Ridiculous Outages

I've been having issues for months as well. some days worse than others.

With some networking background, I did some testing, and my issue is that Cox DNS servers aren't responding. meaning streaming, email, etc stops working. I can reach out via IP and things work fine. Indicating the issue isn't anything on my LAN side, the modem, Cox's upstream Internet peering connections, etc.  Today for the first time in a really LONG time, Cox's email servers (IMAP & POP3) have stopped responding

Chat and Tier 1 tech support are worthless, as they follow an inappropriate script, and have apparently little to no technical knowledge, so when I respond clearly knowing more than they do, they give up. I've been a Cox Internet customer for around 25 years... (@Home for those that recall that far back)... and though there have been a few rough patches, Cox has been better than most in that timeframe. but without real competition and real leadership, Cox has gotten lazy and heading the route of Frontier

An 'outage' can be lots of things... and with Cox's clueless front line tech support, it really helps to do some troubleshooting yourself. Not that all 'outages' are DNS related, but I suspect something is going on, and is probably more common than publicly acknowledged (as many home users don't know how to test for such). Decades ago, I wrote a simple script to test home network issues. I went looking for it, and couldn't find it... I may need to resurrect such a diagnostic tool. Cox's app is worthless when there is a Cox DNS Server failure to respond problem (app won't respond, doesn't have a test for that, is about as worthless as Cox's Tier 1 support team)... argh. 

My suggestion, there are networking testing apps (beware malware) for mobile devices, and it becomes quick/easy to test various issues. I personally tested from command-line on PC until I realized my problems were Cox DNS Servers. I can now quickly test from phone/tablet when connectivity issues arise, and in the last few months, IP connectivity is fine, Cox DNS Servers aren't responding.

my city recently announced a new fiber to the house initiative...which unfortunately will take a few years to build out. I can't wait until I have a choice (AT&T only offers my area pathetic DSL, even though telco  (then PacBell) installed fiber underground in neighborhood 40+ years ago)