Contrary to past tech-support posts, I’m asking you a question, rather than answering one. I have Comcast high-speed Internet service at my home. We recently moved, and so I called Comcast to transfer the service to the new address, which happens to be about 100 feet away from the old one. Of course Comcast wasn’t able to make the transfer as quickly as I needed it done, so I was in a bit of a bind.
So on a whim, I took my cable box from the old address to the new one, and connected it to a coaxial cable coming into the new place, and what do you know, it works! The thing is, I don’t know why it’s working, or whether it might suddenly stop working at any moment.
I do have a few theories:
1. Service follows the box, not the physical address. That is, perhaps all cables remain active once they’re connected, and so the cable at the new address was always on, and when I connected my box it worked because my box is “active” in Comcast’s database and it doesn’t really care where it’s connected from. Perhaps if I didn’t pay my bill the box would stop working regardless of what cable I plugged it into.
2. The previous tenant hasn’t canceled their service yet, or Comcast simply hasn’t turned it off yet, even though it was canceled. In this case, I would be getting “free” service although I could be cut off at any moment. However, since the previous tenant moved out 2-3 months ago, it seems like the service would already have been disconnected if it were going to be. Then again, it is Comcast, and what incentive to do they have to turn the cable off? It costs them money to turn it off, but it costs them nothing to leave it on.
3. They already updated the physical address in their database, so the service has already been rerouted at the software level to the new place, even though nobody has come out to do anything physically. I find this highly doubtful, because I connected the box within 24 hours and I have a hard time believing Comcast could do anything that quickly. I know for sure that nobody has physically been to the new address to do anything.
4. Dark magic.
Does anyone know the answer as to why my Internet connection is working?
I don’t think they send techs to turn stuff off. I moved into a house a few months after nobody had lived in it. A few months later I plugged in my TV and the cable worked (which i cancelled). they then came and turned it off.
The cable had basically been “turned on” for six months.
I know of many cases where the basic cable service remains “on” when there is no cable box. In this case one can connect the cable directly to the TV to receive basic cable service.
i wish someone knew the answers to your questions. i’m trying to figure out the same thing. i want to use my cable box at someone elses house for one night to watch pay per view. they just have basic cable service.