Talk:Comcast

comcast worm farm controversy

Comcast engineer Sean Lutner admitted in 2004 that they know they are a huge source of spam and it's widely documented (for example DSHIELD, SPAMHAUS, others) that their networks are overrun with spamblower worms such as sobig. Yet they refuse to take real measures (such as adopting SPF or implementing effective rate controls on their known spammers) instead implementing ineffective measures that only degrade the quality of their service (such as schizophrenic port blocking as detailed in the censored text).

I added this information to the comcast entry (see history) in what I thought was an even-handed manner. Mr. Chuckles reverted the changes without useful comment. I protested, got this answer here:

Simple answer, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 05:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

... which is actually useful criticism (though I disagree that it's simple). Thank you, Boothy443, for letting me know I had let my personal disgust at Comcast's behaviour shine through too much for Wiki's standards. Since I do not seem to be able to provide this important information from a NPOV (I hope others will try) I have merely edited the external links to add references to Comcast's own admission of spamfriendliness and to neutral 3rd party tracking systems.

I wonder though, why we are linking to a sales page for Comcast? Is commercial advertisement appropriate here? I did not remove the link.

Time Warner & Comcast deal to take over Adelphia (update needed)

This page is long overdue for an update on the Time Warner/Comcast deal to take over Adelphia's assets. A good source for info is http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/21/technology/adelphia/. I think a table similar to the one on that site showing what areas are transferring to what company might be helpful, especially as we get closer to actual completion of the deal. I'd do it but I'm new and don't have the skills =)

• hmm, still nothing? Zen Jeff 12:14, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Board of Directors?

Would it be appropriate to list the members of the Board of Directors?

Cleanup tag

There are a lot of external links inline. Also it could be written in a better style than a timeline. Nabla 22:34, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

• the time line was removed from the article as it was a cut and paste, also a copyvio from the comcast website, http://www.cmcsk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147565&p=irol-events, which added noting substantinally more then what was presented in the article, new information should be intergrated into the article and not in the way that it was taken directly from the website of the company. Also removed the phone number from the opening para, as it not relevent to the article. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 23:01, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Ah! Looks better now. Tks. Nabla 16:24:29, 2005-08-06 (UTC)
    • n/p --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 03:30, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

MediaOne AT&T

It is my understanding that Comcast purchased AT&T Broadband (who in turn had already purchased MediaOne... at least where I lived)

Except that in this article it is mentioned that 1) In 2002 Comcast purchased AT&T Broadband 2) In 2002 Comcast and MediaOne merged. According to the MediaOne article AT&T aquired MediaOne which I accept to correct, but it might have been a regional thing....

Comcast Spectator

I think that there should be a subsection to this article about Comcast Spectator, which owns the Sixers, the Flyers, the Phantoms (minor league hockey), the Wings (NLL team), the Kixx (MISL team), The Soul (AFL team), and three Baltimore Orioles farm teams, not to mention runs the Wachovia Center and Wachovia Spectrum, selling tickets even to their concert events. MikeNM 22:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

External Links

A good number of the external links all deal with Comcast customers as a source of spam, which while notable, seems a bit much. Should we pick one (like [1]), and remove the rest? I realize I should probably be bold, but I have concerns with trying to keep a NPOV. - Fordan 20:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

done. - Fordan 16:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources

I'm not sure where the authors of this article found their information, but if somebody could find them, that would be helpful. I know that there are going to be alot of Comcast and Time Warner users that are confused and worried about their services being switched, and, although the information in this article suffices, it is not verifiable. Here is a google search that could have honest sources. Thanks!

• Just reviewing this article from a recent changes link. The sourcing is pitiful here. I was particularly concerned to see statistical information being changed on a regular basis without sourcing; right now it is impossible to tell if there really was a change in the information or if somebody is subtly vandalising the article. There seem to be a number of "regular" and experienced editors working on this article; could you please work to address this? Anyone who is editing statistical information ought to have a reference for it, I would think. Risker 22:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

New Acquisition

Comcast has recently partnered with CSTV to form a new super regional sports network dedicated college sports. Do we agree that this should be added? Here's a link The mtn.

