Comcast: new hookup: refusal to support purchased MODEM

I recently signed up for COMCAST broadband. Working through their web page, I decided to buy my own MODEM. I have a ZOOM modem on my OS/2 machine which has been working perfectly for many years, so I bought the ZOOM 5421 which looks to be the latest and greatest. It supports DOCSIS all the way up to 2.0. I thought I was going to do self install, but it turned out that self install is not available where I live. By the time the technician came out to the house, it was too late to return the MODEM.

The original cable company went bankrupt. With all the mergers I lost track of who owned that box on the side of my house. Then one day a complete stranger began banging on my roof without any warning. I ran out of my house with a weapon, and I spied a COMCAST truck in my driveway. This rude stranger spoke neither Spanish nor English nor Chinese (our traditional languages in California). Indeed he was from Brazil, and he spoke Portuguese. Eventually I learned from a slip of paper that they had a problem with the ground lines. He ran another wire down the side of my house to steal a ground from the phone company. I was not a COMCAST customer. If someone hadn't mentioned they were about to do broadband internet, I would have run him off and sued for damages.

So now it is a year or so later, and the COMCAST tech finally came to hook up my cable modem. Yes, he is from Brazil, too. Apparently Mexicans and Chinese are too expensive for COMCAST, or else they want to be sure their employees can't talk to the customers.

The MODEM didn't work. Nothing worked. Finally the tech climbed the utility pole in front of my house. He said the someone had cut the cable there. I don't blame them for cutting the cable. I hope the original company cut all the cables. My neighbors love TV. They watch it all the time. I didn't pay because I don't watch TV any more. My neighbors watch TV all the time, and they didn't pay either.

By the time the tech arrived, he was already four hours behind schedule. After spending a couple of hours at my house, he fled. He claimed a supervisor would come and complete the install. I asked him if he wanted to leave the work order, and he said no, he would come back with the supervisor.

As the sun set, I didn't believe that they were ever coming back, but when I called COMCAST they reassured me that they do make calls into the night. Sure enough the supervisor did come. He was alone. The first thing asked was where is the work order. When I told him, he said "I am going to kill him (the tech)."

So he went back into his truck and rummaged around. He returned with a makeshift work order. We tried one thing after another to make my MODEM play. The install program kept saying that my MODEM was not supported. But right on the box it said the MODEM supported COMCAST, and the COMCAST web page has all along insisted that my MODEM is supported by COMCAST. The supervisor returned to his truck and came back with a Scientific Atlanta rental MODEM.

He connected the rental MODEM, and that didn't work either. We were able to get an IP address from their DHCP server, but that was as far as it went. After half an hour of trial and error, he called the office. He carefully explained the situation to me before he left.

The "bedrock server" was down. What I needed to do was wait until after midnight (!) and call the COMCAST 800 number.

"Forget the software, it never works." he told me, "but they can turn it on in the office if you give them the IP address."

He explained how to obtain the IP address in tedious detail, but all I really needed to hear was IPCONFIG instead of 'ifconfig.'

While I waited for my computer to chime midnight, I disconnected the rental MODEM and reinstalled my purchased MODEM. Not wanting to rush them, I waited until 1:30 AM to call in. I had a long conversation with one of their support staff. Eventually he insisted that I put the rental MODEM back on, and he enabled service. I spent a few minutes watching TV broadcasts from Europe (why don't they make me angry the way American TV does?). I went to bed.

In the morning I had a brilliant idea. I disconnected the rental MODEM and connected my purchased MODEM. Everything worked perfectly, and it was noticeably faster. I spent about ten minutes surfing the web in rapture. I was browsing my windows firewall provider, when suddenly the dreaded COMCAST new customer page came. Try as I might, there was no way to get rid of it.

Mind you the MODEM was still working perfectly. I could ping anywhere I wanted, but other ports were blocked.

"OK," I thought, "they are only trying to protect themselves. They need to know my MAC number."

So I called COMCAST again to give them the MAC of my purchased MODEM. After two escalations and a ticket number, a supervisor explained to me that there was a typo in their software. He told me to wait three days and try again. In the meantime I could use the rental MODEM.

I spent two evenings watching foreign language TV and enjoying every minute of it. I downloaded the latest version of Linux and installed it. I downloaded the latest Linux kernel and installed it. The latest version of Linux let me view full screen virtually any TV station in the world. With windows I get 1 inch max. I need a magnifying glass to see the image.

