Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#51

Post by op00to » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

sloshnmosh wrote: post #49

bigmattystyles wrote: post #29

Their twitter feed was hilarious - individuals were reporting outages as part of a collective 'me too' and instead of Comcast saying there's a big issue with our network, they replied (probably with a bot) to every message asking to be be DM'd with the account details so they could look into it. To get to the outage map, the default path from their site (which was also down), you had to sign in to see that your very…

Hmmm. My tinfoil hat tells me that Comcast may be doing this to tie users Twitter accounts to their real names and addresses.

You don’t need a tin foil hat, that is what they are doing.

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#52

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #38

massysett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t hassle CS agents in a situation like this. S/he was trying to help. Obviously the CS agent can’t go out and fix cables or reboot servers or do whatever needs to be done to fix it. But there is a chance that the customer will be better off knowing there is the hotspot option.

That’s not “hassling,” that’s “clarifying criticality.” The notion that we can’t even pass complaints along to support agents isn’t helpful. In my case when I lodge a complaint or turn down a solution it’s not meant as a personal attack. I legit want the company to know that they’re falling short and that I’m probably looking for alternatives. Obviously don’t start getting angry, but if there’s a point of frustration…

[deleted]

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#53

Post by m0lecules » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #42

NelsonMinar wrote: post #20

One nice thing about San Francisco is we have many great alternatives for ISPs. Comcast truly is terrible. Wave Broadband is an excellent competing cable Internet company. Sonic is the best ISP I have ever had or could even imagine; reliable symmetric gigabit fiber, super low latency (4ms to the edge, it's all glass), tech support that knows what they're doing. There's also MonkeyBrains for 100+Mbps fixed wireless. N…

Meh, I'll vote to the contrary; Comcast works roughly 99.95% of the time for me. Obviously that's an approximation, but I rarely experience outages and I've been using them from two apartments in the South Bay for 10 years. The first few years they'd occasionally have local service outages around 2am but since then I rarely have outages of any kind and my speeds are great. Not as high as they say I do but supposedly…

Really miss having FiOS when I lived in NYC. AT&T has some dark fiber on the pole just outside my house but hasn't lit it up.

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#54

Post by op00to » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #42

NelsonMinar wrote: post #20

One nice thing about San Francisco is we have many great alternatives for ISPs. Comcast truly is terrible. Wave Broadband is an excellent competing cable Internet company. Sonic is the best ISP I have ever had or could even imagine; reliable symmetric gigabit fiber, super low latency (4ms to the edge, it's all glass), tech support that knows what they're doing. There's also MonkeyBrains for 100+Mbps fixed wireless. N…

Meh, I'll vote to the contrary; Comcast works roughly 99.95% of the time for me. Obviously that's an approximation, but I rarely experience outages and I've been using them from two apartments in the South Bay for 10 years. The first few years they'd occasionally have local service outages around 2am but since then I rarely have outages of any kind and my speeds are great. Not as high as they say I do but supposedly…

You should actually measure your network uptime. You’d be surprised how much maintenance happens at 3am. When people are up doing maintenance.

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#55

Post by Cycl0ps » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #38

massysett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t hassle CS agents in a situation like this. S/he was trying to help. Obviously the CS agent can’t go out and fix cables or reboot servers or do whatever needs to be done to fix it. But there is a chance that the customer will be better off knowing there is the hotspot option.

That’s not “hassling,” that’s “clarifying criticality.” The notion that we can’t even pass complaints along to support agents isn’t helpful. In my case when I lodge a complaint or turn down a solution it’s not meant as a personal attack. I legit want the company to know that they’re falling short and that I’m probably looking for alternatives. Obviously don’t start getting angry, but if there’s a point of frustration…

I spent some time time as a tier one agent, and will gladly confirm that any complaints given to us were forgotten by the time the call disconnected. If you're rude enough we might leave a note in your file as a warning to the next agent, but that's about as far as complaint handling ever went. Same goes for wanting a manager. Floor managers have no special tricks that they can use to fix problems, just nicer bedside manners.

Tier one CS is there to confirm where a fault lies, teach you basic troubleshooting, and send out techs. If the issue isn't on your premise the best we can do is check that outage for an ETR, though most of the time the crews won't establish one because that creates a deadline for them to meet.

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#56

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #38

massysett wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t hassle CS agents in a situation like this. S/he was trying to help. Obviously the CS agent can’t go out and fix cables or reboot servers or do whatever needs to be done to fix it. But there is a chance that the customer will be better off knowing there is the hotspot option.

