Comments on: Comcast In The Crosshairs

By: Dittyman8

Dittyman8 — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 03:49:37 +0000

I think that it long overdue that the counties should end Comcast’s monoply. How does it benefit anyone other than Comcast that they have a monoply. The cables that they laid years ago have been paid off mnay times over. On top of it they keep raising the rates for less and less service. In addition, they are now kicking off users who are “using too much bandwidth” yet they won’t disclose what that limit is.

By: Maureen Wood

Maureen Wood — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:05:56 +0000

MP MOM- Rob Smalls - Patriot Temp is correct. Unlike Manassas Park the County and Manassas City both let people other than residents speak.

I find it laughable that your government prohibits non-residents from speaking at their citizens time. All three jurisdictions are so intertwined that we should be able to speak at any of them.

Mayor Jones really needs to re-think MP’s policy. But then again MP is run as a dictatorship and can do what they want.

By: Rob Smalls - Patriot Temp

Rob Smalls - Patriot Temp — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:23:59 +0000

MP Mom - I believe Manassas City and PWC allow all local-area residents to speak during citizens time, regardless of their home address. Only Manassas Park restricts the podium to residents within their city limits.

By: MP Mom

MP Mom — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:08:03 +0000

Would they let someone from MP speak about the issue? Since Comcast customer service (using the terms loosely) office is on Center St., anyone in MP, Manassas City, and the County are potentially customers. I know the council is concerned about their constituents, but everyone is using the same customer service office based in the city.

By: Melyssa Webb

Melyssa Webb — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:44:17 +0000

I hope that you all will show up to the City Meeting on Monday and voice your concerns. I certainly will be there. I’m sure you saw the MJM this morning covering the story that was first brought to attention here at bvbl.net. We really need to show up and let Comcast see that we are Not going to back down!

By: Confused in Cloverhill

Confused in Cloverhill — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:33:58 +0000

Comcast routinely runs temp lines along the ground that take them 2-3 months to replace.

———————————————————

That is what scares me. I moved into Manassas 5 years ago and noticed temp cables running down Battlefield St in Cloverhill along the sidewalk. Each year during Halloween I notice the cable, guess what this year it still there. The thinking that they own Manassas and the intimidation tactics of their employees must stop. WE NEED TO TAKE BACK MANASSAS and BOYCOTT COMCAST!!!

By: MP Mom

MP Mom — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:58:30 +0000

We have had no problems this week with the laying of the cables. Some of the equipment for the dig is noisy, but they have tried to be unobtrusive and incredibly polite.

By: MP Resident

MP Resident — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:54:00 +0000

Incidentally, my router/firewall just died one day. Went to lunch, came back, it was dead. Kind of problematic since I work from home.. I decided to use my Linux machine as a router/firewall instead of buying another router/firewall. I should have done that a long time ago since I’m getting MUCH faster downloads than I was before. Guess the old router just couldn’t handle the speed. Now I’m routinely getting 5mbps downloads, I was lucky to get 1-2mbps before.

By: MP Resident

MP Resident — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:42:32 +0000

I’ve heard horror stories of FIOS contractors cutting buried power, telephone, and cable lines.

Hopefully that won’t happen in Belmont Station. I’d rather not find out if my whole-house surge protector can handle a direct hit from a 7.2kV primary distribution line.

By: Rob Smalls - Patriot Temp

Rob Smalls - Patriot Temp — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:35:36 +0000

Sweet fancy Moses, I hope they make it out to Belmont Station soon.

By: MP Mom

MP Mom — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:16:06 +0000

The neighborhoods off of Manassas Drive between 28 and Eucild.

By: Rob Smalls - Patriot Temp

Rob Smalls - Patriot Temp — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:52:05 +0000

MP Mom - Where is Verizon laying FIOS cable at?

By: MP Mom

MP Mom — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 00:55:03 +0000

Batson D. Belfrey said on 16 Nov 2007 at 12:48 pm:
A better solution than elimanting comcasts franchise, would be to let another franchise in.

Mercifully, that’s what Manassas Park is doing. Verizon has been laying their FIOS cables all week. I can’t wait to ditch Comcast!!! Maybe for those who choose to stay, competition will improve their service experience. My service experience will improve when I drop my equipment off at the Comcast office.

By: MP Resident

MP Resident — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 00:35:01 +0000

You know Comcast bought AT&T Broadband? Apparently AT&T wanted to get out of providing television.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 23:48:31 +0000

It amazes my that CrumCast has fought tooth and nail to keep AT&T out of providing television! They seem to think that they are the only ones that can provide “quality” service.

Except for two days I can’t get one of my favorite channels.

By: MP Resident

MP Resident — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:14:37 +0000

Hammer lady went to the bill payment office.

Comcast routinely runs temp lines along the ground that take them 2-3 months to replace.

By: anonymoustoo

anonymoustoo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:09:22 +0000

I’ve actually had good cable tv and internet connection with them. My problems arose when one of their lines fell across my sidewalk after a storm. I probably talked to five or six different people on either the service or construction end and after a month of stepping over their line, I called PWC’s ombudsman and the problem was fixed the next day. A few months later during a storm another of their lines came down across my driveway. I gave them one day to fix it. When they didn’t get here when they said they would, I called the county’s ombudsman again and the problem was fixed the next day. (During the first call to the ombudsman, I asked if it would help if I went to their office personally and he told me not to bother…that their doors were locked to the public. How did hammer-lady get in?)

By: DennisD

DennisD — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:02:35 +0000

You need to get a copy of their franchise agreement and make sure they are meeting their legal responsibilities.

By: MP Resident

MP Resident — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:46:15 +0000

Oh, I had 9 tech visits to my house to try to fix this problem and I probably know more about cable TV than any of them even though I don’t work in that industry and never have. I even had one try to tell me that intermittent outages were normal during periods of high use, also tried to blame my computer.

I said, “High usage is not going to cause the cablemodem’s upstream power to increase from 49dB to 61dB in two minute’s time, yet that’s exactly what’s going on. That also is not a computer problem as the transmit power level is between your headend and this cablemodem, the computer has nothing to do with it”.

As far as I could determine it was a problem between the tap and the headend, but all the people they kept sending to my house knew how to do is change splitters and connectors.

I even generated a nice graph of the cablemodem’s transmit power showing it bouncing around like a seisomgraph during an earthquake but importance of that escaped these idiots.

By: MP Resident

MP Resident — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:38:52 +0000

I had intermittent outages with Comcast for about 4 months before they finally fixed it at the end of August.

It remains to be seen if Verizon is any better–here’s a hint: They probably recruit from the same labor pool.