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just brew it!
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Thu Nov 08, 2018 3:56 pm

roncat wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
The weird thing is, signal strength from the Comcast AP shows as excellent. Yet I still get the frequent connection drops when using it.

Maybe the antenna/receiver design is really sensitive to multipath, noise, etc. Great overall power, but tons of noise or an inability to tolerate much noise.

Could be.

I still get occasional disconnects if I venture out of the basement, away from the AP I just set up; but it's way better than it was, and the basement is where I really need the WiFi calling since I spend the day down here when I work from home, and I get 0 bars of cell signal. Coverage on the first floor also improved quite a bit after I realized I had the antenna flipped 180 degrees (it's directional). The way I had it set up initially I was beaming the strongest lobe of the signal at an exterior basement wall. :oops:
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Thu Nov 08, 2018 7:46 pm

just brew it! wrote:
I have marginal cell coverage at my house, which means it is completely unusable in the basement. I'd been blaming this on Sprint (because, well, Sprint).
I drive through three or four dead zones in AT&T's coverage every evening. I've been dropping pins in the "Mark the Spot" app for several years, but it doesn't do anything to make them improve the poor service.

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olegtf
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Sun Nov 18, 2018 11:33 am

just brew it! wrote:
I still get occasional disconnects if I venture out of the basement, away from the AP I just set up; but it's way better than it was, and the basement is where I really need the WiFi calling since I spend the day down here when I work from home, and I get 0 bars of cell signal. Coverage on the first floor also improved quite a bit after I realized I had the antenna flipped 180 degrees (it's directional). The way I had it set up initially I was beaming the strongest lobe of the signal at an exterior basement wall. :oops:


... little bit late, but nevertheless, as former c-cast customer of 13+ years, the best favor I've done to myself was switching to FiOS. Instead of talking to indian dude numerous times per week I had only one phone call to oregon, when service was disrupted once in 2 years. Same with cell coverage, the only ones who has stable service in my neck of the woods is Verizon. So get yourself little prepaid phone to test coverage in your basement then make a decision. Needless to say that price to i-net speed ratio presently is not favoring c-cast either. Constant unresponded ranging requests, firmware updates, with corresponding reboots and hung-ups, deliberate slowdowns for lower tier customers before every major holiday, data usage limits and absolutely incompetent techs. (one actually asked me - what is telnet?) cisco 39xx series (and clones) gateways design flaws.... brrrrrr time to switch now, since huge promotional deals is active...
 
just brew it!
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:27 pm

If FiOS was available here I'd have it.

Yes, the frequent modem reboots are annoying.

Both Comcast techs I've dealt with (for issues other than the WiFi instability, I have not bothered to call about that) have been decent though; I guess I got lucky?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
olegtf
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:38 pm

just brew it! wrote:
If FiOS was available here I'd have it.

Yes, the frequent modem reboots are annoying.

Both Comcast techs I've dealt with (for issues other than the WiFi instability, I have not bothered to call about that) have been decent though; I guess I got lucky?

... is it c-cast or subs? Subs usually from the start have much stricter selection criteria in the parent company. C-cast operates only by affirmative action and "whom-do-you-know" requirement, actual knowledge takes back seat. Even major software/hardware projects for the company being done by the temp workers via agency, leave alone everything else, more mundane tasks.
 
Redocbew
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:43 pm

So long as you're not stuck in the phone queue my experiences with Comcast support have been pretty good also. I have my own modem, and I happen to have a comcast store just a few minutes from here, so many other people are probably not so lucky. My setup here(which I think of as modest) kinda freaked the guy out the last time I had a tech out, but he did fine.
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olegtf
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:04 pm

Redocbew wrote:
So long as you're not stuck in the phone queue my experiences with Comcast support have been pretty good also. I have my own modem, and I happen to have a comcast store just a few minutes from here, so many other people are probably not so lucky. My setup here(which I think of as modest) kinda freaked the guy out the last time I had a tech out, but he did fine.

Well, until they started DOCSIS 3 transition it was tolerable - slow, annoying but it worked, one day they blanked firmware on every docsis2 device and forced us to switch. Thant was the day hell broke loose.
Image
regular usage before 1st of November, when old modem was killed by c-cast. Had no service for 3 weeks plus before I got my cisco 3939 on 23 of November (no changes in LAN configuration) December is "new" bloated data consumption. And even that I would tolerate if not for 2-3-4 times per week reboots of the gateway, at 3 o'clock in the morning, which left modem hanging in some kind of boot loop, which required "hard reset" manually every time. tech support was horrible, from please disconnect cable from the wall and modem and turn it in opposite direction to please take scissors and touch central conductor to the nut. Otherwise they just tried to reboot modem time after time after time, each time it hangs thus see above... On other hand, they just build new c-cast tower in philly for astronomical (undisclosed completely) amount which they need to recover :-(.
 
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:14 pm

I think we get it. You don't like Comcast.
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olegtf
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:22 pm

DancinJack wrote:
I think we get it. You don't like Comcast.

