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Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

judge2020

Even if you use an "approved modem", their support will not by any means help you unless you're using the official rented modem+gateway. You end up having to lie about using the rented one they give you (they don't check if you're actually paying for it) to get any actual support.

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I've got no love for Comcast but I've never had any issues with this. Just yesterday I called about connectivity issues and they agreed to send a tech out, never asked what modem I was using. Setup with my own modem was always surprisingly easy to, just read them the MAC and was all set.

I have to mention, I've been on the other side of this, albeit with Time Warner.

I'd just moved into my first apartment and had bought my own modem. Tech comes, sets up the internet, the internet doesn't work. Tech blames my modem. My response is something to the effect of "give me a break", but ultimately do order a new modem from Amazon, if only so I can show the tech that two different modems both don't work.

Turns out, the first modem was defective. The second one worked fine and my internet has been great. I felt kind of crappy for arguing with the tech, when it absolutely was my hardware at fault.

I've always had my own modem and I've never had a problem with Comcast/Xfinity not helping me. Maybe I'm the exception.

Recently they updated my area to DOCSIS 3 (or 3.1, not sure). My DOCSIS 3.1 Motorola modem (found this out later) has a firmware bug that causes random modem lockups. Comcast went as far as replacing the cable from the telephone pole to my house in the middle of winter (it was ridiculously cold that day), running signal analyzers, and various other things before looking into the modem.

Also, Motorola Modem customer service was shockingly good as well. They sent me a free replacement modem while they worked on the firmware updates. Provisioning that temp modem was as simple as using the online provisioning.

Now, it would be nice if I didn't have to set annual calendar reminders to call them for when they increase my monthly price by 40%...

Which modem do you have? I have a motorolla modem and my service has gone to shit recently

Nope. That doesn't even work as they can see the MAC address of the modem on the network. For business class customers it basically means: "fuck you, you caused the problem with your equipment, we will send a tech next day when the problem stops happening and bill you $100 for the visit."

Just ask them to tell you the settings, it's way faster than following along with their silly step-by-step walk through anyway.

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