I've been with Comcast in Sacramento, CA for 3 years, and this is the first time they've had any major problems. And even tho they've had these problems, adding a couple public DNS servers to my config solved the problem.

If you wanna leave comcast because of this weeks issues, go for it. Its more bandwidth for those of us that know how to use our computers without screaming like children when something doesn't work the way WE *think* it should.

Go change your diapers, cause $1.43 is all you're getting. In fact, its all you DESERVE.

It's a pay service. Service not provided - refund of time without service. What's with the attitude?

I don't think Comcast is just having DNS problems but bigger problems in some areas. Our cable modem light only works through the night starting around 9 pm and stops in the morning. Friday morning it was 10 am and this morning 9 am. I work at home and I had to go into work because of this. Comcast basically sucks and their customer service is atrocious. We had two times when a tech did not show up in the time period they were supposed to. I would have to work at night to keep having Comcast...needless to say this house is going to switch to DSL ASAP. We are also dropping their cable service which has never worked well since we moved into this house. Broadband...cabling who knows what the real problem for this house is...but it's not us that's for sure. It worked perfectly fine from January 18th until April 4th. Haven't had a consistent day with a connection since. We completely lose our connection...it is not just DNS.

We could never get in contact with anybody... The night it was down nationwide all we got was a recording of some disgruntled sounding worker that said they were working on the problem, hehe :-)

When we upgrade our linux box, I am pretty sure we are gonna set up our own DNS server. We have pretty much everything else running on the current linux box(a PII-300), so why not a DNS server, especially since we will be upgrading to about a 1.2Ghz Duron system?

Heh, I never knew there were DNS problems till yesterday. Ever sinse like 2-3 years ago when Comcast's DNS servers were unreailable/slow as hell I have run my own DNS server on my Linux box.

I rember during one outage I goofed and frogot to firewall the ports and got massave ammounts of DNS hits on my box from people that aparently port scanned and found my computer, lol.

I gotta say, I have to agree with some of the 'villains' on here. If comcast is held liable, and has to pay 1.43 to, say 1 million people - that adds up and is alot of money, even for a giant 'monopolyish' company....1+ million in losses is not chumpchange. I live in Virginia and have been rock solid since I got with comcast 3 weeks ago so I can't complain - yet. But when I DO have a service issue and God knows I will I'm sure of it between now and however many years I'm with em'....I certainly won't leave them for it. 4mb....4. Not 1, 2 or 3....4. I'm happy with that. Gosh knows I can just jump on netzero for the few hours it goes down. I really don't understand the big upset with home users. Go outside....go to a movie....drive around....go to the gym. Gotta tell you - the company does seem kinda disorganized compared to many....but where'd YOU be without Comcast? I'll tell you where....still paying 50 for 1.5mb DSL -that's where. If it wasn't for cable internet, DSL would still be the 'it' and for that, you'd be paying out the wazoo. So give the company a break.
*And for the record*....I'm in no way affiliated with Comcast. I've been a Bellsouth DSL user for years. 50 for net' is what I paid, even as I saw other companies pop up charging 45 and 40 (too much hassle to change), then comcast 'made a mark' and DSL went down. Even as I wasn't using them, I was greatful. So I'll defend em a bit, at least up till they do me dirty.

"but where'd YOU be without Comcast?"

With Optimum Online, which is LOADS better in speed, service and almost everything else! The only reason I registered to post is because I too experienced this outage and when I call in... I am put on hold for three hours. Call back, still nothing. The automated messages are nill and it's only after I arrive at work TWO days later that they acknowledge a state-wide outage in our area (and I had to go searching the DSL Speed forums for the Comcast online status page).

For those that didn't really care enough to call in, that's fine. But when you call and are placed on hold for three hours (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) and then are told there will be no compensation for those that did not get through... heck man, it just goes to support the jokes that are said about the cable company every day.

It's freaken rediculous! Again, I'm not mad because of the outage, technical problems happen. I'm mad because 1). Comcast refused to acknowledge the problem (in our area) until at least 2 days later, 2). It would seem that the earth swallowed up the Comast reps during this time, 3). Even though they acknowledged the problem 2 days later, it wasn't until yesterday and the day before that they actually started investigating the area and 4). After all the above especially the extremely long hold time and never getting anyone, Comcast is now saying, "sorry, you didn't get through, we won't compensate you.

Compensation is not about the money to me but rather about an, "we are sorry, we realize we may have mishandled this." But, as many users have already stated, that may be asking too much from a company, especially a cable company like Comcast ($$$).

