COX internet problems evening of 28 MAY 2015

[SoonerDave]

Just thought I'd take a moment to mention that Cox is apparently having fairly substantial Internet issues in Oklahoma City tonight. Thought my own home setup was screwed up until I was able to check everything outbound, then found a couple of other posts and tweets that it's really a Cox issue. No idea when it will be fixed or exactly what's wrong, but it's sure annoying

[Martin]

huh... haven't noticed anything and i'm a cox subscriber near sw 119th & may. -M

[MrZ]

I'm at SW 104th and May and it has been about 24 hours of very limited internet service. Some sites like google or facebook come up quick, others take several minutes to load and most don't load at all.
Looking at this outage map there is a big bullseye on SW OKC. https://downdetector.com/status/cox-communications/map
Quite a few unhappy people on the Cox Facebook page too https://www.facebook.com/coxcommunications
REALLY hoping this gets fixed soon. I work online and haven't been able to get crap done today.

[Snowman]

Just thought I'd take a moment to mention that Cox is apparently having fairly substantial Internet issues in Oklahoma City tonight. Thought my own home setup was screwed up until I was able to check everything outbound, then found a couple of other posts and tweets that it's really a Cox issue. No idea when it will be fixed or exactly what's wrong, but it's sure annoying

I noticed one of my PC games was having bad connection issues any time I tried to start or had joined online multiplayer matches after a storm either that day or the day before (I have Cox), unplugging and replugging in the modem corrected the issue. Though it could be a different issue in other parts of the city.

[FighttheGoodFight]

I usually run a tracert on servers I run after a storm to see if it affects my ping. It has only happened once this year after the tornado in Norman that went to Del City.

[zookeeper]

With Cox, if you're using a modem built for Internet and Phone (most of them) then unplugging doesn't work because they have a very short-term battery inside. You actually need to use something to push the reset the button. You lose nothing, it just allows it to power cycle and resets at the same time.

Also, if you have a WiFi router, be sure and recycle that as well. That's more often the problem than the modem. Simply unplugging the power to the router for 20-30 seconds should do the trick. A good 80% of the time, this will have you back and at much more consistent speeds.

About modems. Cox gets you for $6-$7 dollars in rental fees each month (depending on when you signed up). If you don't use their phone service, get yourself a good DOCSIS 3.0 modem and be done with that fee. Amazon has one of the best - the Motorola ARRIS Surfboard for only $65. In ten months you will have paid for your modem (based on the Cox rental fees) and it's actually a better modem.
http://www.amazon.com/ARRIS-Motorola.../dp/B004XC6GJ0

In fact, if you use them for phone - you should think twice about that, too. Don't laugh, but we use Magic Jack and it sounds just as good and all messages go to our phone app on our smartphones. Never had a single problem with Magic Jack. But if you don't want the Cox phone - save money and buy the modem and quit paying Cox $80 extra a year.

[SoonerDave]

With Cox, if you're using a modem built for Internet and Phone (most of them) then unplugging doesn't work because they have a very short-term battery inside. You actually need to use something to push the reset the button. You lose nothing, it just allows it to power cycle and resets at the same time.

Also, if you have a WiFi router, be sure and recycle that as well. That's more often the problem than the modem. Simply unplugging the power to the router for 20-30 seconds should do the trick. A good 80% of the time, this will have you back and at much more consistent speeds.

About modems. Cox gets you for $6-$7 dollars in rental fees each month (depending on when you signed up). If you don't use their phone service, get yourself a good DOCSIS 3.0 modem and be done with that fee. Amazon has one of the best - the Motorola ARRIS Surfboard for only $65. In ten months you will have paid for your modem (based on the Cox rental fees) and it's actually a better modem.
http://www.amazon.com/ARRIS-Motorola.../dp/B004XC6GJ0

In fact, if you use them for phone - you should think twice about that, too. Don't laugh, but we use Magic Jack and it sounds just as good and all messages go to our phone app on our smartphones. Never had a single problem with Magic Jack. But if you don't want the Cox phone - save money and buy the modem and quit paying Cox $80 extra a year.

