VeryCoxWeary
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Re: High ping, everything taking longer than normal to load
Last week (I'm in the Phoenix metro area) at about 8pm local time two nights in a row, our pings exceeded 145ms and our top speeds using Ookla's Speedtest and Ookla's Beta Speedtest on a second wired (via cat 6+) connection topped out at 11 MB/sec. I pay for 100MB/sec. We use a well-configured ASUS 3100 router (brand new). I guess Cox was saving the other 89 MB/sec for someone else's rainy day. I can't begin to tell you how many times my sons have told me that they lost this or that online game because of lag in the system. Once, I created an AT&T hotspot with my phone and the pings and throughput were actually slightly better than Cox's speeds on a few occasions. An IT specialist told me a few months back that when others in my neighborhood are on the Internet, if an area is overserved, since Cox's system is based on an older "token ring" system, that slowdowns are to be expected. I'm not a networking genius but he made a good argument for Google fiber...which is not serving Phoenix yet as far as I am aware.0Views0likes0CommentsRe: Continually horrific intermittent Internet service in a Phoenix, AZ suburb for months.
The head customer service office in Atlanta, GA that serves all Cox national regions called me yesterday. She announced that a supervisor would be coming to my home on Monday, Dec 18th (two days from now). This morning, however, Saturday December 16th, I received a text from Cox stating: "Cox: We believe your services are now working correctly. If so, txt CXL to cancel your appointment. If not, txt OK to keep your appointment. Txt STOP to stop." I texted OK. I will NOT let the supervisor "get off the hook" on this one. Does the supervisor think I'm an idiot? It looks like after 2 1/2 months of horrible service, they(temporarily?) fixed the problem. I want to know the etiology of the problem, why it was so difficult to diagnose, how it was fixed, and what Cox's policies are as regards customers with prolonged outage issues who call 40-something times and don't get assistance.. I did find out something that I consider an outrageous policy by Cox. The Phoenix-Deer Valley based call center agent told me late Friday that typically, Cox will not get a higher-tier agent or field tech supervisor involved until the customer complains TEN TIMES! This policy is outrageous and disrespectful to the paying customer. What do the higher-ups at Cox take us for? Idiots? It's wholly inappropriate to "yes the customer to death" over the phone NINE TIMES and finally troubleshoot a problem on the TENTH call. But since 3/4 of the agents that answer the phone for Internet tech support are NOT Cox employees, but are Cox "Business Partners" who usually fail to document your call, the numbers work out to where 3/4 of my FORTY something calls were ignored, and only those calls taken by agents who cash a Cox paycheck counted towards my getting help. This is absolutely reprehensible.0Views0likes0CommentsRe: Continually horrific intermittent Internet service in a Phoenix, AZ suburb for months.
I have reported Cox Communication's failure to meaningfully act on my technical problems to the Arizona Corporation Commission and to the Planning & Development Department of my municipality. Cox upper echelon has called and states that an upper tier field supervisor will be in contact with me. It took over TWO MONTHS to get any meaningful action on my account. What a shame.0Views0likes0CommentsRe: Continually horrific intermittent Internet service in a Phoenix, AZ suburb for months.
12/15/2017 STATUS PRODUCT INFORMATION Event Log EVENT LOG Event Log ADDRESSES CONFIGURATION SB6190 HELP The table below contains the log of events that the SB6190 has detected. This log can be important to the service provider to help diagnose and correct problems, if any should occur. Time Fri Dec 15 08:32:43 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:44 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:44 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:45 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:45 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:46 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:47 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:48 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:48 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:49 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:49 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:50 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:51 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:52 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:52 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:53 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:54 2017 Fri Dec 15 08:32:54 2017 http://192.168.100.1/cgi-bin/eventlog Priority 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Description No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Ranging Request Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=5c:e3:0e:3d:b8:2f;CMTS-MAC=00:59:dc:79:b1:d0;CM-Q0S=1.1;CM-VER=3.0; Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries0Views0likes0CommentsRe: Continually horrific intermittent Internet service in a Phoenix, AZ suburb for months.
