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rpj9891's avatar
rpj9891
New Contributor

Unacceptable upload speeds, down to essentially zero.

This is going to be a long post. For years now, yes YEARS, at multiple addresses with multiple modems we have been having upload speed issues with Cox. The problem essentially boils down to our upload speeds dropping to near zero, and the download speeds decreasing slightly as well, but not too large of a drop. The problem seems to pop up every month or two, stay with us for a few days and then things return to normal and everything works great for weeks / months until it pops up again. We have replaced modems, including our current modem multiple times. We have tried hooking up the modem hard-wired to a desktop and testing it there, time and time again proving it's not our router. We have called techs out countless times, techs that have been completely unable to fix the issue every single time.

It eventually just starts working normally again and works fine for a while, until I have to upload an image (since we run a business at home and sell over the Internet, we NEED upload speeds to be consistent) and notice it's not working.

This has happened probably 10+ times over the years to us, like I said above, at two different, but close addresses with different equipment, same problem then, same problem now. I am absolutely CERTAIN that this is a cox issue, perhaps with the infrastructure in our region (as times in the past when it started working again I've noticed COX trucks working on the lines nearby). 

I am just sick and tired of this. Words cannot describe the amount of frustration this has caused. I would gladly leave Cox behind forever due to your horrible service and techs but I don't have a choice considering the competition (if you can even call it that considering ISP monopolies these days) doesn't even offer half the speeds Cox does sadly. Otherwise I would jump ship immediately. 

Let me go back to the last major time this happened (though it happened a little over a WEEK ago too, but seemed to return to normal). This was back in March of 2017, previously it also occurred in December. Back in March we had I think 2-3 techs come out, first the typical tech that doesn't know their head from their **** who can't do anything. Then, we got "escalated" to their expert techs and a team of two guys showed up and stayed for almost 5 hours, working through our house completely. I labelled all the cables outside with tape so that the techs could see exactly where all the cables were going and how it got to the router. They checked everything, looked at all the cable infrastructure, removed some redundant splitters, and it did nothing, the problem was still there when they left later because they were dumbfounded. They switched out the modem when they were here, made no difference. They said they were going to get another tech who works on the lines to come out. Upload speeds returned to normal I think a day or two later and stayed like that until late april, which is when it happened again. That only lasted a day or two and then again returned to normal, I had a tech scheduled to come out, but cancelled it once it returned to normal because they wouldn't have been able to fix *** anyways. 

So now I'm here, I don't know where else to turn because your tech support is just NOT working. Attached are a ton of images, as well as a link to the excel file with all my speed test results from March until present, as well as an image of the status page of my modem, which looks COMPLETELY NORMAL from what I've looked up online, which tells me it's again, NOT THE MODEM, nor is it my router, which I already went over above because I have plugged in the modem directly to my PC multiple times before, besides, my PC is hardwired from my modem to my router to the PC anyways, not a wireless connection. 

Here is an imgur album:

http://imgur.com/a/bCOst

In it is an image of my modem status page. Upstream channels are within normal power levels. Downstream channels as well. This tells me that it's not my modem causing the problem, and even with that, like I said above, we have been through multiple modems of different brands with no change in result when the problems with upload speed occur. 

I'm lucky I was even able to upload these images, most of them despite being only a few kb in size took a minute or more to upload. As you can imagine, when uploading images for my business that are megabytes in size, this is an issue such that it's nearly impossible to upload anything, and that's just images, not even to mention videos which I also upload and share. 

Here is a link to the excel file of all my speedtest results:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ugqumxaz19z92k7/Speedtest%20Results%20Spreadsheet.xlsx?dl=0

I am at a loss of what to do here. It's late now, but I plan on calling tech support yet again tomorrow, and I fear it won't do anything yet again, and it will just return to normal a day or two, hopefully not weeks like it has in the past. There has to be some kind of infrastructure problem in my area, there is no other explanation, I've tried everything, we've had so many techs come out and never be able to fix it. 

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  • CarolLM's avatar
    CarolLM
    Former Moderator

    Hi, I understand your frustration with your Internet speeds.  Please reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter or email us at cox.help@cox.com with your complete address, account name and specifics.  We'll gladly take a look to see what's going on with your account and what needs to be done.  

  • smtips's avatar
    smtips
    New Contributor II

    Hi there, I recommend looking at this post and doing what I did because I was getting no action for years til I did.

    http://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/5/p/5697/22175.aspx

    I'm sure you will find a lot of what I went through very familiar. You are the customer and you pay them, your service is not a privilege it is a commodity and as such you have every right to demand it be corrected all the way to the top..

    I'd suggest it's time you take further action with them like I had to, because nothing was getting done to actually resolve anything until I finally got with someone on the Advocacy team and NOT tech support. This kind of thing really really blows bad and you shouldn't have to do it longer.

    Oh, BTW, keep detailed records of every person you talk to, and bring that up in every conversation with them. Take 5 minutes of their time and read them the whole list of people you have dealt with, and the times you did. If they try to interrupt you, then you interrupt them right back and tell them you're not finished yet.

  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @Radborne

    Checking from this end you're modem has been reporting some trouble keeping the bonded channels. Are there any cable splitters you can try bypassing and seeing if there's improvement?

  • no2's avatar
    no2
    New Contributor

    I am also having upload speed issues in Gainesville FL. It drops to near zero around 8:30PM and returns to normal after 11:00PM every night.  It also happens occasionally at other times, typically for a much shorter duration. And when the upload speed drops, our Record 6 host and slave stop responding to remote key presses, making it impossible to watch TV unless the set-top box is tuned to a channel that we want to watch.  This has been going on for over a week now.  Thinking back, I suspect its happened in the past but certainly not for this duration.

    I have a neighbor two doors down experiencing EXACTLY the same symptoms at EXACTLY the same time. Thankfully instant messaging doesn't need a lot of bandwidth.  That alone is evidence that this is a system problem, not an issue with my particular installation or my neighbor's.  I wonder how many other Cox customers around us are experiencing this?  I may have to go door-to-door to find out.

    The timing is suspicious, with the problem occurring at local prime time.  I have to wonder if its a network capacity issue.

    Of course, when calling in the problem Cox responds by sending out a technician.  We have had a tech out twice for this "incident". They are contractors, not Cox employees. The come out during business hours, not at 8:30PM when the problem can actually be observed.  They have limited scope and do not seem to understand that this could be a system issue.  They poke around with the signal meter, look at signal levels for each piece of equipment, and change connectors, of course to no effect.  Now they want to change the drop cable.  I can predict with confidence that this will achieve nothing.

    I have already exchanged a number of emails with the folks at cox.help, also without satisfaction.  I have asked to speak with a Cox employee with responsibility for network reliability oversight to no avail.  I feel like I am in support h-e-double-el with no prospect for resolution.  I am extremely frustrated.