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Potential Class Action - Phoenix/North Phoenix Arizona Internet Instability
I'm just curious, if anyone has been having a terrible time with gaming/video streaming with their internet in the North Phoenix area. I'm pretty confident this is an infrastructure issue in my neighborhood specifically, but i'm genuinely curious if others have been having similar experiences. Here's my story. I lived in Tempe AZ, and in North Phoenix in my last two homes. Both had FTTH (Fiber to the home). My most recent location, was Tempe. While I had FTTH Gigablast, I had no issues what so ever. I recently purchased a home in North Phoenix near 19th Ave and Union Hills and this is the disaster i've experienced. When I moved, I transferred my service. I was told that my service would be exactly the same, and that I would have no issues. I was also told my plan wouldn't change at all. During this process, no one mentioned that on Docsis 3.1, upload speeds would be capped to 35mbps. Not only that, but I lost my unlimited bandwidth that I was grandfathered into because I "changed hardware", and moved from FTTH, to Docsis 3.1. Because of that, my bill was $10 more, I lost out on unlimited bandwidth, AND, my upload was capped. I argued that, because of that, my plan is infact changing, and this is no longer the gigablast I had. I spoke with many technicians, many people in sales, and many people in retention. All told me "Well, it's the same gigablast service, so your plan isn't changing." Since then, i've had constant issues. It's been consistent packet loss all throughout the day. It's completely intermittent, however, it's often. It's literally all throughout the day. It ranges from 1%-15%. Hard ping spikes, latency variations, etc. This has been happening non stop since January. I've had probably 4-5 technicians come out, as well as multiple lvl2 (or lvl3) techs come out that drive the bucket trucks. So far, i've tried buying multiple cable modems, i've tried multiple routers, i've tried using Cox's "Panoramic Wifi" combo modem/router. I've updated all my cabling to new Cat 6 cabling. Nothing worked, same issue. I've had the line that runs to the junction, to my home, replaced. ga I've had multiple higher level technicians explain there was an issue with the upload node. I see bucket trucks out here in my neighborhood often. The last technician I spoke with explained that they've fixed the issue. However, I JUST spoke to the retention department who explain so far this month we've had 7 outage incidents that she can pull up. This retention expert also game be "Elite Gamer" for free, JUST to try and to test with. As the last tech who told me i'm basically screwed until FTTH told me I should try that. I told him "If my internet was working correctly, you wouldn't need to try to upsell me something I know for a FACT wouldn't make a difference". Well, I tried the "Elite Gamer"thing today, and immediately started experiencing the same issues, and Elite Gamer shows within that yes..infact i'm experiencing problems. The most recent technician that I had come out (who I think was lvl2 and he came out with a guy in a bucket truck), told me that, unfortunately Cox wont do anything about it unless you're seeing constant 20% packet loss, or until they start running FTTH in my neighborhood. Mind you, my neighborhood is down the street from one of the previous neighborhoods I lived in with FTTH. Cox not doing anything until there's 20% packet loss is crazy to me, as at that point you basically don't have a functioning service. And ontop of that, there are NO resources, no one i've been able to contact, about plans for FTTH in my neighborhood. I can't even get information about if any other issues have been reported in my neighborhood, or if the technicians have plans on replacing the failing infrastructure. Apparently, only the technicians with the bucket trucks have that information. And the last one I spoke with basically said "Yea we fixed it, so now there's nothing we can do until there's FTTH in your area" At this point, I don't know what to do. I'm paying for an incredibly shotty service that no one within Cox seems to care to fix. Is there any representitive who can help me here with resources to contact to speak about bringing FTTH to our area, what that process looks like, if it goes through city counsil, or is it purely Cox's decision with timelines, etc. Or, any local legal experts that have skin in this game specifically dealing with ISP's and poor service? Any other local north Phoenix residents experiencing this same issue? This has to be the WORST experience i've had with any ISP ever, and i've had FiOS and Century Link.Packet loss, latency on gigablast in Scottsdale, AZ for the last few months
I've been battling issues similar to multiple other recent posts on the forums [1, 2, 3, 4].Since this problem has started, I've replaced the cabling in my house, gotten a new modem and a new router, but the problem has persisted. As of today, I've had four different techs come to my house. Techs 1 and 2 both replaced the connections from my house to my tap. Tech 3 did that too, but also said he added a "boost filter" because of "low transmits" to my modem. Tech 4 replaced connections as well, and then said he "lowered the signal" because it was "too high" at the modem (sounds like he removed the boost filter from tech #3 lol). Today I noticed there is one especially bad host in the tracerts to both a sample Rocket League server and to Google, and several other hosts giving packet loss. Sunday and Monday had very bad packet loss all day, while it cleared late Monday night (9pm-1am). Today there was supposedly an outage in my area, but my Internet access was fine, and in fact had very little packet loss. Lo and behold, as the "outage" was clearing up, the packet loss came back. Attached are several samples from yesterday and today. I chose a smattering of times from yesterday's samples to show that the problem was definitely exacerbated during peak times, but that there is still packet loss in the tracert on Cox's end even outside of peak, which persists even after today's supposed outage was fixed. In addition to this, the last phone tech I spoke to via the Cox Cares (what a BS name) actually remarked that Arizona was the highest reporter of these issues in their personal experience. To me, that's pretty telling. Obviously it's anecdotal, but with my data and the rest of the data from others it seems to me Cox has some serious infrastructure issues that they are actively choosing to avoid dealing with. Lucky for them they have a monopoly here, huh? