A Comcast subscriber who wanted to know why his Internet service disconnected when trying to use Steam was offered a bizarre explanation by a customer service representative who had apparently never heard of the popular video game distribution software.

"It’s probably a virus or it could be that it’s too heavy and it’s interrupting the Internet. Those are the only two things I can think about," the rep told a customer who made a recording of the call.

The customer was apparently trying to download a game through Steam when his Internet connection stopped working. He also described the problem on reddit, saying that his 50Mbps Comcast service would initially provide 6Mbps downloads on Steam before quickly "zeroing out." Re-starting the download led to the same result.

After hearing a description of the problem, the Comcast rep said, "I would recommend you to make sure the Wi-Fi is secure because it could be a virus trying to get into your computer."

The customer assured the rep that his antivirus had not spotted anything and that his Wi-Fi network is secured. That's when the rep replied that "it's probably a virus" or "too heavy," apparently saying the download was taking up too much space.

"It’s not a virus because over 50 million people use it," the customer responded. "It’s a service, it’s almost like Netflix or Amazon." Steam has 75 million users worldwide. Eventually, the rep offered to set up an appointment with a technician. When Ars contacted Comcast today, a spokesperson said, "we’re looking into this and are going to reach out to the customer to see how we can help."

It's not clear what caused the problem. The customer told the rep that "it's completely disconnecting my service to Comcast on all my devices. It’s something going on with Comcast while I’m using this program."

What is clear is that subscribers often have unsatisfying experiences when calling Comcast, which has contributed to the company ranking second-to-last in the American Customer Satisfaction Index ratings of Internet service providers. In last place was Time Warner Cable, which Comcast is attempting to purchase.

In this case, the rep may have been working from an offshore call center and seemed to lack basic knowledge about the kinds of applications customers use with Comcast service. We asked Comcast what training it provides these workers but did not receive an answer. Even a more competent employee may not have been able to provide anything beyond scheduling an in-person appointment with a technician, but companies like Comcast do no favors to themselves when they hire customer service reps who cannot converse intelligently with callers.

UPDATE: The customer contacted Ars, and let us know that he was able to download the file "after a few painful hours."