dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
uniqs
1677

Bill Neilson
Premium Member
join:2009-07-08
Alexandria, VA

Bill Neilson

Premium Member

[AZ] Moving to Arizona. Apartments with Cox? Good/Bad?

In 1-2 months, I am moving to Phoenix for a new job. I have never even been to Arizona so my wife and I are looking around and have seen several apartments that we are interested in. We just want to rent an apartment for the time being so that we don't get locked into too much, too early.

Anyway, virtually all of the apartments are wired with Cox.

So, I was curious about a few things:
1) Do you live in an apartment with Cox? Are you happy? What are the speeds?

2) For those happy, what modem do you use?

Thanks,
Van
m8trix
join:2003-12-24
Chandler, AZ

m8trix

Member

what part of phx its a big area

Bill Neilson
Premium Member
join:2009-07-08
Alexandria, VA

Bill Neilson

Premium Member

I am scheduled to work in the Encanto but we really don't have any specific site in mind and I don't mind driving a decent distance to work.
m8trix
join:2003-12-24
Chandler, AZ

1 edit

m8trix to Bill Neilson

Member

to Bill Neilson
north phx is fairly good if north of thunderbird rd
VentShop
join:2009-08-21
Oklahoma City, OK
ARRIS CM8200
(Software) OPNsense
Netgear R8000

VentShop to Bill Neilson

Member

to Bill Neilson
My step daughter lives in the Phoenix area by Thunderbird and I-17. Her service has been fine and as far as I have heard all the speeds have been what she pays for. She does not have actual cable service just internet and I believe she is in the 15Mbps speed bracket.

I don't believe she even had to setup a contract to get started.

As far as modems look for a docsis 3.0 with 8X4 channel bonding as anything else will not support full possible speeds. I know a lot of people like the Motorolla and Cisco ones the best.

The only suggestion I think she would send along would be more related in the drinking water department and that is to get a really good filter or RO system
signcarver
join:2005-03-20
Phoenix, AZ

signcarver to Bill Neilson

Member

to Bill Neilson
Should not be a problem with cox in an apartment/townhome/condo complex... but there are a few things I would watch out for.

First is a few years ago cox greatly increased their rates for basic cable, as it was under $10/month (the complexes actually only paid about $3-$6/month/unit) to $25 and as a result, many apartment complexes that provided free basic cable switched to alternative providers (I personally had one and 2 places around one of my current buildings switched to ygnition which is a re-branded dish service that delivers about 70-80 analog SD channels from dish and also provides a way for a satellite receiver to get its channels through the coax so you can subscribe through them to virtually any dish package... the video service was great but they only run a couple of t1 lines in to serve every (100s of) tenants.

The only issue I ever had was once they decided to re-label the lines and they mistakenly put the wrong label on my line... a few weeks later they audited the lines and put a filter on my line... had to take a day off of work to be there for them to fix it.

Another thing to consider is some complexes only offer cox phone which isn't a bad deal (or use your own voip provider) but I like having a choice.

Bill Neilson
Premium Member
join:2009-07-08
Alexandria, VA

Bill Neilson

Premium Member

Thanks to everyone for the help.

I have done so much research and looked at so many reviews that I am rather embarrassed. My wife thinks I am crazy focusing on this as much as I am but I am a big gamer and use the Internet quite often.

I saw Comcast was in some parts of AZ but it doesn't look like they are anywhere in Phoenix.

Looks like Cox will be the one.
tim92078
join:2010-07-15
San Marcos, CA

tim92078

Member

You won't know this one until you move in but some apartments have RG-59 cable going from Cox's point of presence to your unit.

I don't know what role that played in the problems I had in my last weeks with Cox internet and phone, but it interfered with video on some channels too. The higher frequency signals attenuate a lot faster on RG-59 than on RG-6.

Unfortunately anyone at the company who's customer-facing has much idea how the technology works, or if they do they aren't empowered to do anything.

Centurylink is a bad option for gamers because even if you can get their VDSL2 service (which I have now), it uses interleaving which ups your ping time. But it's been more stable than Cox internet.
m8trix
join:2003-12-24
Chandler, AZ

m8trix

Member

any place built in the last 15 years should all be rg-6 for this reason is why i have only lived in apt's north of happy valley as its all new contruction and have not had 1 issue in 5 years
08034016 (banned)
Hallo lisa Aus Amerika
join:2001-08-31
Byron, GA

4 edits

08034016 (banned) to Bill Neilson

Member

to Bill Neilson
said by Bill Neilson:

In 1-2 months, I am moving to Phoenix for a new job. I have never even been to Arizona so my wife and I are looking around and have seen several apartments that we are interested in. We just want to rent an apartment for the time being so that we don't get locked into too much, too early.

Anyway, virtually all of the apartments are wired with Cox.

This is what i would do before moving in the Area,
Look and see whats available this way you would options that you can use if needed down the road and not struck with one service Provider.this goes with the schooling system the same way its shopping around. lets say you like this one Neighborhood but its only 1 provider but 5 minutes away there's 5 pick that one with five providers..

Here's a Map to help you Media com thats in some areas

Zoom/scroll in to see areas.
»www.fcc.gov/maps/connect ··· rage-map

Phoenix Looks like its controlled 100% by cox. Move in a area that's not and you have a choice.
COX Cap only 250 gig that's hard on gamers very hard, i should know.

I used so far 245 GIG and i have 7 days more to go.. think i will be over more like 265gig oh well.

