SubscribeComcast has announced it will extend free access to its Wi-Fi network in areas struggling to recover from the impact of Hurricane Sandy until Nov. 30, according to a company message on Twitter.
Further information about Comcast’s Wi-Fi network and how to access it is available here.
Comcast has announced it is opening up free Wi-Fi access to everyone in Hurricane Sandy’s impact zone, whether Comcast customers or not.
A Comcast representative tells Broadband Reports the free Wi-Fi access is available in affected communities in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
For a map of XFINITY WiFi hotspots, which are located both indoors and outdoors in malls, shopping districts, parks, and train platforms, please visit XFINITY Wi-Fi.
(Complimentary XFINITY Wi-Fi service may not be available in Partner Wi-Fi Hotspot locations).
Seattle residents are on edge thanks to incredibly aggressive Comcast contract workers who refuse to take no for an answer, pounding on doors demanding to be let in, and in some cases making repeated visits, even after police were called.
Valerie Bauman told KING News two men turned up at her apartment Friday flashing cards which they said gave them the right to go where they please.
“They said they were contractors for Comcast and had the authority to be there and showed me this card and I mean, I’ve got a deck of cards, I can pull out the queen but I’m not royalty,” Bauman told the station.
Sam Levine, another Seattle resident said Comcast salespeople pounded on his door demanding to be let in and simply will not take no for an answer.
“It’s not acceptable, it’s not cool, it’s not a way to treat your customers,” Levine said.
Bauman called police because she felt unsafe with the two men, especially after they came back.
Won’t take no for an answer.
“One of them smiled at me and said, ‘Are the police on their way ma’am?’” said Bauman.
Comcast told both customers they were powerless to help because the salesmen were contract workers not directly hired by Comcast and it would be hard to pinpoint who they were.
“You don’t have any right to put somebody in a position where you feel unsafe and threatened in your own home,” said Bauman.
After the media got involved, Steve Kipp, Comcast Washington Region vice president of communications issued this statement:
On behalf of Comcast, I want to offer my apologies to our customers. We are taking these complaints very seriously. As a policy, we do not tolerate overly aggressive, inappropriate behavior from the door to door sales people employed directly by Comcast or by our contractor companies and will take steps to ensure that incidents like this do not happen again. If anyone witnesses unacceptable behavior from any door to door sales person representing Comcast, we encourage you to call 1-800-COMCAST to lodge a complaint.
[flv width=”432″ height=”260″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KING Seattle Pushy Comcast workers worry Capitol Hill residents 10-8-12.mp4[/flv]
KING in Seattle talks with local residents about Comcast’s highly aggressive sales force that pounds on doors and demands entry to sell cable service. (2 minutes)
Comcast’s porn charged cable bills run into the hundreds of dollars for one 80-year old customer who claims she never ordered them.
An 80-year-old Richmond, Virginia woman has been billed more than a thousand dollars by Comcast for adult pay per view movies she never ordered.
Shirley Mascaro has been fighting with Comcast for nearly a year over an endless series of $13.99 titles that have regularly appeared on her monthly bill since February.
Mascaro not only says she never watched the movies, she has no idea how to order pay per view programming.
Mascaro refused to pay for the movies she did not order, resulting in one bill for $700. Comcast shut off her service, despite regular complaints and promised service credits for the movies.
One young Comcast employee stood in Mascaro’s living room and doubted her veracity when she claimed she was not watching titles like “Xtsy,” “Pant,” and “Juicy.”
“‘Everybody says they don’t order these moves, but they really do,'” Mascaro recalls the Comcast employee telling her.
Another employee offered that perhaps one of Mascaro’s neighbors was stealing her cable.
“Maybe they are but I don’t know,” Mascaro replied. “You need to find out.”
Mascaro suspects Comcast’s cable box might be the culprit. The charges began right after Comcast installed the box on her new television.
With no end in sight to the porn fees, Mascaro contacted WWBT in Richmond and appealed to their consumer reporter for assistance. That quickly got the attention of Comcast, who called the entire matter “an isolated problem.”
Comcast released a statement to NBC12 apologizing to Mascaro and crediting all disputed charges on her account. But Mascaro, and the TV station, are not so sure the charges will not be back. 12 On Your Side reporter Diane Walker promised to keep watching.
Mascaro also wants Comcast to send her a letter just in case the company tries to ruin her credit over the unpaid porn movies.
