OT: Failure of Cox, Google, IMAP and port 993?

[Alan Dayley]

This morning our email clients could no longer reach our Goggle Apps
mail accounts.  Connection to the Google server is via IMAP to
imap.gmail.com on port 993.  Mail applications simply time out
reaching the server.

Cox support claims it's not their problem.  Google gives support via
forums.  Had a couple of ideas from them but no success yet[1].  We
can use the web interface but that is less than ideal.

Has anyone else been having this problem?  Is there a way to get to
knowledgeable people at Cox or Google?

Alan