Cox doesn't actually provide the internet speeds I pay for

I have had a tech come out already about this. They said everything looks like it should be working fine but it clearly wasn't. So he cancelled the appointment. I have no idea what on earth could be interfering with my signal when I am using an ethernet cable.

All my frame drops are due to network. And the percentage slowly rises. BTW I am paying for 35MBPS upload rates, getting less than 5. Might as well have dial up. This has happened for months. This began about 1 month after I first started streaming. Now I am exhausted and have given up trying to make this work. I haven't done a stream in like a week+ and my buzz is falling off, i don't feel theres any point in me trying to even stream anymore because I just end up mad that im paying for service i dont actually get. I have went unlimited data, i've upgraded my speeds, and none of it is working. I bought a new modem even to be able to get gigabit internet.

I have PingPlotter for 14 days, I did traceroutes for twitch last time. What exactly do I do in PingPlotter to get the information you need?

Last one for now.

PingPlotter target: "www.google.com"

Please email my team at cox.help@cox.com. Thank you for being a part of the Cox community. 

I have a Hitron Coda-56 modem. I actually only purchased this modem to upgrade to DOCSIS 3.1, because my previous modem (Surfboard SB6190) had the same issue. So the speeds I am getting when directly connected to the modem are ~200mb down and 4.9mb up. I am unable to even access my modem's admin page to see the signal strength and such - but I have had a tech come out and confirm all of it looked fine.. There was a tech who came out a few weeks ago who looked over my entire set up and said there was nothing wrong and that I shouldn't be getting the issues that I was (he saw in person that it wasn't working). His conclusion was that everything was fine, the lines looked fine, and there must be a "Node" around me that was having intermittent issues.. He ultimately said he "cancelled" the appointment and left. 

I've already decided to downgrade my service back down to my original speeds - 250mb down, 12mb up, because I streamed using this speed fine for a month before my upload rates all the sudden began to drop and be inconsistent and unreliable. I upgraded my service, data plan, purchased a new modem, and none of it actually helped so I've exhausted everything and have given up and reverted to my old speed and told people not to expect me to be active anymore. I've tried to stream for a week now and everyday when I get all set up I hit the go live button just to see my ISP fleecing me.

 So the speeds I am getting when directly connected to the modem are ~200mb down and 4.9mb up. I am unable to even access my modem's admin page to see the signal strength and such - but I have had a tech come out and confirm all of it looked fine. Moreover, speaking with cox help, they only take ookla speed test results which showed 30mbps upload rate, but every single other speed test and in actual practice I was only getting 4mb upload speeds. Then cox help proceeded to inform me it must be twitch servers that have the issue.. Which is ridiculous because there are thousands of people streaming without issue at any moment on that site.

The first time I reached out about this, they said there must be "noise" on my line or have bad lines, so they scheduled a tech to look, which ended up with the tech basically shrugging his shoulders, saying it should work, but he sees that it doesn't, and there's nothing more that he can do to resolve my issue. I am so tired of dealing with this, it throws my mood completely off every time I encounter it because I have tried so many things, spent hundreds of dollars between a new modem and extra data/better service, and have gotten absolutely nowhere.

Ouch, you went from a modem that has a lemon of a CPU(google Puma6) to one that overheats and is difficult to access it's diagnostics. You need to set a static IP and bypass your router. See here.

As for what the technician said, either something is wrong on your end or Cox's end. I think looking at the actual data is important. 

The fact that it happened around a upgrade probably means it has something to do with the downstream OFDM channel(s) or upstream OFDMA channel. Noise, or a low SNR, could have something to do with it.

What does Cox's speed test show you? That should be what Cox looks at the most. That shows you what speed you are getting on Cox's network. Cox can only control performance on their network. If the problem is between them and the Twitch servers, there isn't much they can/will do.

If technicians aren't fixing the problem, I would try a FCC complaint. But isolating what and when the problem is, is important.

Erg, I might just try to find a better modem - but both of those modems worked fine. I had to get what I could afford, I didn't want to keep paying $15 a month to rent equipment from them. The only reason I upgraded my modem was because I began having the upload issues. The download issues seem to have gone away, I think the cloudflare test i was using just hadn't gone to the part where they test the download.

