# Shentel internet service and Comcast internet



## bigwad (Oct 19, 2006)

I live in the Lynchburg, Va area and was completely satisfied with Jetbroadband. Then Shentel bought them out and dropped the cap limit for internet usage. Which I thought was great. Since then, the speed has become almost like dial up at times. It looks like it will be months before they finally fix this problem.
I am looking in to Comcast for our internet service now. I had thought it was only available in the city, I live in Campbell County. They have told me I can get Comcast where I live.
Is anyone familiar with Comcast? Is there a limit on bandwidth usage? How is their customer service?
I am going to call again later this morning to check on things, but wondered if anyone could give me some inside info on whether it would be a wise choice or not.

Thanks


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

People I know who have Comcast refer to it as Comcrap!


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## bigwad (Oct 19, 2006)

I've heard that a lot about the TV service, but not specifically the internet service.


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## klang (Oct 14, 2003)

We have Comcast for internet and have been generally happy with it. Customer service has been quite good both times we've had a problem. We have the Blast service which is I think supposed to be 10 Mbps download and I normally see 15-25 Mbps. There is a cap of so many GB per month but we don't normally stream video so it is never a problem.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Comcast service varies from one franchise to another. In my area, I rate their service as 'good' to 'very good'. Those who blindly condemn Comcast across the board are, in most cases, basing that opinion on their own limited experience.

On their Internet service, with the middle tier I get 15-20 Mb/s down and 4-5 up here in Brunswick, Ga., but that's not necessarily indicative of what you might get. Your best bet is to ask Your local Comcast operator what speeds they offer, or ask someone you know who has Comcast Internet to do a speedtest.net test.

Here are my current speeds using Comcast (three locations).


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## Yoda-DBSguy (Nov 4, 2006)

bigwad said:


> I live in the Lynchburg, Va area and was completely satisfied with Jetbroadband. Then Shentel bought them out and dropped the cap limit for internet usage. Which I thought was great. Since then, the speed has become almost like dial up at times. It looks like it will be months before they finally fix this problem.
> I am looking in to Comcast for our internet service now. I had thought it was only available in the city, I live in Campbell County. They have told me I can get Comcast where I live.
> Is anyone familiar with Comcast? Is there a limit on bandwidth usage? How is their customer service?
> I am going to call again later this morning to check on things, but wondered if anyone could give me some inside info on whether it would be a wise choice or not.
> ...


There is a 250 GB/mth cap on their residential plans; however that's pretty high, so the average customer will come no where near that bandwidth usage.

As far as quality and speed go; they offer a variety of packages ranging from 1.5 Mbps down/384Kbps to 50Mbps down/10Mbps up. I've used Comcast for my ISP for years ranging from their Blast package 20/4 to currently being on their top end package of 50/10 (actually, I typically see speeds of 60/10 or so). We haven't really had any downtime to speak of; but that is really area specific as far as the history of outages in terms of response time.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

For some perspective, I think the average Netflix HD movie is about 3gb. Of course the cap counts everything, but as caps go, it's pretty good. Certainly better than the 5gb that Frontier had on their DSL. Personally, I'd rather have a hard number instead of them having a limit that they won't tell you what it is.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

I have Comcast for Internet and Phone and am pretty happy with the service. Their customer support can sometimes be a bit lacking (especially billing), but they generally have resolved any issues I've had with them.

I currently have the Performance Internet package (middle-tier), but have had the Blast Internet package in the past. Both are quite good. Here is my SpeedTest results for the Performance package:

  

The speeds are a little off due to the Powerboost, but you get the idea...

- Merg


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## klang (Oct 14, 2003)

I just checked and we used 86 GB in December. That is the highest I have seen for us.










Twice we have had what turned out to be a problem in the box out at the street. Both times they had someone out here to fix it the day after I reported it. One time they came out on a Sunday. I was impressed. I'm sure service will vary by location though.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

Oh yeah, as for the cap... My wife loves watching Netflix Instant now and we have yet to go over 40GB.

- Merg


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

klang said:


> I just checked and we used 86 GB in December. That is the highest I have seen for us...


Klang, how does one check usage w/Comcast?


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## klang (Oct 14, 2003)

Nick said:


> Klang, how does one check usage w/Comcast?


Log into Comcast Customer Central. Go to the 'Users & Settings' tab. There is a graph at the top a little right of center. The 'view details' link gives you the last couple months worth of data.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

In most areas Comcast speeds are fine. I am happy to have anything and happy that Comcast got stuck with our rural area in the Adelphia bankruptcy a few years back.

They have improved the local system, but cannot offer the speeds they offer in other areas because of a bottleneck across a pass. Sometime in the last month they made routing changes in their system that give us slower speeds south to and through the Bay Area.

But it's still a heck of a lot better than dial up or satellite.

*SOUTH TO THE BAY AREA*


*SOUTH THROUGH THE BAY AREA TO LA*


*NORTH TO OREGON*
​
As far as the usage limit goes, we don't stream much video though our speeds are adequate enough to allow it. But both my wife and I are on the internet a lot. Here's two screenshots of our usage record:


*LAST SPRING*









*THIS WINTER*







In November my son was here from Washington D.C. and had to participate in work meetings via phone and internet, hence the "huge" increase in usage. As you might guess, I think the 250GB cap more than reasonable.

Finally, contrary to most reporting about Comcast, I've had excellent service when problems arose in the system.


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