@ChrisL
I get the whole idea of troubleshoot, and I have no problem with that. I'm just a bit confused about the inconsistency of information that is given to me by Cox tech that's all. When one tech says it's bad and it's other one says it's okay to connect computer directly to the ONT, after a while it's a bit difficult to take Cox seriously. Also you just provided me with the third reason not to connect to the ONT (that it's fragile) so you don't want people to test by connecting directly to the ONT.
Anyways, thanks for replying, I'll default back to the good old Google for answers. I'm just a bit surprised that Cox has no further way to test the connection.