When I signed up for my Internet service at the Boston apartment through Comcast, my expectations were not high. In fact, I didn't particularly want to use Comcast. But apparently they are the only choice at my address for anything faster than 3 megabits down, which is in and of itself a sad comment on the state of infrastructure in the United States. Astoundingly, Comcast failed to meet even my unfathomably low expectations.
For starters, their website is incredibly opaque. At this point, Internet service is more of an essential utility, like water or electricity, than some novel service for nerds to go back and forth about episodes of some television show I've never heard of. Correspondingly, my desire for sleek marketing terms is very low. Rather than just provide a list of prices and corresponding speeds, Comcast hides these material details behind ambiguous monikers like "Performance" and "Blast!". The pricing also seems like a trap designed to dupe naive shoppers out of their money. The 12 megabit down, 2 megabit up service (otherwise known as "Performance") I ordered has a $30 month introductory rate for the first six months. Yet even digging through the fine print, the best I could find was a vague statement that the cost of my service would eventually fall somewhere between $40 and $60 a month. Not until I received my first bill — two weeks after ordering — did I learn that, come March, I will be paying $60 a month.
Then there is the modem fee. Not satisfied with sucking $60 a month out of peoples' bank accounts for a service that costs a fraction of what they charge in most of the developed world, Comcast attempts to saddle customers with a $7 a month modem lease fee to use a modem they provide. Even the most expensive cable modem I could find — a $130 number from Motorola — still winds paying for itself in just 18 months. The DOCSIS 3.0-compatible Motorola SB6120 I bought for about $80 on Amazon.com will start paying for itself in less than a year. And the less demanding user can opt for something for as little as $50, which pays for itself in just over seven months.
I should add here that I don't have a problem with Comcast leasing modems per se. Leasing probably makes sense for people who don't want to have to worry about their modem failing and finding a replacement, or for people living somewhere temporarily. It's just rather devious that Comcast doesn't even bother to mention that, for people with even a modicum of technical savvy, it probably makes more sense to spend $50 to buy a modem than to lease one.
Ordering service and navigating Comcast's byzantine website, though, was merely the tip of the unpleasant iceberg.
When my cable modem arrived two days after I ordered it — words cannot convey the greatness of Amazon and Amazon Prime — I took ten minutes to hook it up on the off chance it would just work, since I had ordered service. After tying three different wall jacks, I eventually found one that appeared to work. The upstream and downstream lights turned green, as did the promising "Online" indicator. But when I plugged my laptop into the modem to check for success, I did not have an active connection to the Web. At this point, Comcast had not crushed my spirits entirely. By all indications, I had a working modem. I figured a simple phone call would have me cruising the Web in no time.
Two days, a dozen phone calls and four customer service representatives later, I was informed that, despite the fact my modem was on the brink of having a live Internet connection, Comcast would have to send some flunky out to do an installation. More to save myself the inconvenience than the $30 fee, I desperately wanted to avoid this. But the final rep insisted that some status somewhere in the bowels of the Comcast operations center showed I needed a professional to come flip a switch and perform a bit of magic.
On the plus side, the final rep managed to arrange the installation on a Saturday, so I didn't have to duck out of the office for an afternoon. On the downside, they gave me a three hour window, which effectively reduced my Saturday to many hours sitting in my mostly unfurnished apartment reading a book.
Even with a three hour window, however, the technician, an irritable and uncommunicative woman with a habit of randomly humming to herself, managed to arrive late. Granted, she only arrived about five minutes late, but given that she had 180 other minutes during which she could have arrived on time, I was somewhat annoyed. More annoying was what she did, or perhaps didn't do, when she made it to my apartment. After I showed her the status of my modem, the technician grumbled a bit and made a phone call. Fifteen minutes of generic hold music later, she read my modem's MAC address off the modem's box to whoever was on the other end of her call. By the time she had hung up, I had a working Internet connection.
It took every ounce of restraint I had to politely thank the technician for her services and escort her to the door. I had just paid $100 to have a grumpy middle-aged woman make a phone call and visit a website in my apartment.
A better company — an Amazon.com, a Zappos, a Nordstrom — would not have sent a 2,000 word mishmash of corporate gobbledygook in response to my email complaining about my non-installation installation. Comcast could have blown my sock off. They could have waived my installation fee, given me two months of free service, and had a human with some creativity and capacity for empathy write me a short, apologetic note. It would have cost them a few dollars, to be sure. But it would have completely reversed my opinion of their customer service. I would have told everyone I know how impressive it was that Comcast, with its reputation for aloofness, managed to blow me away. Instead, I received a monstrous email loaded with buzzwords and vague promises that took me the better part of 20 minutes to read and comprehend, and that did absolutely nothing to address my grievances.
In the end, I was able to knock about $70 off the installation fee, and — at least when there aren't service interruptions that bring down Internet service for hours in entire neighborhoods, as happened this morning — my connection is actually 12 megabits down and 2 up. Still, given how integral Internet access is to most peoples' lives, it is absolutely ridiculous that this is the only option available.
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