Comcast doesn't work on our computer. I call them up. They say:
"Unplug the power to your modem."
"I already did that."
"Do it anyways. Do you use a router?"
"Yes."
"Here at Comcast we strongly discourage that you use a router. Plug the internet directly into a desktop."
How am I supposed to use my wireless connection on my laptop?
There is no answer. There never will be from a company who believes that their customers shouldn't use a router.
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Re: Comcast business sense: anti-technology, anti-customer
I knew I was going crazy with such a conspiracy theory. However, it doesn't work to simply unplug things, I always have to completely reset our router. Then it works.
Re: Comcast business sense: anti-technology, anti-customer
Comcast doesn't have any idea whether you're using a router or not. It's not technically possible. Now I've had a number of routers that get out of sync with the modem somehow (to fix, just turn both the router and the modem off for 30 seconds, turn on the modem, wait another 30 seconds, turn on the router)--but typically this is because the router and/or the modem is a piece of crap. My current router, for instance, hasn't dropped out all summer.
I'm sure Comcast doesn't like open access wifi points either, but I'd bet they count on most people being too security conscious to leave their wifi access open to the public. Plus, they can track usage. I'm sure they've terminated customers before for abusive bandwidth usage.
Why I think Karl might be wrong
I don't often have suspicions to your falibility, but here's what happened today. Last night internet worked fine. We woke up this morning, and we noticed the modem doing something we've never noticed before. It was flashing the lights in a sequential pattern, much like you would imagine UFO lights. After it was done doing this, it returned to normal. During the flashing lights and after the flashing lights, there was no internet through the router. Fine - I could just chalk that up to something strange; except that this is when we realized that everytime our router has "suddenly dropped service," it was ALWAYS on a Sunday. Coincidence? I think not...
-------------------------- "actually, i can draw"
Me, fallable? Never.
Comcast does have control over your modem. They can, for example, send modem firmware upgrades over the network, or tell the modem to reset. This could have been going on this morning, or the modem could have been resetting itself because it thought it lost its connection.
Dropped service on a Sunday isn't much of a coincidence, but it's also not necessarily sinister. Sunday's are the days they are most likely to "fix" stuff on the network, as they figure that people would get ticked off about upgrades that might lead to network outtages during the work week.
At the same time, I wonder if the network may be hit harder on a Sunday than any other day--everybody's at home using it, and since cable is a community resource, your signal/connectivity goes down the more people use the network. We started having some major problems three weeks ago with Comcast for this exact reason--we would always start getting dropped connections 3 or 4 times an hour right around noon (i.e. when lazy teenagers home from school would wake up and get online), which would last until people started going to bed around 10:00 or so. I started to wonder if maybe you weren't crazy.
After asking them to send a tech out here (and after taking the router offline, because we would never ever use a router on the network), we discovered that our big "problem" was that our house had been wired for analog instead of digital, and therefore the signal was going through a very weak splitter and some low grade coax cables. Actually, I suspect our big problem was that their network was suddenly getting hit a lot harder than ever before, exposing our weak connection. But he wouldn't admit this, and I guess I can't blame him. No service provider wants to admit that your neighbors affect your service. He also showed me how to test the strength of the signal received by the modem (just browse to http://192.168.100.1). Our signal drops a ton during the afore-mentioned hours. But now that our connection's a lot stronger, the weaker signal doesn't make our modem drop out.
At any rate, I don't really know what's going on with your service, but when all was said and done, and without us even asking about it, the Comcast guy actually told us that we could hook up our router now, and "it should work fine." He even helpfully suggested, thinking perhaps that we weren't very computer literate, that I should put the router in the same closet as the modem so we didn't have to run so many wires around the house. Of course, I explained that I'd rather not have desktop computers running on the wireless network, and he said, "oh, okay, that makes sense."
To make a long story short, not only can I guarantee from my semesters of studying network protocols that Comcast has no legal way of knowing if you use a router or not (the router makes it seem like all of your communications are coming from the same computer; they would have to read the payload of each packet your router sends out, as opposed to the packet headers, to look for subtle hints that it wasn't just one computer--this would not only invade your privacy, it would also be very ineffecient, in some case impossible if you're using encryption, and a huge burden on Comcast's resources), but a Comcast repair guy has actally told us it's okay to use a router.
conspiracy theory
Come on, it's a conspiracy. Admit it.
*becca lecca*
It can't be a conspiracy,
yes....
you would be in on it, wouldn't you?
*becca lecca*
Re: Comcast business sense: anti-technology, anti-customer
But I am under the impression that they are doing something on their end which is disabling my router. I know my router works. It always has worked. It continues to work. However, every once in a while the internet will not work when plugged into the router but will work plugged straight into a computer. Now, I know this is serious conspiracy theory, but this behavior leads me to believe that Comcast has some way of pinging routers and scrambling the signal for them because they don't want freeloaders taking wifi from customers offering open access points.
I know that open access points are a big sore spot for Comcast.
Re: Comcast business sense: anti-technology, anti-customer
It's annoying, but no, not illegal, since they don't actually refuse to let you use a router.
Here's why (Woohoo, a chance to apply my two semesters of Antitrust law). It actually kind of makes a lot of sense. Routers are not the most intuitive thing for people to set up. There's little, if any standardization, so it's impossible to create a universal set of instructions. If hey have to instruct every consumer on how to set up a router, or even worse--if they have to train their service people to know how every single type of router works, they would have to raise fees to compensate.
But even more problemmatic is the support costs they can incur troubleshooting routers. Routers are not the most reliable pieces of equipment--especially the cheap $20-$50 kind that most consumers pick up at the store. They go bad, and they go bad often. It can take hours to troubleshoot the problem, and can leave the typical consumer very frustrated. The typical consumer sees computer devices more as phones or something--they assume they should "just work" and that any problems must be with the service. Again, this is very expensive problem for Comcast, both in reputation and in support labor.
Thus, Comcast says they'll support direct computer hookups--that's easy, it's all Windows. They'll also support one universal piece of equipment, and they can train their support people to handle problems with that. Furthermore, if they control the equipment, they control the quality of the equipment, which theoretically means they can have some effect on the number of failed routers and disgruntled customers.
Now if router manufacturers made better routers, there might be an Antitrust issue. Indeed, AT&T for the longest time refused to allow people to use any other phone than the one they provided them. The government allowed this for the very same reasons I've explained above. But as phones became cheaper to make (and, more importantly, cheaper to make well), the government became less convinced that AT&T had a valid excuse for tying their phones to their phone service. So, to make a long story short, we now can use any phone we want.
The sad thing is, this whole analogy won't make any sense to our children. Why on earth would you want to use a device connected to wires, they'll say.
Re: Comcast business sense: anti-technology, anti-customer
I supposed that makes business sense. Haven't companies like Belkin and Linksys realized their plot to overthrow them? And...more importantly... isn't it illegal to do this?
Re: Comcast business sense: anti-technology, anti-customer
Sorry Wayne, they want you to use THEIR wireless router. That's what they informed me!