 Review by KrK 
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 8.9 years, 2549 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Tulsa,Tulsa,OK
 $30 per month
 about 7 days
 "Solid connection. Good price on INTRO rate. Decent speed"
 "Prices jump too much when intro expires. Prices high overall. Billing errors."
 "Good speed, good service, but must use bundles to get acceptable price"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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New house and move. Weighed my options. Dish Network still better deal on TV, and I have had AT&T POTS + DSL for years. Wanted to give Cox a try to see how it compares.
Cox's website, much like AT&T's, is a bit of a PITA. All you're trying to do is find out exactly what something will cost. They sort of do this, but both insist that you start an order of service first.... Ie no compare this/compare that / change bundle/options and see... etc....
Anyway, moving on....
Right now, Cox promotional pricing on a Digital Telephone and HSI package (Preferred, not the fastest, Premium tier) is about $5 less then the best deal I can get on POTS + "Elite" DSL (AT&T's fastest unless U have U-Verse.) Advantages Cox: You get Caller ID, call waiting etc, stuff that you can't get on POTS without paying extra.
So the price was on Cox's side, albeit only at the promotional pricing. I figured I'd try it. When U-Verse comes to Tulsa I expect I'll try it as well.
The connection has been solid, except for a hic-cup right at the beginning, which I'll mention in detail below. The speeds have been consistent, and are fine for surfing and downloading. Decent broadband, decent speed.
Overall, a positive experience, I can recommend it. Now the Caveats:
The price of the services jumps way too much when the promo expires. This pricing guarantees that I will not be a long term Cox customer, unless they offer better pricing or new services, speeds etc that somehow make it worthwhile. Maybe once Cox has a decent selection of HD (Super weak right now) and so on and can make attractive bundles to me (TV, Internet, Phone) that might be the ticket, but right now, it's not happening.
When the service was new, and I got settled in from the move, I connected up to the Cox modem and had a link but my router could not get any IP from Cox. I tried the usual, verified settings, reboot modem, etc, no go. So finally I had to call Tech Support. Overall, the Tech support service was good, but the tech had problems with his equipment, saying that his diagnostics was down, that he couldn't see my modem, etc... and because I was using Cox telephone, he told me not to reboot the modem or we'd lose connection while I was talking with him.
The reboots, repolls, etc didn't do squat, and finally, he concluded I must have a weak signal to the modem, even though the install tech said it was strong. So he scheduled a truck roll (about 4 days later at the earliest) and promised me it wouldn't cost me anything.
End of call. I gave up. Next day, I rebooted the modem, got all greens, and booted up my PC. Low and behold, the router pulled down an IP just like normal and BINGO I was up and going. It's been solid ever since... Personally I think an outage was underway the previous evening and that's why it wasn't working.
Here's the rub, tho. The Tech came out as scheduled. I told him I'd been up and running for days and he said that the claim my signal was low was wrong as it was very strong from his point of view. He never even came inside, and left within 5 minutes of showing up, telling me to call them if I had any problems.
So, all was good... Until I received a $75.00 fee for a "2nd Trip charge" because they'd come back out. I was pretty ticked off, and called Cox. I was very polite but firm, insisting they remove the charge, which they were a bit reluctant to do at first, and had to consult with a supervisor. I didn't unload on the lady, and was friendly to her but I did make it clear that if they refused, that I would not be paying the bill and they could come take out their service effective immediately...
Luckily, they relented and agreed the problem was not of my making and therefore they removed the charge. I thanked them and hung up.
So, negatives for charging me and making me have to call to protest, but positives for removing the un-warranted charge.
So, in summary, this is good Internet service, but I feel it's pretty pricey at normal rate. Cox's caps are very very low, but I won't be hitting them, and luckily they haven't been aggressive on enforcing them. It's more disturbing now that they are starting to block applications like Bittorrent using sandvine and the like.
Good for now, but not for long term.
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