Ditto just about all of this. There's no point in renting a modem from Cox IMHO. I dumped Cox Phone over a year ago and bought a $25 Obi100 VOIP box, plugged it into one of my wall jacks, and ported my home phone to Google Voice, and signed up for a separate e911 service for something like 90 cents a month. I lost the bundle price from Cox, but I saved more than the difference and my home phone is free.

I'm not personally an advocate of the combo wifi/cablemodems. The technology is moving forward so quickly, but sometimes unevenly, you end up being constrained for one spec because the other has jumped ahead. I've got a nice DOCSIS 3.0 modem (although DOCSIS 3.1 is already popping up and Cox is rumored to be early in testing 1Gb deployments) and a separate in-house wifi router, and I frankly prefer it that way. I think my modem cost about $70, so if I have it two years it only costs me about $3/month....

Having my phone set up this way drives Cox nuts. I get a minimum of an offer a week to add it back to my service for anywhere from $10 to $20 a month.

[Martin]

funny you guys mention the phone... i dumped cox phone a couple months ago and went to ooma. just this month cox snuck in the charge for modem rental and so i ended up picking out exactly the same modem that zookeeper recommended from amazon. -M

[mkjeeves]

Have you had any issues porting your phone number over from Cox to any of the alternate services?

[Urbanized]

I haven't had a home land line for a decade. But just now (past 60 days) cut the cord on business phone service. I switched to VOIP, with a virtual PBX by 3CX (used by companies like Pepsi, Harley-Davidson, Boeing, American Express) with SIP trunking by Broadvoice. I completely eliminated two of my five office Cox land lines and ported the other three to Broadvoice. I also eliminated another land line, provided by AT&T, which was in a remote building that Cox would not provide service to but which I can (and already do) provide LAN to via roof-mounted antennas.

So now, what was costing me more than $400/mo (traditional business phone service is far more expensive than residential) now costs $61/mo. It would only be $20 if I only needed the single inbound number, but I need a separate number for fax (we do a lot of business with organizations still fax-reliant, such as schools and churches), and I need a public-facing information-only number that offers a detailed recorded message (instead of simple autoattendant) when not answered by a person, as we get a large volume of calls asking about price, location, hours, etc.. This in addition to a regular office number with auto-attended operator if calls not quickly picked up.

The bonus is that now my remote building is on the same phone system as my office, so I can reach that person via intercom, and they can now serve as operator, which is a good fit, as they are specifically customer service personnel and also tend to have lots of down time.

The caller benefits in that they now are FAR more likely to get a live human rather than recording (this time of year someone is in the remote building 12 or more hours a day, seven days per week), and if not they are routed properly to either a recorded message that quickly answers the questions they are likely calling with OR, in the case of someone with a legitimate office-related call, they quickly reach the office directly.

The office staff (there are only two of us) is relieved of the crazy volume of "how much is it", "where do I park" and "are you open" (it's a sunny, 80 degree Saturday...what do YOU think ma'am??) calls that were making us very inefficient, and of course we will save a LARGE amount of money going forward.

I had to do a few other things to make it work, such as adding cell monitoring to ADT alarms as there would no longer be a land line and buying a new credit card processing terminal that works via cell signal instead of land line for rare instances when Internet service is down, but all in all it has been a great change. I wish I had done this long ago. Bye bye Cox (except for Internet).

[SoonerDave]

Have you had any issues porting your phone number over from Cox to any of the alternate services?

Porting to Google Voice was nearly flawless for me. When I ported, they would not accept a direct landline port; only a cell number. So I bought a $5 prepaid TMobile SIM card, stuck it in a spare phone, and ported my number from Cox to TMobile. Then I ported drom TMobile to Google, for which there was a one-time charge of something like $10. It took about a day for each port as I recall. You get a text from TMobile first telling you their part worked, and then an email from Google on the account you used to set up the voice account. Was essentially a flawless process for me.