... hate it to be precise
Image
 
Glorious
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Tue Nov 20, 2018 12:51 pm

olegtf wrote:
C-cast operates only by affirmative action and "whom-do-you-know" requirement, actual knowledge takes back seat.


Uh, WOW.

You, of course, have "actual knowledge" of this? /s

Or are you just providing some unrelated "social commentary" (to put it mildly) that's completely gratuitous and unnecessary (not to mention unappreciated)?

Couldn't you just say that Comcast sucks instead of enlisting another pre-existing prejudice to shore up that idea?

Especially since most people already don't like Comcast as Comcast, unrelated to the hue of their hiring pool?
 
ludi
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Tue Nov 20, 2018 2:29 pm

I was enjoying the part where he complained about being forced to upgrade a modem last standardized in 2001 with a standard released in 2006. And all the interest in the construction of spinning rust in the other thread. We may have located the anti-End User.
Last edited by ludi on Tue Nov 20, 2018 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Glorious
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Tue Nov 20, 2018 2:32 pm

I didn't even know where to start, but I was hoppin' mad just from the nonsense I already responded to.


I don't even...

Major projects done by "agency" "temp workers"?

No.

MANY TIMES -NO-
 
olegtf
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Thu Nov 22, 2018 4:17 pm

ludi wrote:
I was enjoying the part where he complained about being forced to upgrade a modem last standardized in 2001 with a standard released in 2006. And all the interest in the construction of spinning rust in the other thread. We may have located the anti-End User.

... so big mouth ended up being wrong again? tough luck...
 
olegtf
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Thu Nov 22, 2018 4:19 pm

Glorious wrote:
I didn't even know where to start, but I was hoppin' mad just from the nonsense I already responded to.


I don't even...

Major projects done by "agency" "temp workers"?

No.

MANY TIMES -NO-

... HA HA HA, well you need to face reality some day.
 
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Thu Nov 22, 2018 9:50 pm

Glorious wrote:
Major projects done by "agency" "temp workers"?


It happens more than you'd think. And, yes, sometimes it ends poorly. Why would a dumbass MBA go to the trouble of hiring potentially not-precious-enough employees when they can farm the work out to some bottom rung contractor that blows smoke up their butt instead?

On the subject of Comcast, my experiences with them in Minnesota haven't been particularly heinous. But on the occasions I ran into trouble, I went to one of their storefronts in person where it's not as easy to brush someone off. That said, I'm very much a fan of minimizing the use of ISP provided hardware because it's rarely very good. That reminds me...VDSL2 isn't as exotic as it used to be so maybe I should do something about the mediocre C1000A I bought from CenturyLink a few years ago.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Thu Nov 22, 2018 10:13 pm

NovusBogus wrote:
Glorious wrote:
Major projects done by "agency" "temp workers"?

It happens more than you'd think. And, yes, sometimes it ends poorly.

In this particular case, the contractor does not seem to be at fault though. They were following the procedure given to them by the gas company, and likely had no reason to suspect that the procedure was fatally flawed. Lack of an automatic safety cutoff seems to be a pretty glaring flaw in the system design as well.
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NovusBogus
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Thu Nov 22, 2018 10:21 pm

Oh, I'm not blaming the contractor at all, just noting that big companies do definitely farm things out and the gap between tribal knowledge and documentation can lead to issues. I was reading a rather excellent blog post by a control system guy that went into more detail about what they were doing, how and why the loop failed and what expectations should be vs. what's requested and all that, but unfortunately I can't seem to find it now.
 
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:46 pm

olegtf wrote:
On other hand, they just build new c-cast tower in philly for astronomical (undisclosed completely) amount which they need to recover :-(.

I work there. It was $1.5B, or about two weeks of profit for Comcast (but Comcast isn't the sole owner). Comcast is a publicly traded company and is required to disclose quite a bit.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast_Technology_Center ($1.5B cost)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast ($22.7B in PROFIT last year)
 
Glorious
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:25 am

NovusBogus wrote:
It happens more than you'd think. And, yes, sometimes it ends poorly. Why would a dumbass MBA go to the trouble of hiring potentially not-precious-enough employees when they can farm the work out to some bottom rung contractor that blows smoke up their butt instead?


Contractors and Consultants are what you expect to see running or assisting with major projects. They are almost always regular professional employees of a company that's contracted to do that sort of work, and that's generally how most companies get that sort of work done. If, like Comcast, your primary business is being an ISP, it usually is not practical, convenient or efficient to have a full-time team that just does those sorts of upgrades and projects. Your "team" that does it is really just employee project managers who do nothing but high-level manage the process plus mediate between those contractors/ and actual employees. This isn't uncommon at all. That's not my point.

This is my point: That is fundamentally different than "agency temp workers."

That's a contingent worker you called a random staffing agency to temporarily employ, and it almost exclusively refers to low-skilled situations. You know, like filing and answering phones.

That's what I was objecting to. You're literally changing the words he used to try and defend what he said.

Why?
 
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Re: Comcast AP and WiFi calling

Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:39 pm

Ok, we are done here, there's no information being added, just attacks.

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