Don't get me wrong - I understand. Especially from a small business point of view where an outage can be crippling. I'm just saying, if everyone gets 1.43 a day for an outage then Comcast will be in trouble in no time. And I'd rather have a company that's having issues maybe a week or 2 out of the year offering 4mb for 42 than one that has 1.5 (or less, mind you) for 50.
I also feel bad on behalf of the people that called and are put on hold - but there's a way around that. Personally, I've never ever stayed on hold for more than 30 mins....as soon as 20-30 goes by I call back and back and back, until I get through. Different approaches yield different resuslts however, and maybe you were in a queue or something.
There's no pleasing everyone. If Comcast makes your blood boil, then leave the service for something 'better'. But I'd give it time. In addition to this, as some people have said - comcast's service is not 'completely' down. That's no excuse though, heck - not everyone knows how to jump onto different DNS servers. In any case - they really don't HAVE to give anyone money back.
Now, let me tell some of the people on here how business really works....There are some places that as long as there's an hour of 2 of service per day, you're liable to pay for the 24 hours.
Cable & Wireless is a major, as a matter of fact - a monopoly in some countries for phone and business internet, and that is their policy.
I wouldn't get on Comcast' tail TOO quickly...they're being 'generous' by giving some people 1.43 by any means.

A user posted some information under another news headline, some DNS server that some of you may consider trying. His post is under the original comcast outage news post. Look it up.
I printed them out in preparation for problems in Virginia.

Back in January, Verizon had an issue in the Philadelphia area, where their service was down from about 5:00am until 4:30 in the afternoon one day. They were able to determine exactly which customers were affected, and refunded everyone affected, regardless of whether or not they called in, the equivalent of a days service fee. Heck, I'll bet 70% of the affected users never even knew it since they were at work during the outage! I have never been a big Verizon fan (actually used a CLEC for awhile - 'til they dropped my long distance company) but THAT is how you nip bad PR in the bud, and come out smelling like a rose.

Defining moment for a Moron: "Every customer should be refunded for every second that the DNS servers are down, we pay our fee every month for the service to be up, and we should get our money back when it is not working,"
Who in their right mind believes this? Unless you have an SLA with Comcast (which only business users will have), then they can be down for up to 13% of the entire year (almost 60 days) according to most states laws before they will be held accountable for the problems. Comcast also only has to acknowledge customers who have made a complaint; it doesn't matter if it's by email, phone, or knocking on the door. The mere fact that Comcast has already taken steps to compensate for these problems and has upped their speeds/bandwidth shows they are 10x the freakin' ISP I have right now that I'm shelling out $50/month for 512k wireless internet... I have no choice, obviously these other people do. Get off the high-horse. The customer is NOT the end-all-be-all, the almight $ is. Unless you made the effort to complain to Comcast, shut the fsk up.

You are the MORON Comcast should refund money back and penalties also PERIOD.
I think the public should ban together and cancel there service even if it hurts, these companies have to learn to stop treating their customers like crap. We are who made them and allowed them to grow, but oh how soon they forget.

I would bet ANYTHING that you work for a major, or at least large corporation, am I right nightops?? Because only a fvcking business man whom makes a living off of screwing the customer, would ever say that making money, is more important than customer service! Comcast should refund ALL effected customers for the amount of time that service was down, end of discussion...

Well said!!! I think maybe nightops is the Moron here. Screwing the customer has bocome a way of life and idiots like him think the customer should just take it. WRONG!!!

It's a reality (and therefore reasonable for Comcast to base their business model on) that different types of customers use different services.

I don't have any use for Comcast's "Personal Home Page" nor do I have any use for the additional POP3 mailboxes they allow for family members.

I suspect that the vast majority of Comcast customers have never even heard of NNTP. They might have tens of thousands of customers who use the newsgroup service they provide (actually outsourced to Giganews these days) but that's still a minority of total customers for someone as big as Comcast.

And then there's all the fluff "content" services which Comcast provides for the sake of competing with AOL: Comcast Arcade, Comcast-branded Rhapsody (which I won't even try, because I hate anything which requires Real Player or related software components), Comcast Video Mail, etc. Comcast knows full well that these services won't be used by 100% of the customer base. Why should they allocate enough resources to handle a 100% load? I certainly don't want them to pass along that much wasted cost to me.

Similarly, I've been reading about these Comcast outages on my Comcast connection the entire time. How? Simple: I don't use Comcast DNS. During this time, all the services I use have been fully operational, so I really don't think it's reasonable to expect Comcast to reimburse every single customer as if every customer was totally unable to use their connection at all. I am NOT a Comcast fan in general, but I don't the justification for flogging them on this incident.

Nationwide? My Comcast connection has been rock solid for months. No wonder Comcast doesnt want to do a blanket refund if it wasn't ACTUALLY nationwide. They would end up refunding people who didn't have a problem. Thinking that they would is just silliness.

