[Hidden-tech] Comcast outrageous

[DAVID SPOUND]

Problem solved!

Thanks to this message from Rikk and also several other helpful (and sympathetic) messages from the HT community, I was able to poke around the modem's online control panel and get my Apple Extreme base station back online. And so all of my various devices are working once again.

All of the Comcast tech support people to whom I spoke had it wrong -- in terms of how this modem needs to be configured. That's a bit scary. Even the VERY friendly and helpful tech support rep to whom I was finally able to speak this afternoon (after two nightmare encounters) told me that certain settings would need to be changed in the modem (by the "Signature Support" people for $80) and that turned out to be untrue. Whatever… It's working now and that's what matters.

And yes, I think I will buy my own modem as several of you suggested.

Thank you to all who responded. Much appreciated!

David



On Dec 07, 2013, at 09:54 PM, all at pinehurstpictures.com wrote:

I have Comcast and have had problems in the past and found them to be very helpful in resolving them. They are a big company so maybe you got them on a bad day or a bad person. 

You should be able to use your router without paying them for the premium service. Bridge mode would be the best way to do that. Type http://192.168.1.1 or http://10.0.0.1 into your browser. The login and password should be...
Login: admin
Password:password

That should get you into the control panel. If you look around you will see where you can select bridge mode. 

If for some reason you can't get on you can just plug your airport into the router and have two wifi networks but only actually use one. 

Rikk

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:: [Hidden-tech] Comcast outrageous
From: DAVID SPOUND <dspound at mac.com>
Date: Dec 7, 2013 4:07 PM
To:: "Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net" <Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net>
CC: 

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Hello --

I just spent nearly 3 hours on the phone with Comcast. As some of you may know, Comcast is requiring customers who have older modems to upgrade. The modem upgrade is "free".

But the new modem did not work properly out of the box, hence the tech support. It took hours because the first two tech support reps with whom I spoke did not speak English well. Very frustrating.

One of the "features" of the new modem seems to be that it will not work with my Apple Extreme wifi base station. The modem has its own built in wifi, but I need to keep using my Apple router because I have a wide range of Apple devices that depend on it. Even my printer is connected to the Apple router. Without that, I cannot print.

Comcast is insisting that I pay $79.95 for their "Signature Support" through which they tell me my Apple router can be enabled on their network. After finally speaking with a more friendly and helpful tech support rep, I have learned that there is a feature on my new modem that needs to be disabled (bridge mode) so that the Apple router can work. This cannot be done by the regular tech support team. They don't have access to this feature. Only the Signature Support people have this capability. I need to pay $80 for this.

This seems outrageous. My old Comcast modem works fine and the Apple router works fine with it. It seems that Comcast wants to prevent any devices on their network except those that they have specifically approved/configured. I'm OK with that, but not with paying $80 to make something work that has worked fine for years (when I use the old modem). And I am also annoyed because Comcast is requiring me to replace a modem that is working fine.

I seem to have no choice because the old modem is supposedly going to be disabled by Comcast.

Has anyone in our Hidden Tech community experienced this issue? If so, how did you handle it?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

David

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