Tag: cable Internet service

Where’s Google?

I turned on my computer this morning, fired up my browser and waited for my customized Google homepage to load. Nothing!

I entered www.google.com from the address line. Same story.

Two little applets, to calculate my AdSense revenue ($0.34 so far today) and check my Gmail inbox were both DOA.

What’s going on?

I normally use Firefox as my browser. I figured I’d see if Internet Explorer was suffering the same fate. It was not.

“Oh crap,” I thought to myself. “What has gone wrong with my machine?”

Luckily, the answer is nothing. It’s not my problem… well, of course it’s my problem. It’s just not my fault.

I found this on Bostonist.com:

We’ve gotten a number of field reports from users of Comcast’s cable Internet service across the state who are unable to connect to Gmail, Google, and Blogspot. One of our “Internet outage spotters” chronicled a tech support conversation he had in which the Comcast operator told him it was a Firefox issue and he’d have to switch to IE. Apparently Comcast won’t support Firefox as a browser.

Before leaving home I temporarily solved the problem by clearing my cookies, the tiny tracker files left by nearly every website. That’s not a good solution, because now I have to re-sign on to every site I visit.

Is this what they mean by Comcastic?

More Cable Modem Woes

For the longest time it’s been tough going with my high speed Internet service. Who knows why, but without warning, usually in the middle of the night, poof – no service.

I figure I’ve called Comcast 8-10 times about this problem. In the beginning, when the cable service would mysteriously reappear, I would cancel the service call.

The past two times I let the techs come. They’ve found some loose connectors and things like that. When they were done tightening and tweaking, they told me everything would be all right, and left. But, of course, it wasn’t all right.

I tried to figure out the problem myself. My cable modem, an older Best Data model, doesn’t have a diagnostic screen. I looked for some info about it online and found it only supports an older cable modem protocol (DOCSIS 1). Maybe that’s the problem?

Yesterday, I went to Comcast to lease a new modem. I figured $3 more per month would be worth it for the peace of mind.

No sooner had I installed it than it failed! This morning, with stormy weather surrounding us, my cable Internet service went kerflooey. As of this hour, it’s still out.

My guess is there’s something outside, between the pole and the house, that is affected by weather. Most of the outages come on cold nights. Today’s outage came while the cables were undoubtedly swinging.

Whatever it is, I need the cable guy. I called Comcast and made arrangements for a visit on Monday (I’m going to Nashville tomorrow). If I ever get service back, I’ll report on how it went.