Cox → ATTN! Cox HSI is setting transfer limits!

Just thought I'd chime in on this issue. First off, I don't agree with the transfer limits like most of you. Just a rough estimate but say if everything is perfect and you get an average of 187 kilobytes/sec download ( = 1500 kilobits/sec which is NOVA's download cap), you'd hit the 2GB transfer limit after downloading at full speed for about 3 hours. (2*10^9 / 187000 / 60 / 60 = 2.9 something hours) In all honestly, I don't download that much in any given day but given the fact that a DVD can hold about 4.7 GB the current transfer limits are pretty severe.

On the other hand, there isn't much in the way of full length DVD movies out on the net... yet... But it will come and when it does I'm pretty sure everyone will be one step closer to fiber running to your house and then it won't matter.

I have a feeling that Cox is doing this as a precursor to their tiered pricing structure. Different prices for different speeds/xfer limits. Which makes sense given the fact that not all Internet users are created equal.

On another slightly pleasant note, I'm happy to report that I've seen decent service from Cox for close to 2 weeks now. Finally, broadband the way its supposed to be! It doesn't make up for the year and a half of bad service but its getting better.

Don't know what part of Fairfax your located in, but not that good in Greenbrier.

Don't know what part of Fairfax your located in, but not that good in Greenbrier.
So good it posted a duplicate.
[text was edited by author 2002-11-19 16:55:56]

How absolutely fscking nice.

I signed up with cox not 3 weeks ago because at the time they looked like the best choice - and now that we have already paid the install fee and already bought the equipment... now they put down a bandwith cap that makes the service completely useless.

My household has three adults who actually USE the internet (gaming, streaming media, downloading demos) - we have all been on the internet for over 7 years and are used to having high speed connections.

And now that we have dropped $200+ on cox service they are telling us either change how you use the internet or we will can you.

Basically they tell you - Here is high speed internet - but god help you if you want to use it as such - a total of 8 hours of using the connection to what they rate it and you are over the cap. Hell - someone with an ISDN line has more bandwith per month.

If they had put this up a month ago I would never have signed up - now I just get to be screwed.

Nicholas S.

this is just FYI, Just presenting you your options.:)

call you local Cox office, they may be able to refund all of you monies paid if you within 30 days of initial installation. I believe there is still a 30 day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the service.

CoxTech1 - unfortunately I cannot cancel the service until I can get something else in place - I cannot afford to not have an internet connection at this time (The place I am working for just closed their office in my area and I am working from home until the middle of December - after which I am unemployed)

So Basically if I want to get any refund I will have to be able to get a DSL line installed within one week (and I will still get hit for the equipment costs as the cable modem is past the return date)

Nicholas - are you really sure you're in real jeopardy of hitting these limits? Even a reasonably heavy user is probably not going to hit 30gig down/7gig up. We took a hard look at all the usage patterns, and these are really designed to be limits for folks that use egregious amounts of data - a tiny fraction of our overall customer base. Your applications (gaming, streaming media, demos) are all very reasonable ways of using the service - and our intent was not to impact these types of normal use.

Between the streaming media, heavy use, and downloads I would bet fair money that I am over those limits already this month. I have three adults that are all heavy users on a home network. And I know for an absolute fact that I have been over the 2 GB/day limit.

So I guess according to you guys I am an "egregious" user. Which means I will have to take my business elsewhere and meanwhile get screwed out of ~$150.

You can bet I won't be recommending cox for much of anything after that.

I think personally this is where Cox is going to take it on the chin. Sure, most "normal" people may only browse the web, but the hardcore users are the ones who spread the word to people, including those "normal" users. I think some honest users are going to get screwed with these caps, and I think Cox's reputation and popularity will take a hit. However, the question is really this: is the tradeoff worth it? Cox believes it is, and I believe it remains to be seen. If they're now "managing bandwidth," then an end user naturally expects a higher QOS, or at the very least, a reduced bill...

What is included in the $150? A cable modem I guess. What other items? If there were any connect fees, I agree with CoxTech that those would get refunded in the first month. I'm sorry you got caught in the middle of this change. It's unfortunate you weren't aware of this when making your choice.

I've said this before, but when you have a small minority of subscribers using 50% of the resources, something is broken. Ultimately I think we need a better stratification of the services, and that way you'd be able to select a level of service (and cost) that most appropriately meets your needs. This is understood at Cox.

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Ultimately I think we need a better stratification of the services, and that way you'd be able to select a level of service (and cost) that most appropriately meets your needs. This is understood at Cox.

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It would seem it's inevitable. I'm all for it actually. I'm curious what the spectrum would be.

I don't disagree that the number indicate some unusual usage patterns, nor am I taking a stance on tiered service (until I see the price per tier). I just know that when you switch from something people perceive as a great value to something that people perceive as getting screwed, well, then its going to unpopular.

The $150 is the cable modem and the install - as I mentioned earlier I will not be able to cancel within the 30 days because I cannot afford to be without an internet connection at this time - and I won't be able to get a replacement in time to make the 30 day period.

