Forum Discussion

xgraffitix's avatar
xgraffitix
New Contributor
4 years ago

Gaming ping.

I've been playing online games for years, and in the past 4 months or so my ping keeps spiking horribly. I get kicked off games, I get input lag and delay. It's driving me crazy. I talked to 3 different techs. I had one of them convince me to upgrade my entire plan, so I got Gigablast last week, thinking it'll solve all my problems. Faster internet. Still pinging insanely high. I've had people come out and change lines. I've changed modems. I've turned off wifi. I've changed ethernet cables. I've done everything I was told to do, and I'm still getting high ping spikes over games. I work. I take care of sickly family members. In my moments of peace, I want to play online video games, but it's impossible when my ping is spiking so high constantly. Why is this?

gaming
internet issues
  • roomonfirethisi's avatar
    roomonfirethisi
    New Contributor II
    4 years ago

    bandwidth is a scam. lossy intermittent connectivity wont be improved by bein able to download movies real fast with short unnoticed disconnections.

    its like drinking the water in flint. they can increase the water pressure, but its still awful drinking water through corroded, poisoned pipes not fit for handling the liquid traffic.

    this is assuming you dont have hardware failure of some type in your home networking setup, or damaged cabling at some point indoors/outdoors. realistically the best first step is to just get a tech out there to do all they can (or more likely, are willing to) attenuation, outside/box/drop cable replacement, etc

    once you are 100% certain its not on your end beyond that are nuclear options that involve DOCSIS testing your neighborhood, outside agencies and getting your neighbors involved for a node split/street dug up basically, but thats a little beyond the scope of this explanation. 

    • xgraffitix's avatar
      xgraffitix
      New Contributor
      4 years ago

      Not what I was wanting to hear, but I guess it's like they say. The truth hurts. Lol. Thanks for the reply.

  • Kalebkk890's avatar
    Kalebkk890
    New Contributor III
    4 years ago

    I have been battling Cox on these issues for just under a year now since COVID started. The problem is nearly all of their nodes that your modem is directly connected to are well over 100% utilization which causes incredible packet loss and spikes. The internet speeds usually aren't effected but the latency and packet loss is definitely noticeable. There are two things you can do and that is to file an FCC complaint about the packet loss and you will be able to talk to their actual engineers who are "diligently" working to split these nodes to help with saturation. They will probably give you some date that is months and months away when your node will be fixed and they get away with this without even a slap on the wrist because they have a "plan" to fix it. The ISP monopoly has been a travesty for years and COVID has only made it much worse and noticeable. The second thing you can do is go to https://fairshake.com/ to ask for a settlement to reduce your bills or pay you back for their service they aren't able to reliably provide. Don't take the first offer because it will be very low for what they actually deserve from this country wide failure.

  • xgraffitix's avatar
    xgraffitix
    New Contributor
    4 years ago

    Just an update. Had a technician come out. He worked on a few things. It seemed to be going well the day of. Even a day after, but now my ping is shooting up again. New modem. New wires. Technician climbing a pole and fixing some things. I'm pretty stumped. Guess I'll give up on online gaming for a while. I'm honestly too tired to be bothered with it anymore.

    • InnocentSoju's avatar
      InnocentSoju
      New Contributor II
      4 years ago

      Cox service is honestly just terrible right now. I've been having the same issues within the same time span. Hate to tell you this but cox has not offered a fix right now. They'll just tell you that the node is being saturated and there's too much traffic in your area. It doesn't matter what speed you have, it wont change a thing. I have 500mbs and get packet bursts consistently in CoD. Basically meaning cox can't send and receive packets in an efficient manner. I've done port forwarding and nothing helps. I tried using my phone as a hotspot devices and guess what, I run smoothly on that. My cellular hot spot at sub 50mbs is running CoD smoother than 500mbs wired. My advice, save yourself some money and lower your speed or change providers. If AT&T had higher speeds in my area I would change in a heart beat.  

    • Allan's avatar
      Allan
      Moderator
      4 years ago
      @Xgraffitix, I can certainly understand your frustration with ongoing internet issues and I recommend reaching out to us via email so we can take a closer look. Please send us an email to cox.help@cox.com. Thanks. -Allan, Cox Support Forums Moderator.