People want speed but whats that any good with no Cap increase?
nickphx
join:2009-10-29
Phoenix, AZ

nickphx

Member

Phoenix is not 100% controlled by Cox.. Depending on the area there are a couple of wireless isps and qwest/centurylink.
08034016 (banned)
Hallo lisa Aus Amerika
join:2001-08-31
Byron, GA

08034016 (banned)

Member

said by nickphx:

Phoenix is not 100% controlled by Cox.. Depending on the area there are a couple of wireless isps and qwest/centurylink.

Which Areas can you point that out to him?

the thing is hes a gamer and with a cap of 250 GIG? that will be hard on him, People want these speeds that's fine but we're getting no cap increase?

am at 240 now 7 days to go.Me am a gamer and a Partner on »www.twitch.tv

Optimus2357
Premium Member
join:2010-11-21
West Warwick, RI

Optimus2357

Premium Member

Gaming doesn't take up that much bandwidth IMHO. Its mostly tiny UDP traffic. A live stream, yes, but not the actual online gaming.

I would be more concerned about latency and the peering in AZ and what route your traffic would take to the particular servers you play on. Can anyone speak to that point? How is it in AZ?

Also, try not to get a wireless gateway. Latency caused by network issues can also cause many gaming headaches and I think someone who likes to do his work will enjoy looking at all the different options out there.
08034016 (banned)
Hallo lisa Aus Amerika
join:2001-08-31
Byron, GA

08034016 (banned)

Member

said by Optimus2357:

Gaming doesn't take up that much bandwidth IMHO. Its mostly tiny UDP traffic. A live stream, yes, but not the actual online gaming.

Gaming does Excuse me i wasn't streaming one month i went over my so called cap of 250 by 20gig.

Charter is 2 Miles from my house their tap and 100MBIT download is $95. Cox 50 download is $99.99 did you see the issue here?

btw Charter their 100 MBIT download cap is 500 GIG.
m8trix
join:2003-12-24
Chandler, AZ

m8trix

Member

Optimus is right gaming take little to no badwidth as far as caps are concerned, i have 3 computer and a xbox and we all play cs, crysis,bf3 just to name a few and this is my bandwidth ussage. so if you are going through that much bandwidth then you are doing something else ,movies,music file download or upload
m8trix

m8trix to Optimus2357

Member

to Optimus2357
latency i get any where between 15ms and 90ms depending how far the server is, typically i avg 30=50ms for servers in L.A., seattle and dallas
08034016 (banned)
Hallo lisa Aus Amerika
join:2001-08-31
Byron, GA

08034016 (banned) to Bill Neilson

Member

to Bill Neilson
Really gaming doesnt?
what do you play games from the 80's

I dont watch Movies upload or download just gaming web-surfing...


m8trix
join:2003-12-24
Chandler, AZ

m8trix

Member

most of the games are fps game that have come out in the last year, but anyone who knows how online gaming works it counts very little to your monthly cap as far as playing even for those who play wow, so if its not you downloading then the only thing i can think of is you have a wifi router and some one else is using the bandwidth in the home or a open wifi, if not that then there is something running in the back ground on a computer that is using it
nickphx
join:2009-10-29
Phoenix, AZ

1 recommendation

nickphx to 08034016

Member

to 08034016
If you even had a multi-player game from the 80's it would have worse bandwidth consumption.

If you're streaming your video gaming on twitch, that's where your bandwidth usage is going... Gaming doesn't take up much at all..

When you consider a multi-player game and the fact that latency plays a huge part in a gaming experience, the game will want to send many small packets as fast as possible. Most games use UDP because it's a fire and forget protocol. No error checking, no negotiation.. Sending large packets would cause greater delays, leading to higher latency and a poor gaming experience.

For example, an average 20 minute Battlefield 3 session consumed the following:

Received data: 9.33MB
Sent data: 4.92MB

Total data: 14.2MB

So if you convert 14.22MB to kilobytes, you end up with 14561.3KB [1MB = 1024KB]. If you divide 14561 by 1220 seconds [20 minutes * 60 seconds] you end up with 11.93 kilobytes per second in total usage..

Using the average of 12KB/s consumption:
With a 250GB cap [262144000 KB] it would take you 21,845,333 seconds of gaming or 364,088 minutes or 6,068 hours of
gaming to reach your 250GB cap.

Considering there's 720 hours in an average month, it would be completely impossible to hit your 250GB cap just from gaming alone.

From what I've read BF3 is one of the "heavier" games for bandwidth consumption...

Please stop spreading FUD. Everyone of your posts is how awful cox is, how high their prices are. Boo hoo.
08034016 (banned)
Hallo lisa Aus Amerika
join:2001-08-31
Byron, GA

08034016 (banned)

Member

said by nickphx:

If you even had a multi-player game from the 80's it would have worse bandwidth consumption.

If you're streaming your video gaming on twitch, that's where your bandwidth usage is going... Gaming doesn't take up much at all..

Please stop spreading FUD. Everyone of your posts is how awful cox is, how high their prices are. Boo hoo.

I Know what gaming uses been gaming since 97, also You dont know what i been through with Cox communications

you have the 8 hrs to read the full report? is so i will start typing if not, heres the Short of it

a cox employee lied about what he had done and it cost Cox communications over $ 10,000 to get my internet fixed, what it turned out to be is a $39.00 Drop, and about 24 Cox trucks at my house and $2,000 worth of damage to the lawn etc ,

So you have no idea.

Optimus2357
Premium Member
join:2010-11-21
West Warwick, RI

1 edit

Optimus2357 to 08034016

Premium Member

to 08034016
::Edit::

Back op topic, OP, what modem and router are you getting? I hear DPC3010 handles some of the interference issues a bit better that some have in the AZ area, but that could be old firmware. Either way, good luck with your move!