For Those Complaining About Random, Daily Disconnects....

The way it is up and down today it is like the rolling blackouts we use to have when there wasn't enough electrical power to meet the demand.

I suspect Cox is over subscribed and the bandwidth demand is too high to deliver full service to everyone. There must be someplace to complain about this lousy service.

There is:

www.bbb.org

Again, that is:

www.bbb.org

You are on your own otherwise, the Cox reps' job is to firewall your complaint from bypassing them.  If they can't do that, they grudgingly push you up to a Service Tech (usually an outside contractor), who's job then becomes, in his turn, to firewall your complaint from going further up the chain of command.

At no point through this process are the Cox reps working to escalate your problem.  Their goal is to minimize, deflect and avoid the problem.  That's what they are paid for.  Anything else, like looking into a problem, tracking it down and fixing it costs money and time.  Avoiding and denying the issue exists is free.

I agree with you that this forum and the Customer Support Firewall will not make it up the Cox food chain. However, I do think that the more we talk about this issue the more buzz is created, and at some point, the message will leak out as more and more Cox customers join the chorus.

I would like to think that the BBB could help in a situation like this but the truth is that the BBB looks at these complaints as isolated incidences, and that is certainly the way Cox will spin it.

I believe there is a larger systemic problem with the cable system. Cox has been adding more and more digital services to the network. I just added the new Cisco whole house set top boxes here at my house. These new boxes operate on new separate VLANS over the cable plant. Add the legacy analog TV carriers, digital phone service, legacy digital cable TV, and docsis 3.0 multiple bonded channel cable modems, there are allot of upstream and downstream signals contributing to intermods and noise (including other foreign noise and interference sources) on your neighborhood cable plant.

I believe all of this can be managed but it will take a big effort on the part Cox network engineering. Not much evidence of this so far given the lack proactive responses we've seen.

I have asked Cox tech support to answer a simple question to which they have refused to answer. ARE OTHER SUBSCRIBERS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD SHOWING UP IN THE CMTS FLAP LIST? This would be very telling because if they are seeing multiple upstream hits at the head end, it pretty much eliminates all of the individual modem and house wiring assumptions in their typical trouble shooting aproach.

I need my internet service to be reliable more than I need the extra upstream bandwidth that Cox cable offers over ADSL. That said, I have ordered and will receive CenturyLink 12/0.9 Mbs service next week. I will cancel Cox (after 7 years of service) if CenturyLink proves to be reliable.

This is a big hassle for me but I don't have confidence that Cox can clean house and turn things around anytime soon, with or without the assistance of the BBB.

The BBB complaint process DOES collate all complaints nationwide.  Thats one of the reasons it is so effective!  Furthermore, initiating the complaint process costs you nothing but some time.  The BBB people handle all the headaches in dealing with Cox.  You simply have to respond to Cox through the BBB once the complaint reaches that point.

It is fast, effective and free...and recorded by the BBB.  This is effective on a variety of levels and it DOES show that there is a chorus of Cox customers complaining.  As I said, it affects' Coxs' rating, and that is important to them, not our moaning on a website.

Please go into further detail about the CMTS flap list?  I would like more information so that I might be able to bring it up with my Cox handler, should it be relevant at all here in my case.

Finally, I am glad you have CenturyLink to go to...here, we have no alternative cable company.  Cox bought our politicians and paid for a monopoly in the area and we have no viable alternative outside of AT&T "Uverse."  

Here is a very informative document from Cisco: "Cable Modems Dropping Offline in a 2-way Cable Network" 

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk86/tk89/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094bb1.shtml

One of the linked reference documents from the above:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/cable/cmts/feature/guide/ufg_flap.html

From this document - Flap List Troubleshooting for the Cisco CMTS: "...The flap list tracks "flapping" cable modems, which are cable modems that have intermittent connectivity problems. A flapping cable modem can indicate either a problem with that particular cable modem, or it could indicate an RF noise problem with the upstream or downstream portion of the cable plant."

Here is an interesting thread which I believe is the root cause of my modem flapping  :

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r27172880-T3-Errors-and-Modem-Resetting-Intermittently

In a system where everyone operates on a "party line" (you younger folks should google this term), there are many sources of noise and interference. If Cox waits for customer complaints to monitor their system performance, these kinds of problems  will continue to reoccur over and over again.

I am testing my local DSL provider (CenturyLink) to see if they are more reliable. I believe that the DSL solution will be a more stable solution since I will no longer be on a "party line" where any one in my neighborhood can trash my upstream channel.

Sorry to those of you with cable as your only choice!

I have been running CenturyLink 12 Mbps adsl here for several days without any interruptions! I called in to Cox to disconnect my $53/month Cox Internet service starting today. They asked me why I switched to dsl and I explained it to them. They told me that they pay attention to the reasons why customers cancel service so maybe someone above the customer service firewall will start to look. I told them to pay attention to this forum if they want to gain some insight, so keep posting. As for me, happy on CenturyLink now.

I used to do Escalations for Pacific Bell Internet, which became SBC Internet (as they were eating every baby bell back then) and of course, now it is monopoly AGAIN (with nobody complaining this time) AT&T.  This meant you either complained to managment or through the tech support system -- not 1st tier, or 2nd tier but the senior tier or as I was Operations Management (still in Call Center) and they brought it to me to resolve.  So I was never told if something was posted in our forums or not...the paper always came to me as 'resolve this quickly please' ... I have been having surge or spikes too, it seems to happen when other folks would be coming home from work and probably logging in thus using bandwidth.  It sounds like a long squeeze or screech sound and then goes away but (and it's usually any video like Netflix or Hulu online or any of the networks online MTV, CMTV, CW, etc.

I hadn't thought about calling bbb, and sales/tech have managed to keep me from churning but this has to stop; it could be they're throttling -- they do do it if you exceed your data usage limit for the tier you are paying for.  It's in the terms of service for the 'internet'.

Anyway, it is why I came here to see what is going on.  I tested it in Dallas from speedguide also and it is only showing 9MB download,  6 upload using a cox ks node but if you run the speed test here on the internet tools page wow it shows 25MB up, 10 down....

« SpeedGuide.net Speed Test Results »
9750 kbps down (~9.75 Mbps, 1190 KB/s)↓
6628 kbps up (~6.63 Mbps, 809 KB/s)↑
10240 KB downloaded in 8.604 seconds
3072 KB uploaded in 3.797 seconds
Tested on: 2012.08.14 13:22 EDT
Tested from: 123facts.com
Test Link: http://www.speedguide.net/speedtest/results.php?test=3728564
Provider: ks.ok.cox.net
Location: Mc Connell A F B, KS, US

http://www.speedguide.net/speedtest/results_img.php?test=3728564

GeekSquad shows 9.48 down and 8 up....

UPDATE On Cox Internet Connection Drop-Out:

After eight solid days of ongoing, uninterrupted connectivity to the service, my service has AGAIN begun dropping out during the daylight hours.

The only good thing is that this is happening earlier and seems (from the limited logs I can see) to be happening less often during the day. However, for the last two days at least this has been going on, with regularity.

I have been in contact with the local Cox Rep, and they are scheduled to do a new "line drop" from the tap to my living room, and they are doing this to rule out any problems with my line. However, the rep said he is doubtful this will resolve the issue; they are doing it mainly to insure integrity of the line and to rule it out as being the culprit.

As indicated on this forum, I believe there is something feeding back into the line during the day, or possible heat issues (we have our lines above grount)...I don't know, ultimately...thats' Cox's job and hopefully they fix it soon.

At this point hope is all I have left...they've just about beaten me, even with the BBB on 'em.