General

[pwpaintball]

Well I have been with Verizon with my phones and DSL for about a month and a half. I AM DONE!!!!
In my area we have Comcast, I have few questions I have is where is the best place to buy it through? I went to Best Buy.com and they have a $100 off a a laptop (I don't need one), and Amazon has $300 mail in rebate, but Comcast had no deals other than the three for 99 witch is what every one else has.
Also I have dish network at the house and DSL through Verizon there also. I have a DVR with dish what is the best one for cable.
Also how is the phone service from cable, any problems with customer service (Then again it could not be as bad as Verizon). Or any other suggestions or things to watch out for. Thanks for your time.
~PW

[Christian Nelson]

I'd be cautious about cable internet if you do any peer to peer. Cable companies are trying to shape peer to peer traffic, and basicly they have sold more bandwidth than their infrastructure can support. So, most people do NOT get the bandwidth advertised.

However, if you already get cable TV, it is a cheaper option for broad band..

[HP_Lovecraft]

With comcast, there is still some tricks to bypass the bandwidth shaping, by using tunneling, port forwarding, and onioning. But it still stinks that you have to jump through the hoops.

Technically it is not legal, though Comcast keeps dragging there feet on addressing the issue.

[Falcon16]

comcast has had just as many issues as verizon. and there are even more billing horror stories and such. only reason though I'd say stay with verizon is that they have Fios in some areas which will beat the living hell out of cable.

[pwpaintball]

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

I'd be cautious about cable internet if you do any peer to peer. Cable companies are trying to shape peer to peer traffic, and basicly they have sold more bandwidth than their infrastructure can support. So, most people do NOT get the bandwidth advertised.

However, if you already get cable TV, it is a cheaper option for broad band..

Originally Posted by HP_Lovecraft

With comcast, there is still some tricks to bypass the bandwidth shaping, by using tunneling, port forwarding, and onioning. But it still stinks that you have to jump through the hoops.

Technically it is not legal, though Comcast keeps dragging there feet on addressing the issue.

Back when I signed up for DSL, cable would not hook up businesses. With DSL I pay for 1.5mbs and the cable that I'm looking at is 16mbs, so even if it is half I'm still ahead of my DSL Thanks Keep the comments coming.

[pwpaintball]

Originally Posted by Falcon16

comcast has had just as many issues as verizon. and there are even more billing horror stories and such. only reason though I'd say stay with verizon is that they have Fios in some areas which will beat the living hell out of cable.

I checked with verizon and fios is not available at home or store.
The issues I have with verizon is that I go to work and then find out from someone that the phones are not working. I find my self picking up the phone every few minutes just to see if I have a dial tone.
I could handle billing problems, but no phones at work is UNACSEPTABLE!!!! They keep 'Working" on the problem and they are like "we are trying to remedy the problem" Then every time you call them there phone system sends you to the wrong person that you explain the problem and then they say "OH so it is phone you are having problems with you to call X"
With in the last month I have talked to them more than my wife.

[Harbinger[TG]]

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

I'd be cautious about cable internet if you do any peer to peer. Cable companies are trying to shape peer to peer traffic, and basicly they have sold more bandwidth than their infrastructure can support. So, most people do NOT get the bandwidth advertised.

However, if you already get cable TV, it is a cheaper option for broad band..

Comcast lost the court battle and have much better service now.

Originally Posted by HP_Lovecraft

With comcast, there is still some tricks to bypass the bandwidth shaping, by using tunneling, port forwarding, and onioning. But it still stinks that you have to jump through the hoops.

Technically it is not legal, though Comcast keeps dragging there feet on addressing the issue.

There are tricks for some ISP's, Comcast is not one of them. Comcast uses Sandvine technology, and AFAIK there is still no way around it. But as I posted in the earlier reply, they lost the court battle with the fcc and are now offering better speeds. They used to throttle me a lot. About 5-6 weeks ago the tripled my upload speed.

The key to getting the max up speed from comcast with P2P is to have popular files with a lot of demand.


Regarding Comcast Packages. You can call them and ask for the double play which would be TV and Net for like $66. for the first 6 months or something. I have Comcast and I have had DSL, DSL blows. Even when COmcast was throttling me on the lower speed it was still better than DSL.

Heres another issue with some DSL providers. ATT's upload is half of Bellsouths which is 1/3 of Comcast.

[pwpaintball]

Another thing
When I left cable before HSI we went to dish network because every time we got the bill it was up from the month before. So if I go with the 66 or 99 package what is the likely hood that it will go up 1 year and a day.

[Harbinger[TG]]

Originally Posted by pwpaintball

Another thing
When I left cable before HSI we went to dish network because every time we got the bill it was up from the month before. So if I go with the 66 or 99 package what is the likely hood that it will go up 1 year and a day.

It will go up in 6months or 1 year. But it will not go up every month.

[HP_Lovecraft]

Originally Posted by Harbinger[TG]

There are tricks for some ISP's, Comcast is not one of them. Comcast uses Sandvine technology, and AFAIK there is still no way around it.

You could always still SSH tunnel the P2P traffic to bypass Sandvine. That was the one trick that Sandvine was helpless to stop. Though it is fairly complex, and requires a computer outside comcast in order to tunnel to. (ie work, school, friend, shell, etc).