Forum Discussion

SantaBarbarian's avatar
SantaBarbarian
New Contributor
4 years ago

Massive gaming ping fluctuation - I’ve tested everything

When connecting to game servers a few states away, my ping is higher than colleagues who connect to the same server from Paris France. I have friends who connect from other ISPs in LA about an hour south of me and get 70 ping when I get 140. I’m not losing packets locally on my setup. I’ve ran ping traces to the servers and find that I get massive jitters in latency across most of my hops. I’ve talked to multiple representatives, one told me to get a better modem, which I did, and the other said it’s likely due to everyone being at home with my town’s stay at home orders and nothing can be done and tried to upsell me on a streaming box (???). I’m down $150 from trying to fix this and have no results. I get that things are under high load right now but people with other ISPs aren’t having this issue, so if this is truly due to my local switch being overloaded, can I at least get some info regarding my options, because as it is, I’m paying for a service and I’m not able use it in a completely reasonable way. I’m on Ethernet by the way, and somehow get a better connection off of LTE hotspot which should not be the case. I kind of feel like I’ve exhausted my options at this point, and whenever I call, I’m walked through the same trivial troubleshooting steps that any technical person would know to try before reaching out, and it’s getting quite tiring. 

gaming support
ping
  • dabee2's avatar
    dabee2
    New Contributor II
    4 years ago

    Unfortunately, I have a similar experience in Arizona. 

    I've upgraded my router a couple times, bought my own compatible cable modem, had techs come out several times, had them rerun cable at the house, paid for the upgraded support only to tell me it's issues with the node in my area.  I've had this issue for years and if there were any alternatives in my area I would have taken it a while ago.

    • Allan's avatar
      Allan
      Moderator
      4 years ago
      @Dabee2, I recommend sending us an email with your full name and address to cox.help@cox.com so we can take a closer look. Thanks. -Allan, Cox Support Forums Moderator.
  • Dboe's avatar
    Dboe
    New Contributor II
    4 years ago

    I have the same issues as well.  I would just file a complaint with the FCC at this point.  It looks like COX's strategy is to close their eyes and open them when the pandemic winds down.  I would also try supporting any efforts for municipal fiber.  At this point in my life, I am seriously considering running for office just to resolve this.

    • SharonL's avatar
      SharonL
      Former Moderator
      4 years ago
      Hello,

      This appears as if you may need someone to investigate your account personally. We would be able to assist you with this. Please reach us on Twitter at @CoxHelp, visit us on Facebook, or email us at cox.help@cox.com. Provide us the name on the account with the complete service address with a link to this thread so we can get started.

      Thank you.
       
      Sharon
      Cox Support Forum Moderator
      • Dboe's avatar
        Dboe
        New Contributor II
        4 years ago

        I've had someone investigate my account, but no resolution has been done.  No compensation for bad internet and no fix for poor quality internet.  I have been fighting this issue every single day since I have been a Cox customer at my new address.  Today I filed an FCC complaint because the issue is getting much worse, and no one from Cox is doing anything about it.

  • LisaH's avatar
    LisaH
    Moderator
    4 years ago
    Hi SantaBarbarian. The purpose of the Cox Internet Forum is to allow customers to discuss technical topics related to residential Cox Cable, Telephone and High-Speed Internet services with other customers. This appears as if you may need someone to look into your account personally. To get help, please send an email to cox.help@cox.com and include your complete address, name on the account and any ping plotters, trace routes, and ping tests you have. - Lisa, Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • Budrose's avatar
    Budrose
    New Contributor II
    4 years ago

    It's not just you! I've had issues for months now and live in So Cal. I've contacted cox.help twice with no response and I've seen a lot of unhappy gamers who are having the same issue with latency on these forums. Cox has not upgraded their infrastructure to meet the new demands for the heavier traffic that has happened from the pandemic. I seem to get a high ping to UE servers but not a lot of fluctuations but when I connect to west coast and east coast game servers its all over the place making it impossible to enjoy a gaming session. I've worked with my main game support we trace routed the issue to the last mile on Cox's networks. They just keep giving everyone the run around and I bet they are just hoping it will fix it's self instead of spending money to correct the issues. Penny wise and pound foolish. Gaming does not need bandwidth it needs LOW LATENCY! If you pay for Elite Gamer on Cox you are getting screwed cause you shouldn't need any of that **. It is wacked to see people having to buy new equipment and rewire there houses and have numerous tech's out to the house with no fix. The network engineer's at Cox seem to be useless and they are the ones that are responsible for making sure we get what we pay for. Look into fiber in your area or other options. The sad truth is until you hit them in the wallet they don't seem to do jack to correct the issue. Maybe when they start losing customers to better service in your area they might do something about it.

  • Kalebkk890's avatar
    Kalebkk890
    New Contributor III
    4 years ago

    I have been battling Cox on these issues for just under a year now since COVID started. The problem is nearly all of their nodes that your modem is directly connected to are well over 100% utilization which causes incredible packet loss and spikes. The internet speeds usually aren't effected but the latency and packet loss is definitely noticeable. There are two things you can do and that is to file an FCC complaint about the packet loss and you will be able to talk to their actual engineers who are "diligently" working to split these nodes to help with saturation. They will probably give you some date that is months and months away when your node will be fixed and they get away with this without even a slap on the wrist because they have a "plan" to fix it. The ISP monopoly has been a travesty for years and COVID has only made it much worse and noticeable. The second thing you can do is go to https://fairshake.com/ to ask for a settlement to reduce your bills or pay you back for their service they aren't able to reliably provide. Don't take the first offer because it will be very low for what they actually deserve from this country wide failure.