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Review by skeechan See Profile

  • Location: Laguna Hills, Orange, CA, USA
  • Cost: $100 per month
  • Install: about 3 days
Decent throughput, caps are currently unenforced, excellent latency when service is working properly
Mediocre speeds for the price, periods of unacceptably high latency that require a truck roll, expensive
Better than dialup, but increasingly expensive for what you get
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I have had Cox HSI since the early @Home days, about late 1998 when Orange County, CA was one of the first markets to get cable HSI.

PRESALES: I saw an add in the newspaper for cable Internet and their new Digital Television and signed up.

ORDERING: The order was easy. The price then was $30/mo for service and $15 for the CDLP modem rental. The modem was a Motorola Cybersurfr and could be purchased for $400.

INSTALL: The install was 3 days later and two technicians came out. Back then there were techs who specialized in the modem installs and others for digital TV. Now all of the techs seem to do both. Even though my house has RG59, it was fine. They ran RG6 from the outlet to the modem. Since then I've had the modem moved to a different room and the tech ran a separate RG6 line directly from the J-box to the modem.

RELIABILITY: Over these 14 years the service has gone down but VERY rarely. I would call it extremely reliable. Latency has also been good over the years. To local speed test service in Los Angeles and San Diego I'm seeing less than 10ms, pretty darn good.

TECH SUPPORT: Tech support was never a problem. Issues that cropped up or calling in for tech support to update the MACID for a new modem install were always handled quickly.

SERVICES: The original service was provided by the now defunct @Home and was static IP 3000/256kbps, screaming fast in a day of dialup, 100X faster. Now offerings are typical for a cable provider, multiple tiers starting at around $25-$30 for 3Mb service going up to $100/mo for 50Mb service. Over the years the price has crept up a bit but so have speeds. Now triple bonding DOCSIS 3 provides 25000/2000kbps with "power boost" to about 70000/5000kbps with my plan at $65/mo. Cox has caps but they don't charge for overages and will likely send out a nastygram if you go over a bunch of times. I don't know of anyone who has had their service cancelled for abuse. I got an abuse letter once but it was 12 years ago during the @Home days. I've gone over my Cox caps tons of times and never got an abuse letter.

PRICE: Overall the price is pretty fair with the 25Mb tier going for $65/mo. There are cheaper services around. Cox has caps but as mentioned earlier, there are no overage fees, at least not currently.

VALUE: For all 14 years I think I've been getting good value from Cox for HSI and don't plan on changing unless they start charging for the overages or take substantial price increases without substantial speed increases.

RECOMMENDED: Like ALL services, your mileage will vary and just because service on my street is great doesn't mean service in say CT or AZ is great or even great in the next town. Talk to neighbors, read local reviews, browse the forums for posts about service in your area. Take Cox up on any cancelable promotions and avoid entering in any contracts until you have a chance to really try out the service.

Plan: Cox Ultimate 50/5 DOCSIS 3
Cap: 400GB/mo unenforced
Equipment: Customer owned Motorola SB6180
Bonding: 4 CH Down / 1 CH Up

UPDATE 23.5.2012: Cox has seen fit to "fix" the unlimited power boost people were getting here. Where just a few weeks ago I was seeing 70+Mb with power boost, now I hit the wall at around 32Mb, which isn't much faster than the 25Mb tier I'm paying for so I may as well not have power boost at all. Powerboost should be at least 2X whatever the tier speed is to make any difference, otherwise it isn't worth having. I'm not going to knock off any stars for this change since Cox always advertised PB being this speed, and never claimed I would get 50+Mb with PB but darn it these austerity measures!

UPDATE - Upgraded to 50/5 service, $100/mo. Same modem. Powerboost is about 60Mbps.

UPDATE - 20.12.2012 Cox changed bonding from 3/1 to 4/1

UPDATE - 21.5.2013 Dropping ratings for services and value since my market still hasn't been upgraded while others have been upgraded for several months but of course they still charge the same money.

UPDATE - 7.8.2013 Downgrading ratings once again. I am seeing very little value in this service any more. Here we are now in August...still no tier upgrades despite other markets getting them some 6 months ago. Prices keep going up and I have nothing to show for it other than a thinner wallet. Thanks for nothin Cox.

UPDATE 15.10.2013 A latency problem as returned making browsing painful. Another truck roll scheduled. With prices going up and quality going down, I am increasingly disappointed with Cox.

UPDATE 17.10.2013 Truck roll got the latency issue fixed, the field tech did an excellent job as always. It is just unfortunate that after so many years (18 years total, about 14 with DCATV and HSI) with virtually ZERO issues and I mean none, I have had several since the Spring, not just HSI, but also numerous CATV related problems. The only service that has remained trouble free has been the legacy VoCable telephone service, negated by its high price.

Plan: Cox Ultimate 50/5 DOCSIS 3
Cap: 400GB/mo unenforced
Equipment: Customer owned Motorola SB6180
Bonding: 8/4
Monthly: $100 for HSI
Total monthly fee with CATV, 4 premiums/VoCable Telephone, 2 cablecard rentals $305

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member for 12.1 years, 931 visits, last login: 10.3 years ago
updated 10.4 years ago


skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

Photos

Top photo, typical POWERBOOSTED speed. After about 10 seconds speeds drop to my tier of 25Mb down and 2Mb up. The next photo is the classic CDLP Cybersurfr modem that was originally deployed with Cox in the late 1990's. It was a beast!
JayriAvieock7
join:2007-01-28
Choctaw, OK

JayriAvieock7

Member

Cap

Reason why you aren't contacted about going over your cap, because you aren't adversely affecting everyone else's service.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

Lastest speed test


Cox fixes PB, oh well
Recently Cox has "fixed" their Powerboost config. Previously, Powerboost would be channel saturation and with my 3 bonded channels meant close to 75Mb most of the time. Now the modem has a config file for about 31Mb plus overhead.

Same for the upstream. Previously I would see 4-5Mb and now 2-3Mb. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
skeechan

skeechan

Premium Member

Update

skeechan

skeechan

Premium Member