On the third day I hooked up my purchased MODEM as instructed, but still no joy. Another call to COMCAST yielded the information that I was not supposed to use the rental MODEM; instead I should have left my purchased MODEM connected until they could download some software into it (not what they said three days earlier). In the meantime I am able to ping, but the only web page I can view is the COMCAST registration page.

This is actually much abbreviated. What is clear is the COMCAST support staff is lying to me. One minute they will say the servers are down until midnight. The next call, no the servers were never down. Or they will break into their now find "start" then "run" and then type "cmd."

I cut them short with "You mean you want me to run ipconfig in a DOS box again?"

So in retaliation (for what?) they disabled my email account. After another call to customer support, they turn email back on. When I log in it says "Hello, Matt."

Very funny. My name isn't Matt.

Now when I try to install my MODEM now I get the following message (instead of the unsupported MODEM message I previosly recieved):

The install wizard has encountered an error:

(01)6959=No Smartissue id found

I did a little looking around, and I found that "bedrock" is actually a company that manages internet connections. Apparently some COMCAST customers are supported by COMCAST while others are farmed out to bedrock. Those who are serviced by COMCAST are decently treated. Those of us who hit bedrock have a number of problems. For one thing they insist that the MODEM be connected with USB under windows, and that we download a 37 megabyte installation program. To me this is highly suspicious and a security hazard. Cable MODEMs should be connected to an ethernet port, and they should never need any drivers.

COMCAST/bedrock support is so security conscious that they can't even send me an email telling me when they have solved my problem. That is the sort of security appropriate for an espionage agency, not computer support. They are also insisting that I drop my firewall. Instead I proceed cautiously letting the firewall ask about traffic, and I see that I am hammered by suspicious traffic that tries to install new dll's. Nobody, not even microsoft, is authorized to alter the software on my machine without my informed consent. I need a list of dll they are going to change *in* *advance*, but the support reps are so stupid you can't even ask them intelligent questions. This kind of management does not happen by accident. It is military style management run by corrupt insiders and staffed by troops too ignorant to know what is going on.

As far as I can tell, customers in the southeast can hook themselves up, and they don't even need an installation program. I have reason to suspect a concerted campaign of economic warfare being waged by Washington insiders against California. ENRON was another example. I began to be suspicious when they began revoking security clearances for anyone who didn't have relatives outside of California (including me) a few years back. Now they are giving a communications monopoly to COMCAST and using it for economic espionage. How can I possibly trust a MODEM that a manager made a special out trip to deliver to me?

Thanks for reading this far. Any constructive suggestions?

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu
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Reply to
James R. DeLoach

Actually DSL is available in my area. Some of my neighbors have it, and one Pacbell servicemen said they even put in a new equipment closet half a mile away at the junction just to service our community. When I make inquiries about service however, they always say "not available in my area." This has been going on for years.

I have looked at satellite. The problem here is that the equipment costs a fortune. When you get it installed, the signals still must travel up to the satellite and back down. The satellites are in a geostationary orbit, something like 22,000 mile up. This means that every keystroke travels 44,000 miles to my ISP and every response travels another 44,000 miles back to me. This is a the better part of a second added on to the usual network delays. We have all experienced network slowdowns which introduce a second or two of latency, and it is annoying.

Website design has also been taken over by ignoramuses, and many of the sites do not give proper feedback when you press a key. Sometimes I am not sure whether my data has been sent, and so I am apt to press a key a second or third time. This often results in nasty consequences such as losing track of where I was when all those responses send my browser off into space. I can train myself not to press keys like that, but then I end up waiting thirty seconds or more for a response that never comes.

Satellite remains an option. I am sure it is wonderful for streaming video, but I am not sure how long foreign videos will remain interesting. There may be something of a novelty factor here. Mostly I prefer to work with text, and dialup is adequate for that. The bigger problem is that the web pages are heavily laden with junk images because they are designed for illiterates. A picture costs far more than a thousand words. It is more like ten or twenty thousand words. You would think some of those companies would wonder why they pay so much for the traffic. Probably they think the site is just popular because of the new layout.

But the bottom line is that I have my doubts that satellite will penetrate to the bottom of a redwood forest. It might, but it would be expensive to find out.

