Anyone having trouble lately with Cox Internet Service going down often?

[oki]

I've used Cox for years. Usually the internet works.

This summer the service is going down over and over for a few times a day. It's not my routers-- those work fine. My Cox modem itself can also send/receive data fine. It's the internet service signal dropping from Cox. Cable TV works, but the internet signal doesn't come in.

My friend is having problem's with their internet at their house, too. I wonder if it's a system-wide issue. Google leads me to reports of other people having problems lately with Cox internet. It doesn't go down incredibly often, but this week I've had problems at least half the week. Not a big deal if it's rare, but I just wonder if anyone is having problems in OKC and if Cox is doing some upgrade or maintenance or what. I've tried calling, but by then my internet works again and it's a wasted call. Not much they can do when the problem is random/intermittent.

I'm just wondering if other OKC people have been having trouble lately with Cox Internet outages....

[SoonerDave]

No problems here. You might be on a congested network segment. They're perpetually trying to bump up bandw

Are you saying that the modem lights are normal but you just have no connectivity? Sometimes your cable modem's upstream signal can be failing and present these kinds of symptoms. Do you know how to check you're modems internal status page?

[oki]

No problems here. You might be on a congested network segment. They're perpetually trying to bump up bandwidth.

Maybe I am.

Sometimes it goes down in the middle of the day. I can't imagine that many people being home mid-day, but maybe kids out of school during the summer watching way too much Netflix and wiping out my Cox signal.

My power tends to go out before older neighborhoods-- I wouldn't be too surprised if Cox just couldn't handle the growth around my neighborhood now.

I don't have an amplified splitter in the attic-- just a line coming through to power internet and 1 TV. I wonder if a powered amp would help anything.

[SoonerDave]

No. Don't run your Internet cable through an amp. It will amplify any noise in your signal and make the issue worse.

[oki]

No. Don't run your Internet cable through an amp. It will amplify any noise in your signal and make the issue worse.

Good to know. I've got the internet/TV line from the attic coming into the room and a 2 way splitter coming out of the wall between the cable TV and internet modem. Could that be a problem?

[SoonerDave]

Good to know. I've got the internet/TV line from the attic coming into the room and a 2 way splitter coming out of the wall between the cable TV and internet modem. Could that be a problem?

Possibly, but not likely. Is it a Cox-provided splitter, or did you get it from a local hardware/Radio Shack type store? The retail splitters are not the best quality, in general, although they are usually adequate for the video side.

Also, don't know if you saw my updated post earlier, but I was wondering if you'd had a chance to check the internal status page of the modem. I've had modems fail in a manner similar to what you've described when the uplink signal strength starts to fade. What can happen is that the signal is teetering on the edge of being usable, and is presently more usable than not, but sometimes slips down to the unusable side, and voila - things stop working. For a while.

If the service has just started to exhibit these problems, and you've had that modem for a while, it's definitely a possibility worth exploring. And it might be a good excuse to get a DOCSIS 3 modem if you don't already

[oki]

Possibly, but not likely. Is it a Cox-provided splitter, or did you get it from a local hardware/Radio Shack type store?

Also, don't know if you saw my updated post earlier, but I was wondering if you'd had a chance to check the internal status page of the modem. I've had modems fail in a manner similar to what you've described when the uplink signal strength starts to fade. What can happen is that the signal is teetering on the edge of being usable, and is presently more usable than not, but sometimes slips down to the unusable side, and voila - things stop working. For a while.

If the service has just started to exhibit these problems, and you've had that modem for a while, it's definitely a possibility worth exploring. And it might be a good excuse to get a DOCSIS 3 modem if you don't already

The splitter coming out of the wall is probably just a Radio Shack type unpowered splitter. I don't think Cox installed that. I had internet first that Cox came to installed, but added on cable TV later. I can't entirely remember, but I think I added that splitter myself.