The ookla speed test show good numbers, but everywhere else doesn't. But also there are thousands of people on twitch without any issues, i dont think it is their server. And every other speed test shows the same ~4mb up while the ookla one thats direct to cox shows the correct speeds. 

I emailed them last night and they said they saw packet loss, and that I should schedule an appointment. But I passed. I just did this a couple weeks ago. Posted here, contacted their email, they looked at my modem and said that there was interference somewhere but they didn't know where. I scheduled a tech, he came out, and said theres nothing wrong with the lines, and that one of our local nodes must be having issues. I feel like the tech is correct, because it seems like 12am-8am the upload rate picks up and works ok. But during the day, and pretty much anytime a majority of people aren't asleep, the upload rates are just nowhere near what i need to stream well.

And again, today, theres no possibility of me streaming, its gotten even worse now and stuck at 3.6-4mb up.. Been this way for like 2 weeks where theres absolutely no time that I can stream. For the past month I've been having to dance around when I can stream because I run a bandwidth test and the rate isn't good enough. So I wait and test again. But the past week there is never enough upload rate. It sucks because I was JUST starting to make money on twitch and got my first payout. Now I am declining hard and completely ruining my initial splash onto this game's streaming scene.

Need to see more data to troubleshoot. The pingplotter data shows no issues that I can see. Either the problem wasn't happening at the time of the test or wasn't happening between you and where you were tracing too. Do you know where the server is that shows stream packet loss? Can you ask Twitch about that?

Also, if your not letting techs look at a noise issue, I am not sure how you are ever going to fix your problem. What is the plan then? Find a different ISP? VPN?

The post you referenced was 5 years ago, before DOCSIS 3.1 really took off. There is more upload bandwidth these days so issues like that aren't as common. Your area would have to be very populated and oversold for that to be a issue to the extent you are having. Also, seem to be having a upload AND a download problem. If it is congestion on the node, there isn't much you can do except file a FCC complaint and hope Cox does a node split, but that is unlikely since it's expensive. Hoping signal data gives more clues on the root cause.

Here is a chart showing my bitrate performance from a twitch stream last night. All the sudden at 1:20am, hours after beginning my stream, the upload rate began working. This is why I think the node is oversaturated because all times besides really late night/early morning, the upload rate just doesn't perform well. 

You can see i was stuck at 4-5mbps for a large portion of the stream in the beginning. 

it would be like really cool if i could actually pursue this as I have been doing mildly well with streaming. The bitrate thing is really holding me back. I specifically chose to stream really late because it seems like when everyone is typically asleep the network works fine

Please email my team at cox.help@cox.com. Thank you for being a part of the Cox community. 

That kind of data isn't really useful to be honest. All it shows is what is happening and when, not where the problem is happening, which is important to isolate. The data you showed so far is to twitch's website, which I assume you are not having problems with. You want to be tracing to "live.twitch.tv" instead, as per here. If the issue is the second hop(with router in place) then the modem's signal level data is really important. Try using a static IP direct to the modem as I previously linked.

If you would rather troubleshoot with just Cox instead, let me know, and I will stop responding.

PS. You can share the pingplotter data instead of posting pictures. File > share > create sharing page. The previous post have been small so they are hard to read.

I have, multiple times now.

flambeau 

I'm sorry to hear you're still having trouble. Please believe me when I say I want your service to work properly as much as you do. I tested your modem's connection to our network and am not currently detecting any signal issues, packet loss, or latency. Since the last visit didn't resolve the issue you're experiencing our next best action would likely be to have another tech come out. We can do a lot remotely, but some things require a tech to be onsite, as they can see more in depth what's going on within our network, and are able to troubleshoot at various connection points, which can't be done remotely. I recommend emailing us at cox.help@cox.com to set something up. If you regularly experience trouble before 7pm, it would be best if we can secure an arrival window when you most often have trouble, but our home techs are able to set up monitoring of your connection outside of their regular working hours that may help identify what's going on.