As well, Comcast just bought Susquehanna Communications, a rather well sized company, not sure where to find all the details about it. Honestly, I really dont care even though Im under Suscom.--Azslande 01:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Controversies and complaints.

I believe the last two entries under this section to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. They deal with individual customer experiences with specific Comcast employees, not with corporate actions or policies. Considering the 3 employees involved in the 2 incidents were all fired indicates that they were,in fact, violating company policies. As such I submit that these two entries should be removed.Bcunningh 18:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I must admit my frustration when Comcast refused to carry MASN, blocked Braves-Nationals games aired on TBS, etc. However, to their credit, they have resolved this misfortune, and I applaud them for doing so. In that light, I now wonder if it would be appropriate to delete the section criticizing them for not carrying MASN?

It is stated: "By agreeing to not compete head to head, consumers thus are perpetually locked into a single monopoly cable provider with annual price escalations reaching 93% in the past decade.[11][12][13][14]" But, without a monopoly no company would make the amssive investment of installing all the lines. Same with other utilities. It is government oversight that is needed, not angry articles. Articles should have a neutral POV. Therefore, I made a minor adjustment. Thanx. Mwinog2777 02:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Leave the entries alone. People should know the truth. Someone should mention that it is now officially proven that comcast is slowing down P2P connections in preferential treatment. The freedom of the Internet is in great danger. 66.91.214.29 21:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Places

I'm thinking about adding a section about were you can get Comcast Cable. Anyone think this is a good idea?'

Spareus151 17:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

If you mean where potential customers can check they are servicable, then no. You can go to Comcast's homepage and check that. Fr0 05:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Comcast call

What about the Comcast Technician that fell asleep on the couch waiting for Comcast to call him? This is not true because comcast employee's can not wear shorts to work. They must wear long pants for insurance reasons.A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch video on YouTube. --69.67.235.179 02:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

• I felt that it was lacking in encyclopedic value and submitted that it should be removed as noted above. Apparently someone else agreed and deleted the content.Bcunningh 07:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Presumably, Comcast technicians aren't allowed to sleep on their customers' couches while waiting for the mothership to answer their call either. If the comcast technicians are all as incompetent as the ones I've spoken with, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them wear shorts to work. 20 Aug 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.27.111.122 (talk) 16:22, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

Comcast Net Income

Comcast had net income $928 in 2005. This is according to their annual report and this website. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=cmcsa --DrRisk13 00:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Surely you mean something like 928 MILLION, yes? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jros83 (talk • contribs) 03:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

References

Where are the unreferenced parts, and if so, can anyone find the references for them?? --SunStar Net^talk 12:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

AMC?

at least in the Twin Cities market, AMC was recently removed from basic cable, presumably to encourage customers to switch up to digital cable, Should this get added to the controversies section? --Googleaseerch 05:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually it was removed because too many cutomers neighbors were stealing basic cable... Don't try to contradict me. You all know someone who is getting cable from his neighbor illegally................... Superstar 15:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not. apparently you live with thugs.--24.15.11.254 20

07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, in an rich neighborhood. Maybe you stay in a poor one where people can not even afford limited basic cable. Superstar 10:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comcast Digital Cable

I want to add information on comcast's internet service. Mainly information from their TOS, like the fact they usy Dymanic IP.--24.15.11.254 15:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Ehhh then do so. If it doesn't belong, someone will take it out.

Outsourcing

I'm at work this minute... not actually Comcast, but I've access to Comcast systems. Comcast certainly does outsource. I can't say they outsource the percentage that was listed, but they sure do. Nucomm and Convergys are two companies. I can't say I know of any corporation that doesn't outsource these days, it's simply a waste of resources to do it all yourself. In any case, clients are not commonly shared information so, there won't be too many references available. Fr0 02:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, do you have any published Reliable sources you can cite to support this? Apparently this is a controversial issue given the number of reverts around it, so if it's to go in and stay in, it'll need to have evidence in the form of citations to support it. - Fordan (talk) 00:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I said there won't be too many references available. :P If you have a Comcast account, you can call me and talk about it. ;) Better to leave them out, until there are published references which there will probably never be. Fr0 02:39, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

dont forget tag and stream. as other outsourcing centers. btw i think nucomm is an acronym for new castle comcast communications so i dont think its an outsourcing center. i could be wrong tho but.. maybe you can ask some at 888-999-0019 and see what they say. Peace - PsychoDeath

