Trying to decide: Swisscomm or Cablecom

Tech, TV, Mobile, Internet and Geek Corner
21
I have had nothing but trouble with Cablecom, but hey ho, still with them.

Swisscom seem very expensive, although never heard any complaints from those who are with them.

Most of my complaints stem from terrible customore service and several claims of saying they had done something when they hadn't, i.e. switch my service address. They managed to switch my billing address perfectlly well, and of course I was expected to pay this whilst receiving no service.

Once they claimed to have matched service and billing address it still didn't work.

They said they would send me a new box, and then if still not working, send an engineer. Of course, the perfect logical suggestion of sending an engineer with a box was far too complicated for them to ponder.

Well I waited another week or so, and phoned for like the 7th time in a near 2 month period. Waited the standard 15-25min to get through to a human being went through my whole story for the 7th time , and found out that my box had been sent to my old address, along with where the service was continuing to be provided.

Well, I got my new box in the end, and a free upgrade to a full package so all is swell in the land of UPC cablecom now, apart from a fluctuating WIFI signal, but when its on the up it is supposedly the "fastest in the world"

22
Never had any real complains regarding Cablecom. Only don't like the way they bill... I always receive the bills always halfway the pay date. Really annoying.

23
I have had Cablecom Internet for some years, no problems. The apartment building subscribed to Cablecom's minimum TV package, that subscription ends at the end of 2012. Recently I upgraded to Cablecom's Smart Combi @ CHF 79.80/month. Next year there will be an additional charge, reflecting the end of the building's subscription. My upgrade doubled my Internet speed to about 50gb

I also upgraded the Internet service I have for a Bouveret rental flat with Teledis; approximately the same deal as with Cablecom save that the "additional charge" for the basic service doesn't apply. And unlike Cablecom they don't provide a TiVo-type modem, you just plug into a coax.

Both provide VoIP telephone service which I don't use because I get all my calls on my mobile, and anyway I have a Vonage service that gives me free calls to everywhere, and virtual phone numbers in the USA and Europe where people want to call me.

I also have Sky TV (£31 a month). Costly, especially since I don't watch it much, and partly duplicated by Cablecom. But there you are.

24
Swisscom for me. Bulletproof.

Been with them since 2009 - not one issue.

I am prepared to pay a premium - they are the incumbent.

Customer service is spot on.

I have seen UPC's offering and am simply not convinced. They do not currently have BBC1 HD or ITV HD.

I will stick with copper - it works, and works very well.

25
They have BBC1 HD, not ITV tho.

26
Just moved from Swisscom to Cablecom, and thus far I regret doing so.

I chose Cablecom because they are cheaper and offered a "switching premium". I applied for said premium only to receive a poorly written and confusing letter giving me a reason why I cannot benefit from it. The adage "if you cannot convince them, confuse them" comes to mind.

I received all the hardware on time, so that was good. After hooking everything up, nothing worked.... phoned Cablecom, transferred from one rep to the next, finally got them to send an engineer out.... two days later. Four days without broadband for a teleworker like myself is a nightmare.

Engineer shows up, turns out the cabling to my apartment wasn't even plugged in at the main distributor. After hooking everything up the internet did not work, I was told to wait an hour for the modem to "activate", three hours later, still no internet. Called the helpdesk, explained the situation, rep tells me they might be able to get someone come by... on Monday.

Miraculously the internet started working after I unplugged everything and waited two hours, but only intermittently.

With regards to the Cablecom set top box... it's extremely slow and has a lousy and confusing menu.

I'm now contemplating using the "Rückgabegarantie" and hand everything back to Cablecom, already tired of their piss-poor service.

I now know why they are so cheap.... you get what you pay for.

27
They are not all that cheap. Swisscom is only marginally more expensive. Of course you get that speed package from Cablecom but for the average user like me the speed of Swisscom is more than enough.But it is a problem when 2 or more PC's plus a television are hooked up to the same modem. Then the download rate is cut somewhat. For one PC and a TV no problem.

28
better to wait and see what this is like

http://www.upc-cablecom.ch/b2c/tools/projecthorizon.htm

29
We have Cablecom and couldn't be happier. Previously had Swisscom and they were shocking especially the dropouts every time the phone was used.

With cablecom we have the phone, TV, 3-4 computers all running at the same time and Cablecom handles it well

30
We have had UPC Cablecom since moved to CH.

I got the full package 100 MB internet, TV and telephone.

Nobody has mentioned it, but with this package you get free calls

to landlines of 34 countries, including Italy (where I'm from) and

USA (where my wife is from), so we call for free to our relatives,

parents, friends....

Also to mention that the TV box is from Cisco (so not cheap)

and we got Wireless router.

Overall I'm satisfied, internet is blazing fast, quite a choice of

Italian and English (American) TV, and free calls abroad on

landlines.

31
My former boss used to work for Swisscom. To my amazement, he explained to me that there was no good reason to pay Swisscom CHF 25 a month for a landline. Do what the younger generation is doing - use Skype.

I had been using Cablecom for internet and TV since 2002. So I added the phone to that - which is free as I have the "combi" package.