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1irw5zdTEkkEb5818-UJJBkbLkP6DHzFM/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pkmfPBba58rBVsLE1dvU53BGUTjvKtNN/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gHbb7vwUXIT2FXpFvoeNbbpUsogvPwT7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RmCGIvrtx1Sc1Q7w0yU7b6gbJP_ggy3G/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TmK8voj4KXR4li6N7XahocB4uA6HC5m1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bLOWFfg9vnDwZ6PAbCz1G_406JJmSeXe/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LhWZxlJoREkhb7Fji6HAZ0X6EIC6J55d/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/19YF_sdIIG8sAyVAQorc_fYIj0X6cjlHO/view?usp=sharing [1]Gaming and warzone/CoD in general packet burst - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums [2]Noisy node issues - Speed drops until reset - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums [3]Terrible packet loss and jitter. - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums [4]Another packet loss and ping spike issue - Internet - Internet Forum - Cox Support Forums
Continued Extreme Packet Loss In Phoenix, Arizona
This is a continuation of multiple threads related to extreme amounts of packet loss in Phoenix, Arizona. This has been ongoing for well over six months of formal complaints, and after about two weeks of adequate service, I'm back to very high levels of packet loss. Packet loss as demonstrated by Ping Plotter: My brand new DOCSIS 3.1 modem's logs over the course of 14 days of uptime, showing literally hundreds of thousands of corrected and uncorrected packets over a single channel, and hundreds of thousands of corrected and uncorrected packets across all other channels: This is completely unacceptable. Why has this problem persisted through over half a year of formal complaints? I've gone through multiple modems, routers, and a complete replacement of my coax line from my modem to the nearest neighborhood node. There is a serious infrastructure problem in my area that has yet to be addressed. This is an unbelievable situation, Cox. Why is this not fixed?In Regards To Packet Loss In Phoenix Arizona - Cox Is Unwilling To Properly Address The Problem
I'm not going to continue the existing thread with this comment as it is now very long and full of data demonstrating packet loss and latency issues in north Phoenix, Arizona during peak times over the past several months. If you'd like to reference the data sets I've been collecting, there are two separate threads that can be found here: https://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/internet-forum/21292/internet-issues---consistent-lost-packets-north-phoenix-arizona https://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/internet-forum/22007/internet-issues---consistent-lost-packets-north-phoenix-arizona Long story short, I've been experiencing high amounts of packet loss (5-30+%) and high latency (routinely spikes between 200 and 400ms) during peak times of utilization (7-11PM weekdays and weekends). This results in my internet being unusable. On the 8th, when I called in, my wife was unable to load even a simple website due to packet loss. All data sets/testing/etc were done via a wired connection. I've replaced my modem and router several times, and have had 100% of the coax line between my modem and the nearest neighborhood node replaced. An in home tech verified the same amount of packet loss at the tap outside my home. Tier 2 agents verified packet loss between themselves and my modem during an outage. Both instances are recorded in my service history and both demonstrate the issue of high amounts of packet loss while excluding my internal network/hardware entirely. There is zero old/faulty hardware between my modem and the nearest neighborhood node. The issue exists either as a hardware or software problem somewhere within Cox's network, an infrastructure partner's network, or both - entirely out of my control as a customer. I've had an FCC complaint open since early August and have reached out to any local/state/federal agencies that could possibly act as a mediator and/or encouraging agent to push Cox in the direction of properly addressing this issue. I have been collecting data for five months and attempting to work with Cox to get this addressed, being as patient as I can while paying nearly $100/mo for service that is not being properly rendered. After several weeks waiting on the reply from my call on December 8, I finally received a response from Cox's Executive support team via phone yesterday. I was told by the Executive Support Team that this problem will no longer be investigated by Cox and that - regardless of the amount of packet loss and high latency I'm seeing as a customer - be it 2%, 15%, 30%, or higher - Cox is no longer going to investigating this issue. They've classified the high amount of packet loss and latency I'm seeing as what qualifies as "Best Effort Service" and that the service "is as-is". They didn't call to follow-up and attempt to properly address the issue of packet loss, they called simply to tell me they were no longer looking into this issue. What kind of state is Cox in that it can be completely non-transparent with any work done in regards to my complaints, and