Finally ditching Comcast... for the lesser of two evil's

[14Accent]

For the last 3 months, I've gone over the 1.2 TB data cap on my Comcast home internet plan. I'm currently on a $55/mo for 100/10 or something like that. Since the pandemic started, I have a house full of out of work room mates (servers) and a kid doing distance learning. It's beyond easy to blow through 1.2 TB these days, usually by the 10th-15th of the month.

I tried chatting with Comcast support online, hoping to get at least somewhat of an offer to retain a 10+ year customer. The best I was offered was 200 meg down PLUS $30 for unlimited data, bringing the total to $105 a month. I wasn't as offended by that as I was by the chat agent's attitude: They actually stated to me "Comcast provides the best value of any service provider currently". Blatant lie.

I own all my own equipment, so it will be easy to dump them. I have an appointment for next Tuesday the 19th to have CenturyLink fiber installed. 940 meg service with no data caps and a free OWNED, not rented, modem for $65/mo plus tax. No contract, no promo deal. I know all about the horror stories regarding CL's customer service, I've dealt with them first hand, however I refuse to continue to support the Comcast ecosystem. Good riddance.

 

[SZR48207]

I'm surprised they are monitoring data caps. I think my provider (Cox) waived the overage thing since they know people are stuck at home now and using more data than typical.

 

[14Accent]

I'm surprised they are monitoring data caps. I think my provider (Cox) waived the overage thing since they know people are stuck at home now and using more data than typical.

Comcast did that for a whopping 2 months... how generous of them. It's nothing more than a cash grab directed towards people that can least afford it.

 

[Skippy722]

I'm surprised they are monitoring data caps. I think my provider (Cox) waived the overage thing since they know people are stuck at home now and using more data than typical.

Yeah Comcast waived it for a few months, site says March 13-June 30 last year. As a family that streams EVERYTHING, 1.2Gb is just barely enough. Downloading Cyberpunk 2077, a ~50gb download, put me over the limit by 18 friggin gigs last month.

 

[Boomer]

With my experience over the years, there are two companies I refuse to do business with.....Comcast and Sirius.

 

[vwmaniaman]

I will be dumping Comcast soon. My bill has gone to $222.13. Only getting 40mb and not the 200 I pay for. They keep going up and providing less all the time. A local broadband provider has fiber in my front yard. A true 175mb up or down for $81.56/mo.

 

[alarmguy]

I Dumped Spectrum for TMobile Home Internet last week, my posts on it are in the "Electronics" section of this forum.
Freaking Spectrum with 70% worth of price increases over the last 4 years, I had a blast cancelling them!
T-Mobile = $50 with autopay. No other changes, no taxes, no equipment cost, no shipping cost, NOTHING!... *L* no "landline" to your house, all cell tower based. Two day air delivered to your home, 3 steps to have it up and running once it arrives, I suspect as the years move forward, "landline" internet will go the way of "landline phone"

Great speeds you are getting, that is for sure, I know the feeling of speed, even though its useless much above 100 Mbps in the standard household its fun to see. Its kind of like having 1000 Amp electric service in a home that requires 200 Amp, The appliances wont run any better with more amperage.
Except for situations like yours where price is less of an issue and see awesome speed tests results, TMobile Home Internet is going to be the saving grace for many people for $50 a month and no price increases.

 

[GON]

Comcast made a major announcement that they would be reducing data speed for large users and put other usage caps in place in December 2020.

On a unrelated side note- Comcast's chief lobbyist David Cohen and his wife hosted a fundraiser for Joe Biden, on the day he announced his third candidacy for the presidency. Maybe Comcast relationship with the President elect will pay good dividends for Comcast subscribers.

 

[kschachn]

Didn't you have residential service before, but were running business servers on the connection? Shouldn't you have a business account?

 

[Donald]

A fiber PON connection will be better than Comcast. It will work during a power outage as long as you have your own UPS. And the up & down speeds are the same.

 

[Skippy722]

Comcast made a major announcement that they would be reducing data speed for large users and put other usage caps in place in December 2020.

On a unrelated side note- Comcast's chief lobbyist David Cohen and his wife hosted a fundraiser for Joe Biden, on the day he announced his third candidacy for the presidency. Maybe Comcast relationship with the President elect will pay good dividends for Comcast subscribers.

Subscribers? No way. Executives and share holders? Most definitely.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

When a lot of people transitioned to work from home, the folks who were on Comcast were the ones who were calling the most with Internet connection problems. Definitely not the most reliable

 

[14Accent]

Well, today was the day. CL gave me the usual "10-6" time slot nonsense, I was up at quarter to 10 and got a phone call at quarter after 11 letting know the installer would be there at 12:45, which he was. Almost to the minute.

Very professional guy, and friendly. The install took about 3.5 hours, but probably would have taken an hour less if we hadn't been talking shop. He ran a new fiber line from the pole to the house, installed a new box on the house itself, installed the ONT in the basement, and ran a new CAT5e cable up to my living room for the C4000XG router that they supplied.

