bitserve
12-30-2001, 05:44 PM
Dear Comcast Customer,
Your transition date for Comcast High-Speed Internet is here.
Between Midnight on December 28, 2001 and noon on December 29, 2001 we will be converting our network to Comcast High Speed Internet. You may experience a short interruption in network connectivity during this timeframe.
If you have not already done so, you must take action to maintain your Internet service. You should have received a transition kit from Comcast containing everything you need to install the new software to get up and running on the new Comcast High-Speed Internet, including your new username
and password. If you have not already installed the Comcast High Speed Internet software please do so. The fastest and easiest way to install the Comcast High-Speed Internet software is to visit http://www.comcast.net/connectioncenter/welcome.asp
and follow the simple, step-by-step instructions. You will need your username and password found in your 3-step guide.
In order to maintain your Internet connectivity, you must follow the instructions enclosed in your kit immediately. For your convenience, our transition support specialists are available to assist you 24 hours a day.
Important Reminders, Dates and Changes to Your Account
* In order to maintain your Internet connectivity, you must shut down and reboot your computer after installing your Comcast High-Speed Internet software.
* Your Comcast.net e-mail is included in your transition kit.
* You will have access to all of your mediaone.net e-mail accounts until February 28, 2002.
* You must shut down and restart your computer on December 29th.
* You will have the full features and functionalities of Comcast High-Speed Internet service, including your additional comcast.net email addresses, available to you mid-January 2002. For more information click here: www.comcast.net/connectioncenter/features.asp.
If you have any questions regarding your transition, please contact one of our transition support specialists anytime, 24 hours a day, at 1-888-675-1150.
Please be patient as we expect heavy call volumes during the conversion.
Thank you for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.
Sincerely,
Comcast Online Communications
We (my roommate and myself) started out with MediaOne, which got bought by Road Runner, and lately have been on AT&T@Home. Well we got transitioned to Comcast yesterday, and it has been a complete nightmare!
Service actually was dropped about 2:00AM on the 29th. I release my DHCP address and tried to get a new one, but was unable to. I waited until 3:00PM (well after their stated 12:00 Noon), and still couldn't get an IP address by DHCP. Well, I hadn't run their stupid software, so I thought maybe they were using PPOE now or something.
I could find NO information on what the software was supposed to do, in the transition kit. I dialed up with my laptop and searched their web site, and still couldn't find anything. The software is written by broadjump.com, so I visited their site to see what the software might do, and still no idea what kind of changes it might make to my computer. But obviously it wasn't going to be able to make these changes to my Linux gateway.
So I installed the stupid software on my laptop, just to see what it did. All it did was downgrade the web browser, set the network settings for DHCP, and made changes in Outlook Express for checking email. And it installed some stupid support software written by support.com.
It's 3:30PM and now I'm thinking well maybe I need to specify my username or account number as a hostname when I make my DHCP requests, in order to get my request answered. Because I know that some DSL and cable modem copanies do this. So I tried this, and still couldn't get an IP address. So I start a tcpdump to try to figure out what's going on. I don't see any bootp traffic. But I see some arp traffic. Comcast's network here was seemingly on the 68.40.40.0/22 network here, with their gateway at 68.40.40.1. So I guessed an IP address that wasn't being used, and statically assigned it to my machine. Worked, I was back online.
So I used the buggy support.com software to open a trouble ticket for "live support" with comcast, with the description of the problem being "Can't get address by DHCP". Their "help yourself" software opened all of these FAQ articles that had nothing to do with comcast Internet services, and were probably related to some of support.com's other customers' services. They obviously share a knowledge base.
Also, guess what? No more usenet newsgroup service! They just plain don't offer it. So I went from having some awesomely complete MediaOne newsgroups to having none! I'm going to have to use Google to read my newsgroups, unless I want to pay extra money for a third party provider! Aargh!
Well it comes to be around 8:00PM, and still no "live support", but I start seeing a lot of bootp traffic. What do you know, they finally have their bootp servers up at 172.30.154.37 and 172.30.154.35 (how odd). So I do a DHCP request, and I finally have the IP address that I'm supposed to have (68.40.41.100), and it looks like I guessed their netmask wrong. It's actually a /21.
So I go to dslreports to do a speed test, and it shows that I've already run the test 5 times that day from my IP address of 68.32.42.68. I'm like "Hanh? My IP address is 68.40.41.100!" Turns out that Comcast has a transparent proxy set up for all HTTP (port 80) traffic! So probably because they're so worried about bandwidth, and because they want to see what sites we visit, we're all forced to go through their stupid proxy server! Double Aargh!
When we had MediaOne, we had downstream up to 2.5Mb/s (3.0Mb was the MAX that was theoretically possible with the cable modem), but the upstream was capped at 300Kb/s.
When AT&T took over, the downstream got capped at 1.5Mb/s, but the upstream was still at 300Kb/s.
Well Comcast still has the 1.5Mb/s downstream cap, but for upstream it's now capped at a rediculous 128Kb/s! How lame is that! I could get speeds faster than that on text files using V.90 compression on a 56Kb modem! Triple Aargh!
Sorry for being verbose, but can you tell that I'm pissed? I hate cable companies and their monopolies! The price has also gone up $5 a month because we're now being charged for cable modem rental!
:uzi: COMCAST :smash:
BTW: Shouldn't this icon be called "ak47", not "uzi"?
