Price increase, speed decrease

To have seen a rate increase that frequently makes me wonder if you were also on some sort of a promotional discount that expired.  There may be other incentives available, email us at coxhelp@cox.com with your account information and we can have somebody contact you to discuss your account.

It's likely a somewhat unique (to cable services) business model that Cox operates under which enables it to do what it does in the manner it does it.  What choice do people have if they want high speed internet?  Fewer players and less competition means they can dictate their pricing and choose to define customer service to their liking.  Other players in the field might prompt more competitive pricing to keep existing customers instead of simply attracting new ones.  The oligopoly also enables them to take their services down without any notice... granted, maintenance is a fact of life with any service infrastructure but when a company who offers communication services (email, phone, TV), says that notifying customers to be affected by routine scheduled maintenance is unfeasible (a response given to me when I called on one such occasion) without any worries of significant economic repercussions indicates that there's a serious problem.

That being said, I have actually had some positive experience with Cox and have been able to successfully request discounts.  There is some degree of competition in this area (AT&T U-verse) so there's a small measure of motive to prevent a would-be player from making inroads into Cox territory.  I suggest looking up potential providers who might be doing business in your area.  A series of calls might enable you to achieve some relief in those increases- either by using a competitive service for internet or by brokering limited term discounts with Cox to actually reward loyalty instead of in effect charging a fee for it.  Be mindful that any discounts would be temporary- one or two years- at which point you'll need to revisit the process. 

Chances are that if you jump ship you'll be taking on a new set of issues and rate increases so if you're getting a decent connection through Cox then it might be to your advantage to stay put if you can haggle a better rate... the devil you know versus the devil you don't know.  My success is likely enabled in part because when I made the call to negotiate I kept my own attitudes in check and strove to be polite and friendly with the person at the other end of the call.  Believe me, there was a world of nastiness and a lot of things I wanted to say... which would have accomplished absolutely nothing.  My bet is that the person you're speaking with is not exactly getting rich off those rate increases.  Had I taken my angst out on the lady who helped me out, she almost certainly would have been unwilling to work with me.

COX has no competition. They charged me $60 pro hook up fee, and everything was already hooked up, it is just a flat rate that they rip people off.

They tried to do that to me when i signed up.  I explained to the rep that there was nothing to hook up but he insisted that this was mandatory.  After scheduling the appointment with him I promptly called to cancel the appointment and thus avoided the unnecessary charge.