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LillyH93's avatar
LillyH93
New Contributor
4 years ago

Major intermittent connection issues

So, I have been dealing with this issue since I moved in to my apartment four and a half years ago, although it's gotten SIGNIFICANTLY worse in recent months. Every so often, my connection completely drops, and everything stops functioning. Games I'm playing go to a "reconnecting" screen or force close, videos stop playing and start trying to buffer, and web pages won't load until the connection returns.

My equipment info:

Cox Panoramic Modem/Router

Coaxial signal amplifier (currently installed, but have had it added and removed by every other tech) (about a dozen times now)

Ethernet connection via Cat6 cable

I have had a tech out every three to six months over the last four and a half years attempting to fix this issue, and they never resolve it. Usually they say everything is fine, then add/remove the amplifier, and then try to bill me for the visit, which I then have to dispute.

I filed a BBB report last year, and finally got someone to do something more. One tech looked at the cables inside my wall and said they needed to be replaced, so they did that. I now have a line coming in directly from outside, bypassing the outlet. However, this only fixed the issue for a couple months, and now it's back, but even worse.

I have spoken with my neighbors, and they all have the same issues.

I have checked my signals and they're fine. I've reset the modem, not that I should even have to mention that. I've tried other computers, tried both wired and wireless.

Here is an example of what I deal with. This is ten minutes of pinging Google. Each time you see a red bar, that's my connection dropping. Each time that happens, my games/videos/etc stop working. I can't do anything online because of this. I'm paying $100/month for this.

https://prnt.sc/11418zy

Here is my speedtest. Never have an issue with this.

https://prnt.sc/1141djq

Each time I call support, they ping my router and tell me the signal is fine, but it never is, as evidenced by the pingplotter screenshot.

I have absolutely had it, and I'm not sure what to do. I work from home for a call center as well, and when my connection drops, so too do my calls. I'm surprised I've not yet been fired given how many dropped calls I've had.

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  • Superbigwaff's avatar
    Superbigwaff
    Contributor
    4 years ago

    Your PingPlotter does seem indicative of congestion on the Cox network. You have pretty low latency when packets make the round trip and it is interesting the packet loss is uniform across all the hops... 

    Something to keep in mind... packet loss may not be indicative of a problem with the network as the routing hardware along the route might be configured to de-prioritize responses to traceroute tools.. especially if the system detects network congestion... sometimes the networking hardware may even be configured to not respond to these requests at all.

    Curious whether you have tried connecting via a VPN service and running PingPlotter against the same target IP address... 

    • LillyH93's avatar
      LillyH93
      New Contributor
      4 years ago

      I could understand congestion being the cause if this were a relatively new issue. However, this has been consistent for four and a half years.

  • LillyH93's avatar
    LillyH93
    New Contributor
    4 years ago

    I had a tech come out today, who analyzed what he called the "tap." He said he did notice a lot of congestion, more than there should be, and that it wasn't built to handle the amount of traffic that was attempting to flow through it. The tech basically said there was nothing he could do and I was SOL, as it was "above [his] paygrade," and that while Cox could fix it, they likely wouldn't as that'd cost them money. He mentioned that the "tap" was currently servicing eight units, although did not mention how many units it normally would service, or how much traffic was typical.