No regrets leaving Swisscom. I am buying a new flat and told the architect not to even put a landline in.

Now I do use Swisscom for mobile telephone service. I think they are overpriced (especially relative to Europe) but I am not comfortable with the fine print from Orange or Sunrise. So in this case, I grudgingly pay the premium for the mobile coverage, transparency and customer service. They have taught me however to basically shut my phone down when I am out of the country. Don't surf the net in another country. I even got burned using Skype. So I switch the phone OFF and turn it on every so often to check messages.

32
In FR-1752 only BBC HD not BBC 1 HD.

33
I switched from Sunrise to Cablecom about a year ago. Glad I did. Sunrise offered poor customer service and poor connection speeds..

Cablecoms speeds are much better and more reliable. Plus they offer a good cable TV package. I would have no reason to switch to Swisscom. If a service is reliable, than customer service is irrelevant.

34
Not sure about others, but there is no English helpdesk for Cablecom and I'm really struggling now to fix my internet connection (I got the new modem yesterday- it worked for a while and then stopped working!!)

35
Ask for an English speaking person-sure they have.

What exactly is problem? Try unplugging it then plug in again.

36
Eh... if you don't press any button when phoning CC you get put through to an advisor, or hit the SD button and with the exception of 1 time have always got someone who spoke English, or the put me through to someone who did. Why do they need a specific English help desk?

37
We are here for one year only (we leave in 4 weeks).

We took the cablecom combo at 99 chf per month.

It includes telephone, TV (lots of channels) and Internet (very fast).

The combo includes all calls to land lines in 34 countries, including

Canada (I call my mom once a week) and the USA (my wife calls her

mom every week). I have been happy with the service.

JohnMtl, you are from Canada. TV-Internet-Phone is one of the

few items that are less expensive in Switzerland than in Canada.

(Another one is beer! Today I bought 24 50cl cans of Anker beer

for only 12 chf (at half price at COOP). In Quebec, I am lucky

if I can find 24 33cl bottles for 24 CA$).

38
Agreed, I have similar experience. Several years ago the service was very poor, but since UPC took on Cablecom it has been very good.

39
Dialogue with Cablecom

Since 3 months ago, the Internet connection became slow. Now it is extremely low. Can you please check what is the problem and fix it? Thanks

> I've run some first tests on your hispeed connection - here's what I've

> found so far:

>The cablemodem has passed all tests so far and seems to be working

> flawlessly

> - The signal values of your connection are of good quality

> - As i can see, there are some peaks in the utilization of the network at

> peak hours.

>

> As i also can see, you have a little older version of cablemodem.

>

> - Therefore we initiated the change of your cablemodem. You will receive a

> new cablemodem by post.

> The new cablemodem has some benefits about the performance (channel

> bundeling).

>

> The new modem will be activated automatically within 24 hours after

> delivery. The modem can't be activated manually

> Please use all the new parts and send the old parts to the following

> address:

>

> cablecom GmbH

> digital phone & hispeed internet

> Steigstrasse 2

> 8610 Uster

>

> Please inform us afterwards if the isue could be resolved with this

> procedure.

What exactly does Cablecom consider as "working

flawlessly"? A few days ago I measured the speed and it was <500kb download and <80kb upload.

For me this bandwidth is not acceptable. But maybe for Cablecom it is

acceptable.

Could you please confirm and send me your measurements?

>It was meant that the signal values to your modem are good.

>Please check the speed again as soon you received the new modem.

Got the box, installed it, run the test, it looks like this:

[image: Inline images 1]

Does it look normal to you?

For me, it doesn't. It is still well-well under the offered bandwidth.

>Our Internet services are offered by the principle of "best effort".

>Your connection is affected at peak times. We apologize for this >circumstances.

>Cablecom's cable network will be expanded continuously.

>This should increase the capacity and solve the issue. The extension date >for your region is not fixed yet.

>For the above reasons I will enter you a 1 month credit for your internet >connection.

>In this case your subscription continues to run with the current rate.

>The credit is shown on one of the next two bills.

>Of course you have the option to switch to a lower subscription to reduce >your monthly fees.

>Please note that a change of the subscription has a one-year contract >extension result.

So what you are telling me is that "best effort" is enough and that there is no minimum bandwidth expressed as a % of the advertised bandwidth?

Can you please tell me which of the pasted below packages I have? (10mb or 25mb)

So what you are telling me, is that you can publish ANY kind of bandwidth and just deliver "your best effort" with no minimum average bandwidth. Correct?

Until now, I got no answer to this last question.

40
Cancel it and switch to Swisscom. If they don't give an estimate on when they will upgrade your region, you'll be frustrated with poor network performance every day. They should let you cancel without any notice period because they're unable to deliver usable internet speeds. (It's not just the speed, it's more the dropped packets which make things like Skype impossible to use during peak hours.)

When I had this issue about 4 years ago, they offered me 3 months of free service and the ability to cancel my contract immediately, but maybe they've changed their policies now though. I cancelled and switched to Swisscom which is more expensive, but at least it works flawlessly.