It was nationwide you n00b. If you were using different nameservers, or weren't online during the outages.. thats your fault.

n00b? listen you little twat, I DO NOT use seperate nameservers and I happen to be on most of every day for my job so take your insults and shove them up your fat lazy azz

I wish the staff at beta news would ban this type of childish behavior off of posting. This is ridiculous. Grow up people.

Is it silliness? I think not!

so you think it's ok to refund money to thoousands, perhaps millions of people who didn't have a problem? TIP: Don't ever go into business for yourself.

hahaha... not even ISP's with Service level agreements will do this for businesses. I seriously doubt comcast will do this nationally... you never know...

lol they would loose a s***load of money... its hardly worth it...like you said most companies wont do this for businesses let alone individual subscribers...

i think its fair that those who went through the trouble of calling get some money back

They really should devise some kind of way to repay customers... They look at it from a black and white stand point: Pay for the time that the connections offline.

However, its not that simple. Their connection going up/down constantly, disrupts peoples businesses and education (along with file sharing and porn browsing, hehe).

Anyway, I think that they'll quickly realize they should have done something when they start losing some of their customer base over the next few weeks. DSL is widely available, and for much cheaper prices.. even if it is slightly less speedy.

Anyway, I think that they'll quickly realize they should have done something when they start losing some of their customer base over the next few weeks. DSL is widely available, and for much cheaper prices.. even if it is slightly less speedy.

Very true, they lost me and my family to sbc. It is nearly half the price, has not once gone out of service (unlike comcast which seemed to be out at least once a month), and has actually been the same speed as cable for me, although that may not be the same for others as I live in a fairly big city.

Um.....They did devise a way to refund customers. If you call in, you get a refund. If you don't call, they will assume you are one of the MAJORITY or users unaffected by the issue.

While those who lost connection may be quite vocal, they are not the majority of Comcast users. Comcast giving a refund to all users would be like lucasarts refunding the ticket price of every SW Movie attendee nationwide if one theater missed a showing. It'd be ridiculous.

My brother experienced the outage and he lives down the street about 1.5 miles away from me. I didn't experience the outage. Neither one of us are using any other DNS servers.

Amazing how no one praises Comcast when their products work only when they are down for a couple of hours do people b**** and moan. You know your POTS line has as many problems but you just don't experience it because you hardly ever use it during the day but it does go down just that people don't realize it at the time.

For me Comcast has been rock solid. Only had 1 cable modem issue and they came on a Sunday morning to replace the modem. Don't know of any other company that would do that. Other than that no issues, not even with their digital phone.

I don't know where you've been, but this is a NATIONAL problem. Check forums, people all across the country are complaining about the same problem.

Btw, in order to get the refund, you have to manage to get through on their 800 line. Once you do that, after about an hours wait, you can speak to a representative and get your $1.43.

It hasnt just been a couple of hours... Its been down for 4-5 hours at a time, on 3 or 4 separate occasions.

And were you on the net the same exact time your brother was?

Yes I was. Actually my brother in law was on the net and he didn't mention anything about the net being down.

COMCAST IS HUGE. You dont give someone money back if they aren't complaining in the first place and unless you have a business line with comcast the losing thousands of dollars because your home business (which you are running on a residential line) no one cares. Its even stated in their service agreement (the use of comcast and its services are for entertainment purposes ONLY) Plus if you are using what they consider and excessive amount of bandwidth they will warn you...and if it continues you lose your account. If you are not happy with Comcast call and say something at least get the money that you are owed for the service being down for x amount of days. Yes it is a nationwide problem BUT not every single person who uses comcast is down though either.

Customer service is all that is left. In this world of bottom lines, customer service is top priority. ComCast Tech Support is useless "every time" I call for help. I end up teaching the tech something not visa versa. I just don't get it. If I treated my customers in my field like ComCast does theirs, I would be out of a job.

I agree with you...somewhat. In most Technical Support structures there are "tiers" of support. When you initially call in to Comcast you get tier 1. These people are not much more than operators with a scripted sheet of solutions to try and get you up and running again. If this fails you should either be transferred to a tier 2, and then possibly 3 (if there is one) or scheduled for a service call.

You also have to consider the customers of Comcast. They are a nationwide cable and internet provider. Not everyone is tech-savvy. Hell, therre are still those out there that pay $25 per month and dial-in to AOL at 56k. Some of these people think a modem is the big box on the floor that they turn on and off to get onto the internet.

Since when did Comcast guarantee any of us 100% up time? I'm not a Comcast fan or anything, but in my opinion, they do provide the best available high speed internet service available (at least in my area).

So Comcast does their best to keep your service up as close to 100% as possible. In fact, I bet most people are at 99.9% when looking at their service over the whole year.

When have you ever received a refund from the power company or telephone company for loss of service?