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OCSD's avatar
OCSD
New Contributor II
4 years ago

Round 3 - Latency, Jitter, and Speed Issue

This is the third time I've gone through this routine with cox now. Posting from mobile so I don't have all my screenshots but I'm seeing 20-30% packet loss, latency to 400ms, all the regular issues and complaints you see here daily.

It's been a little over a month since since these exact same issues were resolved and I can't seem to get a straight answer from any rep about what was "fixed". I filed a few FCC complaints, opened a FairShake claim, and 'magically' my issues were resolved overnight after months of having techs come out, late night support calls, and half a dozen new modems and routers. My node was probably not upgraded as I never saw and significant downtime and it would appear I'm not able to access any OFDM (Docsis3.1) bands so what changed?

I was willing to drop the issue as my connection was stable for roughly a month but now we're back in the exact same place as before. Can hardly stay connected to a WebEx call. I've lost all patience for dealing with Cox at this point. I'm about to start commissioning newspapers and skywriters and billboards encouraging people to start filing FCC complaints as that seems to be the only thing to get a response from cox.

  • Dave9's avatar
    Dave9
    Contributor III
    4 years ago

    The most common cause of issues that I've seen is noise on the cable network. This can be caused by anything and can appear at any time. I've had this problem on my connection too. One time it was caused by a neighbor hooking up an old cable that let noise into the network. Another time it was caused by a tech who forgot to reconnect a line after working on someone else's service. Another time it was caused by a faulty amplifier on a pole. This type of problem can be caused by almost anything and can appear at almost any time.

    The best way to check for this is to make sure all of your indoor connections are tight, replace all indoor cable with high quality brand new RG6 cable, and remove any unnecessary splitters and amplifiers. Then let your modem run for 24 hours and check for uncorrectable codewords and/or T3/T4 timeout errors. You can post your signals and logs here and someone will usually help you understand them.

    If you've ruled out any problems with the interior connections all you can do is call for a tech and don't be scared away by the threat of being charged $75. If you properly ruled out your indoor connections you don't need to worry about that.

    It can be frustrating. I've had about 6 tech visits in the last year for this problem. Every time it was caused by something different and every time it was caused by problems off of my property and out of my control. The good news is that they did eventually fix the problem, but I know it can come back at any time. That's just how it is with cable internet.