Forum Discussion

rsaz9044's avatar
rsaz9044
New Contributor

Poor line quality, service tech could not fix the problem, what now?

I live in Southern CT, and have been experiencing poor line quality for several months.  I'm seeing dropped packets at most times during the day. (typically around 0.3% - 1%)  In the evenings, packet loss will spike to 3-5% at times.  Overall speeds are as expected, tested with a variety of online speed test applications.  

In some cases, I'll experience waves of massive loss in the 50% range.  I'm an avid gamer and it's the primary reason I pay for the preffered speed I currently have.  These line quality issues are essentially making my internet useless and I'm at my wits end.  These issues are on an all-wired connection and have persisted both with & without use of my router.

I've made two service calls already.  The first technician arrived with a clipboard, asked me about my issue and was unable to do a single thing.  He suggested my cable modem might be bad and that he would have to "escalate" my call to a field supervisor to have them check plant.

I already had an approved DOCSIS 3.0 modem from the Cox approved list.  However, In order to quickly rule out/in the cable modem issue.  I purchased a new cable modem, different make & model, the next day (from the COX approved list).  The issues persisted.  I made another call to technical support and asked about that status of my ticket (since it was supposed to be escalated.)  It wasn't, and except for a few notes on my previous call, the ticket had been closed with no further action taken.  I setup another appointment, this time with what I was told was a supervisor.

The second tech arrived, this time prepared to check the wiring in my home and make some changes.  My wiring was fairly simple, only two splitters between the box and my cable modem.  In order to rule out my homes wiring, the tech rewired everything in a couple of hours and added an ingress filter.  While my modem levels looked good (as they did before) the loss issues still persisted.

I was told by the technician he would escalate my issue to "plant" as he believed everything within the house had been ruled out.  The second tech did quite a bit of work & re-wiring to fix my issue, sadly it didn't work.   I've yet to hear back from Cox so I'm going to assume there is no open ticket on my account.  I can't keep taking time off from work to meet technicians with clipboards who aren't interested in solving my problem.  What do i do now?

I'll be happy to provide ping plotter results once I get home.  Please help.

6 Replies

Sort By
Most LikedOldestNewest
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @rsaz9044

    Do you have the result of those results by chance?

  • rsaz9044's avatar
    rsaz9044
    New Contributor

    Hi @ChrisL,

    The ping plotter results were posted previously.  You may have to right click and open the image in a new tab to see the whole thing.  The small frame size in the forum is clipping the results. I had another service visit since I made this post, still no solution.  It looks like a couple of issues are going on:

    1.  Lots of T3 timeouts.  After spending a while on the phone on Thursday evening, I was escalated to level 2 support.  The technician I spoke to mentioned that I had far more timeouts than normal.  I believe he mentioned upwards of 200 had occurred that day.  ON my modem page I was able to see around the last 20 errors, several of which were critical T3.

    2. Channels were disappearing at times from my modem page.  At one point, only 1 upstream channel was shown.  A restart then brought all 4 channels back.  Power levels were good both up & down.  

    I had another service visit (#3 in as many weeks) the new tech adjusted the balance at the tap and ran some tests.  He agree'd that something was wrong and told me he would enter a ticket for line maintenance.  He mentioned he was just at a neighbors house and was having related issues getting them setup.  I haven't heard anything back from support.  So I suppose I'm going to spend another hour on the phone tonight to find out what's happening.

  • DerrickW's avatar
    DerrickW
    Valued Contributor
    @rsaz9044

    We can follow-up on this issue that you're having with the service, you mentioned you were going to speak with phone support. If there is anything we can do to assist please email us at cox.help@cox.com with the account information. Thanks!
  • rsaz9044's avatar
    rsaz9044
    New Contributor

    @DerrickW

    I just had my 4th visit from a service tech today.  No solution at this point.  My discussions with level 2 support on the phone have seemed productive, but they simply don't translate to a knowledgeable service technician fixing my issue.  Still getting T3's and the level 2 tech actually witnessed my modem levels fluctuating from great to terrible while I was on the phone with him.

    I'm wondering how many calls and appts. I need before someone finally gets in a bucket and checks the connection at the riser pole to my street around the corner?

  • DerrickW's avatar
    DerrickW
    Valued Contributor
    The maintenance ticket would be initiated by our Field Techs, I can submit a follow-up form to our leadership team and see how they want to proceed. It is possible they ask that we schedule another tech to come out.