Voting with my feet probably means emigration. I am a Republican, and I am proud of my president, although I have to admit he is less than perfect. But my area is run by machine Democrats. They are highly protective of our Representative who is a major Jewish supporter of military dictatorship with an important committee assignment. Out of the shame of having a Republican in the district, they even shut down the polling place in my precinct. I can't even vote except by absentee ballot where I have to put my name and address on the ballot. I doubt my vote is even counted.

During the 1990s they were running interference on my dialup connection. They even boasted of it. "We think you might say something against Ms. Sneeze (not her real name)." I didn't even know who she was, but they cut me off anyway. They even cut off my phone. Why? Because I was a Johnson era draftee, and I refused to alter my resume to show that the Democrats never drafted anyone. My parents and grandparents were also eyewitnesses to the nuking of a posh California fishing resort called Port Chicago in 1944 (there were sailors there, but it was *not* an ammunition loading port). This is another machine Democrat caper that is ruthlessly supressed. She is the last Democrat I will ever vote for. From now on it is Republicans and minor parties.

The elected government in the US is increasingly irrelevant. It seems like the people in control are careerists who cannot be voted out. The issues that matter to me are not political but personal and regional.

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu

This is clearly spam. I am not having a problem with my news server.

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu

Ever hear of DSL? Vote with your feet! If you don't like the service tell them and switch! And I don't want to hear any THERE ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS IN MY AREA, either!!!! Satellite is available EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Reply to
f/fgeorge

in article snipped-for-privacy@gallo.localnet, Hu-mi Yu at snipped-for-privacy@attglobal.net wrote on 7/10/05 12:34 PM:

Run out of tin-foil hats?

Reply to
Fred Harlow

Thanks. I have plenty.

But while you are here, could you tell me what you did with my mother's body?

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu

Using many exclamation points is usually a sign of marginal literacy. You do not apear to have understood a word I wrote. Let me summarize.

I cannot get online at Comcast, and I do not think I can use satellite because of tree cover. I would appreciate help on either point.

Apparently you dislike the fact that I expressed frustration on the usenet. That is your privelege. As you appear to lack any relevant skills, why not go trolling somewhere else?

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu

in article snipped-for-privacy@gallo.localnet, Hu-mi Yu at snipped-for-privacy@attglobal.net wrote on 7/10/05 10:23 PM:

I fail to see what relevance that has to cable modems

Reply to
Fred Harlow

AHEM....BULLS**T you have listed forty million reasons why you CAN'T leave Comcast but also state you HATE Comcast!!! Get your act together and make up your mind!!!! Oh...and satellite is NOT AT ALL like you think it is!!!!!

Reply to
f/fgeorge

Well then, I eagerly await your explanation in alt.true-crime.

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu

Hehehe. Get your copy before it is too late!

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu

Wait until you hear IBM officially dumped OS/2!

Bill Crocker

[clipped]
Reply to
Bill Crocker

It was too late a decade ago.

But if you like vintage technology, I think I have some other stuff from that era laying around.

Reply to
Warren

That was their marketing strategy, but it dried out about five years ago. I've seen OS/2 for sale within the last five years, but it does seem to be gone at long last.

IBM must have hired some punk rockers for marketing people. They thought shouting "punk rock is dead" sold records.

I will always fondly remember the YARN newsreader. Too bad it was written in billy-BASIC and used a commercial library.

Do you collect that stuff? How would you like a full-sized 2GB disk drive? It only costs $50 a month to keep it running! If you are in some other part of the country, you can run it much cheaper. I will send it free, with the shipping costs COD.

Reply to
Hu-mi Yu

eComStation is still available.

formatting link

Alan

Reply to
nobody

But it does NOT say that it supports the DOCSIS 2.0 standard that Comcast has adopted.

Reply to
f/fgeorge

????

What has DOCSIS got to do with an operating system? All the computer sees, is an ethernet port & gateway to the internet. DOCSIS or whatever other method used in the modem is completely transparent to the computer.

Reply to
James Knott

1) It is not my subject title, as I'm not the OP. 2) Unless I'm mistaken, your comment apparently in response to the previous comment about eComStation, says that eCS doesn't support DOCSIS.

Perhaps you need a bit of practice in reading messages and properly trimming replies.

Reply to
James Knott

The OS and DOCSIS are transparent to each other, you are correct. BUT your subject title is that Comcast won't support your modem! AND NO Comcast does NOT support your modem! You can buy a 50 year old car but that does not mean the dealer will service it or have parts for it! Same goes for your modem! IT may not be old, but its TECHNOLOGY is!

Reply to
f/fgeorge

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