I've had in excess of 42 Internet outages since October 7th, 2017. I have called in for help numerous times. Each time they tell me that the intermittency is difficult to diagnose, and I get a raft of apologies. The customer service personnel in Atlanta that serve customers in all US Cox service areas tell me they can only refer this to field techs, and that they have no control over providing feedback to me. All this for $160.00 per month. The event log suggesting an issue with the T3 line follows this post..... This has been happening virually every day, to every other day, since October 7th. T3 timeouts G A L O R E, DHCP address errors, and when connected, occasionally top speeds of 18 MB/sec when I pay for 100 MB/sec and Unlimited data plan. If you sense a bit of anger and sarcasm, it because I had to drive all the way to the Deer Valley, Phoenix, AZ Cox call center to escalate this issue on a technician-only system (thanks to security at that installation), and then had to drive to a Cox "Solutions" Store and put a manager on notice that your Atlanta headquarters dropped the ball, didn't or couldn't follow through and that I needed an Internet connection restored. The manager arranged for a supervisor/field tech to come to my home this coming Monday, December 18th to try and troubleshoot further. I've only been screaming at the top of my virtual lungs since October. I wouldn't be so P.Oed if it weren't for the fact that 3/4 of my calls landed in the lap of Cox Business Partners who neglected to document my complaints, and 2/3 of your visiting technicians were sub-contractors who apparently couldn't wait to leave my home even before they got here. I am "THIS CLOSE" to dropping my Cox service after 24 years of continuous service and going with CenturyLink 1 GB fiber for $80/month. Loyal customers who pay their Cox bill evey month since September 1993 shouldn't have to take EXTRAORDINARY measures to get the attention of your technical staff. This has been an absolute TRAVESTY.0Views0likes0CommentsRe: Rough gaming
While I appreciate the fact that this thread is discussing routing issues, I do want to mention that my three sons do spend some time gaming at my home. We never use Wi-Fi...all machines are connected by Cat 6+ Ethernet cable to an ASUS 3100 gaming router with settings optimized for gaming, connected to an Arris SB6190 16 channel modem. Extended ping times and choked bandwidth issues have been a problem during peak times at my home. And we have had months of intermittent outages as well. I have Premier service with the $50.00 unlimited data package. For the better part of 30 minutes on December 12th, ou r peak speeds via Ookla's Speedtest beta were 11 MB/second with a ping of 53ms. That's a far cry from the advertized 100MB/second I pay for. If you want to win an online game like League of Legends or ** Zombies*, etc, expect to LOSE. I suspect that the Internet Connectivity provided to the gamers in Brazil that go through Brazilian LOL servers is much better than what we have here with Cox. * Note: I mentioned two games above that are popular. The second game is based upon World War II in Europe, where Germany was run by a fascist party called the National Socialist German Worker's Party. Everyone knows what that party's name is shortened to, and the four letters used to describe it are not lewd or obscene, yet Cox is filtering that common word out in this forum...using asterisks instead!. Specifically, in German, the game is therefore called: National Sozialistischen Deutscher Atbeiter Partei-Zombies. (For God sakes!) When will this super-sensitivity end? Are these forums run by a bunch of snowflakes?3Views0likes0CommentsContinually horrific intermittent Internet service in a Phoenix, AZ suburb for months.