Your transition date for Comcast High-Speed Internet is here.
Between Midnight on December 28, 2001 and noon on December 29, 2001 we will be converting our network to Comcast High Speed Internet. You may experience a short interruption in network connectivity during this timeframe.
If you have not already done so, you must take action to maintain your Internet service. You should have received a transition kit from Comcast containing everything you need to install the new software to get up and running on the new Comcast High-Speed Internet, including your new username
and password. If you have not already installed the Comcast High Speed Internet software please do so. The fastest and easiest way to install the Comcast High-Speed Internet software is to visit http://www.comcast.net/connectioncenter/welcome.asp
and follow the simple, step-by-step instructions. You will need your username and password found in your 3-step guide.
In order to maintain your Internet connectivity, you must follow the instructions enclosed in your kit immediately. For your convenience, our transition support specialists are available to assist you 24 hours a day.
Important Reminders, Dates and Changes to Your Account
* In order to maintain your Internet connectivity, you must shut down and reboot your computer after installing your Comcast High-Speed Internet software.
* Your Comcast.net e-mail is included in your transition kit.
* You will have access to all of your mediaone.net e-mail accounts until February 28, 2002.
* You must shut down and restart your computer on December 29th.
* You will have the full features and functionalities of Comcast High-Speed Internet service, including your additional comcast.net email addresses, available to you mid-January 2002. For more information click here: www.comcast.net/connectioncenter/features.asp.
If you have any questions regarding your transition, please contact one of our transition support specialists anytime, 24 hours a day, at 1-888-675-1150.
Please be patient as we expect heavy call volumes during the conversion.
Thank you for choosing Comcast as your high-speed Internet provider.
Sincerely,
Comcast Online Communications
We (my roommate and myself) started out with MediaOne, which got bought by Road Runner, and lately have been on AT&T@Home. Well we got transitioned to Comcast yesterday, and it has been a complete nightmare!
Service actually was dropped about 2:00AM on the 29th. I release my DHCP address and tried to get a new one, but was unable to. I waited until 3:00PM (well after their stated 12:00 Noon), and still couldn't get an IP address by DHCP. Well, I hadn't run their stupid software, so I thought maybe they were using PPOE now or something.
I could find NO information on what the software was supposed to do, in the transition kit. I dialed up with my laptop and searched their web site, and still couldn't find anything. The software is written by broadjump.com, so I visited their site to see what the software might do, and still no idea what kind of changes it might make to my computer. But obviously it wasn't going to be able to make these changes to my Linux gateway.
So I installed the stupid software on my laptop, just to see what it did. All it did was downgrade the web browser, set the network settings for DHCP, and made changes in Outlook Express for checking email. And it installed some stupid support software written by support.com.
It's 3:30PM and now I'm thinking well maybe I need to specify my username or account number as a hostname when I make my DHCP requests, in order to get my request answered. Because I know that some DSL and cable modem copanies do this. So I tried this, and still couldn't get an IP address. So I start a tcpdump to try to figure out what's going on. I don't see any bootp traffic. But I see some arp traffic. Comcast's network here was seemingly on the 68.40.40.0/22 network here, with their gateway at 68.40.40.1. So I guessed an IP address that wasn't being used, and statically assigned it to my machine. Worked, I was back online.
So I used the buggy support.com software to open a trouble ticket for "live support" with comcast, with the description of the problem being "Can't get address by DHCP". Their "help yourself" software opened all of these FAQ articles that had nothing to do with comcast Internet services, and were probably related to some of support.com's other customers' services. They obviously share a knowledge base.
Also, guess what? No more usenet newsgroup service! They just plain don't offer it. So I went from having some awesomely complete MediaOne newsgroups to having none! I'm going to have to use Google to read my newsgroups, unless I want to pay extra money for a third party provider! Aargh!
Well it comes to be around 8:00PM, and still no "live support", but I start seeing a lot of bootp traffic. What do you know, they finally have their bootp servers up at 172.30.154.37 and 172.30.154.35 (how odd). So I do a DHCP request, and I finally have the IP address that I'm supposed to have (68.40.41.100), and it looks like I guessed their netmask wrong. It's actually a /21.
So I go to dslreports to do a speed test, and it shows that I've already run the test 5 times that day from my IP address of 68.32.42.68. I'm like "Hanh? My IP address is 68.40.41.100!" Turns out that Comcast has a transparent proxy set up for all HTTP (port 80) traffic! So probably because they're so worried about bandwidth, and because they want to see what sites we visit, we're all forced to go through their stupid proxy server! Double Aargh!
When we had MediaOne, we had downstream up to 2.5Mb/s (3.0Mb was the MAX that was theoretically possible with the cable modem), but the upstream was capped at 300Kb/s.
When AT&T took over, the downstream got capped at 1.5Mb/s, but the upstream was still at 300Kb/s.
Well Comcast still has the 1.5Mb/s downstream cap, but for upstream it's now capped at a rediculous 128Kb/s! How lame is that! I could get speeds faster than that on text files using V.90 compression on a 56Kb modem! Triple Aargh!
Sorry for being verbose, but can you tell that I'm pissed? I hate cable companies and their monopolies! The price has also gone up $5 a month because we're now being charged for cable modem rental!
:uzi: COMCAST :smash:
BTW: Shouldn't this icon be called "ak47", not "uzi"?