| I fully believe those results... I lived with Cox cable's "high speed" internet service in Lorton, VA for ten months because DSL wasn't available.
I saw four digit ping times and 70 to 80 percent packet loss on a fairly regular basis during my last month or two of service. Cox probably wound up crediting me for at least three months of service during the 10 months I had it. I learned not to even bother calling on some nights during high peak times because usually if I waited an hour or two things smoothed out. For the first two months (July and August 2001) it was down (no connection at all) more than it was up.
I have to admit that for about three months (from February to April 2002) that the service was pretty solid and reliable. I don't think I had to call tech support one time. Then Cox made the wonderful transition from Road Runner to their own managed network and the service was worse than ever. Then they actually had the audacity to send out an email telling their customers that they'd be instituting a $5 rate hike due to the "upgrade" in service.
I finally got fed up back in May when my connection had been so bad for a solid month that I could litteraly connect to dial-up and get a faster connection. Cox first sent a technician out to "fix" my problem and the guy didn't even know what a ping was, and then they subsequently told me two days later that I'd have to wait up to two more weeks (after already dealing with a bad connection for almost a month) because they couldn't get a key to the junction box outside my apartment. That was a pretty sorry excuse.
They're so sad that they disabled my account three months ago and while my primary email account got disabled, one of my other ones still works to this day. Not that I use it, but I think it's pretty funny that they can't even kick someone off of their service.
I've been on Earthlink DSL for about three months now and haven't seen a glitch out of it. Thank God that nightmare of an internet service is over forever!!!!
I'd say that if Cox has a bad rep in NOVA they've earned it. I personally know others that have the same horror stories in other parts of the county.
[text was edited by author 2002-08-09 17:41:22] |