If it is understood at Cox that you need a better array of services then why didn't you just roll out a new pricing scheme with tiered access? Instead you implement a bandwith cap completely screwing over your customers. I know I am a heavy user, and I would be more than willing to pay a reasonable premium to get the services that I need. But you aren't offering me that - in fact all it looks like your company is offering me is the middle finger.

So because I don't have a choice I am going to be screwed out of ~$150.

I wish the location I just moved to could have been serviced by Sprint Broadband - their connections sucked, high latency, and randomly died - but at least you were allowed to use what bandwith you could get.

And I will certainly be doing what I can to make sure that nobody I know goes to cox for internet access.

There's no reason for you not to get a refund. If it gets refused, join the Broadband reports here (free), send me an IM, and I'll take care of you. Let's at least remove that part of your complaint.

Also, you'd be amazed how long programs, services, and tiers take to launch. This touches hundreds of engineers and technicians, as well as thousands of customer care reps. Testing, training, web sites to update, etc..... It's a massive effort to roll things like this out, and hence takes time.

I have a question on the new download limits:

Does this limit apply to what customers download from cox's usenet and email servers?

I'm a huge usenet junkie. I'm surprised that usenet downloads haven't been mentioned in this thread yet. Usenet is the best place in the world for us television addicts to download obscure tv episodes and other multimedia. One tv episode on SVCD can weigh in at 500+ megabytes.

I honestly have never monitored my usage. I have yet to recieve one of the warning emails.

I don't use p2p programs and I don't run personal servers. But I do love my usenet, and I would be forced to switch to DSL if my monthly usenet usage exceeds cox's new cap.

I MUST HAVE EVERY EPISODE OF HOGAN'S HEROES!!!!

Also, why doesn't this cap take into account that people use the network at different times? Peak usage occurs from when people come home until they go to sleep, right?

If cox is paying for their backbones by the gigabyte, I could understand their new usage limits. If they aren't and they just have a huge junk of bandwidth to work with, then why wouldn't the new caps take into account the time when someone is downloading?

We will see if I will be able to get a refund - I'll have to wait to find out after the DSL line gets installed, which given the phone company around here, who knows how long that will be.

And you would be surprised just how much I know about the problems in rolling out a new product. I am currently a software engineer for a major national ISP (where I worked my way up from tech support to system administration and then to SE). So I am well aware of what it takes to get a new product, or even a product change rolled out. However I have also been through enough in the industry to realize (and this is something that many executives never seem to learn) it ALWAYS costs more whenever you roll out a "quick fix". Most "quick fixes" are poorly though out (people forget to look for what the consequences are likely to be), tend not to get out adequate training (case in point - currently it seems that most of Cox tech support, including at least one supervisor, do not know anything about these limits - one even said that this was certainly just a limit on the web hosting), and tend to annoy or even alienate customers.

By doing things this way you are deliberately driving off your best market for the higher end services that you claim you know you need. I don't particularly want to leave - other than this one item I have been wondrously pleased with the service - but the only choice I am being given is quit or be kicked off in a short period of time.

To give you an idea of what your "egregious amounts of data" means to me - I have three adults on a home network (which I know you don't support - but you have never had anything against them until now) - which basically makes my bandwith allotment 10GB/month - or 333MB/day. Which means if I listen to a 128kb audio stream while I work and I have gone over my daily allotment, if I download a linux iso I have used up two days worth of bandwith, if I miss a TV show and go onto the news server to grab a vcd of the show - oops there goes another two days. (For that matter, if you guys are so concerned with bandwith use than why do you carry such a full newsfeed? It wasn't too long ago that a full newsfeed went over 500GB... per day.)

So because Cox decided to go for a "quick fix" instead of taking the time to do a proper product roll out I am being Forced to go through the stress of trying to get another form of internet connectivity - and I did NOT need any more stress in my life right now thank you very much.

Basically what I am hearing from Cox is - we will sell you a broadband connection - but you better not use it like one.

I can see your point coxengr as far as the tiering programs and services taking a while to launch--but in my opinion Cox should have waited until the tiering system was either launched or ready to launch before slapping new caps on the users.So far we haven't heard a peep as to when the tiers will be implemented or how much they will be. There are plenty of folks out there like Nicholas who will be 'thrown in a cross' because they,for whatever reason, need more throughput than Cox right now is willing to allow. Also, no one was warned in advance about this change. Folks just started getting letters...also not cool. I understand that Cox is doing what they can to cut costs and save money but there are right and wrong ways to do this. Needlessly pissing off your paying customers ain't right.

said by Hank:

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Don't know what part of Fairfax your located in, but not that good in Greenbrier.

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Near George Mason University

Well it took about a year and a half for them to fix my connection. What kind of problems are you still having out there? Latency? Bandwidth?

said by madforry:

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I have a question on the new download limits:

Does this limit apply to what customers download from cox's usenet and email servers?

