Cox agent confirms that they do throttle speeds

Don't waste your time with support. They won't do sh*t except schedule a tech to come out, then they never show up.
I've been having the same issues for over 3 weeks now. Every night starting around 4:30-5:00 my internet slows down to nothing.

Here's my last speed test and it's like this every night.

I'm just collecting evidence to file small claims against them. It's obvious they have screwed something up in the past month and aren't trying to help customers out.

Good luck with your issues.

The question I would have asked is "how" and then see them stammer. Sounds like a scare tactic to get you to upgrade tiers. If it was throttling, wouldn't the speed be reset to normal every month when your bandwidth cap is reset? 

That's not entirely true.  It would make SENSE to throttle only during the period when you've gone over your data cap and then restore it to normal on the beginning of your new cycle, but that doesn't always happen.  I've worked with a couple of ISPs (not going to name any names) with throttling policies and it was pretty normal for customers speed to be throttled even after the cycle of excessive usage.  I think that was due to unsophisticated software.

But anyway, I did ask him how that was possible when it's not written in Cox's policy and he quoted a portion of the policy which stated "If your data usage exceeds the amount included in your Internet package, Cox may suspend the Service or require you to upgrade the Service to a higher package and/or pay additional fees" to which I retorted suspension and throttling are two completely different things.  I decided to leave it there because he pretty much already gave me the answer to my question and there was point in nitpicking the policy quote.

My speeds look like they've normalized for now (I started my new cycle about a week ago), they'll most likely drop down later today though.  My main concern isn't the fact that I'm being throttled but that Cox's written policies don't seem to coincide with applied practices.  If it was in the policy from the start then I would have accepted it and moved on, and wouldn't have gone through hours of troubleshooting my connection.  It would be nice if a moderator could give their opinion on what Cox's stance on throttling is.

Did you happen to get any names? Can a moderator confirm?

Hi Everyone, 

Cox does not shape or throttle internet traffic. If you'd like to take a closer look at our Acceptable Use Policy you can do so here http://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies.cox#acu

  For any questions regarding this AUP, complaints of violations, or cancellation notices, please email abuse@cox.net

 My internet is down every night and they can't find anything wrong with my connection, so it's obvious that they are throttling my speeds.

I've been lied to by customer service 3 times in the past 2 phone calls with them and yet you have the nerve to basically call the OP a lier? 

*edited by moderator

If this isn't throttling then wtf is wrong with your service? Quit spreading lies!

jayw said:
the nerve to basically call the OP a lier? 

Not a liar, but given misinformation for bad intent. Don't get me wrong, I am not letting Cox off the hook here. Thats why I wanted you to get names. If its not misinformation then it's front page news. Moderator confirmed Cox does not throttle, and since that seems to fit their ToS and observed practices, I am likly to believe them. The question is why were you told something opposite when you called in?

I'm not particularly surprised to hear this.  I completely agree with you that Cox should change their T&C if this is authorized throttling.  It seems only fair.

What does surprise me is that they didn't simply hit you up for more money when you "exceeded your cap".  Isn't that what the cell providers do?

As a side note to Jayw, sometimes slow speeds aren't directly due to Cox's actions - we're on a cable network and we share bandwidth, so all your neighbors traffic gets lumped with yours at some point (tech savvy folks feel free to explain this), so when we're all streaming video at night our individual speeds are gonna fall.  

One thing that keeps me from upgrading to faster service is the fact that many/most of the sites I hit aren't able to return content to me at 50+ Mbps, so what's the point?

vegasmar6 said:
I'm a former employee from the resi tech support call center division

How long and what were you trained in?

Yes, Cox uses configuration files to disable or limit service when a bandwidth notice has been triggered and abuse ticket has been assigned. But the whole point of those is to make it obvious to the customer their service is impacted and for them to call in. It would continue to effect performance until the code was removed and would effect both download and upload. This doesn't sound like OP at all.

Sounds like you might've worked for them too at some point in time lol. Lets just say for a very long time until recent in a very important role. I was not referring my post to op's situation just throwing it out there that cox does indeed take actions against data cap abusers. The no throttle stuff is just for legal. They do what they gotta do to get your attention on the subject matter. I don't know OPs situation, was he over the data cap for the month or not. I see with and without router many places around the home but were alternate virus free devices used, sercurity settings/firewall etc. But if it fluctuates it could be line/node issue. In the end though according to legal speeds are not guaranteed. This was the only ISP I ever worked for that did not have a minimum speed rating for each tier unlike other ISPs would say set a QoS at like 80% so if you were on a 50 plan and you weren't getting at least 40 directly connected to the modem with all other factors ruled out they would fully have the field investigate cause a lot of times in that case it was a node oversaturation or line issue. Signal levels in range don't mean a thing what if your signal is constantly going from say -6 to -15 every minute and back and forth inconsistently but only registering -6 cause its a super fast change so its like an every other packet issue which would be left undetected forever. Cox though is funny they choose to like as long as signal levels are okay will let people live with super slow service without further investigation, not until you get a ton of complaints from the same neighborhood/node but if you happen to be one of few users with Cox services and probably the only one that even uses internet if somethings broke it probably won't ever get fixed since you're just a number to them.

First, it's usually a good idea to keep previous employment on the down low, especially when you're claiming Cox doesn't conform to their ToS without any data or facts to back you up. Throttling doesn't refer to changing the config file on the modem, that is disrupting service for the sake of getting the customers attention. Throttling is dynamically adjusting certain traffic to run slower so that other traffic may run faster, and controlling traffic management at the peering points to save money. It takes complex and very expensive systems to be installed. If Cox did throttle, they wouldn't bother with the warnings or the caps.

You state that Cox has problem with network sometimes. This isn't specific to Cox. All ISP's have network problems, it goes with the territory of running a network. I am not saying Cox is blameless, just no more to blame than any other ISP. But aren't those technical problems probably to blame for OP's problem? Why support the misinformation that OP was given for the sake of devil's advocate? 

I have had the same problem, we started having issues with anything on the internet and I called cox to find out what the problem is and all they did was reset the modem. That did nothing! They never said anything about throttling. But that is exactly what it was! Two days after the data meter was reset to the new cycle, I now have full speed that I'm paying for. So I now know cox does throttle.

Best of luck to everyone here.