[Martin]

Have you had any issues porting your phone number over from Cox to any of the alternate services?

no... the service i chose charged a $40 fee to port the number. cox didn't cause any problems in the process. -M

[zookeeper]

I'm not personally an advocate of the combo wifi/cablemodems.

I can agree with this times ten. When you have a combo, ultimately only the router goes bad and you're sometimes left with a brick. Or, more likely, WiFi technology outpaces what's built into your modem. I agree, SoonerDave, stay away from the combos.

[SoonerDave]

no... the service i chose charged a $40 fee to port the number. cox didn't cause any problems in the process. -M

As an aside, I think federal regulations expressly prohibit the current carrier of a given phone number from having ANY involvement in the transfer. When I ported to TMobile, it was an entirely passive process; zero involvement from Cox at all. I *might* recall a call from TMobile confirming some aspect of the process, but I think as far as Cox is concerned, they can't interfere in a porting process at all.

[Martin]

As an aside, I think federal regulations expressly prohibit the current carrier of a given phone number from having ANY involvement in the transfer. When I ported to TMobile, it was an entirely passive process; zero involvement from Cox at all. I *might* recall a call from TMobile confirming some aspect of the process, but I think as far as Cox is concerned, they can't interfere in a porting process at all.

right... i didn't have to talk to anybody at cox to make it happen and they are required to allow customers to port numbers to other carriers. however, i think that a carrier is allowed to charge a fee for the port request though cox didn't charge me one. -M

[SoonerDave]

right... i didn't have to talk to anybody at cox to make it happen and they are required to allow customers to port numbers to other carriers. however, i think that a carrier is allowed to charge a fee for the port request though cox didn't charge me one. -M

I may be mistaken, but as I understand it, the carrier being left cannot impose a fee; only the "receiving" carrier can. That was done to prevent an existing carrier from holding a number "hostage" as it were. Like I said, I may be wrong on that, but I"m (reasonably) sure that's how it's set up

When I did it, I was amazed at how smooth and essentially glitch-free the process was.

[OKCisOK4me]

I think they're still having issues. Can't watch anything on Netflix without it recaching every three minutes...

[FighttheGoodFight]

I think they're still having issues. Can't watch anything on Netflix without it recaching every three minutes...

If you can start a test for the rest of the day. TestMy.net Broadband Internet Speed Test

[bchris02]

Anybody experiencing extremely slow speeds this evening? I am currently testing at less than 1Mbps and I pay for 50.

[bchris02]

[bchris02]

Anybody?

[Martin]

haven't noticed anything here in sw okc. -M

[bchris02]

It seems to be getting worse as the night goes on. I am in NW OKC. It's like being back on dial-up.

[bchris02]

Still an issue this morning...called Cox and they did the usual trying to blame my modem.

[SoonerDave]

It seems to be getting worse as the night goes on. I am in NW OKC. It's like being back on dial-up.

One thing I think I'm learning (or at least strongly inferring) about Cox's Internet setup is that they heavily segregate/segment areas, such that even people in a given neighborhood could experience significantly different performance levels given the right circumstances.

Now, as a total left-field possibility, when I've observed sudden departures in performance like this (which, for me, thankfully, have been rare), I've tied it on a couple of occasions to failed hardware - cablemodems in particular. I've had two just go south on me over the years, and I didn't realize what the trouble was until I got in touch with a level 2 tech (that was the term for them then, at least) who was able to look at my modem from his side, and the guy told me what he saw strongly suggested a failed/failing modem. It wasn't just signal strength; and, sure enough, a new CM fixed the issue instantly.

Now I obviously know nothing about your setup, and it may be irrelevant, but just tossing that out there as something to consider.

Another time I thought my brand new, hand-built server had died, network not working, all messed up...then I realized I'd plugged one end of the network into the wrong port, and duplicate IP had been set up and screwed up the whole thing So sometimes its dummy on me LOL