RSSNew Outage Hits Comcast Subscribers
By Ed Oswald | Published April 13, 2005, 12:48 AM
For the second time in less than a week, Comcast High Speed Internet customers found themselves without Internet service due to a nearly nationwide failure of it's domain name servers. According to posts on Comcast's own help forums, problems began shortly after 10:30pm Eastern Time Tuesday and quickly spread across the country over the next several hours.
BetaNews received reports of connection issues from Comcast subscribers in the Philadelphia, Detroit and San Francisco areas; however, according to user forums, there were reports of problems in several other areas across the country.
The latest round of problems were clearly upsetting customers. "Again no communication from Comcast regarding the outage, and their customers get the shaft again. Comcast has done nothing for me except to raise both my cable and Internet costs 4 times in the last two years," one customer wrote in Comcast's Support forum.
Others threatened to drop Comcast's service altogether. "It's getting to the point where I am seriously considering going back to SBC DSL for Internet," another angry customer wrote. "It wasn't as fast, but they didn't blatantly lie about what was going on the few times their service went down."
The user was referring to Comcast allegedly blaming the April 7 outage on a denial-of-service attack according to some customers who called and demanded an explanation from the company. Comcast did not give any official public reason as to what exactly the cause of the outage was, although moderators in the support forums denied that was the cause.
However, some said they understood that there would be problems. "Comcast has been really good for me historically," a Comcast subscriber from San Francisco who went by the name Marc told BetaNews. "I can forgive this issue."
I have always been a fan of Comcast, even though my 2 bedroom apartment Comcast bill cost about $120 per mth. I loved the DVR, High-Speed, speed boost from 4mbs to 6mbs, free HBO for a year......
then when i upgraded my Motorola DVR from a single tuner to a double tuner, everything started going downhill.
2 tuner DVR freezes all the time & Comcast insist it a "know bug"
I have trouble connecting to the internet every once and a while but the worst part of it is that i have to spend almost an hour to get threw customer service. WTF, why do i have to wait an hour for them to tell me give it a few minutes, blah blah!!!
Yesterday i couldn't even connect at all and when i was trying to call Comcast, i got a busy signal! That may of been the last straw.
Comcast has horrible customer service. It just sucks, period! No one has to wait an hour to get threw if they call them in the evening and no one should ever have to get a busy signal, ever!!!!
Bills are going up like crazy but customer service, reliability, and plain old service is falling apart.
Everyone can support other services but sometimes your kinda stuck with the choices you have. Comcast should realize they have change a lot of things before they lose their customers when competition starts happens very soon.
BTW - I'm in the suburbs of Chicago
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In their defense, likely everyone and their Uncle were calling Comcast yesterday and that makes it hard for them to answer your call...don't blame Comcast for THAT. Now not having a contingency plan in place in case of an outage--THAT'S their fault. Still you might look at it as a wake-up call for them to have more backup servers and better contingency plans in the future.
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thats a real hard fix people... alternate DNS servers maybe?
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Anyone know any of the DNS IP Address Comcast uses?? I want to be prepared next time they drop out due to DNS problems. My router does not show the actual DNS, only a selection for Dynamic DNS..TIA!!
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Looking through this, fining them is not the answer. It's the same thing with the energy/gasoline/television companies. If you don't like what's happening, don't give them your business. And try to support new technologies, like IPTV, by finding out the issue and throwing your hat into the ring.
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Comcast ... fix your problem .... This is
the third time in less then 2 weeks. I had to
us other DNS servers to surf the net.
Whats going on at Comcast ... You fire the
only person that known how to fix stuff ..?
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I download a lot of beta software, and mess around a lot, so I actually thought the outage was something I did, and formatted my whole hard drive and re-installed everything being impatient. (maybe I shouldn't post this. I think I feel worse now) Now I'm a little mad. :o(
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There is a third DNS outage as I write this in Portland Oregon.... probably nationally...
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Right you are. Down and out in Olympia, WA.
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Yep, I've been having some problems just a little while ago also...
