Comcast refusing to service my house (Memphis: lease, price, shop)

[hiknapster]

You can get Comcast if you want to foot the bill. You don't have to tell them how far you are away from the nearest line, D-SLAM. They know. When someone requests service they send out an engineering team to survey it, weigh the costs of putting in the infrastructure, ROI. If the topography makes it harder, it will cost more. The petition is lovely but unless those folks want to foot the bill, it is a no-go. By the way, same goes for AT&T. They aren't there for the same reasons. At the end of the day, these are businesses and aren't footing the bill for an area where they can't recoup their money plus make a profit. These companies are not charities. Once again, you pay for it and it is another story.

[brentwoodgirl]

Consider yourself lucky. Our internet and TV was out most of the summer, and Comcast wasn't even showing up for the scheduled appointments. So I would wait all day for someone who didn't show up. And then when the technician finally showed up, not only did he not fix our Comcast problems, he also disconnected one of our other utilities and then left.
Comcast has the worst customer service I have ever seen. In one day we talked to them 13 times and got a different story every time.

[Vascodagama]

Originally Posted by Richard Cycholl

All satellite Internet providers have limits. I think Dishnet is 30 Gigs a month (I can be wrong on that), after that you go to dial up speed.

30gb is actually a limited special offer with 15gb (up to 10mbps) with 15gb bonus data that can only be used between 2am and 8am. This plan at $70/month requires a bundle deal in addition and a 24 month commitment.

[jchometeam]

Its not like you have a right to be serviced by the company. If they think that they will make enough money by extending the service to your house, they will. If not, they wont. Simple as that.

[An Einnseanair]

Originally Posted by Andrew-TN

I have lived in the same house for 12 years now and I am sick and tired of not having proper internet. Time Warner doesn't exist in my county, as far as I know. AT&T DSL won't service me. I will never get dial-up again. Hughes Net is probably the biggest blunder in the history of ISPs. And Comcast keeps telling me over and over that I live too far out. And get this, there was an actual petition in my neighborhood for Comcast to extend their line with 100+ signatures! What are my options? My info: I live in Jacksboro TN, ZIP is 37757.

I'm assuming you mean 100 houses with potential connections are represented. If it's really 100+ people who would only get at most 50 new service contracts because they share houses, then maybe that's one of the reason's for Comcast's lack of interest.

First, you mentioned 1/8 mile in a later post. Is that 1/8 mile the distance between the closest house with service to the closest house without service? If so, that's a useless number. You cannot tap into a house's service line and feed 100+ new houses. You would need the distance from the closest trunk line. They would have to install a new branch line from the closest trunk to your neighborhood. Also, if that 1/8 mile includes harsh terrain (large creek/river, lake, etc.) then it's even worse. I notice you have a lot of that in your area.

Second, it's possible they've already reached their service limits in the area. They can only feed so many houses off the same repeater before the signal starts to degrade. And with more and more people downloading massive amounts of data it gets worse faster. And even though 100 people signed the petition, when the crews are on site they will install service drops to every house in the area. Even if they only needed to install 1/8 mile of new branch line, it's possible they'd have to upgrade dozens of miles of trunk line or install a new repeater to service all the new houses.

Assuming the two issues above aren't problems, are these 100+ signatures serious, or did they only sign because you asked politely/begged/demanded they sign? If they aren't really interested and only signed because they didn't object to having cable available then those signatures are useless and Comcast knows this.

If, however, you have 100 houses who really really want faster internet service and are willing to put their money where their mouth is, then you may have some options:
- If all 100 households state they are willing to sign contracts saying they will subscribe to a minimum of 1-2 years of service after they run the cable, that should get some serious interest from Comcast.
- If that isn't enough, offer to offset some of the install costs as a small surcharge on your bill for a limited time. Only $15/month is $180 over a year which would be $18,000 to Comcast with 100 subscribers. Again, this would be contingent on all of you signing up early and not sitting out the first year to avoid the surcharge. This should be done with the understanding that some people will intentionally decide to wait until after the surcharge period before they sign up.
- Finally, you could offer to partially or fully foot the bill for the install up front. If 100 households pay $100-200 each that will install a lot of cable. This should be done with the understanding that other people, even those who refuse to help pay for the initial install, will be able to access the cable service afterwards. Things will get real ugly real fast if you try to make these new people reimburse you for the initial costs