That’s not “hassling,” that’s “clarifying criticality.” The notion that we can’t even pass complaints along to support agents isn’t helpful. In my case when I lodge a complaint or turn down a solution it’s not meant as a personal attack. I legit want the company to know that they’re falling short and that I’m probably looking for alternatives. Obviously don’t start getting angry, but if there’s a point of frustration…

'why don't you go work from a public wifi spot' is not a constructive or polite complaint. Just say, 'if you would pass along a customer complaint, here is what I'd like it to say: I need more reliable service to work from home; I may have to look for alternatives. I find it very frustrating. Thanks for sending that on for me.'

The human being at the other end of the phone is not your therapist or the object of your frustrations. It's the same with waitstaff. They have their own problems; they aren't their to be kicked when you are frustrated.

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#57

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

Cycl0ps wrote: post #55

jschwartzi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not “hassling,” that’s “clarifying criticality.” The notion that we can’t even pass complaints along to support agents isn’t helpful. In my case when I lodge a complaint or turn down a solution it’s not meant as a personal attack. I legit want the company to know that they’re falling short and that I’m probably looking for alternatives. Obviously don’t start getting angry, but if there’s a point of frustration…

I spent some time time as a tier one agent, and will gladly confirm that any complaints given to us were forgotten by the time the call disconnected. If you're rude enough we might leave a note in your file as a warning to the next agent, but that's about as far as complaint handling ever went. Same goes for wanting a manager. Floor managers have no special tricks that they can use to fix problems, just nicer bedside…

Where did you work? Different businesses have different policies.

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#58

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

KoftaBob wrote: post #13

bryans wrote: post #9

> “This comcast outage is a great reminder of why it's still important to download and own physical copies of music, movies, etc.,” @krakinov tweeted. This is a bizarrely overdramatic response to one provider being down for an hour, and I can't imagine why the author felt the need to include it, other than to further dramatize their own dramatization of a rather innocuous situation.

> further dramatize their own dramatization of a rather innocuous situation. That's exactly why they included it. It's the internet equivalent of when journalists go out and interview random pedestrians to get their reactions/commentary to some event. They want a soundbite that will stick in your mind after reading/viewing the news segment, regardless of how useful the commentary really is. As long as most news is fo…

How is someone's Twitter comment evidence for a rant against journalists? Do you see such a problem in the OP?

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#59

Post by guenthert » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #42

NelsonMinar wrote: post #20

One nice thing about San Francisco is we have many great alternatives for ISPs. Comcast truly is terrible. Wave Broadband is an excellent competing cable Internet company. Sonic is the best ISP I have ever had or could even imagine; reliable symmetric gigabit fiber, super low latency (4ms to the edge, it's all glass), tech support that knows what they're doing. There's also MonkeyBrains for 100+Mbps fixed wireless. N…

Meh, I'll vote to the contrary; Comcast works roughly 99.95% of the time for me. Obviously that's an approximation, but I rarely experience outages and I've been using them from two apartments in the South Bay for 10 years. The first few years they'd occasionally have local service outages around 2am but since then I rarely have outages of any kind and my speeds are great. Not as high as they say I do but supposedly…

Make that 99.9%. There were two unscheduled multi-hour outages (each time a Friday afternoon) during day time of Comcast's service in the South Bay in as many years. Perfectly acceptable for a leisure offer. Those working from home these days who cannot rush into the office or take some time off, I suppose have a 2nd connection (e.g. 4G/5G).

Re: Xfinity outage leaves tens of thousands in the Bay Area without internet

#60

Post by Fatnino » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #42

NelsonMinar wrote: post #20

One nice thing about San Francisco is we have many great alternatives for ISPs. Comcast truly is terrible. Wave Broadband is an excellent competing cable Internet company. Sonic is the best ISP I have ever had or could even imagine; reliable symmetric gigabit fiber, super low latency (4ms to the edge, it's all glass), tech support that knows what they're doing. There's also MonkeyBrains for 100+Mbps fixed wireless. N…

Meh, I'll vote to the contrary; Comcast works roughly 99.95% of the time for me. Obviously that's an approximation, but I rarely experience outages and I've been using them from two apartments in the South Bay for 10 years. The first few years they'd occasionally have local service outages around 2am but since then I rarely have outages of any kind and my speeds are great. Not as high as they say I do but supposedly…

Palo Alto is halfway between Google and Facebook. It doesn't have reliable fiber. Hell, the electric grid can barely be called reliable.

Sonic fiber is available by building, not neighborhood.