Update: Comcast speed problems in West Seattle

| Utilities | West Seattle news

9:13 AM: In case you’ve noticed this – it’s not just you. Via Twitter and e-mail, we’ve gotten reports of Comcast Internet speed problems – and experienced it ourselves in the 7 am hour at WSB HQ in Upper Fauntleroy. Comcast confirms it’s having problems – apparently not just West Seattle – and is working on them. They’re hoping to have it fixed by mid-afternoon.

12:56 PM: Multiple reports say this has been fixed as of less than an hour ago – let us know if you are still having trouble (but of course first make sure Comcast knows!).

THURSDAY UPDATE FROM COMCAST: Just out of the inbox, from Comcast communications VP Steve Kipp –

On behalf of Comcast, I want to apologize to our West Seattle customers and respond to the people who have commented here as well as my friends and neighbors who contacted me yesterday asking why their Internet speeds were so slow yesterday morning. The short answer is that we were doing some maintenance work overnight on a small portion of our network serving West Seattle. Normally, this type of work, which takes place nearly every night of the week on some portion of our network across the state, results in little or no disruption to our customers and is completed well before people wake to go to work. However, in this case, our network technicians ran into an unforeseen problem that resulted in the work continuing well into the morning and resulting in slower speeds for some of our West Seattle customers. If you have any questions about your service or would like to contact us directly you can call us at 800-COMCAST or reach us at We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com or @ComcastCares on Twitter.

DRW August 24, 2011 (9:20 am)

I hate Comicast! Time for the dish.

Mike in the Junction August 24, 2011 (9:29 am)

Boy it was slow- does anyone have any advise on other internet providers? Comcast has the market cornered and their pricing is way out of line.

Kristi August 24, 2011 (9:51 am)

I’m glad I got through to the blog…Now I know it isn’t just me.

J August 24, 2011 (10:02 am)

Still crazy slow – is it just me or is this happening more often?

HP August 24, 2011 (10:19 am)

I love that when my wife calls me to say that her email is down, and asks me what to do, first thing I check is WSB to see if there is a wide spread outage. Sure enough, I get my answer within 10 seconds.

Thanks WSB for being so on top of things!!

CMeagh August 24, 2011 (10:30 am)

Thanks for the update WSB. I am working from home, and several people were commenting on having problems with internet speed with comcast. I let them know the update thanks to you.

cj August 24, 2011 (10:34 am)

Yes its so slow that the speedtest web site wont even finish loading. I noticed the problem at 1am though. Looks like its still going on as of 1030.

Westie August 24, 2011 (10:34 am)

I have Internet through Qwest which is now Centurylink. Had it for a while and it seems fine.

S August 24, 2011 (10:34 am)

I would also like a refund for the time I was not able to use my computer.

Sue August 24, 2011 (10:37 am)

I thought I was having another router problem again … every page was hanging and it was driving me crazy.

Danny August 24, 2011 (10:43 am)

Was this just this morning, or the last few days? I’ve had issues for a couple days now.

WSB August 24, 2011 (10:48 am)

Danny – from our standpoint, this is the first time in maybe a couple weeks that anybody has mentioned a problem to us. And the first time in a long time that we have personally experienced a problem at our HQ – I got back online at about 6:45 this morning after a few hours away and couldn’t get anything to finish loading till I switched providers. – TR

brennan August 24, 2011 (10:49 am)

I had to look this up on my phone because of the lack of internet! I was up at 3 am and it had issues and they’re still going on (10:46 a.m.) !
Seriously looking around for good service providers…anything as good as comcast *USED* to be?

Jacob August 24, 2011 (10:49 am)

thanks for reporting on this, I was wondering what was going on :(

Meg August 24, 2011 (10:50 am)

Me too – in the admiral area. Thanks for letting us know! Cuz I’ve rebooted my routers, etc. thinking it was just my system. Haven’t been able to find out why it’s been CRAZY slow, since at least 6:45am when I first got on.

clark5080 August 24, 2011 (10:51 am)

It actually started in the early AM at around 2:00am

Danny August 24, 2011 (10:56 am)

I see, perhaps it is my equipment then. Thank you for getting back to me. I appreciate the info.

Anon August 24, 2011 (10:59 am)

Couldn’t play World of Warcraft all night because of the poor connection…. I actually had to go to sleep.

Heretic August 24, 2011 (11:01 am)

I noticed the problem at 1 AM. I called comcast and they said it would be fixed shortly. My friend called at around 10 AM, and they then said it would be fixed in the next two hours. Now I read this blog and it says mid afternoon.

I have a feeling it’s not going to be mid afternoon.

Defenestrator August 24, 2011 (11:03 am)

I’ve been experiencing horrible Comcast slowdowns off and on for weeks now. I never bothered trying to call them because that’s almost as frustrating as the slowdowns itself, and the problems always went away sooner or later. I hadn’t thought of contacting the blog until I saw this.

