XFINITY WiFi

I came across a press release about a new feature Comcast is rolling out to its customers called XFINITY WiFi.  It is basically a couple thousand Wifi Hotspots that Comcast customers can access for no additional cost.  Most of the hotspots are in fairly public places like train stations, parks and shopping centers.  You can fine additional information here:  http://www.comcast.com/wifi/

The website includes the below map feature where you can type in your address and find the hotspots near you

Most of the available hotspots are in the Greater Philadelphia area which makes sense as this is Comcast's home base.  There are some scattered throughout New Jersey, Delaware, New York and Connecticut.  Unfortunately there is nothing in Boston (or Massachusetts) at all.  Looks like there are plans to roll out a couple thousand more hotspots by the end of the year so we may be seeing some up our way soon.

Water in the Cable Line

Over this past summer my wife (who is a teacher and was home for the summer) started complaining that our Internet would go down around noon every day.  She said it would usually be out for an hour then come back for a few minutes then go back down again.  Usually by the time I got home from work in the evening it was fine so I never bothered calling Comcast support.   This went on for a couple months until finally I was home one Saturday and noticed the problem.  Initially when my wife reported this to me I figured maybe they were performing maintenance but surely any maintenance couldn't be going on this long.

So I got on the phone with Comcast Support and they performed some diagnostics over the phone and determined that I did have an extremely weak signal and they would have to dispatch a technician as they suspected the issue was with the line.  A couple days later the tech came out while I was at work.  My wife was told that we had water in our cable line and it would need to be replaced.  Now, I am not sure how water got in the cable line in the first place as we had the driest summer in years in this area.  Nonetheless it fixed my issue.

I assume what was happening was in the morning the water in the line was cool and didn't affect the signal.  As the sun rose through the morning the water in the line would get hot and degraded the signal.  Then as the sun set in the evening the water would cool down and my signal would come back.  Not sure how common this is but I just thought it was kind of interesting.

Comcast DVR - TIVO Software update

Go an email from Comcast last week about some updates to the TIVO DVR software.  Nothing really groundbreaking, mostly functionality and reliability updates.  I played around with the new features the other day and I probably woudln't have noticed anything new if it were not for the email.  The highlights of the emial are below:

• Improved stability and recording reliability
• Faster and more consistent responsiveness, including for menu and Guide navigation and scheduling recordings
• New "Turbo Mode" continuous scrolling in Guide and continuous channel change
• With the grid Guide displayed, users can now continuously press (i.e. press and hold down) the arrow keys (up/down/left/right) to more rapidly scroll
• "Turbo Mode" also works in the Guide for paging up/down using the Channel/Page keys, paging left/right using the RWD/FF keys, and 24hr skip forward/back using the Advance (aka skip-to-tick) and Instant Replay keys
• In Live TV, users can now continuously press the Channel Up or Down key to enter "Turbo Mode" for channel change

 They also had a link in the email for a coupon for a free on-demand movie rental.

Free Showtime On Demand

This weekend only Comcast is offering free On Demand Showtime movies and original shows.  The Freeview as thet are calling it actually started on Thursday March 25th and goes through Sunday March 28th.  This does not include the regular Showtime channels just the On Demand content.  Comcast used to offer free previews of Premium Channels quite often but it doesn't seem to happen much any more so it is nice to take advantage when it is offered.

Fancast Infinity.tv Online Issues

This morning my 2 year old daughter and I were sitting at the computer watching a trailer for the new Disney movie when I noticed the Comcast's Infinity.tv now offers epidodes of Dora the Explorer that can be viewed online.  It seems that for some of the content (premium channels and Nickelodeon) that you can view online you also need to have that channel included in your cable plan.  When I clicked on the episode to view it I was prompted to launch Comcast Access to authorize my computer to use Infinity.tv.  This process involves downloading and installing a program and then logging in using your comcast.net account.  According to the website you can authorize up to three computers to use this service.

Unfortunately I only got as far as logging into my Comcast account and then got error code: 3013.  There was no explanation on this error code just a link for Comcast support.  I usually don't have much luck with Comcast's online chat help system but I didn't feel like calling the regular support line so I figured I would give it a shot.  The transcript of my chat is below:

Corazon> Hello Steve_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Corazon. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Corazon>  Hi Steve. Welcome to Comcast World! You can call me Cora. How are you doing today?
Corazon> I apologize for the inconvenience that it has caused you. Nevertheless, we will do our best to fix the issue.

Steve_> very well thanks

Corazon> I am glad to know that you are doing very well, Steve. I understand that you are having issues accessing infinity TV. Is that correct?

Steve_> yes

Corazon> I can certainly relate to your needs, Steve and to have you in this chat is as good as fulfilling my own. I am committed in wanting to provide you with the best customer service experience. You can surely take your worries out.
Corazon>  In order to assist you better, I need to pull up your account first. Could I please have your comcast 16 digit account number?