then tell me that the issue is closed and no additional work will be done to remediate the obvious and consistent problems with their network? I'm astonished that one additional service call at 1:30PM on a Thursday afternoon is supposed to invalidate the dozens of data sets I've provided - almost entirely within the bounds of peak times of utilization. This is Comcast level support, and it is completely unacceptable. Cox's internet service disclosure (https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/internet-service-disclosures.html) states the following in regards to residential connection metrics during peak times of utilization: Download speeds between 97 and 100% of advertised speeds Upload speeds between 102 and 103% over a 24 hour period Latency of an average of 23ms within Cox's network Packet loss of an average of 0.15% during peak times of utilization - so small as to be imperceptible The problem I'm seeing does not occur every single day, but it has occurred several days a week over the past five months and has been incredibly problematic. Download speeds have varied, but during outages I've been plagued with download speeds as low as less than 2mbps. Upload speeds are almost never at or above 100% of advertised speeds during peak. Perhaps when factoring in overnight and during weekdays it may be around advertised, but that simply includes a range of time during which there is very low utilization. Latency is almost always higher than 23ms within Cox's network. During peak times, it will typically float between 40 and 70ms within their network, with huge spikes up to and above 400ms at times. The spikes in latency are many times associated with high percentages of packet loss, which is my main complaint. I can handle download and upload speeds being lower than anticipated during peak (within a respectable margin). This is de facto cable internet - a shared medium. What I can't accept is packet loss ranging from 5 to 35% during peak times. My modem is recording literally hundreds of thousands of corrected and uncorrected packets over the course of several hours or days of uptime - across all 32 downstream channels. This issue of packet loss is my primary complaint and is completely unacceptable. It's unbelievable that I'm now being told by Cox that packet loss issues are no longer going to be investigated. Again - this is monopolistic behavior and is very anti-consumer. I had a very good history with Cox until I moved into the Phoenix, Arizona area. After the move, I can say that this is undoubtedly the worst customer experience of my life. You are taking advantage of the percentage of people who are unable to distinguish packet loss by failing to correct infrastructure problems leading to packet loss in the Phoenix area. This is a very obvious slap in the face to anyone using your services. I truly hope that your company can overcome this anti-consumer behavior without a direct competitor in my area of Phoenix. That would be great customer service and would lead to at least my trust as a consumer with no parallel choices for an ISP in my area of Phoenix. Unfortunately, the past five months has demonstrated that your company is unwilling to take adequate action on behalf of your customer.Internet Issues - Consistent Lost Packets North Phoenix, Arizona
Continuing my previous post that was closed: https://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/internet-forum/21292/internet-issues---consistent-lost-packets-north-phoenix-arizona The same issue is still occurring. I now have months of data collected to support packet loss beyond my home, as well as an in-home Cox technician that confirmed the infrastructure beyond my home was the issue and that he was seeing packet loss at my tap while excluding my entire internal network. The call date was September 8, 2018 and packet loss beyond my home should be notated on my account in accordance with that call. Here are screenshots from a packet testing utility I've been using while hard wired to my modem and through a router - the same packet loss issues persisted with or without the router in between. Packet loss also persisted through different hardware and operating systems. This packet loss issue persisted through three separate/new routers, two separate, brand new DOCSIS 3.0 modems, a Cox supplied Panoramic modem/router combo as well as the current Motorola MB8600 DOCSIS 3.1 modem. The modem provisioning can be found in my account history. In the photo below, you can see lost packets using UDP (in the Ping Plotter application window, not a normal ICMP request that would normally be dropped due to low priority) and a normal ping in the command prompt window both displaying dropped packets at the same time using two separate types of communication: Here is a screenshot from my modem indicating the uptime (less than three weeks, modem is brand new) and the several hundred thousand of corrections needed on bands 2-21: I called Motorola to confirm my understanding of the "correction" column, and was immediately informed that the number of corrections based on the modem's status page is indicative of an issue with Cox's infrastructure beyond my home. My RG6 line runs direct from the tap at the outside of my home to my modem - no splitters or other devices in use, and was replaced about two months ago by a Cox technician. The RG11 line that runs from the closest Cox ingress point to the outside of my home was replaced as well, about two months ago. There is a problem with the Cox infrastructure in my area of Phoenix. I've been dealing with this problem for months, and have provided Cox with dozens of data sets like the ones linked in this post - yet no tangible corrective measures beyond replacing the lines running to my home have been taken. I currently have a complaint in with the FCC and FTC, and will continue documenting and communicating this information out until the issue of packet loss is identified and corrected.