Comcast, the largest cable company in the United States, is an annoying, mediocre service provider. And while it’s true that Comcast’s customer service is notoriously terrible and its pricing structure can be confusing, there are reasons to consider sticking with the company. If you’re on the fence about whether or not it’s time to switch providers, here are the reasons why you should reconsider Comcast:
Slower Internet
Comcast has been rated as the worst internet service provider ISP by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. It’s easy to see why, too. Comcast’s slow speeds are a major problem for anyone who wants to stream, download or game online. It’s also a problem for people who work from home and rely on the web to get work done. Comcast has been found to have some of the slowest internet speeds in the country — even slower than satellite services like HughesNet and Exede! It gets even worse when you compare how much money you’re paying for those low speeds.
In May 2019, PCMag published its annual Fastest ISPs feature, which ranks major ISPs based on three factors: download, upload, and latency. The results showed that Xfinity from Comcast took third place in the download category with an average speed of 80.7 Mbps (megabits per second) behind Cox at 81.4 Mbps and Spectrum at 80.9 Mbps. However, Xfinity‘s average upload speed of 31.26 Mbps was significantly lower than Cox’s 37 Mbps and Spectrum’s 34.46 Mbps — making it one of only two ISPs whose upload speeds were slower than 30 Mbps during testing.
Higher Prices
If you’re already paying for internet and TV services, you might be paying too much. That’s because the average cost of bundled packages has risen by $1,500 since 2010 — and they’re still climbing. If you bundle both internet and TV with Comcast’s Xfinity Triple Play package, you’ll pay an average of $200 more per year than customers who don’t bundle their services. And if you bundle three or four services together to save money, you could spend even more each month. The average Comcast customer pays $150 per month for cable, internet, and phone. That’s more than twice what customers pay in the U.K., Germany, and France.
Poorer Customer Service
Comcast has a reputation for poor customer service. Online customer reviews of Comcast are consistently negative. You can read them on sites like Bright House Networks and Cox Communications. Comcast’s customer service is famously bad because it’s outsourced to third-party call centers in India and the Philippines. These call centers are understaffed and overworked — they have to deal with thousands of customers at once while speaking English as a second language.
When you call Comcast, you may get someone who doesn’t understand your problem or speaks your language. In some cases, you’ll get put on hold indefinitely while waiting for someone who can help you. Comcast’s customer service is so bad that employees are afraid to forward calls to a supervisor because they’ll be punished. Employees are told not to apologize or even acknowledge that the company is at fault for problems with its service. Instead, they’re ordered to pretend everything is fine, even when it isn’t.
They’re Just Big, Boring, and Not Innovative
Like most big companies, Comcast isn’t very innovative. They’d have a much better reputation if they were more innovative and offered more value-added services like streaming. But they don’t. They keep doing what they’ve always done: offering cable TV and internet access at high prices with poor customer service. But if that’s all you need from them, then maybe it’s worth sticking with them!
Comcast has been around forever, and they’ve gotten so big that it just can’t be bothered with innovation. They’re like Microsoft was in the 1990s: they have no reason to innovate because they’ve got their market locked up by being so big and powerful. When you’ve got millions of subscribers who don’t want anything more than cable TV and broadband internet, then why bother?
It’s All About the Money for Them
As soon as Comcast realized that we were all stuck with them for our cable TV and internet service for the foreseeable future, they stopped caring about us as customers. They stopped caring about our problems and complaints because there was nothing we could do about them anyway — until now! They have no incentive to provide you with a better service at a lower price because you have no choice but to pay whatever they charge. If you decide to switch providers or move elsewhere, they lose money on an installation fee and future monthly fees throughout your contract.
They still use coaxial cables
Comcast’s network is based on coaxial cables. That may sound archaic, but it means they can’t handle the bandwidth-intensive tasks you want your service to perform. The problem is that coaxial cable is old and outdated technology that can’t deliver the speeds you need for today’s data-heavy world. In most cases, getting real high-speed internet using a coaxial cable is impossible because there are too many obstacles (like trees).
No Competition, No Better Service
One of the biggest complaints I hear from people who are unhappy with their cable company is that there’s nowhere else to go. That may be true in certain parts of the country, but we have four different cable companies to choose from in my area. None of them are perfect, but at least I have options. And when one company starts offering better service or better prices than another, I can switch without losing access to my favorite shows and movies. Comcast’s monopoly on the cable market creates a lack of competition — and as we all know, competition keeps businesses honest.”
Comcast Doesn’t Have Much Variety
While it’s true that many cable companies offer Internet speeds up to 1 Gbps and TV packages with more channels than you could ever watch, Comcast doesn’t have anything like that. Comcast might be fine if you all want the internet and maybe some phone service — and not much else. But if you’re interested in streaming 4K video or cutting the cord entirely, plenty of other options offer more flexibility at a lower price point than Comcast does.
