Comcast Getting Bought Out Somehow Made Things Worse

I was a subscriber of Comcast broadband for the past few years. My IP hardly ever changed, which was great for remote desktop, and it was down maybe a handful of times over a year. The speeds were always near advertised rates, and over all, I really couldn’t complain.

Then Time Warner bought out Comcast and all hell broke loose. My connection definitely does not drop out every day (that would be exaggerating), but it has not been the same.

Over the last 6 months since the switch, I have had my connection drop at least a dozen times, packet loss (that’s like a minor connection hiccup) at least once a week, and my download speeds drop to dial up more times than I can count. I don’t understand how the Internet quality could drop so suddenly when only the owners changed.

I’m not trying to say Time Warner is a horrible Internet provider. I am asking why my experience is possible!

Perhaps I misunderstand how buy-outs work, but it’s not like Comcast’s Internet servers packed up and took a vacation. It’s not like they went in and downgraded their pipes. All of the infrastructure is the same, or so it should be. And with the additional resources of Time Warner, you would think quality would actually improve.

I don’t know if this is something I should blame on the monopoly status that Time Warner now has. Maybe they decided that they wanted to literally fix what wasn’t broken (upgrade all the servers). Maybe a new marketing blitz doubled their subscriber base. I have no idea. But it angers me that an otherwise great service got dragged into mediocrity by being bought out by a more successful company.

I’m glad net neutrality didn’t get smashed because the Internet is already jacked up enough from the consumer’s side.