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The outage started around 8:30 PM EDT. At least that is when I started having problems. Comcast would not answer the phones and when some one finally did, they simple stated "we're having problems" and hung up.
Think very hard about moving to DSL.
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This kind of incident isn't all that unique. In mid-February, Globablpops' entire 13 story building full of servers, routers, and switches went down. That took out a third of the country's Internet acces for half a day. Little outages like this happen all the time on localized networks, which sometimes effects groups of people all over the country.
It's just the way our duct-taped technology works right now. We've got such a huge network of networks, all with different technologies running them. Somehow, it works most of the time, but breakdowns are inevitable.
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I've been with Comcast for over 6 years. I live in Valley Forge, PA and consider thier service on par or better than most utility co's.
Recently I had a problem with my TV cable service, I reached someone within Customer Service who was less than ideal...asked for a Supervisor and one called me back within 30 minutes. The Super solved my problem and checked back to see that I was satisfied.
Also, I've had service all week...though it did seem slow at times.
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Can we get a story about this also?
;)
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Only 15 minutes. We have an additional server on the way.
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Slap a huge fine on comcast see how fast they fix the problem, I have had 3 outages from comcast in less than 3 weeks. When you finaly get someone on the phone to complain they said do you want to cancel your service.
My comment to all of you complaining do something cancel your service and show them we are serious, rather than sitting here whining about it.
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Cox Cable regularly has problems like this ...and it ~never~ makes the news.
The Computer Rodent
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When it happens, you have to let us know! Unfortunately, all of our staff is with Comcast's service area - so we only see the outages from comcast. As you'd probably guess, companies are not up front about problems :)
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Most likely Comcast isn't running its DNS
servers properly. The DNS servers aren't
loadbalancing properly and too few of them too.
There NOC isn't doing their job correctly.
They should see this type of problem and fixed
it quickly.
So, play it smart an use Level(3) DNS
numbers for a few weeks. I know they have
a GOOD NOC .... :) IPs below ...
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
These DNS servers where once Genuitys
DNS servers. Level(3) purchased that ISP and
now it Level(3) ...
Comcast ... Spend some of that money
on NEW SERVERS ... to run MORE DNS SERVERS !!!
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It's MORE than DNS...
We have lost complete connection to our subnet, as in lights out. Outages have been extensive, as in hours, over the past week.
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This is what happens when a company is allowed to have a near-monoply. Comcast doesn't care if you complain, because in many areas you have no other choice.
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you said it, The way they see it is who ya gona call?
comcast is overpriced, cable should be 20 a month dsl 13 dailup 5 gets cheaper at the dailup cause you have a choice to pick ,,,lol
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I'm fet up with Comcast. I've had connection problems for the past 2 months, now it's getting worse, internet is going down several times a day, and after 5 techs out to the place, not a thing has been done. I've replaced all wiring, modem, etc.
I've even left two messages for a supervisor, who won't return my calls.
Comcast's motto is: "What do they know? They're just an idiot customer".
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My comment to all of you complaining do something about it. Cancel your service and show them you are serious, rather than sitting here whining about it.
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Verizon (Level3) Nameservers
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6
SpeakEasy Nameservers
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2
ORSC Public Access DNS Nameservers
199.166.24.253
199.166.27.253
199.166.28.10
199.166.29.3
199.166.31.3
195.117.6.25
204.57.55.100
Sprintlink General DNS
204.117.214.10
199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10
Cisco
128.107.241.185
192.135.250.69
That is how i'm solving my comcast problems, you'll need a router/hub for this to work. Just go into your connection settings and change your dns settings from "dynamic" and pick one of those addresses for your primary and secondary.
Ohh and i was in seattle and we had outages.
http://www.broadbandrepo...emark,13120239#13120239
I set my primary as comcasts and my secondary as level3 hopefully that should work better.
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Thanks!!!
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Excellent, wormeyman!!! Don't know how/why Comcast didn't/couldn't suggest a similar solution...