I originally planned on upgrading my router and not using theirs, however since I'm not doing any crazy networking or gaming, I think I may leave it alone. It's a WiFi 6 device that seems to work just fine. Coverage is good in my 110 year old house, and I'm seeing speeds in the 450-500 down, 700-750 meg up range. All I did was change the SSID to my old network name and password so the roomies could reconnect seamlessly.

Again, this is $65 a month + tax, equipment included, vs the $55 a month + tax + constant $100 overage charges from Comcast. That was for 100/10 service, and their best offer to retain me was $75 for 200/20 PLUS $35 for unlimited data. I can't wait to kick them to the curb.

 

[PandaBear]

I would totally switch over to fiber if it is available in my area. My dad has it and for about the same price as the cable, no data cap.

 

[Andrew1972]

I have three kids distance learning and 3 kids who stream. I work 100% from home with 18 hrs/week on video calls.

you must have 4K streams or some other bandwidth eater? We manage 800GB per month.

 

[dlundblad]

My parents have CL. Zero complaints and the service is very reliable. There was a time it wasn’t working.. come to find out a “pedestal” was hit by a farmer’s brush hog. It was down for about 2 weeks until dad finally called. They had no record of anyone working on it, but somebody had put an orange cover over it. They guys ready said the break was 6500 yards away and it was actually only 800. That was a bit odd, but oh well.

We can’t get fiber optic internet at our place. Just antenna internet. 10 mbps for $75 month.

We dumped the other place that was $50 for 5. Their service worked 75% of the time. The guy told me it was my router then told me to buy a UPS. Towards the end it wouldn’t work at all so I called them and said to cancel us. 3 months later we still received a bill.

 

[blupupher]

At least you have options. I have either Comcast or local phone company (Consolidated Communications) DSL. No fiber option. No other availability of anything else.

 

[14Accent]

I have three kids distance learning and 3 kids who stream. I work 100% from home with 18 hrs/week on video calls.

you must have 4K streams or some other bandwidth eater? We manage 800GB per month.

I really couldn't tell you. We aren't streaming 4k, just 1080p. But we stream all day every day, I have no cable. Depending on the day, there's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 hours of streaming between the 4 of us. That's a rough guess. That's let's say 1k hours a month. Let's say, for sake of argument, that the data used is 2 gigs/hr. That's 2tb right there. We haven't hit quite that much, but roughly 1.5-1.8tb a month is what we've been averaging.

EDIT - I went ahead and pulled numbers on our data usage for the last 3 months of 2020:

Oct - 2,212GB

Nov - 2,651 GB

Dec - 2,948 GB

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

For the last 3 months, I've gone over the 1.2 TB data cap on my Comcast home internet plan. I'm currently on a $55/mo for 100/10 or something like that. Since the pandemic started, I have a house full of out of work room mates (servers) and a kid doing distance learning. It's beyond easy to blow through 1.2 TB these days, usually by the 10th-15th of the month.

I tried chatting with Comcast support online, hoping to get at least somewhat of an offer to retain a 10+ year customer. The best I was offered was 200 meg down PLUS $30 for unlimited data, bringing the total to $105 a month. I wasn't as offended by that as I was by the chat agent's attitude: They actually stated to me "Comcast provides the best value of any service provider currently". Blatant lie.

I own all my own equipment, so it will be easy to dump them. I have an appointment for next Tuesday the 19th to have CenturyLink fiber installed. 940 meg service with no data caps and a free OWNED, not rented, modem for $65/mo plus tax. No contract, no promo deal. I know all about the horror stories regarding CL's customer service, I've dealt with them first hand, however I refuse to continue to support the Comcast ecosystem. Good riddance.

U need a business account. I hope your new provider doesn't throttle your speed at 1TB

 

[alarmguy]

At least you have options. I have either Comcast or local phone company (Consolidated Communications) DSL. No fiber option. No other availability of anything else.

Did you try T Mobile Home Internet yet?
It takes a few seconds on line to see if it is available to you. You do not need a cable to your home anymore, its the future. Much like you do not need a landline telephone anymore. the word is getting out, you DO have options, maybe, you can check below on the link if its available to you.

I have a full review in the "Electronics section" of BITOG. We are thrilled and so is another BITOG member who tried it based on my post, he like you had no options.

$50 a month autopay, actual payment. ( I wish people would post actual payment in these threads)
Everything is free, equipment and air shipping to your home. No taxes, No BS ... if its available to you, your more advanced then people with wired connections ... ) the price of a data connection to your home via landline is getting stupid expensive from the landline providers.
Then they justify the price with speed claims that no homeowner can make use of. Its like getting 1000 amp electric service in your home when your home cant possible use more then 100 amps but have a safety net of 200 amp service.

Literally takes minutes to set up and be running IF you have a good signal which TMobile will not send to you if they do not think its possible.

https://www.t-mobile.com/isp

....