Houston

User:70.123.111.42 has twice added Houston, Texas to the infobox for Comcast's headquarters, which I've reverted both times. While Comcast is/going to provide service in Houston, the headquarters is still Philadelphia, unless something has changed radically without me realizing. Bringing it here for a consensus since it's a second revert. - Fordan (talk) 13:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. There's no significant corporate presence in Houston. -- Gridlock Joe 13:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Comcast recently took over TWC in Houston. Thats about all thats going on with Comcast in Houston. (Erik.hensarling 16:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC))

Question

I'm working on expanding the Maclean-Hunter article, and would like to know if anybody knows where I can find a list of which specific cable markets Comcast actually acquired from MH in 1994. Thanks. Bearcat 07:31, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Some helpful URLs I came up with. P.S. I didn't know the actual URL of the company so I wasn't able to try the Internet Archiver for a press release.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_n2_v25/ai_15752064 http://sec.edgar-online.com/1995/12/19/00/0000912057-95-011304/Section5.asp http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E1D81538F933A25751C0A962958260 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0E12F7345E0C7B8CDDAA0894DC494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fF%2fFederal%20Communications%20Commission%20 http://sec.edgar-online.com/1995/11/14/00/0000950159-95-000108/Section6.asp

CaribDigita 21:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation with Commcast

Is that a joke, that people might be searching for a third-rate comic book hero who used to be named "Commcast", but is now named "Black Box", when searching for the word Comcast? Unless there are more in favor of keeping it, I'm strongly inclined to remove that disambiguation note at the article's header. --Dude Manchap 20:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I especially like the fact that, according to the other article, this comic character is associated with another comic character named "Cable." Anyway, I personally don't see the need for the disambiguation; anyone who actually knows of this obscure comic character will certainly know how to spell his name correctly and not end up here. I say take it out. meateebon 06:35, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I'll just take it out right now. meateebon 06:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Quality of Service

Comcast has had consistent and increasingly more frequent audio and video dropouts over the past year in the Atlanta Metro Area.

NantucketNoon 07:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

It is Probably where you are located and your specific cable box, because I live in th Philadelphia Metro Area (Great Service), but spent time in Atlanta (2 months) and my service was pretty good.SpecialAgentUncleTito 14:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

How many people editing this page work for Comcast? I lived in Philadelphia for 3 years, and I know of no one there who claimed to receive "Great Service." Rather, the complaints about no-shows to install or uninstall cable, incompetent technicians, and long-hold times I heard in Philadelphia were consistent with what I've heard in the other cities where I've lived. If Atlanta is different from Philadelphia, then Philadelphia is probably the aberration.

~

After the system apparently reached a collapse, being out for several days, they have finally upgraded the area and there has been a minimum of problems. Most dropouts now are 'mini' or momentary.

While they update the cable boxes every night between 3 and 4 AM~ which one must beware of, as if the cable is on, the compression will be turned on, resulting in a VERY large increase in volume at 4 AM!~ it was NOT my cable box {or wiring}, despite the insistence by Comcast that that was the problem.

I guess one can be thankful for summer thunderstorms. {And Wikipedia?}

At any rate, it is a pleasure to enjoy my television viewing again.

NantucketNoon 18:39, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

CSN Links

Made all the links in the 2nd paragraph to the actual CSN pages rather than the Cities they were located in. jb 19:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Glitches?

I am not aware if anyone else has experienced the same problem (not an actual problem, I thought it was cool), but comcast uploaded the following finales to on demand before its original air date: Rome, The Wire, and The Tudors.

Thanks, SpecialAgentUncleTito 16:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

106 and Park Episode List

I love comcast and all, but they need to step it up a little bit. They need to have some episodes that will never come on the air on cable, but on the Comcast Box, they should have all of those 106 and Park episodes on there once a week, once a month, however they want to do it, I've requsted for it once and they said they'll do it but they're too busy. Can someone tell me something. - Skripted Songs - 11:33 P.M. 2007 August 13

Bittorrent throttle

It's being reported that Comcast is throttling speed on the bittorrent protocol on their network mostly upload speeds. Anyone know if it's true or if it's only certain areas? Lesty 21:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It has been reported in many blogs such as TorrentFreak.com that it seems to be true in most areas. Many solutions have been discussed; however, I found one solution for window that work for me.