I'm a huge usenet junkie. I'm surprised that usenet downloads haven't been mentioned in this thread yet. Usenet is the best place in the world for us television addicts to download obscure tv episodes and other multimedia. One tv episode on SVCD can weigh in at 500+ megabytes.

I honestly have never monitored my usage. I have yet to recieve one of the warning emails.

I don't use p2p programs and I don't run personal servers. But I do love my usenet, and I would be forced to switch to DSL if my monthly usenet usage exceeds cox's new cap.

I MUST HAVE EVERY EPISODE OF HOGAN'S HEROES!!!!

Also, why doesn't this cap take into account that people use the network at different times? Peak usage occurs from when people come home until they go to sleep, right?

If cox is paying for their backbones by the gigabyte, I could understand their new usage limits. If they aren't and they just have a huge junk of bandwidth to work with, then why wouldn't the new caps take into account the time when someone is downloading?

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I'm pretty sure all your traffic whether its Cox's network or not counts against your cap. I think the caps are designed to lessen to burden on the local segments where most of the bottlenecks are.

First off, I really think Cox should raise this cap limit to double what it is now in the short term. Until the technology for tiering service is implemented the caps should be set high at first, then reduced when tiering service is rolled out. Jumping from unlimited to the current cap is a stretch.

I think they should just remove the daily cap. I rarely exceed even 25gb monthly, but in the past I've downloaded more than 3gb over the course of 10 hours.

I think Cox picked a really good time to implement these caps too. November/December is a time where most people (including myself) have the least amount of money to make a switch to a different ISP because of Christmas! I have lots of presents to buy for people and I don't have the extra $200 to "lend" to a DSL provider for 2 months while they install DSL and then give me a mail in rebate back. Sure I could charge it and get charged like crazy for interest rates, but why should I have to pay more money because of some new rule Cox made up. Personally I am extremely unhappy with this new rule and I think if Cox had half a brain they would not implement this new rule in Fairfax County FIRST (because other people in other areas dont seem to be getting these messages yet) where they have had one of the largest problems with their service. Its like saying "Where do we have the highest amount of unhappy customers?" ... "Fairfax County sir" ... "Ok, lets implement a monthly transfer allotment on them so they will be even more unhappy and many people will drop their service, thus improving our available bandwidth" ...

I guess if their intention is to LOSE customers, they've lost one right here! Your plan to lose customers is suceeding Cox! Just don't be surprised when you have virtually NO customers when the next new technology rolls along and everyone leaves Cox's horrible service and current monopoly for something better.

Well said. I don't know about others, having these little 1-minute breaks every 5 minutes annoy the hell out of me after a short time. I'm browsing through web pages, and just as I try to go to the next one, it times out on me. Go to mIRC, find myself disconnected, same with AIM. Ping a random site, all timeouts. I haven't had the chance to play HL this week yet, but I can already predict what my overall gaming experience will be when I do.

Fast car, but the engine dies every 5 minutes for no apparent reason. I think this'll be the first time in half a year that I'll be calling tech support.
[text was edited by author 2002-11-20 19:12:45]

GeneStarwind thats the same thing that happens to me in Louisiana too. I get disconnected from chats several times in a period of 10 to 30 mins. AIM disconnects then reconnects a lot, when i am surfing the internet it will time out all of sudden, etc. Its crazy. This kind of stuff is happening all the time too. Do you feel that Cox wants to fix it because they sure don't seem to willing yet?
[text was edited by author 2002-11-20 21:11:55]

said by LiQiCE:

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I guess if their intention is to LOSE customers, they've lost one right here! Your plan to lose customers is suceeding Cox! Just don't be surprised when you have virtually NO customers when the next new technology rolls along and everyone leaves Cox's horrible service and current monopoly for something better.

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Congrats, you fell right into their hands. Many people are going to get computers and internet ready game consoles for Xmas. Every user they "lose", is worth 4 more they might gain if they can temporarily show good connectivity. Of course, they will lose 1/2 of them eventually, but it's a calculated risk.

Of course, the latency might bite them in the ass.
[text was edited by author 2002-11-21 02:09:02]

What about Online Gaming? This is one of the main reasons for betting broadband!

Liquid Ice brings up something else interesting. Why do we in NoVa get our bandwidth cut in half compared to other Cox area's ?

TL

No one knows =/.

I don't think on-line gaming is going to be a heavy player - of course I've been wrong twice this year already.

But you might want to check out the link in this post:
»Bandwidth Use Chart
which is to a table of how much traffic various activities generate - including some gaming numbers. Remember that the table is based on a 5GB/month download limit, not 30.

That means I'd have to play HL over 50 hours a day to reach the limit .

man! this sux! Why doesnt Cox react by expanding its network rather than constricting the one already in use!?
If anyone from Cox is reading this!
We DO NOT WANT LIMITATION on BANDWIDTH use.
Its 1.5mbps downstream and I will use it 24/7 at that speed (if I get it, that is), be it downloading webpages. BS text files.. whatever. You said the you offer unlimited access. then how come I see the word "LIMITATIONS" next to bandwidth used!?
This is BS!