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Residents report Comcast boxes failing; committee to press provider and explore fiber alternatives
Summary
Committee members reported recurring Comcast set-top box failures, intermittent signal loss and network problems in parts of town; staff will compile a report for the town and explore alternatives such as Fios and Fidium and wireless 5G options.
A committee member described persistent issues with Comcast set-top boxes that caused freezing, reboots, failed recordings and short outages. He said nightly guide updates appeared to cause latency and that Comcast technicians told him a particular box model was incompatible with the network.
“We were getting skips on the network… It’s 300 milliseconds too slow,” the member said while summarizing technician feedback and his own testing of replacement boxes.
The member said he will continue testing a replacement box and asked the committee to encourage residents with repeated problems to log calls with Comcast because the franchise contract requires a company response when multiple neighbors report outages. He also said he would ask Comcast to ping and replace legacy boxes as needed.
Committee members discussed exploring fiber providers (Fios, Fidium) and 5G wireless alternatives as longer-term options for improved internet performance, noting the sensitivity of wireless to household loading and the need for further verification.
What happens next: staff will compile reported failure patterns and follow up with Comcast; committee members will continue to investigate fiber and wireless options and discuss franchise-fee implications at a future meeting.