I didn't see the updated post-- I'll try to check the internet status page of the modem. Should I look for uplink signal strength on it when it goes down? The modem is probably 2 years old by now... I should try to get a replacement out of Cox. Hopefully free. When the service goes down, putting the power on it usually doesn't help... if I leave it unplugged a few minutes then plug it back in, sometimes it seems to get a signal faster. And, if I unplug the router(s) from it, the cable modem signal seems to come back quicker. It's a Motorola modem.

[SoonerDave]

Oki,

Your upstream signal should be between +35 dBmV and +52 dBmV.

The status page should be available if you open up a web browser and point it to http://192.168.100.1. Look for a "Signal" page.

Cycling the power can very often bring a flakey modem back to life. The frustrating part is that, eventually, whatever is failing will go away permanently.

If you are renting your modem from Cox, they should replace it for you with no problem - especially if its an older DOCSIS 2.0 modem (they're trying to get those off the network and up to the newer standard). If you bought it yourself, replacing it isn't complicated - a new Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 modem is roughly $60-$70. You just need to call Cox once you get it and have them provision it for you.

[oki]

No problems here. You might be on a congested network segment. They're perpetually trying to bump up bandw

Are you saying that the modem lights are normal but you just have no connectivity? Sometimes your cable modem's upstream signal can be failing and present these kinds of symptoms. Do you know how to check you're modems internal status page?

The modem lights are not normal when it goes down-- the top light is on, and the PC activity light blinks sometimes. The other lights are off. Eventually the 2nd light down, then the 3rd light down, then the 4th will reappear. It usually goes out 30-60 minutes at a time. Yesterday it went down 3 times or more for half an hour each time. Even if I unplug it, it usually takes a while to gain signal strength again. Earlier I left it unplugged a few minutes before plugging the cablemodem back in and the signal seemed to come back a little quicker. I also unplugged the ethernet cord connecting the router to the cablemodem to try to see if some device in the house was just hogging bandwidth and wiping out the signal.

Yes, I can check the internal status page... (once I get there, I'm not sure what to look for, though)

[oki]

Oki,

Your upstream signal should be between +35 dBmV and +52 dBmV

Cool, thanks, I'll check this. Does it do any good to check it now, or should I wait until the service goes back down?

[oki]

When the service is up like now, the cablemodem internal status page says:

Downstream Value
Signal To Noise Ratio 29.1 dB
Power Level -16.0 dBmV

Upstream Value
Power 46.2 dBmV

[SoonerDave]

Cool, thanks, I'll check this. Does it do any good to check it now, or should I wait until the service goes back down?

Check it in both instances. Even if the modem is not making a good upstream connection, you should (it says here) be able to access the status page internally. Compare those upstream values between working/non-working, and see if they vary accordingly.

That 46.2 dBmV value is right smack in the middle of where it should be. Check it again next time it goes south on you.

[SSEiYah]

Never goes down, but gets slow from 6-10pm

It is about 9pm right now and I'm at 13mbps down, 3.2mbps up. I'm paying for a 25 down, 3 up connection.

Speedtest.net - My Results

At times we only see 10% of the speed we are paying for. Cox seems to think this is "ok" and there is no problem. Unfortunately U-Verse was no better.

[SoonerDave]

Never goes down, but gets slow from 6-10pm

It is about 9pm right now and I'm at 13mbps down, 3.2mbps up. I'm paying for a 25 down, 3 up connection.

Speedtest.net - My Results

At times we only see 10% of the speed we are paying for. Cox seems to think this is "ok" and there is no problem. Unfortunately U-Verse was no better.

Think of the maximum theoretical speed at any of those tiers as something akin to EPA estimated gas mileage. They always advertise it, but no one sees it. That's because what isn't included in that speed quote is the overhead inherent in any network traffic scenario, the latency between any two hosts on the Internet (about which Cox has absolutely no control, except arguably from where it exits Cox network and enters the broader network), the number of hops between you and remote host X, and that's only a few of the variables involved. Cox is only quoting a theoretical maximum.

Also, are you using a DOCSIS 3.0-compliant modem? You won't even begin to see premiere-tier speeds if you have only a DOCSIS 2.0 modem.

