Is it just my local area, or does Comcast suck?

[Heed]

My internet times out at random almost every day and it is completely unpredictable and incredibly frustrating.

I've lived in this household for two years without having this problem, but as of a few months ago, it has been utter crap.

For Christmas, my dad wants to buy a new modem and/or router, but I strongly doubt this has anything to do with my hardware.

About a month ago, I called Comcast. They gave me some cookie cutter response telling me they were doing maintenance and even said they 'strengthened' my connection but nothing has improved.

Anybody else have this problem? Any recommendations for a router? I currently use a Motorola SB5120 Surfboard.

[Jiggles]

Drop comcast and I'll hook you up with Uverse!

[Ytse Frobozz]

I've run into an issue where I had the same cable modem for many years, like 7, and the ISP starts using new or different features, and your old-ass cable modem is kind of left hanging. If you've had the same cable modem forever, you might want to call Comcast, and they're usually happy to exchange your old one for a brand new one. If you're using your own modem, you may want to give them the model number and verify that it should work fine on their network, and ask if there are any features or settings that need to be configured.

If you notice your speeds always suck, you can call Comcast and they'll send a guy to do some tests. Don't do this unless you can verify the problem happens all the time, and is definitely not on your network. If you have a PC that's been compromised by malware, it may be sucking up all the bandwidth, sending spam or launching DDoS attacks as a zombie PC, and to you it looks like your service is bad. Back when I worked for an ISP, I had to give the heartbreaking news to many a client that they were infected. I would tell them to turn off their PCs one at a time, and when they turned off the infected PC, I would see their bandwidth utilization go from maxed out to almost zero.

I encountered another situation that should be very rare, but I'll throw it out there just in case. My Comcast internet service worked well when I moved into my house. Then I got an Xbox360, and moved my cable modem from my upstairs office to my living room. Some time after that, I started noticing that my speeds were terrible (1 Mb/s max when I should have been getting 6, or 8, or whatever). I moved my cable modem back to my office. Everything is awesome. Move it back downstairs, it sucks. This is telling me it might be the wiring inside my house. The guy who wired the place up before I owned it ran cable to pretty much every room in the house, but you can tell it was kind of a hack job. So I follow the wiring to the basement, and lo and behold, the guy ran the coax cable pretty much right on top of a power run, almost the entire width of the house. The power lines in a house (in the US) run AC current at a frequency of 60Hz, and the wires are like an antenna, so anything you run next to a power line is going to pick up a hum at 60Hz, and so your telephone or cable modem or whatever is going to hear HMMMMMMMM all the time. This is not good for your internet speeds. Fortunately there was enough slack that I could move the cable away from the power line, and when I hooked everything back up, it was awesome again.

Hope that helps!

[FrugalNinja250]

They sucked when I had them too. As did AT&T. I would rather use smoke signals and USPS stamped mail than either of those two.

[Heed]

I can't remember how long I've had this modem but I know they don't even make it anymore. It's a Motorola SB5120 - it's at least 3 years old I guess.

[Alex]

I very rarely have issues with Comcast here in CA. 30+ mbps down, and 8+ mbps up. Cable modems don't last forever, and the one you have is quite old. Get a Motorola 6120 or newer, make sure it is DOCSIS 3.0, make sure your signal is strong enough, and outages should be very rare.

http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-SB612.../dp/B001UI2FPE

[Heed]

How do I know it's my modem and not my router, though? I'm sure my router is just as old.

[Cedilla]

Comcast sucks in my neighborhood, but not all over the city. I get service interruptions that can last anywhere from a few minutes to hours once every few weeks or so. Another person that lives in my apartment complex has the same issue. Everyone else I know that lives in my city does not have the same issue.

I think it has more to do with the fact that not many people in my "hood" have cable service, so the infrastructure is neglected when compared to areas with higher subscription rates.

That being said, Comcast is by far the best cable service in my area, and despite my minor service interruptions my service works exactly as intended, and my internet connection has low latency, so online gaming works great.

[Heed]

Originally Posted by Cedilla

Comcast sucks in my neighborhood, but not all over the city. I get service interruptions that can last anywhere from a few minutes to hours once every few weeks or so. Another person that lives in my apartment complex has the same issue. Everyone else I know that lives in my city does not have the same issue.

That sounds like what I have. I'm too scared to talk to my neighbors if they have the same problem lol.

[ForceofWill]

I wish I could go back to cable for internet lol. The townhomes I'm at only allow one company for internet and it's some small little phone company. They only offer 1 speed DSL and I've never bandwidth tested faster than 1.3mbps down. Consistantly have 400-6k ping in games lol. I even called them and said I would pay whatever to get more bandwidth, no dice.

[massacremasses]

comcast here is great. best service you can buy.

[Ytse Frobozz]

Originally Posted by Heed

How do I know it's my modem and not my router, though? I'm sure my router is just as old.

You can try connecting a PC directly to your cable modem. You may need a crossover cable instead of a regular (aka straight-through) ethernet cable for this to work.

HUGE DISCLAIMER: For the love of god, make sure you have your PC's security up to date and firewall software on before you do this. An unprotected system on the Big Bad Internet can be compromised in a matter of minutes.

Once you're online with your PC, you can try running a constant ping to a reliable host (www.google.com usually works pretty well), or try going to a site that does speed tests (speakeasy.net is a good one). If you see the same performance issues, it's not your router.

If things look better... that doesn't necessarily mean the router is the issue. It could be another system on your network causing an issue, or wireless interference if you're on a wireless network. You can try plugging only one PC into the router and testing again. If things look good when you're going directly into the modem, and bad when you've only got one PC going through the router... then it might be the router.

Hope that helps!