Category: Cox

Wherein Cox finally admits, they’re doing ‘work’

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So I’ve been having repeated net connectivity issues – mostly now it’s between 10:00PM and Midnight.

So every time it happens, I take the log snippet off my firewall and send it off to the good folks at Cox Communications.

So after sending the latest batch and saying I’m getting tired of this I get the following response. If you’re not familiar FEC is Forward Error Correction. DOCSIS is and I kid you not is Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification.  So in essence they’ve been doing system work which in my book says upgrades, patches etc. during the time period I indicated. It took at least a half dozen phone calls, 20+ emails to get them to admit that. Jesus Christ on a Stick!

 

Hello,

We have been performing work lately on the docsis side of the house ECR000000397606.  Not sure at this time if it relates to what you are experiencing as the only thing seen on the modem at this time are some FEC issues.  If you would like to schedule an appointment for a tech to come out for testing please advise, and we can provide you some timeframes we have available.  If you would like to hold off til after this work is done to see if this improves without a tech that is fine as well.  You can contact us in a day or two and ask for the update on that ticket.  Just let us know.

Well it seems the network problem got fixed

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So for the past few weeks I’d been noticing between the hours of 19:30 hours and 20:30 house (That’s 7:30PM and 8:30PM – or if you prefer 23:30 to 00:30 UTC) my network connection through Cox Communications would go away for a couple minutes then come back.

So last night I logged into my firewall and watched the status page. First I noted DNS failed for YouTube and then I saw the IP address drop.

Once it came back up I tagged Cox Communications on Facebook. And wonder of wonders the problem didn’t happen this evening.

Amazing.

 

TV: Something I noticed

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So I had thought I might drop the Cox video service some time ago. But what kept me from doing so was that Keyron likes it for background noise.

But I noticed something the past few days. The TV has remained OFF. Net video has finally replaced the television.

If this continues on I may well tell Cox to shove their so called Advanced TV service at $90 per month straight up Hershey Highway!

I’ll pay the $60 a month for the net service because to me that has more utility than a television service. I can for example, post to my blog, chat on IRC, get nntp news feeds, RSS feeds, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc. It’s funny – I was lamenting that Netflix only had The Twilight Zone when my favorite was the Outer Limits, the 1960’s version. And I note Hulu has the whole series, both the 1960’s and 1990’s versions.

Woops, update. The TV just got turned on damn it.

More on Cox TV Service

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Well, I have been watching the stats on my post about ditching them. And I note that based on the number of hits I’m getting per day, we could if we all told Cox to fuck off on video services, cost them close to $10 Million a year.

So do it! Ditch them! Go with Roku, Amazon Video, Hulu+ and Netflix. It’s cheaper in the long run, less than 1/3rd the cost of Cox.

Lets hit them where it counts – in the pocketbook. And thanks for reading!

Why Cox Internet Services are really starting to suck

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I sent the following message to Cox support. I’m just dying to see if I get a response.

I am very dismayed with Cox for several reasons which I shall elaborate below:

1) DNS service frequently goes belly up. Unfortunately I notice this as I use DNS for several different purposes and when certain applications start to complain, DNS is the first point of failure on the Cox network.

2) Bandwidth – I realize that coaxial net service is shared bandwidth and as such the speeds you promise aren’t real world. But for years the cost of that connection has risen, but performance has decreased over time.

3) Customer Service – don’t even try to suggest to me that because my modem is 4 years old that maybe it’s the problem. It’s in essence an RF device and as both a licensed amateur radio operator, and as a holder of a commercial radiotelephone license, I have RF devices that are FAR more than 4 years old yet still function perfectly. They may be able to shove bovine excrement at some people but not me.

4) Related to the above, your tier 1 people need to be better trained other than to follow a script. Scripts are highly offensive to those of us in the I.T. and InfoSec fields.

I won’t necessarily go over to Verizon but I am thinking about giving Clear Wireless a shot.

Cox screws the pooch again

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*** UPDATE *** Well – the fourth Cox technician came out today, three hours early I might add. I was bringing the new cat for her first visit with the vet – and of course that news was that for $300-$600 she needs dental work, and oh, maybe we should do a CBC etc to the tune of $300. I told the vet the CBC wasn’t indicated, and of course this is the same vet that I had to tell to do an ear swab because the little cat has ear mites.

So I told the Cox tech to check the outside plant and sure enough he calls me back and tells me that the trap and filter on the pole was bad. Amazing that it took four people to figure this out.

*** UPDATE ENDS ***


I’ve been down for four days now. During those four days I’ve had visits from three Cox technicians. The first two re-cabled my entire place. That did nothing.

The second one showed me the Edge Health record for my address and area – no problems. But I found the lie to that this evening. Right now I’m using the connection of a nameless Cox subscriber and the picture above tells the whole story. That’s right, they’ve had the same upstream problems I’ve had. I can’t wait to see the Cox technician on Saturday.

What Cox doesn’t realize is that I’ve steered $33,600 a year towards them at work. It would be just as easy for me to go and talk to a company I really can’t stand (I.E. Verizon) and negotiate better bandwidth for the same or lower cost. Granted, they get about $480 a year out of me for my personal account, but I bet that almost $37K a year will get their attention.

But it gets even better, as of 6:43 this evening my connection miraculously came back online, same as it’s done over the past few days. So there’s something on my node doing in my network connection. I’m going to have fun with the Cox tech on Saturday.