I did a work-around, and I think it is OK. I did not have a cox email account previously. I set one up and had it get my messages from my email "earthlink.net". My messages were successfully imported into cox. Then in outlook, I set it up so that it would get my messages from my cox account. As best I can tell, I can now send and receive. I should note that I had to set up a second account in outlook that ends with "@cox.net". Unfortunately, I still have my old account in outlook that I was using to get my email directly from earthlink. Although, I could copy all of my old folders from the old account into my new one. But I still have the old account hanging around. I cannot figure out how to get rid of it.
I think this is what I did to make it work:
email address: *****@cox.net
Manually set up POP3 or IMAP- and chose IMAP
Incoming mail: mail.cox.net
Outgoing: smtp.cox.net
Username: same as ****
Password: cox password
MORE SETTINGS:
Outgoing Server:
My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication
Use same settings as my incoming
Advanced:
Incoming server (IMAP):993
Use SSL
Outgoing server(SMTP): 587
TLS
I hope this helps someone. I have spent a week and a half cursing cox and trying any possible alternative.