ISP drops, No downstream, No Internet…. why, oh why dear COX do you lie?
How are we supposed to trust you when… - Multiple Cox Representatives, over the phone and via chat, fail to complete account verification - Chat support does not understand the issue as described - Technical support apparently doesn’t know to use their tools and resources - Technical support misdiagnoses the issue, blames the customer, and doesn’t know to look for outages - COX outage information is not accurately reported and does not reflect on outage website - Smart Help self-service troubleshooting also does not report outage information, including from inner notes - Representatives do not know how to check inner notes - Technical support only solutions are 1) Reboot, the problem is on the customer end 2) Replace the modem 3) Charge extra for in person Technician 4) Charge extra to speak with Advanced Technical Support - Technical Support Supervisors argue with the customer in a way that implies the customer is a liar, even with issue being on Cox end - Retention department solution conflicts with everyone else, including Technical Support Supervisors ISSUE DETAILS: Home ISP went down around 7pm PST last night, in middle of remote work shift. Spent about 6 hours troubleshooting. Couldn’t wait for tech to come last night so purchased new modem. New modem had SAME issue, with no downstream or ISP connection. Reverted setup back to OG and went to bed. Woke up today and everything magically worked. Home network logs show ISP WAN service resumed around 3:30am PST today. Technical support kept saying the issue was with my router and my modem was old (they are still selling same model on shelves btw, it's great! TY Netgear!), even when I had NO router connected, was NOT using Wi-Fi, and was directly ethernet modem connection. All cable connections, including splitter in attic, are solid with no lose or bad anything. No amount of rebooting, restarting, or resetting would fix. Logs indicated packet loss on ISP end and issue was with 2 separate modems (1 was brand new). Oddly during this, both modems did initially connect for 5-10 mins after 1 st reboot and then stopped working. Multiple agents wanted to charge me for having a technician come to home or charge to speak with “advanced support”. Called today to find out what the issue was, what changed, or what triggered the solution so could prevent a next time. Tech agent didn’t understand issue and wanted to troubleshoot an issue I wasn’t having any longer, which was nonsensical. The agent also wanted to charge me for advanced support or to send technician out, which again was nonsensical when I was no longer having an issue. The agent’s supervisor did not listen to issue and kept saying it was an issue with my router or modem. I spoke with retention, who advised me there WAS an outage last night that ended this morning. Those outage details were apparently missed by every other chat and over the phone agents? Really, really ODD. Makes me wonder if retention was blowing smoke or if their Technical Support and Chat groups are really that inadequate. From my experiences, I sadly believe the latter. Work also checks on outages and saw nada. Can’t prove to employer that COX had another outage! At least retention did help with future tech support needs with the Cox Cares support thingy. I appreciate COX not charging me for doing their jobs and supporting their own services...mostly. EFFORTS LOSS: ½ work shift, 6 hours total time last night, 2 hours today, and $300-ish on new modem which needs returning. EFFORTS GAIN: Learned most folks don’t need to pay for the unlimited plans if you keep your data under 1280 gigs a month. Check your data use history and save yourself $50 bucks a month off plan bloat! RESULT: 12/2-12/3 ISP drops – it was them not us! PS. Make sure if you talk to anyone at COX they verify your account. Lots of agents like to skip that step, give account info out, and make changes without it.
Work around for Guest Wifi - Cox router no longer has it
We just switched to the panoramic with the combined router and modem. We discovered later that the Cox removed the Guest Wifi option from their routers (super frustrating!!). Guest networking is basic functionality of a wireless router so I am very disappointed that Cox has gotten rid of this feature. As a work around, I tried setting up a new user as GuestWifi just for accessing the Cox Hot Spots but it won't work because even after removing all access, anyone using the login can still see our bill, pay our bill (ok maybe thats not so bad LOL), see our account number, etc....I'm sharing this part for others so they don't waste time with it. Next, we thought about connecting our old router to the new pano combined router/modem (basically using one modem with two routers). In concept, if I plug one end of the ethernet cable into the LAN port of the primary router, then plug the other end of the cable into the LAN port on the back of the second router, I'm thinking it'll work. But how do I set them up to show as different wifi logins? When I go into the router setup, how do I get into two different routers? Has anyone done this part of it?
Is it just me or is this a HUGE Security issue?
So today i was trying to forward some ports for my PC and i realized that Cox has now moved their port forwarding screen to a site that is not on the traditional router login settings and has moved to Wifi.cox.com Upon logging in to wifi.cox.com I realized that all of your router information is right there on the screen!! this info includes your Wifi Passwords , mac addresses of all connected devices and a bunch more info. Now, i know to your typical home user this might not be concerning. but to the people that actually know some technical aspects , this information, if in the wrong hands, can do some damage. This is my first time even realizing this Wifi.cox.com even existed. If its been around for awhile then that is ignorance on my part. but if it is a new thing cox needs to get it together ASAP. Another reason that this is bothersome to me is because Cox offers NO SECONDARY AUTHENTICATION. So someone literally just needs your cox email and password and can see all this information. At least give us a better sense of mind by letting us stop unwanted access to our account!!.
