Forum Discussion

JonathanJ's avatar
JonathanJ
Former Moderator
@Taylor85345

Are you speed test results based on being hardwired directly to the modem, router, or wireless? In regards to internet speed, third party speed test services are off of Cox's network and may not provide an accurate picture of your speed experience on Cox's network. These tests do not measure only the speeds that the Cox network delivers, but they also demonstrate how long it takes to download/upload data across many elements of the internet connection, including the Cox network, the public Internet, the network the speed test service is connected to, and your home network, devices, and browser settings. However, I believe they are still useful and should return results in the same ballpark as the Cox Speed Test Tool. I’m happy to troubleshoot with you so we can further investigate the speed problems.


Jonathan J
Cox Moderator
taylor85345's avatar
taylor85345
New Contributor II
4 years ago

Hi @jonathanj,

The specific test results that I posted here were from a desktop machine with a wired connection to my router. However, as I mentioned in my initial post, I performed a similar round of testing with my computer hard-wired directly to the modem. While the results were marginally better, the 1mbps difference was small enough to be attributed to standard network overhead.

I have run numerous tests on speedtest.net, specifically choosing servers which were geographically distant and NOT hosted on the Cox network, and results achieved through speedtest.net and fast.com consistently show results in the neighborhood of my plan's 150 Down/10 Up rates. I also specifically ran several tests to the BayNIC speedtest server in Fremont, CA, which is hosted in the same Hurricane Electric datacenter as iperf.scottlinux.com, the public iPerf server that I have been using to run my iperf tests.

Regarding iPerf and iperf.scottlinux.com, that server is confirmed to have at least 1 Gbps upstream and downstream, and in running off-site iPerf tests outside of my home network (i.e. via the T-Mobile network and my work's enterprise network)  I have consistently been able to achieve upstream and downstream results to that server well above what I see at home, indicating that there are no bottlenecks on the server side. 

Note that iperf is just the best tool I have found to specifically test speeds outside of the widely used speed test platforms, but the upstream results I see via iPerf are consistent with the transfer rates I see with real world loads such as Plex Media Server streaming, syncing to Google Drive, syncing my devices remotely via Syncthing, or performing large file transfers over an OpenVPN connection. Under all of these loads, my upstream transfer rates are consistently in the range of 2.5-4.5 Mbps up

I should also note that neither I nor the Cox support rep that I spoke to on the phone have found any evidence of packet loss on my modem, and in the past I have been able to consistently achieve 8-10 Mbps upstream using my current hardware configuration, so I am increasingly convinced that this is not a hardware issue on my end.

If you have any additional suggestions for further troubleshooting, I am all ears.

  • Allan's avatar
    Allan
    Moderator
    4 years ago
    @Taylor85345, I recommend sending us an email with your full name, address and a link to this thread to cox.help@cox.com so we can look into this issue further for you. -Allan, Cox Support Forums Moderator.