Internet Has Been Out for Days, Yet Cox Tells Me I'm the Problem
I'd like to find out if anyone else has had an experience with Cox as terrible as my recent experience in Oklahoma City, OK: My home internet has been out for 3 or 4 days now. It started when our modem suddenly stopped getting any signal from Cox. The modem has power and has shown zero issues up to this point. I thought maybe it was that particular coaxial connection, so I tried hooking the modem up in other rooms around the house that that have a connection available. Same issue: modem powers on, but no connection to Cox. I then got on the Cox website to verify that my modems MAC and Serial Numbers were correct, as well as to try and reset my modem from my online account settings. Still no improvement. So, I decided to chat with a Cox support agent. The FIRST agent I talked to looked into all kinds of things and ended up telling me that I needed a new modem (which, of course they immediately started trying to sell me one of theirs). I said no thanks, went to the store, and bought a new modem. The new modem is the exact same brand and model (Netgear CM500) as the previous modem I'd been using for years with Cox, so I know for a fact it is compatible. I get home, I hookup the new modem, but still no connection to Cox. I try to activate the modem according to both the manufacturers instructions and the instructions on the Cox website, but I can't finish it myself because, of course, Cox can't establish a connection to the modem! So, I decide to chat with a Cox support agent AGAIN. The SECOND agent has me provide the MAC and Serial Number of the new modem so that they can activate it on my account for me. I provide them all of this information, and they tell me that they have activated the modem on their end, but that they still can't establish a connection to the new modem. Then, all of a sudden, the chat session ends before I can get anything else from them. Big help that was, Cox! Once again, I reach out to a Cox support agent. I tell the THIRD agent everything that's happened up to this point, about the sudden disconnection on my old modem, going out and buying a new modem, going through the headache of getting the new modem activated, and getting disconnected from the previous agent. This agent wants all the MAC and Serial Number information again so they can make sure the modem is activated. I provide all the information to them, they tell me the modem is activated "on their end", and that I need to reset the modem (unplug it, wait 10 seconds, plug back in). Then they tell me to "wait a while", I'm assuming so that Cox can try to connect to the modem. After about 10 or 15 minutes of waiting, and still no connection, this agent tells me that it's a problem with my modem. UM, EXCUSE ME? You mean, this brand new modem that the FIRST agent told me to go buy for absolutely no reason? Not likely. At this point I told the third agent that I'd like a technician to come out to my house and check the Cox lines outside because the only remaining possibility is that there's an issue with their equipment. The third agent then told me that they can't send a technician to my house because they're not allowed to touch equipment that's not provided by Cox (in reference to the modem). I tell them that's fine, because I'm not asking them to touch my modem, I want them to check up on their own equipment! The agent then goes back to insisting that the issue is with my brand new equipment. Well, of course it is, because Cox is just infallible, right?! At this point, I'm ready to drop Cox all together. I've never had such a poor customer service experience in my life. I worked in customer service for a number of years, and it never once occurred to me to tell a customer "it's not us, it's you" if I hadn't already exhausted every possibility on our end first. It's a shame too, because this is really the first issue I've ever had with Cox. At this point, the hot spot on my T-Mobile phone is providing a more reliable connection for my home than Cox seems able to. In the meantime, I've talked with co-workers who live in nearby cities who've told me that their Cox service has been out for the exact same amount of time, with the exact same symptoms (modem suddenly receives no signal), who've been told the exact same thing by customer service agents (go buy a new modem), then been treated the exact same way after the recommendation doesn't work ("it's not us, it's you"). Is anyone else starting to see a pattern here?
You're Not Crazy It's Happening To Everyone
I can't read one more. I can't read one more post that says, "my modem drops dozens of times a day, and comes back up minutes later, sometimes it's unusable for HOURS, I've rebooted, and reset, and refreshed, and I've replaced ALL of my equipment, I've called Cox dozens of times, techs have visited my house over and over, and it's STILL HAPPENING, EVERY DAY." It's not a user-end issue, and I can't believe that with ALL OF THESE IDENTICAL REPORTS (and you can add mine - identical), that Cox is just plum mystified (and always, EXTREMELY RETICENT TO ISSUE ANY KIND OF CREDIT FOR THEIR BREACH OF CONTRACT). It's too much. That's enough. The Federal Communications Commission is there to protect consumers from this fraud and abuse, and by God, I'll be calling on them to do so. Investigative journalists live to expose greed and corruption, and the lack of antitrust measures governing utilities like Cox is fertilizer for the kind of stink Cox gives you for hundreds of dollars a month. So anyway, does anyone have any suggestions, he asked rhetorically. (incidentally, the sheer VOLUME of tags, crowd-sourced, shows where the stakeholders are:)"Increased internet traffic" and "Network impacting event"
How would Cox react if I sent a note to their payment center stating that I had "Increased banking traffic" that created a "budget-impacting event", therefore making it impossible to pay my bill? Well, we all know, they'd turn OFF my service at a minimum. I wish I could "turn off" Cox by firing them, and choosing another broadband service, but there are no other choices where I live.
