[RJ17015]

We're renting a furnished apartment, month-to-month, so we did not order the cable via Cox the rental company hooked up the cable and internet. Internet we were supposed to get included in the rent - we had the option to pay for cable AND 5G internet - I am not tech savvy, so just repeating what I was told. The apartment/condo is only 800 sq feet total - so the router is literally 6 ft from where we sit in the great room. Assuming it's old equipment, and sharing with all the other apartments/condos next to us and above us?!?!

We did reset the modem, and it didn't do any good - so I guess it is what it is. We'll be out of here in 30 days, so we're on the home stretch. Thanks again.

[Svoboda]

Speedtests are worthless for a couple reasons.

First, it was a long running joke within the IT community that the speed numbers were fudged and those suspicions have been confirmed multiple times over the years. It was actually just in the news again. I personally ran into it multiple times way back in the day when one of the test sites would intentionally slow routes of competitors as they were resellers for some ISPs. Even if the speed test sponsors aren't doing anything nefarious, their chosen network routing can have drastic speed effects on traffic and thus the test results. Network administrators can choose how their traffic paths and usually they will favor their backbone providers, co-op networks, etc.

An example of this. I manage around 300 remote insurance office networks and buy their Internet service. Our home offices are in Chicago and Indianapolis. Time Warner cable in the Midwest had traditionally bad routing. Offices in Michigan specifically all had really poor response times communicating with our home office networks. All of their traffic would go to the Eastern seaboard and usually North Carolina and then back to Illinois/Indiana. Whereas the couple Comcast offices we had (Michigan is split down the middle between the two providers) would go straight down the pipe to Chicago. Even though that routing just added milliseconds to the path, it was enough to be noticeable, cause time outs, etc.

Second, the speeds you are sold by the ISP carry two caveats that are in the fine print and sometimes in large print. Almost every ISP has their sales page say speeds "UP TO" 1G, 100M, etc. The FCC used to have some regulatory authority but the Republicans led the charge to repeal Net Neutrality. So they could essentially feed you a **** sandwich and you've got no recourse as there is a monopoly at the medium level -- typically you can only have 1 DSL provider, 1 cable provider, etc. Some ISPs resell service but they are what is known as a Type II provider, which means the company that owns the actual cable is the last mile (LEC) carrier so even if you had Joe Bob's cable here in Vegas, he is still just using the Cox infrastructure.

Additionally, and usually buried in the fine print, is those "up to" speeds are only guaranteed to the modem, and in some cases, only their provided/rented device. If you use your own modem, they don't guarantee anything but a connection and you get whatever speed you get. Now, you will still likely get better speeds with your own separate modem and router as the separation of duties will place less load/stress on the CPU/electronics within most SOHO devices but they are legally allowed to wash their hands of it.

Just some background info for those wanting to know the inner workings. I deal with pretty much every ISP coast-to-coast in each medium. They all equally suck. Internet Service speeds should be lightning quick and cheap and it will be a great day once the Government returns net neutrality and classifies them as utilities.

[timothyaw]

I can count on one hand how many times my cox internet has went out in almost 8 years. It's fast and reliable. Not sure what you got going on on your end. The frustrating part with Cox is the game you have to play when the bill goes up.

[timothyaw]

Originally Posted by newopty

I have had Cox internet for years and have found it very reliable. It rarely goes down. The price could definitely be better.

I don't know if they are still doing this but when I first started using their internet service they wanted you to use their cable modem / router combo box which they totally control. The performance was very poor. I replaced their combo box with a separate cable modem and router and haven't had any performance problems since then.

Definitely use your own equipment as I do. As I said above I've almost never had any issues.

[44inarow]

Originally Posted by newopty

I have had Cox internet for years and have found it very reliable. It rarely goes down. The price could definitely be better.

I don't know if they are still doing this but when I first started using their internet service they wanted you to use their cable modem / router combo box which they totally control. The performance was very poor. I replaced their combo box with a separate cable modem and router and haven't had any performance problems since then.

Same here. They're not amazing, but no more terrible than any other big-city cable provider. I had an outage for about a day last year, but the same thing can happen with Comcast, Time Warner, etc. I'm sure it could theoretically be faster, but I have no problem browsing the web, streaming video, and playing games.



I use their modem/router combo but have my own router plugged into it (I probably should invest in a standalone cable modem, but just haven't gotten around to it) and connect to that. It works fine.