I use the Treewalk(just updated to v8, formerly Bind-PE) Bind-LE products, depending on OS version for these type of occasions: http://www.ntcanuck.com/
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Just an FYI.... using public DNS servers like this is often worse than near-line ISP DNS... they can possibly block access from entire nets with a flick of the switch. Just be aware of what you are doing before you do it... Also performance can be worse (it can also be better,) as you are traversing that many more hops just for DNS lookups...
What I do is set primary to my ISp and secondary to one of the ones you gave above.
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Agreed. That's good advice.
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Whats the ISP for Comcast or where can I find the ISP listed on my computer?
I checked my router and it's set for getting the ISP from the provider but I noticed I can put in the ISP for a primary and secondary.
Any help would be great!
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I am not sure about why Comcast continues to have major problems with their network. Over the past 4 years, Comcast has done very little in gaining consumer confidence and attract new customers to their ranks. I do believe that they have a potentially solid market when it comes to HSI, but Comcast is asleep at the desk yet once more.
Regarding their DNS problems. those who are still having issues connecting to Comcast DNS servers can go ahead and manually change their DNS server entries, at least the secondary one, to other servers that are being provided by other ISPs. Now, I will not give you the acuall numbers, although they are easily found by googling. Once Comcast gets out of their mess then you can revert back to obtain DNS servers automaticaly. Good luck oh and Comcast, WAKE UP man, get with the program and stop bleeding your customers to SBC/Yahoo for $29.95/month, vastly superior at least for now, service.
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sbc/yahoo dsl is only $19.99 a month here...
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DSL is certainly an alternative if you are close enough to a switch for the service. Unfortunately I am not and the local phone company is unable to provide me with any kind of estimate when they will upgrade the lines and system. So for me there is no high-speed alternative to Comcast.
Another issue for me is that you have to pay another service provider for Usenet access -- Comcast is not even providing a full service.
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Yahoo/SBC would be a good option if it was available in more than a half dozen states.
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Five days of partial or no service at all. While the company officaially won't say much thier service techs have said more. I was persistant on the phone and recieved a weeks credit. Then a tech was sent out today and he told me the rank and file technichians are fed up with comcast corp. culture "that is so far removed they have no idea of the problems". He also indicated the fequency changes they made last week were causing lots of problems.
A very nice tech, trying to do his best for a company not doing the same.
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I just want to know when, if, it is going to get better. I have had enough! The past 2 months have been crazy. I cannot connect. I call and they tell me that there is nothing wrong with my modem and that they can ping it fine, but when I go to a website, nothing. I will reset my modem and I will be able to go to one site, but when I want to click a link and go somewhere else, I get the unable to connect. I hate the fact of going to SBC, but I am left with no alternatives. I have a business line and all other carriers want over $45.00 for slower speeds. Not realy what I was wanting to pay(more for less).
If anyone has another alternative, I am interested.
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My comment to all of you complaining do something about it. Cancel your service and show them you are serious, rather than sitting here whining about it.
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The problem isn't that there isn't enough DNS servers. Its users with trojans flooding DNS servers with request, effectively DDoSing them.
http://it.slashdot.org/i...amp;tid=201&tid=220
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Comcast is complete crap. I have comcast in Philly...I have Earthlink in NYC (thru roadrunner's lines).
In the 3 years time i have had Earthlink...service has gone out twice. And it only took a few minutes to come back on.
Comcast on the other hand has probably gone out 3 or 4 times that amount in the same period of time. And in most cases its an all night deal. Its a big pain in the ass.
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Yeah my parents pay a ton of money that doesn't go to my education for this... They need to have a status page or something and fix this stuff...
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Two of my connections at different locations of densely-populated NYC are Roadrunner-- have had them for years & years: maybe twice in all that time has there been an outage, of not even an hour in duration.
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General Outage
(Connection to the Internet is currently unavailable. Our technicians are aware of the situation and are working to resolve the issue. This outage was logged at : 4/13/2005 6:47:00 PM EDT.)
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