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by jwkilgore

If, however, you have 100 houses who really really want faster internet service and are willing to put their money where their mouth is, then you may have some options:
- If all 100 households state they are willing to sign contracts saying they will subscribe to a minimum of 1-2 years of service after they run the cable, that should get some serious interest from Comcast.
- If that isn't enough, offer to offset some of the install costs as a small surcharge on your bill for a limited time. Only $15/month is $180 over a year which would be $18,000 to Comcast with 100 subscribers. Again, this would be contingent on all of you signing up early and not sitting out the first year to avoid the surcharge. This should be done with the understanding that some people will intentionally decide to wait until after the surcharge period before they sign up.
- Finally, you could offer to partially or fully foot the bill for the install up front. If 100 households pay $100-200 each that will install a lot of cable. This should be done with the understanding that other people, even those who refuse to help pay for the initial install, will be able to access the cable service afterwards. Things will get real ugly real fast if you try to make these new people reimburse you for the initial costs

I promise you, this will not happen. And only if he is willing to pay fully for the install, upfront, can they probably get service.

[Serious Conversation]

A friend of mine who lives in Knoxville and owns a web dependent business is forced to deal with Comcast and has no other option from his home office location. He has lost enough revenue from internet outages that relocation due to the outages is a viable financial option for him. For the average resident customer, maybe Comcast's service isn't that bad, but on the very high end, enough businessmen are so dissatisfied with the service that it's making relocation to non Comcast areas viable. That's quite telling.

[hiknapster]

I was forced to have AT&T for my business. I hated it with a passion. And I had a brick and mortar business.

Of course, I know how they operate. If you call in with a problem, they put you on hold, look at your account to see what they can sell you, come back and give you the pitch, hard, before they even bother to help with the problem. Have something go wrong, well they'll try to sell you their tech support service. I don't need it since I used to do tech support for them. Also worked in their business department for a very brief time. I refused to treat the customers this way so I left.

Their service is very unreliable. I also was involved with various business groups in Knoxville. No one person that I knew said they liked AT&T. No one said they were moving to non-Comcast areas, at least not for internet. I still have a lot of friends with area businesses and all prefer Comcast for internet. Maybe if they own bars and want satellite, that would be understandable. But DSL or satellite for internet? What a joke.

What do you mean by high-end business, Emigrations? Does he have business service or residential service?

[Memphis1979]

Originally Posted by Andrew-TN

I have lived in the same house for 12 years now and I am sick and tired of not having proper internet. Time Warner doesn't exist in my county, as far as I know. AT&T DSL won't service me. I will never get dial-up again. Hughes Net is probably the biggest blunder in the history of ISPs. And Comcast keeps telling me over and over that I live too far out. And get this, there was an actual petition in my neighborhood for Comcast to extend their line with 100+ signatures! What are my options? My info: I live in Jacksboro TN, ZIP is 37757.

It sucks but the truth is it would cost more money then you would bring in as a customer to offset the cost and maintain your service.

Whats coming in the future is a small cell solution from a cellular provider. If you have decent cell service at your home, you will be able to get a small box that will sit in your window and rebroadcast a cellular and a wifi signal.

But thats whats coming for folks like you. It was a pain just to have my Internet speed inc4eased to 6 m.

[Bones]

Originally Posted by Memphis1979

It sucks but the truth is it would cost more money then you would bring in as a customer to offset the cost and maintain your service.

Whats coming in the future is a small cell solution from a cellular provider. If you have decent cell service at your home, you will be able to get a small box that will sit in your window and rebroadcast a cellular and a wifi signal.

But thats whats coming for folks like you. It was a pain just to have my Internet speed inc4eased to 6 m.

This gets very $$$ for little bandwith.....