Cox is not my friend in the Digital Age

My life has been a lie, this little guy is not my friend:

So, I've been a Cox loyalist for a while. They have been my broadband Internet provider for the entirety of my trial on this plane of existence. Things have over all been fine. No major outages, no speed issues, but that all changed recently.

Before I tell you about Cox's failure at the cave, let me take a moment to say `FUCK' Verizon. Verizon came cold knocking on my door 3 times during the COVID-19 pandemic without masks. I told them to beat it loser every time. They are trained with some remarkable rage inducing quips when you tell them to be elsewhere.

Here are some of my favorites:

`It's your bill.'

`You don't want the best?'

I slammed the door in the `you don't want the best' dudes face. I hate Verizon for a litany of reasons. Net Neutrality bull fuckery, ad intercept and just general BS business practices. I thought Cox was the chosen one like Anakin, but they suck too. Capitalism, am I right?

Also this guy:

I started getting notifications on my Cox account that my DOCIS 3.0 modem was about to be ban town'd due to new and exciting changes with the Cox network. I needed to get my ass to the choppa and get a DOCIS 3.1 modem.

So, I did that. And the fun began.

I bought an Arris SB8200 DOCIS 3.1 modem. The self activation wasn't working so I called Cox support to get the modem activated. Wait times where high and they offered a text support option to resolve my issue. Figured why not. This is a fairly simple issue, text support should work well for that.

Things where OK with the Cox text support agent. There where some issues getting the modem activated. I think there might have been an outage going on at the time because the self activate intercept page for the modem activation on Cox's network was very slow and would not accept my credentials. The Cox agent also had some struggles and at one point told me my SB8200 was not supported on Cox despite it being listed on their site as supported. The same link he sent me when I asked for what modems are supported.

I was like `doggie doggie' what this modem is on your supported list. He was like `oh snap' and eventually got it activated.

So towards the end while closing things out. The Cox  agent said he could upgrade me to Gigablast for the same price I am paying now for my 300Mbps plan. I was like `you are my friend in the digital age, do it!'

He comes back a little later and says, `sorry I couldn't upgrade your plan for the price I said.' It's now 50 bucks more than what you are paying. My scamdar started immediately going  off. I stated I only authorized the change at the price you stated. If you had an issue setting it to that price you should have confirmed with me before proceeding. Set the plan back to the 300Mbps one and return my regular pricing.

Long pauses. States he is having issues making the change. The text session ends.

My blood is boiling at this point. I call up Cox on the phone and very assertively explain what has transpired. I say bait and switch a number of times. Everyone on the phone was extremely nice and were able to give me Gigablast for less than what I was paying before. So, points for that. But I should have never been put in that situation. I imagine a lot of people just give up cause they don't want to deal with it and get suckered. I also have a fairly deep voice and I'm sure they could feel the anger radiating  off me.

So, BAD COX. BAD!

And now to add insult to injury. Cox Gigablast has  been fine for the month or so that I have had it until the past few days. Constant outages and sever packet loss. Somedays it is fine with <1% packet loss. Others it is terrible with >30%.

I think the node servicing this neighborhood is overloaded. I called tech support about the issue and they told me it was an internal wiring issue. I was a little sus as it had been fine. Later that day everything went down and Cox had an outage notice on their page for my area. When it came back the next morning after they repaired the outage everything was fine for a day. Now it's back to not great.

It could be my internal wiring and Gigablast is more sensitive to conditions when a node is underload, but the fact it comes and goes makes me think not.

When the packet loss is so bad on Cox I can tether with my iPhone via USB and still play Rocket League and do mad car pranks with no packet loss. ~60ms ping. It's usually ~10ms with Cox, but the packet loss is so bad sometimes it is not playable.

We will see how this story ends. If it continues like this I will have them replace the internal wiring and see if that helps.

Every day struggles.

Bonus info:

I think my signal strengths are OK. The power on channel 159 might be too high.

Also, things seem to be OK right now. I'm not getting any packet loss, these pipes are clean:

Earlier this morning it was ~10%. Yesterday it was ~30%. 🤷