Since October 7th, 2017, I have had miserable service at my home in the Phoenix-area "East Valley." I have had a minimum of 38 (THAT'S THIRTY-EIGHT!) witnessed outages, many called "unplanned outages" by Cox. A few techs have checked and rechecked wiring at my home, have replaced wiring and contacts, have blamed low signal levels and line noise, and despite my many weeks of extraordinary patience, have left me and others in my neighborhood with ratty, miserable Internet intermittencies. If you call in to Cox to report the outage that Cox "tailors specifically to your needs," you might not get a Cox employee...you could be speaking to a Cox "Business Partner." From my anecdotal experiences, Cox "Business Partners" many times fail to even document your call, so be sure to ask if they are a Cox employee or a subcontractor. Hang up if it's the latter....because if you have a string of outages, Cox will not have an accurate count on the outages and may not believe you. Do not hesitate to call for a supervisor on the line. Tier one agents are a bit limited in latitude to do certain things, like giving you credits on your account. The biggest problem is that the information flow is unidirectional. You call Cox, report your outage, they log it and wait until others in your area also call in, then and only then will they send a report upstream to the field technician dispatchers. When and if the field technicians deal with the issue, they rarely report to the agent you spoke with or comment on your account as to what caused the outage. I have been driven to the point of near-madness explaining and re-explaining to each and every "new" agent how many outages I've had and how poor the response to correct these ongoing issues have been. I have been in touch THREE TIMES with the Atlanta, GA Cox headquarters discussing with Stacy and Michelle these recurrent outages but they too are limited by the fact that they are at the mercy of a field technician who may or may not document what they found and how they fixed it. Cox's philosophy when it comes to troubleshooting system intermittencies is very haphazard. Rather then monitor a suspect line leading back to their signal distribution point, they wait until a customer has the outage to begin troubleshooting allover again. Trying to narrow down where in the signal path a problem is when you only monitor the line intermittently is like playing a game of Russian Roulette. I tried to explain that this technique ignores the fact that customers are expecting uninterrupted service and aren't getting it, but customers like me who are already paying big bucks for Unlimited Internet have a right to exhibit less patience and have higher expectations of quality service. One technician who came to my home indicated that because others on my block were having recurrent problems, that a "neighborhood node" might be having issues. I have asked countless times about what they found out about our neighborhood node, but the telephone agent reports that nothing about it has been documented as far as they could see. So field technicians may or may not be dispatched, and if they are, they don't document what they find or don't find. I've been a Cox customer for 24 years in the Phoenix valley....and of all of those years of service, this last year has been the absolute worst. Moderators posting to this Forum will respectfully try to help, but they are kept in the dark about what is REALLY going on with faulty equipment in the field. They may not appreciate posts like this, but I just can't lie. When you make contact with Cox headquarters in Atlanta and speak to the upper echelon of Customer Support and still don't get anywhere, you have to conclude that Cox Communications isn't too concerned about a bad customer service reputation. After all, they just started the extortion program on October 1st, 2017, where after you hit 1 Terabyte of transfer, you are billed at $10.00/50 GB or can subscribe to the $50.00/month add on for Unlimited data. I did the latter and my service went right into the toilet. So what is left to do? The Arizona Corporation Commission advised me to report this continually bad service to my local municipality. I am in the midst of doing that. I don't expect miracles. But if enough of you customers don't get action on your own bad connectivity issues, make sure you let your city government know about it. Finally, make sure you get comfortable accessing your cable modem's event log file. You may even want to print the daily log out on days when you have dropouts. Save the page as a pdf or print the darn screen out. It seems that the cable modem I have (an Arris SB6190) clears its event logs daily. Your modem will not lie about bad service from Cox. Using your browser, in case of the Arris modem, type in 192.168.100.1 and hit enter. You'll be in your modem's logs. Those records may be your only proof of bad service. Our society has driven itself to be very dependent upon a functional Internet connection. Many financial institutions expect you to transact business over the Internet. Many of you are streaming live TV over that connection. Many of you have Voice Over IP services that depend on the Internet. Some of you have your alarm systems communicate via VOIP to a central station for your alarm services. Some of you have surveillance systems that depend upon this connectivity. You simply should not have to put up with frequent intermittencies. But I can assure you that in the fine print...in Cox's Terms of Service, Cox waives any responsibility should the Internet go down in the middle of a financial transaction, or simultaneous to an alert of a fire or break-in of your residence, or an important phone conversation. If you lose money or valuable time or data because of Cox's failure to provide the service it advertises, you have absolutely no recourse. And the higher-ups at Cox really appreciate that.3.2KViews0likes8CommentsRe: Connection Issues
