Comcast Hates You: A Tragicomedy in Three Acts
August 11, 2007
Well, they do if you use their high-speed Internet service and want to send email.
I have Comcast at home for cable, Internet, and digital phone. I haven’t been an unhappy customer by any means, though I have always found them expensive and Luddite. I got a kick out of it a few weeks ago when they called out of nowhere to announce a price drop, but this was on or about the day my city government approved Verizon to provide FIOS service here. Competition is a wonderful thing.
So anyway, yesterday I was working at home and I found my email was not sending successfully. I didn’t fuss it with it much for a bit, as I was busy with some work. When I started to debug it, though, I was able to figure out it wasn’t local to my machine. We have three machines on a secure wireless network hung off the cable modem, and none of the three was successfully sending email. So I got online to chat with Comcast.
This was the start of my fun. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of a much longer and more frustrating conversation I had:
Clueless Comcast Support Person #1: Do you need help configuring Outlook Express (the only email client they officially support, as they distribute it)?
Still Agreeable Me: No, the problem is not with the client. I have several machines with different clients, and they are all having the same problem.
Clueless Comcast Support Person #1: Since you don’t need help configuring Outlook Express, bye and have a nice day!
Still Agreeable Me: Wait! None of the email clients work and they have all worked fine for years. What is the difference?
Clueless Comcast Support Person #1: (Long delay, mumble, mumble.) Oh, you were sending too much email (more than 100!), so we blocked your access to port 25.
Still Sort-of-Agreeable Me: Oh? I suddenly became a spammer after several years of never having been one? I run up-to-date security software on all my machines. Which one caused the problem?
Clueless Comcast Support Person #1: Comcast values your security [Ed note: Clearly a cut and paste!] and we cannot tell you that. However, if you follow this 12-foot-long instruction and send an email from your Comcast email, it will direct you to a URL that will explain how to unblock port 25.
I don’t use Comcast email, but I had set up a Comcast login, so, good little computer user that I am, I tried what he said.
It didn’t work of course.
So I called this time.
Distressed Me: I was online, trying to get my email to work, port 25 is blocked, I tried his suggested fix, and it didn't work.
Clueless Comcast Support Person #2: Do you need help configuring Outlook Express?
Aggravated Me: No, it has nothing to do with my client. You blocked my access to port 25, and I can't send...
Clueless Comcast Support Person #2: Since you don't need help configuring Outlook Express, bye and have a nice day!
Infuriated Me: If you say the words "Outlook Express" one more time, I am going to kill you. You are blocking my outgoing port for alleged security problems. Your fix didn't work. What can be done?
Clueless Comcast Support Person #2: (Long delay, mumble, mumble.) Our security department is going to look into it and it will be fixed in 24 hours.
This morning, I got online again, new guy.
Tired-but-Somehow-Hopeful-Me: I was checking to see if the problem with my email has been resolved? And please don't mention Outlook Expr...
Clueless Comcast Support Person #3: Do you need help configuring Outlook Express?
Ready-to-be-Livid-Me: Please look up my account details for the history on this problem.
Clueless Comcast Support Person #3: Do you need help configuring Outlook Express?
Livid-Me: Are you going to unblock port 25 or not?
Suddenly Clueful Comcast Support Person: We do not lift blocks on port 25.
Cool-as-a-Cucumber-Me: Do you have the number for Verizon?
POSTSCRIPT: I ended up talking with someone in Comcast security. Despite what the first two support people told me, they do not selectively lift blocks on port 25. He did not have information about whether my connection was used to spam (I am virtually certain it has not been), but implied instead that they are doing this across the board.
The fix is challenging. Comcast's online help--and the tech support people--are only prepared to help you reconfigure a comcast.net email to use an alternate port, port 587. They do not tell you how to configure other email addresses. What I ended up doing was configuring my other emails to use smtp.comcast.net for the outgoing email server (port 587). This works from here, and I am hoping it will also work when I am using this laptop elsewhere.
I find a few things about this episode absolutely amazing.
-- If Comcast is doing this to more than a few people, they are astonishingly arrogant to roll something like this out without informing people. I found a number of other blogs discussing this.
-- Comcast hates their customers, but they also hate their tech support staff. Imagine having calls coming in about something you don't have a clue how to answer?
-- Is it a blanket change in using this port, as the security guy said, or was something happening on my connection? Who knows, but Comcast should have their story straight.
If Comcast is doing this, as the other blogs suggest, to combat spam, well, good for them. I hate spam. But if they are taking my money, they should spend some of it to roll out such changes in a thoughtful, well supported way. Their tech support folks should be better informed, and their online doc and Help should address the thousands of users like me who use non-comcast.net emails.
UPDATE: Another blogger says Comcast's port change will be ineffectual against spammers.
ANOTHER UPDATE: My fix works at home, but not at my office, where I had to revert to the old port and the old SMTP server. So either I need to find a more general fix or toggle between the two sets of settings (I have four emails...). Fun, fun, fun!
Posted by Bill Trippe at August 11, 2007 8:21 PM
Comments
One word (or maybe two): yahoo.com
I've had comcast for years, as an
internet/cable provider. They
are marginally competent in that
role. As an email provider
and administrator, no thanks.
Ride their infrastructure and
leave the applications to the
application providers.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your note, but I don't use comcast.com email. I have this domain and a couple of others hosted elsewhere, and use email there. This is precisely the problem I faced. They did not know how to help me configure my email client to send my mail through a non-comcast.net email. I am sure there are tens of thousands of people in the same predicament as me, if in fact Comcast is going to shut down port 25 access for all subscribers.
Posted by Bill Trippe at August 12, 2007 2:22 PMBill,
I am constantly having problems with Charter. Just this last week they took out a cable modem, for no apparent reason, blows my mind.
I have AT&T SBC DSL at home it may have some issues from time to time, and they do make you request removal from the port 25 blocking.
So maybe someday there will be a nationwide solution, i.e. from Google or other..
Posted by Victor Caballero at August 15, 2007 8:13 PMPost a comment
Comments for this entry have been closed.
Comcast hates their customers, but they also hate their tech support staff. Imagine having calls coming in about something you don't have a clue how to answer?
Sadly, this is all too often the case when it comes to call centers. The people on the front lines are always the last to know about important policy changes or new "features." Often the only way they hear about the changes is from the wave of angry customers calling in about it. It's sad, real sad, but that's Business As Usual.
Posted by Spatch at August 12, 2007 12:11 AM