cox connectivity issue

[Darrin Chandler]

Steven Crandell wrote:

> Hey all. 
>
> Nobody at cox seems to be able to figure out what's wrong with my 
> Internet connection. 
> Thought it wouldn't hurt to throw it out to you all just for giggles. 
>
> Here's the situation
> -I used to be a cable america customer.  The network in my 
> neighborhood would drop out from under me all the time, which was the 
> reason for my switch to cox, -however- when the connection was up, the 
> speed was great.
> -I made the switch to cox and signed up for their 256k up and down plan. 
> -I have the same internal coaxial, same internal catV and hubs, just a 
> new drop to my house on a new provider network.
> -Once on the cox network, I found myself pulling a maximum of about 
> 30-40k regardless of what site I was downloading from and regardless 
> of the time of day.
> -When I'm downloading something at these speeds, my connection behaves 
> as though it were totally saturated.  For example, my ping times jump 
> from ~90ms to ~2000ms.
> -A cox field tech came out to my place and decided that the problem 
> was a result of the fact that I had an older surfboard modem which 
> could not be automatically updated by cox.
> -I bought the latest-greatest modem, and like magic I was instantly 
> getting download speeds well in excess of 256k.
> -The next day, I was back to 30-40k max and have remained there ever 
> since.
> -I have reproduced these results on three different computers, one 
> inside my network (linux), two directly connected to the cable modem 
> (linux and XP).
> -I get a full 10meg on all traffic inside my network.
> -I have asked one of the two level 2 techs that have worked on this 
> issue to verify that my connection speed is actually being throttled 
> down to 256 and not 56.  I'm told I'm definitely at 256.
> -When I use internet speed tests (toast.net <http://toast.net>, 
> bandwidthplace.com <http://bandwidthplace.com>, etc) my speeds always 
> come back in the 256 neighborhood.
> -I am not running any kind of a proxy on my network and have tried 
> flushing all iptables rules from my router box.


I eventually dumped Cox due to similar performance degradation. The 
problem was diagnosed several times as a signal strength issue, and 
supposedly fixed. It was never fixed for long, though.  And Cox kept 
trying to charge us for a service call even though it was obviously not 
a problem with my network or computers, but in *their* network or 
installation. Now I'm using Qwest's DSL, and while it's by no means 
perfect (their DNS servers stink), I rarely have any speed or 
connectivity issues.

-- 
Darrin Chandler
dwchandler at stilyagin.com
http://www.stilyagin.com/