Why Comcast sucks; Part 734
Filed by Richard on Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 11:45 pm
So today I had a nice representative of Comcast place a colorful door-hanger on my front door. The hanger shows a Comcast utility truck, and a yellow sign at the top of the card that says “We are continuing to upgrade the fiber optic network in your neighborhood.” It goes on to describe how their “latest upgrade allows us to deliver the next generation of high speed Internet.”
We’ve had a parade of trucks in our neighborhood the last few months as giant spools of fiber optic cable have been pulled into place. So it’s nice for Comcast to let us know that the service is now available.
Except those f**ktard lying scumbags at Comcast aren’t the ones who have been adding fiber optic to my neighborhood; Verizon is the one that’s been systematically adding the fiber. Comcast isn’t adding fiber, and as near as I can tell has no plans to add fiber to my neighborhood or any other neighborhood, other than in a backbone sense.
Basically, the scum at Comcast are banking that my neighbors and myself will be confused by all of the work that Verizon has done and assume that it was actually Comcast performing the work. They are banking that their double-speak flyer will confuse us enough to assume that if we sign up for their new, faster service, that we will be getting the ”fiber optic” service that we’ve heard so much about. But their new service is 2 to 10 times slower than what we’ll be able to get from Verizon.
They know that Verizon hasn’t advertised their FIOS service to our neighborhood yet because they haven’t fully completed their work. Comcast timed their little note to arrive a few weeks before Verizon began their own advertising blitz, hoping (I assume) to tie up customers with a year-long agreement for their infinitely slower, infinitely lamer service.
Regular readers of this blog will remember that this isn’t the first time Comcast has tried to screw me or my family. It probably won’t be the last. And Comcast calls EVERY SINGLE DAY trying to get me to sign up for their new service. I never answer, but I’m looking at my caller ID unit right now and they’ve called 10 times in the last two weeks (I Googled the number and sure enough, about 7 million other people are getting the same calls).
Here’s the complete text of the door hanger, with my annoted thoughts:
“We are continuing to upgrade the fiber optic network in your neighbhorhood”
[Like every major Internet provider, we have fiber backbones to our networks. We periodically upgrade these networks and we're currently upgrading one of our networks in your "neighborhood," if you define neighborhood as somewhere in a 50 mile radius. But don't for a second think that those trucks you've seen on your street installing fiber optic cable are OUR trucks. They're not. Despite what we're implying here, we have no plans to offer a direct-to-your-house fiber optic service.]
“Our latest upgrade allows us to deliver the next generation of High-Speed Internet with speeds up to 16 Mbps download and up to 2 Mbps upload”
[We are offering you speeds are significant slower than the 30 Mbps download and 15 Mbps upload that Verizon FIOS will offer. We hope you won't notice. When we says "next generation" we are referring to the the next-generation in OUR product line-up, not the industry as a whole. Sure the 33rpm record is an improvement over the 78rpm record, but if a 5.1 surround track was available, wouldn't you rather listen to that? Of course you would. That's why we're purposely obscuring the facts with our carefully constructed lies and mistruths.]
“You are now eligible to receive the new Blast speed tier. To sign up, simply call one of our local representatives at 1-877-393-8357″
[By Blast we mean slow, compared to our competition. Just be thankful that we're letting you know about this "improvement" because the last time we offered faster speed for the same price, we didn't even tell you about it for two years. We just kept you at the old speed until you called to ask about it. Then it took us all of 4 seconds to give you the same speed every new customer had been getting for the same price. God you are a stupid customer.]
“For more than 10 years, we have been making improvements to our fiber optic network in Washington neighborhoods just like yours. It is our pledge that we will continue to upgrade your neighborhood to ensure that you have the latest technological advances.”
[We hope that you assume that all of those trucks you've seen installing fiber optic cable in your neighborhood these last few months are our trucks. They aren't. But we are confident that you are too stupid to realize it. We hope that the double-speak gobbledygook of this notice will lead you to the conclusion that we are installing a direct-to-house fiber option solution like Verizon is. We aren't. In fact we're banking that you've heard a lot of great things about what Verizon is doing, and we are piggybacking on their good press by describing our service like it is their service. It isn't. Ours is an out-dated coaxial cable based service that is pushing its max limits. Verizon's is a full fiber-based service that has a comparatively unlimited potential.]
Comcast, I hate you. I hate you so God damned much.
