The Deep Moronosity of Comcast

A friend's tale of woe of having to deal with Comcast's e-mail system:

Just when you think they've set a new bar in incompetence...

OK, so I try to send an email and Eudora beeps and says "Unable to connect to host smtp.comcast.net". Can't ping it either, from this box or any other on the network.

Phone Comcast. "Please enter your phone number and a representative will call you back in one to two hours." Beepty-beep, "Please speak your name." Say name. "Thank you, please hang up."

Ring-ring. "This is the callback you requested from Comcast. When is on the line, please press 1." Beep. "Thank you. You will be directed to the next available representative." Lengthy silence, punctuated by a Denver Bronco promising he'll "intercept the next representative just for YOU".

Guy finally picks up. Tell him "I can't send any outgoing email from my local client."

"What do you mean by 'client', sir?"

"My email program. Eudora."

"Sorry, sir, I'm not acquainted with Eudora."

"Look, my computer can't reach your SMTP server, smtp.comcast.com."

"Did you set your outgoing mail to smtp.comcast.com?"

"Yes, that's what I said, but I CAN'T CONNECT TO IT. I can't even ping it."

"Pink?"

"That means my computer can't find it."

"Have you tried restarting your computer?"

Click.

Go to the Comcast website and bring up the "Report a problem via email" page. Fill out the whole form with a detailed problem description. Click "Submit" -- oops, no. THERE IS NO SUBMIT BUTTON ON THE FORM. The only way out of the form is to "X" it.

Stumble on the "Local Outages Map" page. Guess what: "We are investigating complaints of an issue that may affect outgoing email in your area." Dated SIX DAYS AGO, and the guy on the phone didn't know about it.

I also had a problem with Comcast's e-mail system, only I use Thunderbird. The idiot in Customer-Disservice said "only Outlook 2007 will work with Comcast," which is a damn lie, but he was probably speaking from a script and didn't know any better.