I had a nightmare with Comcast last year. Every 10 min or so, my connection speed would drop to 0 (not just in FFXI) for just a couple seconds... in FFXI, this would often DC me a couple times an hour. This went on for a couple months until I thought I'd make good on Comcast's promise of 24 hour support.
The first time they came to my apartment to fix it they just fiddled with the cable in the wall, did something on a pad, and went, "It was a little loose... much better, and your ping is much improved!" and went on their merry way.
They came a second time a week later, same problem (they didn't fix it at all the first), replaced the cable jack thingy in the wall and said that fixed it and left. It didn't. Shouldn't have let them walk out the door.
Now I was on the phone with Comcast for a couple hours yelling at this lady. I was trying to explain myself, and our conversation was something like this,
Me: "Hey, yes, the connection is fast and yes, the connection works as far as surfing the net and such, but about every 10 minutes the connection drops to 0! As a result, this 0 droppage is sometimes just enough to kick me out of this online game I play a lot, Final Fantasy XI, and this just isn't going to work like this."
Comcast lady: "Hmmm... we don't support this... this Final Fantasy XI. Did you contact the game company?"
Me: "No, because this has nothing to do with them. You are my ISP, right?"
Comcast lady: "Yes, but we don't support online games. Did you contact the company?"
Me: "Lady, the game company isn't the company that is giving me internet service -- you are! Nobody else has this problem but me."
Comcast lady: "Hmmm... yeah, you really should call this company just to be sure. What company is it?"
And it went on and on in circles like this until she realized -- apparently she was running a diagnostic on my connection while we were talking -- that my connection was dropping spasmically to practically nill every so often and agreed to send someone over a third time.
Finally they installed new cable modem and connection is firm as bricks since, with moderate service outage exceptions.
- Neo
