Repeated internet problems

i been having the same issues never had this issue with the old phone company cox cable needs to get the *** together cause at these prices there should not be issues i understand at time there will be failures but i have had ppl out here 2 times and it still messes up seems like a daily thing these days keep it up cox cable and i will be dropping this ** internet.....

Hi Everyone,

What message or icon do you get when you have to reset the modem? Do you have cord or cordless phone? What type of modem and router do you have?

StephanieA, I have a Cisco DPQ3212 modem that was provided by Cox.

Though it's 100% irrelevant to the problem I am experiencing, I have both a corded phone and a set of vtech cordless phones.  When the behavior happens, all of them stop working.

And again, though it's 100% irrelevant to the problem I am experiencing, I have an Apple Airport Extreme router.

When the problem happens, I get completely dead silence on my phones, my computer gives me the little yellow warning icon on the Network connection system tray icon - the one that means it is connected to a network, but that network lacks internet access (I assume that's what you are asking for regarding icons), and none of my devices can connect to the internet.

This morning, the problem happened again.  My mother had been experiencing some medical issues and I wanted to check on her.  I picked up my phone to call her and the phone was dead.  I looked over at the computer and sure enough, it had the icon that meant it didn't have internet access. 

I took a picture of the modem with my cell phone (I had previously been unable to answer Tech support's question of what lights are on when the problem happens so this time I took a picture so I would know.  The first five lights - power, ds, us, online, and link - were all lit.  The other three lights - tel1, tel2, and battery - were all out.

Under normal circumstances (e.g. right now), "tel1" and "battery" are lit and "link" is blinking.  Is it possible that it's just a defective battery?

Right then, my cell phone started ringing and she said that she had tried to call me on my home phone, but the call just disconnected and didn't go through.  This is obviously greatly upsetting.  The whole point of having the home phone is so that I can call out and be contacted in the event of an emergency.

After I spoke with my mother for a few minutes, I looked up at the modem and saw it reset itself.  All of the lights went out and then came back on in the normal boot up sequence.  This was the first time I had ever seen it do that, though it's also possible that had I not intervened on the other occasions, it would have eventually reset itself.  I know that at least one time when I intervened, it had been out for 20 minutes and resetting the modem immediately solved the problem, but obviously I can't prove whether or not the modem might have reset itself after 21 minutes.

None of this behavior is acceptable.

I just looked and they are 5.8 GHz.

ChrisL said:
@HokieDavie

Would you happen to know if the cordless phones are 2.4Ghz?

No, for obvious reasons.  Does anyone plug their modem directly into their PC without using a router in 2014? 

Aside from having no interest in plugging an unfirewalled computer directly in, I have lots of devices that depend on the wifi from my router.

If my phones were not also going out, I could believe that the problem is my router.  Why would my router be the problem?

ChrisL said:
@HokieDave

Perfect, you should be ok with those, can you try testing without the router to see if the connection is more reliable?

ChrisL said:
@HokieDave

I'm certainly not suggesting that will solve the problem but it is a basic troubleshooting step that helps isolate variables which will get us closer to determining a solution.

That's not a reasonable step - you're asking me to go without being able to make use of the internet service to test the problem ... and since it is sometimes a month between interruptions, I'd have to do that for a month.

If Cox would like to provide a loaner of a router for me to use for a month so that I could try a different router, I could certainly entertain that.  But it's not reasonable to ask me to not have wifi in my home for a month.  And that seems pointless anyway - how in the world could my router (or anything else on my network) cause my phones to stop working or cause the modem to reset itself? 

I spoke with Cox and a technician will be coming on Friday to swap out the modem (and hopefully the battery as well).  (And actually the battery is completely worthless - if you lose power, the modem has to reboot and your phone goes out for a minute - it doesn't fail over immediately like a UPS.  That's ridiculous and I'm probably just going to get another UPS so that I can have the modem and router on their own UPS.  Their power draw should be low enough that it could keep going for a while in a power outage.)