No Thank You Comcast

I know that I am posting this article rather early in the morning, I know that this is about to be a rant on how bad Comcast is as a service, and I know I should probably just turn in for the morning and get some sleep. But I can't just let go of the issues I had last night, and instead it has festered in me over the last seven hours or more that I spent working on our new gateway to fix the internet. So let me start from the beginning.

Our internet has always sucked in one way or another. Before our new gateway, we had a wonderful problem where the internet worked great, the phones worked great, but they only worked great as long as one was not working. For instance, I would be on the internet writing a blog when we would get a phone call. Instantly our internet drops and everyone that is on gets kicked off line because some idiot decided that phones should trump the magical power that is the internet. It drove me nuts and I lost a lot of work from the phone-internet phenomena. And not just that, but if two people tried to get onto the internet at the same time, it kicked one of them off and the other one got a full pass. That drove my Dad nuts. So anyway, here is the tale of how I got the internet working again on all our devices in our home.

Phase 1 - The Problem is Introduced

So he decided it was time for a brand new modem to fix all of these issues and went over to the Comcast building-store-thing where they let him rent what he brought home. We get it out of the box, all shiny and new, and get it hooked up. I help my family get everything else hooked into place as well, their computers and kindles and what-nots, and then I head downstairs into the cold basement to fix up my Xbox 360 so that I can play my video games on this magical new device. It connected the first time, but with the slowest internet you have ever seen. I could not play a game without rage quitting because of the internet connection speed. So I did the first think that came to mind and tried to fix it myself. That failed pretty quickly actually and I moved onto the second phase of fixing something, which is of course to dodge technical services for as long as possible and look it up online.

Phase 2 - The Internet Fixation

What I found online was an archive of people yelling and complaining about how terrible the new gateway that we got was for the Xbox 360 console. Several people had made notes that they were able to get everything to connect except for their Xbox 360. And throughout all of this, there was one guy that called himself a network specialist that said you need to trash that POS and go get a real something-or-other. I was furious. Still I tried to keep my cool and find a way around it, which according to the article I had found said to disable to wireless internet via what the technicians call "bridge mode" and hook up a router to the back of the machine to bypass the problem. So I ventured off to Walmart (because everywhere else had closed by this time) and picked up the best damn router they had in stock and went back home. Then, I called up Comcast finally and within minutes I had a tech on the line. I asked him to enable bridge mode and he very politely and quickly did it. Then I hooked up a new router and just like that my problem was NOT solved.

Phase 3 - It is a Hardware Problem...

So on to phase three of the I hate calling the techs to figure out how to fix a problem and I'd rather continue trying the brute force method. I figured that since the new router I bought was not working and was not on the list of prescribed routers that work, I might as well return it to Walmart (which is about seven minutes away from our house) and then bring back one that I knew for sure was on the list of prescribed routers that worked. I did this and approximately 45 minutes later and one trip to the only McDonalds that closes, I had a brand-new brand-new router. Back to the lair I went, where I quickly hooked everything up and started messing with the routers internet controls and what-nots to see if I could fix it manually again. I failed miserably and spent approximately an hour an a half trying this time. I was out of ideas, so I did something so desperate there was no way it would work, I reset the gateway to its original settings and watched as it failed miserably again. I also disconnected the wired desktop's internet and spent at least another half an hour figuring out what had gone wrong there, but that's another tale.

Phase 4 - Screw This, Comcast Better Fix It!

I was tired, really really tired, and just about to give up all hope on fixing this thing and telling my Dad it was time to return the damn box and get our old stuff back. I mean, I would rather have something that worked some of the time and with everything than work with a system that did not work all the time. But first, I still had not called up Comcast and asked them what I could do to fix this problem. So I redial the same number from earlier, the one I had called to get the bridge mode enabled with (which was disabled, because I reset the gateway to factory settings), and after a short wait I had some old woman on the other end. I am not being rude or prejudice, but you could tell by her hazy voice and the words she used to describe things.

I told her my problem and the first thing she tells me is that I am an idiot and the reason that it was not working was because the bridge mode was enabled. I told her that is impossible because I had disabled bridge mode when I reset the unit to factory settings. I also informed her that I knew what bridge mode did, I knew what it was called, and I knew it was not enabled because I could get a wireless connection through to the gateway on my laptop. She told me I was stupid (which was quite rude for a Comcast representative) and then repeated back to me all the information I had said, but with the slight exception that she saw the bridge mode was enabled. So she puts me on hold for five minutes while she takes bridge mode off, which does nothing because it was already off and she was being crazy, and I tell her I still cannot connect. Then she tells me it is an Xbox related issue and I need to take it up with them.

It was at this point in the conversation that I started to become rather angry with this woman. What was she, the queen of technicians that knew how to fix every Comcast related problem after a whole hour worth of technical training at the magical Comcast training seminar. Please. I knew more than this woman and that was from doing a simple internet search. So I told her I had already called Xbox after calling Comcast the first time, and that Xbox had sent me back to Comcast and I was getting circled back and forth and making it nowhere. This is actually not far from the truth, because I read online that other people had ended up in this circular loop before figuring out Comcast and Microsoft both did not have a fix. She said it was not a Comcast related problem, that if it was then how was it that everything else worked except my Xbox's connection to the internet. I then informed her that I did have an Xbox connection to the internet before the new gateway box, and that it did work. Still, she was impossible to work with.

What ended up happening was I said she had not fixed my problem, I did not want a technician out here to tell me that she was an idiot and the problem had been occurring all over (which is honestly what happens every time) and I told her that her service was no helpful. Then I hung up and went back to working on the issue myself.

Stage 6 - A Break Through

If you are wondering where stage five went, I deleted it because all it really said was I kept trying stupid things and they did not work and it wasted my time. But then I got this strange idea to try what I had done back in the second stage of my own trying to fix this conundrum except not enabling the bridge mode, a last ditch effort if ever, and then give up afterwards. Except it worked. So what I now have is everything connecting through the gateway Comcast provided including a router, and then my Xbox 360 wirelessly connecting to the router to get internet. It is about the worst work around ever.

And what did I learn from all this? I hate Comcast, I hate their representatives who apparently have a shrub stuck so far up their bottoms that they would rather be ignorant prudes than helpful bastards.

My Current Tech Specs (For Those Curious):

If you are curious what gateway I was using that caused all of these problems and what not, here are just some technical specifications for the current working hook-up.

• Comcast provided ARRIS TG862
• Walmart purchased Linksys E2500
• Xbox 360 Slim with Built in Wireless