Regular Visitor
•
1 Message
Internet unusable during covid-19
A bit of a rant (sorry), but wondering...
Since covid-19 has forced people to work from home, my xfinity internet has been virtually useless during the day. Prior to this -- and even now in the middle of the night -- I get 200+M download and 5+ upload on my 175/5 account. but during the workday, I often can't even bring up a web page, and upload speeds (speedtest.net, etc) are typically around 0.5M when it's working, while download is around 40M. Working from home -- as required -- requires internet/VPN access, and is just an exercise in futility.
I opened a call with Comcast March 9th. Since then, I've made many escalation calls, was given many promises by managers to call me back, 2 separate tech house visits and a 3rd visit by 2 tech supervisors. They re-wired the entire place and replaced the modem twice. Finally, the supervisors did a detailed analysis on the drop from the pole and agreed it wasn't a problem in my house. Those supervisors talked with their network team, who said my neighborhood's network is simply overloaded due to everyone being home. They closed the ticket as there was "nothing more they could do". Three weeks since this started, and if anything it's worse.
My next question was whether there were any plans to improve the situation. I was told "no". So my next question was whether they were going to do anything to compensate me. I was told "don't know".
I am sure I'm not alone. Talking to people at work, most have a slow-but-working internet. But looking online in various forums, I see lots of people in my situation. Does anyone have any information on comcast's plans to address this?
Of course, I care more about getting it working vs getting an account credit, but I'm paying for a service that isn't working -- which doesn't seem right.
Tomorrow, I have ATT doing a DSL install as a second line. Tbd how reliable they are during covid-19, but I need to get online somehow...
Responses
Dave_PDX
New Poster
•
1 Message
1 y ago
I'm in the same boat. Internet is unusable right now, certain times of the day. Mostly ~9 am through 11 am, and 1 pm through 4 pm. Basically the times I need it to be most reliable, for critical work meetings. It's been bad since the Coronavirus "stay at home" policy started, but this week it went from bad to unusable. Possibly due to Oregon kids going "back to school" this week after our statewide spring break and doing lots of videoconferencing? My neighborhood has a high percentage of:
- Xfinity customers
- Intel, Nike, and tech workers who can work from home
- Kids... so many kids
I first noticed it go downhill in my online gaming 3 weeks ago. My favorite game, Rocket League, became unusable most times of the day due to packet loss & latency spikes. I can live with that. But I've been measuring my packet loss, latency, jitter, etc. multiple times a day, and it's been *abysmal* when I need it the most for work. Have tried everything -- rebooting every piece of hardware and software, wired vs. wireless, VPN vs. no-VPN, across laptop, PC, multiple Xboxes. It's definitely Xfinity.
Going to attempt to troubleshoot with Xfinity, but don't have much faith in them being able to do anything about it, based on your experience. I should've switched to FiOS a long time back. Definitely looking into all options at this point.
0
drzhf09
New Poster
•
1 Message
1 y ago
Same issue in Bethany, the ping delay increased significantly and sometimes timedout.
0
KeithSmith5728
New Poster
•
1 Message
1 y ago
I've been absolutely infuriated with my Xfinity broadband since the Covid 19 crisis started. I wanted nothing more than to hit the "like" button on these comments and it took me nearly 10 minutes to sign in and then another 5 to get the page to reload. When you oay extra for higher speeds there should be fewer people on the same node it seems to me.
0
0