Pretty ridiculous considering we’re paying $150/month, and not even getting all the premium channels for that.

WestSeattleDrew August 24, 2011 (11:11 am)

Its been very slow or not working at all, all morning in Renton.

Alki resident August 24, 2011 (11:12 am)

Ive had Qwest for a long time and have never had problems,I love ut.Had comcast yrs ago,always had issues of some sort.

Bill August 24, 2011 (11:14 am)

Apparently the problem isn’t just limited to our area. Below is an e-mail I rec’d yesterday morning.
—–
From: rbscott@comcast.net
To: rbscott@comcast.net
Subject: {Oly-Sky63} Is Anyone Having COMCAST Problems?
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:03:46 -0400

At about 2 a.m. this morning, COMACAST stopped sending me e-mail. Well, that’s what I thought. Actually, the kept sending it to me, but it was dated July 10th, 2009, which wit was arranged in my inbox as though it had arrived here two years ago. Fortunately, the each mail message itself is dated properly, COMCAST re-dates it improperly. It was driving me mad. I could hear the “dings” of arriving e-mail, but couldn’t find it on my laptop or desktop nearby. I have been on the phone with Comcast for more than 2 hours. So far, all that I’ve gotten from them is “we’re sorry you’re having a problem sir” and “our call volumes are high” and “here’s your work order #BCR259032733. They could not or would not verify that this is a problem they’re having with their system and that other users are complaining, which I suspect is the case. If you’re a user and having problems let me know. I’m ticked off not by the problem but Comcast’s deteriorating customer service. It used to be excellent.

Ron

RB Scott

105 Haven Street

Dover, MA. 02030

Office: 508-785-0022

Mobile: 508-254-9900

Home: 508-785-0000

gene August 24, 2011 (11:21 am)

Here in the Junction I’ve seen problems almost weekly for the past two months (exception being the past two weeks till today). Comcast has really been abysmal . Qwest/Clear are not real options for those wanting to get more done than email/web browsing.
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Even with the City’s new broadband initiative they chose… Comcast for the Pioneer Square fiber rollout: http://www.seattle.gov/broadband/
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Sad. Really hating Comcast.

Metal Jesus August 24, 2011 (11:25 am)

This happens at a time I am seriously considering switching to Qwest/CenturyLink! They are offering a rate for DSL at $19.99 a month for 5 years.

gnatnetcrazy August 24, 2011 (11:26 am)

Between the fruit flies and the sloooooowwwww internet – I’m about to lose my mind! I almost expected to hear the old AOL phone connection sound while waiting for a page to load. (btw – it’s 11:25am)

Kevin August 24, 2011 (11:33 am)

I first noticed this issue around 4AM in the Arbor Heights area. Called Comcast, and ended up speaking to two different, what sounded like off shore support folks. Both very VERY courteous, but neither had (or would admit to) any sort of Comcast issues.
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They went through the usual dance of having me unplug my router, plug my computer directly in to the Comcast modem, reboot my computer, and also “reset” my Comcast modem from their end. Assuring me the whole time that they could see that I was receiving a good signal.
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The really funny part is that some sites like Linkedin, Facebook, and even the WSB would not even load – period! While other sites including Google WOULD load, and accept a search, bu then would usually crap out after attempting to go the link selected.
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Right now – 11:20 AM 8/24 WSB did finally come up, but still thinks it is loading. A good several MINUTES to be able to pull up the comments.
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Will be interesting to see what sort of time stamp this message gets IF it even makes it to WSB.
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Lastly, THANK YOU WSB for scooping Comcast on this developing story!
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In all fairness to Comcast, fortunately these sorts of outages seem to be rare for me. Despite the higher cost, they ARE about the best service available. Interestingly enough, WS was one of their first Seattle test areas long before they were known as Comcast, or Xfinity as they now seem to want to be known as. I have been with them for over a decade now, since moving from North Seattle to West Seattle.
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I also use their phone service which WAS working last night. For TV – my wife and I use DirecTV, and feel that is a superior service to Comcast.
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Lessons learned – it would be nice if they could get this info out to their support staff when they first see an issue.

Kevin August 24, 2011 (11:45 am)

PS – want to bury your head in the sand and “pretend” there is NO issue. Go to Seattle craigslist and you can cruise along just fine, with no clue that anything is amiss :)

Pam August 24, 2011 (12:14 pm)

Thank you! I always appreciate your reporting!

Jacob August 24, 2011 (12:33 pm)

Seems fixed here, knock on wood

Jiggers August 24, 2011 (12:39 pm)

How about going to sleep for a change when you’re supposed to.. maybe all of you work swing shift. My bad..

