You're Switching My Apartment to Comcast? I'm Moving Out

Comcast is paying homeowners associations and apartment owners big bucks ($100+/unit) for 15 year exclusivity agreements. I say, blame your greedy apartment owners.

Comcast? Did you say Comcast? It's rabbit-ears and dial-up before I ever subscribe to Comcast!

Ive had Comcast cable internet for about 5 years now and I like the product and service but I think its overpriced. Ive got good customer service when I upgraded computers but have not needed any other service.

Gather signatures of people in the complex against it even if they don't care explain to them about the fact that it is illegal and you simply want support for the freedom to choose. Also if you have several people in the complex with you willing to get a lawyer to just draft a letter stating the legal actions that could be taken against the owners I'm sure the management would give it a second thought.

I have had Comcast cable for 9 years, cable internet access for I'd say over 2 years and their telephone service for coming up on a year. (it isn't like vonage - it's over telephone lines.) I can say that although I am not a fan of them because I think the prices are outrageously high, I have no complaints service wise. When I had trouble getting my new pc online, a tech person answered right away and got me going in less than 2 minutes.

Pros: There is an incredible amount of content which provides not just something, but lots for everyone. Plus an on demand service that provides every kind of entertainment when you are ready to watch at no extra cost. Internet access is off the charts downloading; average uploading. Phone is a solid deal with unlimited local, toll, long distance with caller ID, & voice mail.

I think if this is the biggest problem Mr. Shapiro has to put so much time and energy into, he should count himself a very lucky man. How would he fare in a true crisis?

I think Phil's *entirely* justified...and it's about time! Comcast's botched attempts to cover up their peer to peer filtering should be reason enough for anyone to panic at the thought of being forced into Comcastitude.

Oceansurfsun: Perhaps it's time we woke up to the fact that this is, in fact, a true crisis? The numbers on broadband penetration in the United States tell a rather shocking story; our definition of broadband isn't even considered "broadband" in Europe or Asia nowadays. The impact this is having on our economy is already beginning to be felt; outsourcing is the least of our worries. I can get faster, cheaper internet in Calcutta than I can in Chicago; and it's delivered by a neighborhood small business that believes in custom service because of the sheer volume of competition. By contrast, the telcos created the America's broadband backwater and relegated us to third world connectivity at exploitive pricing. This was a crisis years ago; now it's a catastrophe.

I believe Phil's justification is lacking, oceansurfsun definitely has the right idea on the situation. I found myself stuck in the same position in an apartment complex in Houston but instead of Comcast, management had a contract with a smaller cable company called TVMax. This company offered nothing. To begin with, no internet service was provided so there was no cable ISP to even speak of, leaving DSL my only option. There was no On-Demand, no HD channels and no DVR receivers and the apartment had a very strict policy on satellite dishes at the time.

The DSL option was fine with me; I could have even upgraded it to be just as fast as Comcast. The thing that bothered me was the lack of options in TV services. I highly doubt the apartment complex was incapable of receiving DSL service, assuming this is true and based on the topic of ISPs I find it hard to complain. "What I would have given at the time to become a victim of a huge corporation like Comcast." It could be worse!

I've had my own experience with Comcast trying to install new internet service when I moved. I say "try" because for over a month all I got was outright lies and a different story every time I talked with someone. When I finally backed them into a corner and wanted a date that my service would be working, they "had no date" and when asked if it would ever be working it was "we can't comment on that".

I love how the Comcast PR Shills have to come and over-hype a clearly troubled and maligned product.

Guys, you need to find new jobs. We know it's just your job to formulate a response that makes it seem like Comcast has many happy customers with excellent service who have had terrible experiences everywhere else, but that's not the reality that the majority of your customers experience, is it?

I've had Comcast in 3 different major cities in the last 5 years. Every time I move to a place, it seems that I start with the cable option because it's cheap and I need to save money, but end up going to a superior other service as soon as I can afford it. Comcast has repeatedly lied to me on the phone about everything they possibly can (service outages always seem to be my fault, I don't answer the door when they come to install service, etc). The speeds are always slower than slow at nights (go figure) and now they're filtering traffic and restricting usage! Awesome, sign me up !

Just a suggestion, but maybe you should complain about comcast after you actually have a complaint? I'm a bandwidth junkie myself and if my net connection was crappy and i had no choice but to move to get a better connection, i'd move. But i'd also at least wait for the service to get installed and try it out for a little while before i start complaining about it and saying i'm moving.

I would regardless complain to your apartment manager anyhow, since if it is illegal as you say, then they shouldn't be doing this.

During the past 15 years of using Comcast I have had only two complaints and that was during a three month period when they were training new people on how to update the data base for their name server in my area. It seemed that on the 13th of those three months that the service would drop for an hour in the middle of the day and then become intermittent the rest of the daylight hours. Everything would be fine at night but drop again the next day. Three consecutive days on three consecutive months. After numerous complaints I finally got a local rep to describe what was really going on. This was last year and it hasn't happened since. I really understand the problems in starting service or relocating service as the reps in most cases aren't even in this country and know very little about local geography.

You folks are all missing the point. Honestly, it isn't about whether Comcast is good or bad, although I would not be too happy about Comcast either.

It is about CHOICE folks. Why should the apartment building you live in dictate what ISP you can use?

Should your choice of building force you to use a Mac or PC? Buy Sony or Panasonic? Buy hamburger or steak?

Choice is being taken away, and that should not sit well with anyone.

Have you investigates DSL from the local phone company? I'm afraid that would be your only other choice and you could get that without having to deal with Comcat. In most areas you are confined to three choices because of the hard lines involved and the franchises that need to be paid by other companies to use those cables/phone lines. Satelite would be another choice, but only a partial cure as it would be a satelite downlink but a pnone line uplink unless you pay big bucks for satelite two way link. Until some kind of agreement is reached and the owners of the lines on the pole receive their due compensation for their usage you will be stuck with what's available.