Steve_> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Corazon> Thank you so much. Please give me a moment to check the account.
Corazon> Thank you for patiently waiting, Steve.
Corazon> Have you accessed xfinity TV before?

Steve_> No

Corazon> All right.
Corazon> Let me check first if Xfinity is already available in the area
Corazon> The reason why you are receiving an error message is
Corazon> I’m sorry, but XFINITY is not yet available in your neighborhood. We apologize for creating any confusion. The ad was shown because XFINITY is available in some areas that are close by. You can visit XFINITY.com and sign up to receive an email alert once XFINITY is available in your neighborhood.

Steve_> ok, thanks anyway

Corazon> Is there anything else that I can help you with today, Steve? I'll be more than happy to answer any other questions you might have.

Steve_> Just wondering why I can watch some infinity tv programs but not others

Corazon> The process is not yet complete.

Steve_> Ok, Thanks

Corazon> You are very much welcome, steve It has been a pleasure assisting you today.Thank you for bringing Comcast to your home! We appreciate your business and value you as a customer. I would also appreciate feedback from you about how I can continue to serve you better by taking the quick survey after clicking on the 'End Session' button. Thank you for choosing Comcast and have a nice one!
Corazon> You may now click the END SESSION button on the right-hand corner and then, the YES button located on the bottom of this chat window.

A couple interesting things about this chat transcript....Based on some of Cora's responses I am assuming that their chat support is located overseas. Not that I really have a problem with that but I just found some of her responses really funny. Such as...

Corazon> I can certainly relate to your needs, Steve and to have you in this chat is as good as fulfilling my own. I am committed in wanting to provide you with the best customer service experience. You can surely take your worries out.

So accorrding to Cora, Infinity.tv is not available in my area but I should go to http://www.xfinity.tv/ and sign up for email alerts to find out when it will be available in my area.  So I signed up for the email alerts but also noticed that there was a dialogue box where you can enter your zip code to see if xfinity.tv is available in your area.  After entering my zip I got the following response...

It may be available in my area...what does that mean???  Why is Comcast rolling this product out on their website if it is not yet available in all areas?  Kind of frustrating.  They have been advertising Xfinity like crazy on TV I am surprised that it is not completely ready to go.  Hopefully they get this resolved soon and it becomes available in my area.....I promised my daughter she could watch Dora.

3/14 Update

I tried to view the subscription content again tonight and I am no longer getting the 3013 error code.  I was able to log in and authorize my computer and then I was able to watch the videos.  Looking at the page statistics for this blog I noticed that I got a lot of hits from people googling the 3013 error so I am apparently not the only one who was having this issue.  Not sure if it was fixed for everyone but if not hopefully it will be soon.

Comcast Data Usage Meter Launched

About a year ago there was some buzz about Comcast limiting the amount of data that users were allowed to download/upload per month.  Apparently some users were sent a letter warning them that they were consuming too much bandwidth and if they continued their account would be closed.  I never did hear of anybody that actually got their account closed but the threat was there. 

 

The amount of data that Comcast allows you to download per month is 250 gb, which is quite a bit.  Given that a High Definituin movie is about 5 GB, that would allow you to watch about 50 movies per month.    According to Comcast, 99% of their customers get nowhere near that limit.  The problem was that there was no way to know how much bandwidth you were consuming.

 

Comcast now has a solution to the issue with the launch of the Data Usage Meter.  To access this tool you need to log into your Comcast CustomerCentral.  Once logged in click on the Usage and Settings tab and then click View Details under High Speed Internet Data usage.  You should see a screen that looks something like this:

 

It looks like you can see the current month's data usage as well as the past 3 months.  Fortunately I am not even getting close to the data limits.  But I don't currently watch many movies online or download that much data.  But I can see how some customers may have an issue with the data limits.  With everyone in a family having a computer now I can see a large family hitting the limit if there are kids in the family streaming movies and such all day long.  At this point movie streaming is not as common place as it will be in a couple years from now.  Even Netflix only offers a small percentage of their movies for download.  But eventually I think we will see DVDs go away and all movies will be streamed.  When this happens Comcast will either have to bump up the data usage limits or offer a new pricing tier for high data usage customers.

A couple more details about the Data Usage meter:

• The email I recieved announcing the launch said it was now available in my area (North of Boston).  It may not be available in your area yet.
• The data usage meter tracks total household data usage (not individual users/computers).
• The data usage calculation includes downloads and uploads.
• The usage meter is only available to primary user accounts and unrestricted secondary user accounts with billing access. 

xfinity

Comcast is apparently in the midst of rebranding its product line as xfinity.  According to the Comcast website xfinity represents the future of Comcast and their promise to keep innovating.  So guess the products will now be called xfinity TV, Internet and voice.  They will be changing the logos on all of their vans and marleting materials in the upcoming weeks as well.

I guess the xfinity name is a bit cooler and younger sounding than Comcast but it does seem like an expensive undertaking that will just confuse some of the older customers.  Same products just a different name, guess we will have to wait and see if it sticks.