Problem

Comcast is using an application from Sandvine to throttle BitTorrent traffic. When you seed, a few seconds after you connect to someone in the swarm the Sandvine application sends a peer reset message (RST flag) and the upload immediately stops. (From article in torrentfreak.com)

Solution

Use firewall to block a peer reset message (RST flag) from the port we used for Bittorrent

How

With wipfw, you can filter a peer reset message (RST flag) with this configuration in "wipfw.conf"

## First flush the firewall rules
-f flush

# Allow all internal (loopback) network communications.
add 100 allow all from any to any via lo*

# Prevent any traffic to 127.0.0.1, common in localhost spoofing
add 110 deny log all from any to 127.0.0.0/8 in
add 110 deny log all from 127.0.0.0/8 to any in

# Drop incoming packets with RST flag on BitTorrent port
# This is what thwarts Sandvine.
# Replace 8743 with the port number you use for Bittorrent
add drop tcp from any to me 8743 tcpflags rst

# Setup stateful filtering
add check-state
add pass all from me to any out keep-state

# Allow new incoming BitTorrent connections
add allow tcp from any to me
add allow udp from any to me

You can download wipfw from "http://wipfw.sourceforge.net/". I currently use version 0.2.8; however, any later version should be good, too. Over last week, I could seed ~10+GB to non-Comcast peers. -- iampad 2:57, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

NOW

I request removal of the word NOW from the sentence about the number of customers Comcast serves ... it is a telltale sign of the stupid PR people at Comcast. You should try to be less obvious. --69.150.163.1 00:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Be bold! - Fordan (talk) 00:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I am bold. Please revert if necessary, though. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 01:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Good edits, fellow Wikipedians ... Congratulations! and I must admit, although I would get rid of it altogether, "presently" does look a bit better than "now".

noob

Why is Comcast such a noob? Someone better look into that roflmochopz! --24.3.209.59 05:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Even current controversies should remain under "Controversy" heading

Hi,

I reverted an edit that added the recent controversy over Comcast's bandwidth limits ([2]) (Digg article) to the summary of the page. I don't think this type of thing deserves to be in the summary and should be remanded to the Controversy section (though in Comcast's case, perhaps there should be subheadings under 'Controversy'!)

Deptstoremook 16:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Monopoly Effects

The first paragraph in this section talks as if Comcast has declaired it has a monopoly and is fighting to maintain it. Falcon4196 21:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The heading "monopoly effects" screams bias. The stuff in this section should be mixed in with the controersies section, and a lot of the content of both sections needs to be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sephiroth m75 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

Well, I'm not a big-time editor of articles here on Wikipedia so I dare not judge on what is right and wrong, but some statements in this article seem very non-NPOV.

The following strikes me as anti-Comcast...

"Comcast spends millions of dollars annually on government relationships.[8][9] Regularly Comcast employs the spouses, sons and daughters of influential mayors, councilmen, commissioners, and other officials to assure its continued local monopoly and preferred market allocations, many of which have been questioned as unethical.[10][11][12][13]

Comcast strongly lobbies against federal "family tier" and "a la carte" bills that would give consumers the option to purchase individual channels rather than a broad tier of programming. These issues continue to garner attention from state governments, Congress and FCC Chairman Martin.[14]"

...despite all the sources/references.

Can someone please fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Digitall565 (talk • contribs) 22:29, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

there is nothing to fix, except Comcast's behavior. Check the references, and Get Over It. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.191.250.81 (talk) 02:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL the last wikilink is funny. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 03:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting article .. "How Comcast Censors Political Content"[3] in that it relates to Comcasts "government relationships". I'm not knowledgeble about Comcast so i'll leave it to others to see if it's worthy of a mention in the article. Wayne 01:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

hammer lady?

shd the article include references to today's WP article about the angry customer taking a hammer to comcast and smashing it up a little? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.243.65 (talk) 03:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)