m thinking to try this again though, but have to estimate the prise of the old modem, to close my comcast email accounts, etc.
Just my 2 cents.
Shawn Wyland said,
March 22, 2008 @ 11:57 am
I am surprised that they have install scripts for Macs now. I always refuse to run their disks and just call tech support to have them walk me through activating.
It’s very simple and avoids getting all their spyware on your computer and their “branded” “comcast experience” (their website as your homepage, etc)
Subscriber said,
March 22, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
I have Suddenlink which split off of COX a while back.
Nice service, Linksys befsr41 or netgear rp614 with motorola sb5120 modem all on one power strip with my computer, one switch and everything is on.
No software, no nothing, nice.
Works great with Winme/With dos mode, WIn2k SP4 Ruv1v2, Winxp Sp3 beta, Reactos 0.3.3 just fine.
Maybe send some of the Comcast engineers to school at suddenlink or even cox which had the same ease of use, they might learn something.
Teh James said,
March 22, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
Charter used to have a similar software, but if their customers ever called in, they would always just provision their modems. This was so no one had to deal with the software issues that can sometimes arise from software branding and what’s known as the “Endless Walled Garden” where until all cookies and cache are cleared and all devices powercycled and the modem re-provisioned, one would be stuck with a “Welcome to Charter, please enter your account number” screen everytime IE/FF/Safari/Opera et al.. was opened. Unfortunately, in my experiences all over this country, almost all ISP’s like to “Brand” the browser and outlook to keep you reminded of your “special relationship.”
Fidgety_Sam said,
March 23, 2008 @ 8:45 am
I hate COMCAST, and the government, and Verizon, and Qwest, and WalMart, and . . . .
Kalladrin said,
March 23, 2008 @ 10:31 am
COMCAST, Verizon, and AT&T all need to be wrapped in fresh cow skin and set in the sun on a hot summer day. I have heard SO fucking much bad news about comcast that i wouldnt try them if THEY PAID ME. The worst thing that can happen to a company, is when they realize they can do stupid shit AND keep enough customers to continue recieving money from sponsors(ads, partnerships) I hate America and all of the shit that goes on here. We should all rise up, slaughter the entire government, then go after all of the shit-eating bastards like comcast. Anarchy would be better than this road-to-hell.
Omar said,
March 23, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
Here in St louis charter is the big monopoly. i’ve been really fortunate that they don’t even bother with the spyware leash stuff anymore, you can still get it of your own free will, but you deserve to be spied on if you’re that thick. i have several relatives around the country and the one that have comcast (and a minimal grasp of computers) have related similar stories, and even a few rabid rantings. unfortunately we as a nation are dumb, frightened and lazy, we just want to be spoon fed what ever our masters tell us is right, moral, and lucrative. it just gives me that unnerving chill up my spine that this is only the beginning.
i’ll be chillin in the woods from here on out. well until the squirrels star blogging anyway
Smoothie said,
April 6, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
I think I found the easiest way to get around the install of Comcast software. I told them I was using my work laptop to register the Modem and i didn’t have Admin rights so the person on the phone pushed the config file down to the modem and 2 minutes later I had a connection with no software involved. I think that is way better than creating new partions.
chad said,
April 7, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
Drew, nice job getting such a high page ranking on google. I was reviewing different Internet packages for Mt. View and, while looking at comcast, came upon your helpful page. I’ve decided against ordering comcast based on your information and the opinions shared by others.
drewyates said,
April 7, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
Ha, that’s great. I guess an individual can make a difference.
Bob said,
May 2, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
I am in the same boat as Chad. Being in the Mtn View are as well I made the same decision based on your open letter. I also posted this on Digg. I think with more attention to this, Comcast will quickly realize their stock will drop because of the shitty service (and the word of mouth bashing they get). Eventually this will move them to correct the issues they are causing customers.
ComcastCares said,
May 3, 2008 @ 6:32 am
Andrew,
First thank you for the feedback, I will make sure it is shared. Your update is correct, the initial screens allow you to set up your Comcast.net email address and activate the modem. They are meant to make the process easier and not require additional phone interactions or a manual process, nor are they meant to be intrusive. I also want to apologize for the trouble with the web form. I have forwarded that to the web design team and asked that further tests be conducted with Firefox.
On a more positive note, I did run some tests on your modem and everything is looking good.
Thanks and I hope you enjoy the service.
Frank Eliason
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com