DHCP Lease Time Too Fast

(2nd attempt writing as a page error deleted the first post)

I've been having for the past month+ a 5-10 second drop in all Internet traffic every 30 minutes or so and it's super frustrating. Especially when it comes to live video streaming and online gaming.

I've traced the problem to the DHCP IP address lease time coming from Comcast's servers. Every time it gets a new lease, there's a service drop. Comcast's leases have been switching from 1 hour to 2 hours and back to 1 again. Since it updates after half the time has elapsed, it's causing 2 drops every 90 minutes, 30 minutes apart.

I've contacted customer service to no avail. They keep blaming me, the customer, as their scripts tell them to. See, it's just that my device needs to be restarted (no it doesn't). Or my device is so old (no it isn't). I think my favorite excuse so far has been that nobody else in my area is complaining about it so it really must not be a problem.

What will it take to get Comcast to up my lease time to something more reasonable? It's usually a 4 days (awesome), but heck, I'd take even 24 hrs or 8 hrs. A drop every 4 hours would be glorious in comparison to the drops I'm currently getting.

Please. Help.

Responses

Accepted Solution

BigMikeyOcho

5 Messages

8 days ago

Okay. So I talked directly with (multiple) Comcast employees in a lopsided back and forth, and they said that a technician would need to be sent out. So, I scheduled that on Monday to occur on Thursday. Now it's Wednesday evening and, just checking my connection, it's suddenly reverted itself back to a lease time of 4 days. It appears to have magically fixed itself about 6 hours ago. So I canceled the technician.

Sorry, folks. The lease time issue IS one that Comcast can change and is 100% on their end. But to get them to do it, it seems like the solution that worked here was to schedule a useless service appointment and it'll magically fix itself the day before the appointment. 🤷

XfinityPeterH

Official Employee

•

1.6K Messages

11 days ago

BigMikeyOcho Thanks for your post. I would be reaching out if I were in your shoes too as staying connected is very important. There for sure must be something going on at your location due to the fact that Xfinity IP addresses are typically "dynamic," meaning they change periodically, but not very often; usually due to system maintenance or when a short-term DHCP lease expires, which could happen every few days or weeks depending on your network settings.

BigMikeyOcho

5 Messages

@XfinityPeterH Oh, and every time the address changes, as it indeed is dynamic, it doesn't actually change. It never gives me a new IP address, it's always the same one. Which makes all the address updating super confusing.

10 days ago

BigMikeyOcho

5 Messages

@XfinityPeterH I periodically get texts from Comcast saying they're doing work in my area and that my Internet could be affected. But then they text after a while and say everything's good, but the lease time remains low. My guess is they keep it low as they're doing work, but the work never seems to end. Usually in the past when they've made it this low, it only lasts a week and they set it back to its usual 4 days lease. But this time it's been well over a month, almost 2 months. And I know it's not just me, but every neighbor I've checked as well (I'm the local "tech guy" so they all come to me for help). Just going crazy as I know it's not me and yet every time I call I get gaslit and treated like I'm at fault. Feel like whoever changed it just literally forgot to change it back, but calling and getting them to do so is impossible without knowing the right words to say to get me to someone who knows what the heck they're doing. You know? Hence why I'm here, complaining on a forum, as I KNOW I'm not the only one who has this issue.

10 days ago

XfinityJosephA

Official Employee

•

1.5K Messages

BigMikeyOcho send us a direct message so we can take a closer look at your connection. This is the best thing we can do to help. You can use the Direct Messaging icon at the top of the page to send your name and service address to "Xfinity Support." It's next to the bell icon on the right side of the page.

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10 days ago

EG

Expert

•

108K Messages

10 days ago

@BigMikeyOcho @XfinityPeterH

Please circle back here and post any possible solutions for the issue here in these open public forums so that all readers here may benefit from the exchange / info. This is in keeping with the spirit for which these public help forums were originally intended. Thank you.

Your Home Network

BigMikeyOcho

DHCP Lease Time Too Fast

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