The complaints in this thread are shared by me also. Since I started paying an additional $50/month for Unlimited Premiere Internet, my service has sucked worse than prior. Since October 1st, I have had multiple "Cox" technicians come to my home, rewiring even if it wasn't necessary, because a neighborhood node was misbehaving. I have called Cox at least 30 times and twice in the last 24 hours. Problem 1: Cox has hired "Cox Business Partners" who answer the tech support lines. They many times DO NOT document that you even called! So they show no record of your call reporting an outage. If you ask for a credit for bad or no service, then the agent looks for documentation and finds none. Not documenting that a paying customer called in to report an outage or a "denial of service" is unacceptable, but it's common at Cox. Problem 2: Multiple "Cox subcontractors" who are NOT Cox employees are being used by Cox. They come to your house and usually are not up to speed on the problem, spend little time trying to solve it, and leave with the problems unresolved or poorly resolved. The fact that Cox is jobbing service calls out to third party subs is disgusting. I have had three months of issues with poor connectivity, most having to do with issues exterior to my home and likely due to poor subcontractor performance in the field. Problem 3: When you call Cox Tech support and you ask for a Cox employee, you are told that there is no way to connect you to an employee. So every time you call Cox, make sure you ask them if they are a Cox employee or just a Cox Business Partner. If they say the latter, just hang up and try again. Problem 4: Telephone agents have NO idea about what's going on in the field unless an outage is planned. Unplanned outages..and we've had 30+ in two months....result in the phone agent knowing nothing about your neighborhood, The field crews do NOT communicate with the telephone agents. A Cox supervisor (good luck trying to get one on the phone) is the only one who can send a trouble report "upstream" in hopes it will get reviewed by the field technicians. If you continue to have poor service, intermittent Internet, slow performance...CHECK your cable modem logs and print them if possible. The logs won't lie. If Cox thinks your crazy or a chronic complainer, show them the logs...tell them to put the logs in their pipes and smoke them instead of the wacky weed I think some of them are into. Above all: DO NOT TRUST THAT YOU ARE SUCCESSFULLY COMMUNICATING YOUR PROBLEM TO COX, even after a reassuring phone call from their agents. You may need to secure the phone number of the Cox crew in Atlanta that deal with unresolved issues. Complain to Atlanta about your bad service and hope that someone in Atlanta gets up off their keester and does something to help you. I can't wait till Google Fiber is in my area. I just can't wait. These 24 years with Cox have been terrible.0Views0likes0CommentsBeware of shady Cox early billing on the add-on data you buy over the 1 TB cap!
My level of Cox weariness just went off the charts. Relenting to the top-down, authoritarian money grab associated with this new Unlimited Data Plan, I added this plan to my Cox account to avoid the inevitable theft associated with the $10/50GB overage charges that Cox planned here in the Phoenix area starting October 1st. On September 18th, I called Cox billing to MAKE CERTAIN that the $49.95 monthly extortion for the Unlimited Data Plan would not be put into effect until October 1st, as I wanted to be covered by the grace period set up for customers before that date. The Cox billing agent I called assured me that the Plan charge would not occur until October 1st when the grace period expired. I come to find out that the Cox billing system is authorized to bill you for the additional data DURING THE GRACE PERIOD because Cox never had its IT department reconfigure their servers to prevent "add-on services" from generating a pro-rata charge for data, even during the grace period! To prove to the forum that this occured, take a look at my upcoming bill (which has personal info redacted). The higher-ups at Cox will put their hands deeply into your pockets whenever they can. Remember, YOU ARE ONLY A NUMBER AT COX. Even if you've been a loyal customer for 24 years, you will be viewed as nothing more than a source of revenue. I did not ask for this data cap. But I'll be darn sure that each and every time Cox oversteps its bounds with overcharging, I will take out the virtual pots and pans and start banging them like mad so that other customers can see and hear what opportunism lurks at Cox Communications. And yes, I demanded they refund me the Partial Month Data charge they told me I would not be billed for in the first place...and they did. My patience is running very thin with this monopolistic, opportunistic leviathan of a company. Only Comcast reaches even deeper into the slime than Cox, but Cox is catching up to them. Moral of the story: ALWAYS CHECK and RECHECK your upcoming Cox bill. You must do this when you are captive to opportunists.3KViews0likes1Comment