WSB August 24, 2011 (12:47 pm)

Or, Jiggers, some of us work “all” hours … there’s no “supposed to” for sleep. I will admit I went to bed much, much earlier than usual last night so apparently missed the start of this, although we have ex-Qwest at home and so I may well have missed it anyway. P.S. Kevin in Arbor Heights reports it seems OK as of about half an hour ago. – TR

MB August 24, 2011 (12:39 pm)

A few other people have asked this – I’d really like to hear from folks in WS (esp in the Westwood area) about which internet service provider they use. Our Comcast service has been pretty slow for a while now and it is expensive – I wonder what else is available around here???

golfer August 24, 2011 (12:40 pm)

I have been a Clear customer for five years and still pay what I paid in the beginning: $24.99. I’m not a gamer or a big downloader, but I stream video, upload photos, and work from home and have no trouble. They also have refreshingly good customer service. I haven’t had to call in about a year, but in the past it was always friendly, helpful, non-accented English speakers who answered. For a moderate internet user like me, they’re perfect.

coffee August 24, 2011 (12:48 pm)

Comcast told me middle of the afternoon before it would be restored and I would get 1 day credit on my bill.

visitor August 24, 2011 (1:00 pm)

was slow late last night too….. Thanks for the update. seems much better now.

Sarah August 24, 2011 (1:02 pm)

It was having problems here in Kent too, but were still lagging a little :S

Cami August 24, 2011 (1:03 pm)

Tracy, seems to have just come online for me. Looks like I’m working LATE tonight!!!

KMG August 24, 2011 (1:39 pm)

I was forced to go to Comcast and realize it is just horrible. The last time it went down (which has been about every two weeks for me) the guy on the phone told me next time that I should go to the chat desk and contact an agent that way, it is so much faster. REALLY!!!! I asked him, “How do you propose for me to go online when it is down” He then set up an appt to have a tech out only for them not to show. And when I called him back he told me it was canceled because they determined it was an outage.
Centurty Link is no better though. However, when I could have them at least the DSL stayed online pretty much all the time.

luckymom30 August 24, 2011 (1:56 pm)

We can search the Internet, but our Comcast homepage has down text on it and our email accounts are not accessible. URL reads: http:/xfinity.comcast.net?

Jeff August 24, 2011 (2:13 pm)

A rep at CenturyLink told me that now that they have taken over Qwest, they are laying out plans to cover all of Seattle with their Fiber DSL. Can’t wait, Comcast’s service is horrible. I too was forced into using them after moving and finding out the Qwest/CL only have 1.5 mbps down at my new address.

luckymom30 August 24, 2011 (2:27 pm)

Just contacted Comcast told that servie would be restored in less than 24 hours. We are in A.H. If we could have a 3 bundle package with another company we would get rid of Comcast.

JoB August 24, 2011 (2:45 pm)

i had no better luck with the comcast phone support system this morning.
hubby checked routing and found the signal bouncing through Beaverton, Or and Denver, Co.
for us.. in the Westwood area.. Comcast is the only choice. We had Clear but a tower “adjustment” eliminated our service:(
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sometimes it’s good to be reminded how patient i must have been in the good old days of dial up:)

Al August 24, 2011 (3:00 pm)

We had no connectivity at about 9:45 last night.

mrsB August 24, 2011 (3:14 pm)

Haven’t had any problems with slowness or lack of connectivity near Admiral and Lander. In fact have rarely had any problems with Comcast and if you call customer service, they will generally give a six month discount.

breezygirl August 24, 2011 (4:28 pm)

I have always been very happy with my comcast. I only use it for internet, no cable, and only have issues every now and again. I mean c’mon people! They provide service for hundreds of thousands of customers, there’s bound to be a hiccup from time to time!! Do not go to clear wire!! They are awful! 2 weeks after I started using them they shut off my internet telling me I used “too much bandwidth”. Deffinatly not an option for gamers!!!

sw August 24, 2011 (5:37 pm)

I agree with breezygirl. We’ve had Comcast since the attbi.com days and have had nothing but the occasional issue. Maybe not the cheapest option, but you get what you pay for. Folks I know who have had Clearwire have not stuck with it for very long.

Your mileage may vary.

Marc M August 24, 2011 (8:14 pm)

Comcast internet is stable & reliably fast…it’s just really expensive and they will send you mail every 4 days asking you to upgrade to their tv package.
If we didn’t live in a Communist country with telco monopolies, there would be other options..

Lisa August 24, 2011 (10:43 pm)

Still without my homepage and email access, but found out from Joshua at Comcast that the outage was due to Comcast upgrading their system. I suggested it would be nice if Comcast alerted their customers beforehand of outage.

k August 25, 2011 (5:49 am)

each time i have experienced slowness like this, which has been more frequent, they tell me it’s for upgrades. hmmmm….upgrading what? not a good excuse Comcast.