Is there any way to get the service i pay for?
I'm generally a tolerant person. I'm not one to complain about a service or meal unless its absolutely horrendous. Yet here i am, so you know where this is going. We recently moved to Phoenix AZ from Kansas City MO where we thoroughly enjoyed our Google Fiber internet service (gigabit up, gigabit down, Unlimited data, $70 a month) We had it go down about once in 5 years. Night and day better than your service in every way, probably why you lobbied to keep Google out of Phoenix, but I digress. Now we have Cox, because that's our only option. To say we are completely frustrated and angry is a severe understatement. At first it was annoying how much more we had to pay for worse service. Gigablast, plus having to pay for unlimited data means a cool $179.00 a month, and only a 30mb upload speed compared to the gigabit we had. But hey, at least it was mostly pretty stable. Until this June. Since then its down nearly every day, often multiple times a day. What is going on? I pay 179 a month and for the past 2 months its down ALL THE TIME. 5 times a week, at a minimum. When it is working, we often get .5mb upload speeds. This is completely unacceptable. No bill credits for the horrible service, no discounts. Just horrible service with no apologies. Funny how if i don't pay my bill ill get a late fee, but you dont have to pay a fee when you don't provide the service you are supposed to. I get that you guys have a monopoly and really don't care, but PLEASE at least fix your service so it functions reliably. Not only am i having to pay outrageous sums every month for sub par service, but as i work from home, you are literally costing me money. I've tried calling, I cant ever get ahold of anyone who will help or cares, at best they kick me to chat service with someone in Bangladesh. In fact, right now I'm hot-spotting my phone just so I can log into your forums to tell you how bad your service is and plead with you to do SOMETHING about it. I'm fully aware you don't care, I'm fully aware you probably wont help me either. I have no choice but to pay you for your horrible service if i want internet at my house. But hey, at least I feel a little bit better getting to vent about it.
Just a reminder on user opinion of Cox Data Caps
Just a reminder, since imposing data caps you have done little to address the complaints of customers (data caps too low, no option for unlimited that is reasonable, being so *** greedy it makes me cringe paying my bill every month). I still absolutely despise this company and its policies on capping data to 1TB for all levels of internet service, it's a joke in 2018 and you should be ashamed of yourselves. I seriously can't wait to for SpaceX satellite internet to become available, because the moment I have a viable alternative (let's see you stop SpaceX accessing utility poles you anti-competitive you-know-whats) I will be ditching your company so fast and never looking back. You're fortunate in that, for now, there is no viable alternative for service in my area... you better believe if I move, ISPs will be high on my list of considerations and if Cox is the only option, I'll just move somewhere else. The other part that is fortunate for Cox is that you STILL HAVE TIME to fix your colossal screw ups, before the competition comes in and kills you (it's going to happen, it's only a matter of time, look at your TV business). Fix this, and maybe the hemorrhage of customers will not be so bad when another company that doesn't want my arm, leg and first born to provide me with a decent service at a fair price arrives. In the past, SEVERAL years ago, Cox had data caps in my market (though not enforced at the time) of OVER 2TB... what happened? This was years ago, and someone at Cox deemed that to be a fair amount back then... I'll tell you what happened. Greed. Plain and simple, you found a way to increase your profits at the customers' expense, yet again. Your investments in infrastructure are a joke, you're never laying new fiber or upgrading existing lines... you barely fix what breaks, and wait for things to break and go down before fixing (if you ever even upgrade at all, I'm talking Nodes here). All you're OBVIOUSLY doing is overselling your capacity, and hoping that Data Caps will offset the amount of use that customer are getting, so you can keep piling on more and more customers while never improving or upgrading a *** thing on your end. It makes me sick, and I am going to continue to complain as long as there are data caps and no reasonable method to avoid them entirely. Eventually, if/when you do nothing, I will take my business to the first competitor along with plenty of others with me... I would almost rather it go that way, because in my current view of Cox, not much would make me happier than seeing you go out of business in the nastiest possible way. You know what they say about karma, and you'll have earned every bit of it. Doing business with Cox feels like being in an exploitive relationship, with no easy way out (no competition, and anti-competitive behavior from Cox to keep any and all competition far away, funny how there's always enough money for that project isn't it????). Do something about it. Sincerely, A once happy, but now extremely unhappy customer.
