There’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with slow Internet at home, especially when you’re paying a steep premium for a fast connection speed. Washington, DC-based Reddit user and Comcast customer AlekseyP came up with an interesting solution for this problem. Instead of wasting time calling up Comcast over the issue, he is using the power of Raspberry Pi to complain to the Internet Service Provider over Twitter under the name @A_Comcast_User.
Every hour, AlekseyP’s Raspberry Pi (he didn’t specify which model) runs Internet speed tests and then stores that data. If his Internet speed drops below 50 megabits per second, the Pi tweets at Comcast about the slow speeds. AlekseyP says he pays for 150mbps down and 10mbps up.
Since AlekseyP’s Twitter script went live on October 30, his bot has tweeted at Comcast 16 times over Internet connection speeds. He says Internet usage at home is not causing the drop in bandwidth. In fact, he says that many times the tweets happened when no one was at home, or late at night when everyone was asleep.
Comcast tends to respond to most direct consumer complaints on Twitter and in this respect the company hasn’t failed AlekseyP. But the Reddit user declines Comcast’s request for help every time it’s offered. “I have chosen not to provide them my account or address because I do not want to singled out as a customer; all their customers deserve the speeds they advertise,” he said on Reddit.
@A_Comcast_User Please send us a DM with your account number or full address so we may assist. -AC — ComcastCares (@comcastcares) January 30, 2016
The impact on you at home: If you’re a Comcast customer, or with another ISP that handles customer service on Twitter, you can play along with a Raspberry Pi, too. AlekseyP posted the code to his Python script on Pastebin. This code will help get you started, but you’ll also need to install dependent programs and utilities such as speedtest-cli, a command line interface program that tests your bandwidth speeds via speedtest.net. Python, the core scripting language behind the tool, should already be installed on your Raspberry Pi’s operating system.
Valeen on February 6th, 2020 at 22:07 UTC »
I did something like this a couple of years ago. Had what could at best be considered an intermittent issue. I'd have no internet and then when I called them and by the time I had a tech on the line it was back up and everything was normal.
After the first useless tech they sent out I grabbed and modified a python script off of GitHub that would run a speed test every 5 minutes and then send the results to a Google docs sheet. After a month of that and nearly 700 gigs of speed tests I showed it to the next tech that came out. He actually seemed grateful that I had actual data to show him what was happening and was able to diagnose it as something up stream. Within a week it was fixed and I didn't have any more problems. They also gave me some token bill credit.
design-responsibly on February 6th, 2020 at 21:35 UTC »
The article makes it sound like Comcast thinks they could solve his problem, but he won't let them and wants them to fix everybody's speeds, not just his. I wonder how that's worked out for him.
MirimeVene on February 6th, 2020 at 21:28 UTC »
WHERE'S THE HOW TO GUIDE?!?!?!