| > I sincerely disagree, especially as per the report Comcast's own second level confirmed there was no need to replace the modem. I am skeptical of this - maybe we made a mistake in telling the customer that. The people that are sent notifications are carefully checked to match the EOL/EOS modem criteria or speed mismatch criteria and would not be sent otherwise. It is sometimes the case that a customer has recently upgraded their device but their old device remains provisioned and on their account (and needs to be removed), which sometimes explains this. > It was an automated advertisement done in a very not good way; It was not an ad - it was a request that the customer replace/upgrade their device. They can buy that anywhere, whether used on eBay or new on Amazon, etc. > Comcast's own billing system notifies you of just about everything else; you can forward your billing statements and other such information to other emails, why not this? We've been working to greatly simplify billing, as customers have told us for some time that we were packing too much info into those statements and it was sort of information overload. > The reason everyone is freaking out is because they feel pretty darn strongly that the ISP should not be injecting code into webpages delivered, Available alternatives are not great, such as using DPI everywhere, DNS modification (we use DNSSEC), or a walled garden (all service disrupted while in walled garden). These methods tend to be more costly and cause more disruption for customers. As noted elsewhere, we're working on better methods and part of that might depend on Internet-wide standards rather than something Comcast-specific (which is always my personal preference). > If this is to be a service, the bar for what is necessary for such information must be far higher than "an automated system decides it's time." We get into really scary territory just by doing this in the first place, but to use it for advertisements or basic maintenance? That is a misuse of such technology. It's not basic maintenance - that should always be transparent to customers. This is about moving to new technology from outmoded technology. A good example of a key concern for modem upgrades is that the vendor does not support it any longer and the software/hardware is 8 - 10 years old. |
The crux of disagreement is the method of delivery and the importance of the upgrade requiring this sort of injection. You write:
> Available alternatives are not great, such as using DPI everywhere, DNS modification (we use DNSSEC), or a walled garden (all service disrupted while in walled garden). These methods tend to be more costly and cause more disruption for customers.
I'm still not convinced as to why a phone call or an email would not suffice. What information is specifically being cited by customers as "information overload"? Why can this not simply be a notification as a part of the Xfinity main page? Why isn't an email that only has information on the EOL of a modem is less obstructive than yet another pop-up for users who are trained to ignore pop-ups?
The case for an injection isn't really made simply because other intrusive methods are more intrusive; the presentation of the message itself is just more information in a sea of information, and the criticality of the issue isn't sufficiently justified either. This is not the appropriate way of communicating information that has no such urgency. It's a very nice thing to phase out modems that are EOL, sure, I will grant that. But the information is not so urgent that it needs to be delivered right now or injected into the webpage. That is not something the ISP should be doing, which I suspect is another point of contention that will be had.