[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WWBT Richmond Elderly woman charged hundreds of dollars by Comcast for porn 10-2-12.mp4[/flv]
An 80-year-old Richmond, Va. woman’s year-long dispute over hundreds of dollars in Comcast pay-per-view-porn she says she never ordered may finally be over. WWBT reports. (3 minutes)
PC Magazine has declared fiber to the home service America’s fastest broadband technology, and among larger providers, Verizon’s FiOS once again took top honors for delivering the fastest and most consistent broadband speeds.
Over the past nine months, the magazine’s readers have been conducting regular speed tests using their personal broadband connections. The magazine found fiber optics remains the best current technology for delivering cutting-edge broadband service, with an average speed rating for FiOS reaching 29.4/16.7Mbps. Since PC Magazine readers were subscribed to various speed tiers while conducting the tests, the magazine’s ratings do not measure the fastest possible speeds on offer from different providers. Verizon’s most-popular service bundle includes 15/5Mbps service, heavily weighting Verizon’s speed rating which is capable of even faster speeds with their 50-300Mbps premium service tiers. But on average, consistently fast speeds kept them in the top spot.
Cable broadband technology was the second-best choice, depending on how cable operators implement it. Cable companies depend on a singl, shared broadband pipeline in each neighborhood. DOCSIS 3 upgrades allow a cable operator to vastly expand that pipeline by “bonding” several channels together to increase the maximum bandwidth. Cable operators that combine the latest technology with the smallest number of customers sharing a connection do the best.
Midcontinent Communications (better known by customers as Midco), achieved first place nationwide. The company, which serves customers in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin, took top honors with an average speed of 24.7/4.4Mbps — the best of any cable operator.
Ratings sometimes show the level of investment made by cable operators in their network. A sudden boost in average speeds is a sure sign a cable operator is rolling out network upgrades. A speed decline can expose a cable company trying to oversell an already constrained network. Charter Cable, which has routinely gotten poor ratings in Consumer Reports’ rankings, showed dramatic improvement in PC Magazine’s ratings, achieving third place with an average speed increase from 15Mbps to 18.5Mbps. But while the added speed is nice, the company’s usage caps are not. Conversely, WOW!, which achieved top scores in Consumer Reports’ ratings, scored towards the bottom of PC Magazine’s tests.
Comcast, which last year trumpeted its high rankings in controversial ads claiming to deliver the fastest broadband in the nation has now been overrun by both Midco and Charter. Comcast Xfinity is now in sixth place, hardly the fodder for any future ad campaign.
Cox Cable actually lost ground since last year, with average speed now down to 14.8Mbps. The bottom four: Time Warner Cable, Mediacom, WOW!, and Suddenlink — are all hampered by slow upload speeds and more anemic “take-rates” on higher speed broadband plans with the speeds on offer. With fewer premium speed customers, average speed ratings take a hit from the larger proportion of customers sticking with standard service.
Phone companies barely appeared in the magazine’s top ratings. AT&T’s U-verse could not even make the top-15. While 25Mbps was adequate when U-verse was first deployed, the broadband speed race has quickly overshadowed the company’s fiber to the neighborhood service, which still relies on home phone lines and antiquated copper infrastructure in the immediate neighborhood.
Phone companies still offering traditional ADSL on almost all-copper networks turned in even more dismal results — most too low to rate. Only Frontier’s adopted FiOS network kept them in the rankings in the overall broadband “slow zone” in the Pacific Northwest, along with CenturyLink’s acquired ADSL2+ and bonded DSL networks built by Qwest.
ISPs that perform poorly typically criticize the methodology of voluntary speed tests as the basis for speed and performance ranking. Most criticize the apparent lack of consistency, random sampling, the possibility rankings may be weighted in certain geographic areas, and may mix a disproportionate number of customers with standard or premium level speeds to unfairly boost or diminish average speed rankings. But overall, PC Magazine’s rankings show some technologies superior to others. If a customer has a choice, finding a fiber to the home provider is likely to provide an improvement over what the cable company offers, but the differences between phone company DSL and cable broadband are even starker.
The FCC speed test program, conducted by SamKnows, takes more regular snapshots of broadband quality from volunteer panelists. Your editor’s home broadband connection from Time Warner Cable is profiled above, showing results from January-September 2012
The "Massive News" theme by: Press75.com
