Like many who work for themselves, I can’t write this column or do other freelance work without the internet. So, when the internet is slow, I’m slow. As I write this, for example, instead of working at 25mbps, I’m working at.20 MBPS or one-tenth the speed I thought I was buying from Comcast. Like nearly everyone who subscribes to Comcast, I have horror stories. In fact, if you Google “Comcast stories”, you’ll immediately find hours of captivating, though unnerving, horror stories. “Immediately” assuming you’re not using Com-m-m-c-c-c-a-a-a-s-s-s-t-t-t.

Verify speed via computer ethernet connection to router. Use comcast speed test and record info XFINITY Speed Test. Perform this at various times of day/eve if. Darryl notices his internet speed slows down to 0.5 Mbps upload and download until he resets his modem and router. There are a few things he could do. Call Comcast.

In light of nearly universal anger at Comcast, you might wonder why Comcast allows itself to be one of the most hated companies in the country. I think I have the answer. A couple of weeks ago, my Comcast modem seemed slow, so, knowing Comcast needed hard data to send technicians out, I recorded two days of speed readings using the Comcast Speed Test (). Most of the time I was getting one-tenth to one-sixth the speed specified by Comcast. Several hours of calls to India eventually resulted in a visit from a Comcast technician. He told me three times before even looking at my modem that Comcast only guarantees hard-wired internet speeds; in other words, sitting on the couch with a laptop and using WIFI to get to the internet doesn’t count.

The “fine print” argument. I was screwed. Sure enough, when he connected an ethernet cable between the laptop and the modem, the speed was 25 MBPS. It was WIFI connection that was slow - which, he reminded me for the fourth time, they didn’t guarantee. It occurred to me someone might have scripted his visit.

I tried to make the best of it and asked if he thought my (non-Comcast) modem was sending slow WIFI to my computer. (Maybe, if I caved and rented a Comcast modem, I could avoid spending the rest of my days in the library waiting for a computer). Without looking me in the eye, he simply repeated the “hard-wire” guarantee.

So, here I was in 2015 with a 1990’s internet. Goodbye Google. S7 Crack. Goodbye Skype. Goodbye Youtube. Goodbye Netflix and Hulu.

I must have looked as pitiful as I felt, because on the way out he gave me his ethernet cable. I took my modem down to the local Best Buy. A very nice “Geek” looked at the modem and told me it had nothing to do with my slow internet speeds; the modem either works or doesn’t work. “Like an on and off switch?” “Exactly.

The modem’s fine. In fact it’s a newer, better design than the ones Comcast rents people.” Between that conversation and subsequent Googling via my Ethernet cable, I learned a lot. From the 1960’s, when Comcast first began gobbling up local cable companies, to today, as the biggest cable/internet provider in the country, they did little to upgrade the systems, preferring instead to acquire more and more cable real estate.

They’ve also bought NBC Universal and all it’s film companies, TV stations and cable companies. They are now in the process of buying Time Warner, the number two cable company. In other words, they are about to dominate most of the country’s communications. Even as their bottom line is growing by leaps and bounds. With a company that big and successful, why so many angry customers? Because their basic product - sending electronic messages down wire - stinks. Let me repeat: the product you and I buy from Comcast is inadequate, lousy, sub-standard, an insult.

Comcast uses a kind of cable - installed in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s - invented by English engineer and mathematician Oliver Heaviside way back in 1880. While Comcast could have committed to installing modern, fiber-optic cable years ago, as Verizon did, they decided to keep buying cable systems instead. (In some cases they successfully campaigned against the use of fiber optic cable by their competitors.) In other words, Comcast is selling a 1950’s car wrapped in a 2015 shell. And without the 1950’s cache. Think of Comcast as a water company, with water as internet communications and pipes as the cable that takes the water to your home. Comcast owns the reservoir and the pipes.

The pipes are small gauge, old, rusty, and too few in number to meet customer demand. As a result, and without telling anyone, when more people want water than the pipes can handle, Comcast rations the water. They package small drops or “packets” of data, and send them down the pipes slowly. The higher the demand, the smaller the drops, and the slower they deliver to your home (or modem). Then, with no hose to contain it, the water sprays in all directions, only some of which makes it into the cup. This last stage is akin to packets coming out of the modem as WIFI signals, only a small percentage of which (one-tenth in my case) makes it to the computer (cup). Although they have begun replacing the old cable with fiber optic cable, they’re in no hurry, even though they had $2.5 billion in free cash flow in 2014 alone.