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Brie Gordon
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a blog by Brie Gordon

Getting Through to Comcast @ComcastCares

 Today I was experiencing extreme fluctuating network latency between here and everywhere via Comcast. I started up some endless pings to monitor the situation and called up Comcast. Once I got through Shaq and Ben Stein's irritating greeting this is what I had to go through to get to a real person:
Push 1
Push 2
Push 0
Push 1
Push 2
Push 2
Push 1
Listen to a sappy message about how unusually high the call volume is and how long the wait time is
Sit on hold briefly
Push 1
Listen to another different message about how unusually high the call volume is and how long the wait time is
Push 2 to continue the call (or Push 1 to hang up and call back later; umm, I meant to call you, not a mistake.)
Push 2
Wait a while

"Thank you for calling Comcast; I'm a real person. How can I help?"

Fortunately the tech was very helpful. He saw some high numbers (2054 ms to a server about 15 mins from me) and some extreme fluctuation. He is sending a tech out ASAP (which is Monday afternoon, lol). I asked him why the routing seemed so crazy and he acknowledged that it was weird but had no clue why. Traceroutes to a server in the same city go through Chicago, New York, Philly or Virginia before leaving Comcast's network. I don't know enough about ISP routing methodology to comment further but that seems inefficient to me.

I asked the tech why I had to push all those buttons and if there was a more direct way to get through and he said he'd leave it at no comment. Smart man.
Filed under: comcast customer service network network latency ping routing technician
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