Comcast: Email update installer; AirPort bug?

Regarding our continuing saga transitioning from @home to the Comcast High-Speed Internet Service:

Email update When we last left off, we had finally solved the connection failure that resulted after the switch from @home to Comcast. Last week, we received a letter detailing what we needed to do to move to our new Comcast email address. As of February 28, the old @home address will no longer work.

We found the letter, and the procedure it described, to be quite irritating. Here's why:

• The letter lists a new username and password. You are to use this to login to their web site and access the Installer application that will install the Comcast software on your Mac, including setting up the new email addresses. Beyond that, the letter tells you almost nothing of value at all. For example, it does not even tell you what your new email address will be. Yes, it gives you a username. But it does not say that your email address is username@comcast.net. It was not hard for us to guess that this was the case, but why force us to guess?
  
  
• It similarly does not tell you exactly what the Installer will install. Nor did the letter - or the web site itself - offer any information on how to set up an email account manually, should you wish to bypass the Installer. For example, there was no place where we could find what the new POP or SMTP addresses were. [Update: As pointed out by a few readers, the information is online, buried on pages such as this one, under the heading: "How to set up multiple accounts."]

Still, we threw caution to the wind and gave the CHSI Installer a try (even though we knew from previous reader email that this was not likely to work well). It did not work well. In particular:

First, it changed the home page setting in our browser to the Comcast home page. This was easy enough to undo, but it should never even do this without your consent.

Second, it deleted our Network System Preferences settings (we were running Mac OS X). That is, it was not merely content to add its own new settings, it had to also delete our prior ones. Again, it has no business doing this without our consent. Making matters worse, the new settings were not the correct ones to work with our router. Thus, after the change, we lost all Internet access until we realized what had happened and re-entered the original settings. Imagine if this happened to some less-skilled user who did not even know what the original settings had been?

Third, an error message appeared (regarding a gateway problem as we recall) stating that it could not complete the installation. It offered to try again or cancel. We cancelled. At first, we assumed that this meant that no changes had been made. But in fact, the changes cited above had been made, despite the eventual failure of the Installer. However, we still did not see any new email account in our Entourage application. Thus, even after undoing all the negative changes the Installer did, we still did not have a working Comcast email account. We eventually had to call Comcast Technical Support to find out what the POP and SMTP addresses were. At least this went well (they are mail.comcast.net and smtp.comcast.net). With this information, we set up our new Comcast email account in Entourage and it worked. We also changed the password via their web site Member Services tools. This worked well also. On the down side, when we clicked the Comcast Support button, we got a screen that simply said "Mac not supported."

Bottom line: Avoid the Comcast Installer if at all possible.

AirPort and Comcast issue? We recently tried to set up a Graphite AirPort Base Station for a friend who uses Comcast (not the same Comcast local region as our own). While we have been successful with our own setup, we could not get the AirPort to work at our friend's house. We have still not found the solution. However, yesterday, we noticed Apple KB article 106759 titled: "Hot Issue: AirPort Base Station (Graphite) - Cannot Connect After Switch to Comcast ISP." Unfortunately, we get an "document not found" error when we try to access the article. Did anyone actually get this article to load? If so, we would be interested in what it said.

Update: We have received word that the article was pulled and that Apple and Comcast are in discussion about the issue. We still have no word on exactly what the article said. However, one reader warned that problems were especially likely if you used a CyberSurfer modem. Using a router with the AirPort may also be a work-around. There are a few threads on the matter in Apple's Discussion Boards. For example, check out this one.