[soonerguru]

Yes, constantly when it rains. That is, until about a month ago. The TV service was so bad we switched to DirecTV after a year of trying to get it fixed. We kept the phone and Internet. Clearly the issue was in our neighborhood but Cox would continue to just send out techs to our residence to "fix" the issue, when the problem was in the lines in our nabe.

However, during the recent deluges we had uninterrupted service, so I think they have fixed it.

[SoonerDave]

Oki,

Those lights cycling as you're describing indicate the modem is losing its lock to the Cox network. If it comes back after you cycle power, I would strongly suspect the modem is going bad on you. No guarantees, of course, but that just sounds a lot like my own experience, and a new modem has fixed the problem in my case. They just go south on you sometimes.

[Stew]

My cox Internet frequently will pause/freeze for about 5 to 10 seconds then back to business as usual. It's so a annoying I turned off the wifi on my ipad and strictly use cellular. I'd cancel it but others in my house still use it.

Interesting info on this thread. I'll pass it along.

[SoonerDave]

My cox Internet frequently will pause/freeze for about 5 to 10 seconds then back to business as usual. It's so a annoying I turned off the wifi on my ipad and strictly use cellular. I'd cancel it but others in my house still use it.

Interesting info on this thread. I'll pass it along.

If it were truly the Cox service causing this problem, you wouldn't be the only one seeing it. Without more detail its hard to diagnose with much specificity, but sometimes stalling like that can be due to name resolution issues that can be device-local, network-local, or go back to your ISP's DNS (Domain Name Service) servers. Can also be due to a spotty Wifi connection, particularly if its on one of the older channels that might compete with other wireless devices in the house such as some cordless phones or even competing WiFi sources from neighboring connections.

Like I said, very difficult to diagnose a problem like that, but switching to the cellular side doesn't reduce the possible causes to Cox. Doesn't preclude them, of course, but understand that there are several other variables in the mix.

[soonerguru]

In my experience, we just had a problem in our neighborhood, which appears to have been fixed. One of the phone techs told me half my block was having an outage when he looked.

That being said, I see Cox vehicles in my neighborhood almost every day, and my problems have stopped, so they obviously have found the problem (which they admit can be very difficult). It's often squirrels chewing on the coax lines. Trying to find the problem is extremely tricky.

Credit to them for seemingly repairing the problem in my neighborhood. You might check with your neighbors to see if they're having problems as well.

[oki]

Went down again.

Here's the cable modem internal status page info when it was down:

Downstream Value
Signal To Noise Ratio 28.3 dB
Power Level 22.4 dBmV

Upstream Value
Channel ID 0
Frequency 0 Hz
Power 41.4 dBmV

[bchris02]

I usually have pretty good luck with my Internet service. I usually see slow speeds during peak hours more often than getting disconnected. However, despite the direction technology is going, I can never bring myself to move completely to the cloud until 24/7/365 reliable Internet service is available. It's for this reason I don't understand people doing away with Blu-Ray and DVD and going completely streaming.

[SoonerDave]

Went down again.

Here's the cable modem internal status page info when it was down:

Downstream Valery
Signal To Noise Ratio 28.3 dB
Power Level 22.4 dBmV

Upstream Value
Channel ID 0
Frequency 0 Hz
Power 41.4 dBmV

Power level is ok, but for some reason the modem is losing lock back to an upstream channel. Could be a few things, let me do a little checking and I'll post back

[Midtowner]

I've been having tons of connection problems. Phones have been down, etc. I think it has something to do with the construction of the Edge Apartments or with the state of Cox's transmission lines in Heritage Hills..

[BBatesokc]

Since we moved I have a daily issue where my internet signal will be non-existent for maybe 1-3 minutes and then return to normal. Happens 1-3 times a day that I notice.

I've been meaning to call, but the 'tech support' is so useless in my opinion I'd waste an hour dealing with them. I usually use the 'down time' to make a call or do a quit household chore.

I thought it might have to do with my Sprint Airave (boosts my cell phone signal because I have zero ability to use my cell phone in my neighborhood otherwise - and is plugged into my router).

I also have a signal booster from Cox.

[MustangGT]

I live in far NW OKC and no troubles at all.