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re: Cox Internet are POS for gouging customers during quarantine....
Posted on 8/13/20 at 10:44 am to Fat Batman
Posted on 8/13/20 at 10:44 am to Fat Batman
quote:
As far as the school thing goes the extra 250GB would be more than enough to cover one kid streaming 8 hours a day, likely enough for 2.
I've faced a similar decision and just added the extra 500GB/month and Cox says it is enough for 100 hours of streaming.
100 hours/8 hours/day = 12.5 days. If a child is streaming 8 hours/day for school, it doesn't cover ONE child's school streaming. Not to mention their social/downtime streaming.
And let's not forget that Cox's top tier internet had a 2 TB cap when it first came out but they removed it and said "The great majority of users weren't coming close to it" and they knocked it down to 1 TB.
It's a gouging of their customers because they're a crappy company. I'm sure they got data and saw how many would have overages from the months with overages suspended and found another way to screw just enough customers to make some more money while the "extra" data keeps enough customers happy to not cause too much hassle. Certainly sounds like the Cox way.
1
Posted on 8/13/20 at 10:54 am to Korkstand
quote:
First recognize that it costs literally nothing to transfer a byte of data. The ISP pays for a given capacity, not by the byte. It costs the same whether 1 byte is sent or a petabyte, the obvious difference being they have to pay for a bigger pipe if they move more data.
Actually, this can be very false depending on the nature of the traffic.
More and more this is correct, but I work for an ISP and I can tell you that our tier-1 transit providers charge us significant money per megabit at a 95th percentile (to offset anomalies) to use their transit network. It's come down significantly in recent years thanks to competitors like Hurricane Electric and GTT disrupting guys like AT&T and Level3/CL, but at one point several years ago we were paying $1.20 per megabit for transit traffic. Multiply that by the many gigs we transport to them and.. it gets expensive. It's significantly less per Mb now, but now we have to pay for transport to ATL and Dallas also.
These days the majority of our traffic goes to local caches (Netflix, Google, etc.) and direct peers in a peering fabric at large exchanges in Dallas and ATL, but we still use a significant amount of that transit and it costs us.
Larger ISPs like Cox might have a different arrangement, though, and I still agree with your overall thought here. My company does not have data caps and I believe that provides us with a competitive advantage.
This post was edited on 8/13/20 at 11:20 am
Posted on 8/13/20 at 11:14 am to bbrownso
Netflix cites one hour of streaming standard def equates to about 1GB of data, at 4K it's more like 3GB. Using Netflix here because streaming video is pretty high consumption and definitely on par with video conferencing.
500 hours / 8 hours per day = 62.5 days
(5 "school days" / week) * (4 weeks / billing cycle) = 20 days
The 500GB you added on would support 3 kids zooming 8 hours per day. This still leaves 750GB of the 1.25TB cap, or 750 hours, for "social/downtime streaming.".
BIG HOWEVER:
As previously mentioned, No kid is streaming 8 hours per day for school. The average school day is around 6.5 - 7 hours, which includes multiple hours of non-classroom activities that there would not be replaced with streaming. So, even if you replaced hour for hour classroom time with constant streaming you are looking at most 5 - 6 hours per day.
500 hours / 8 hours per day = 62.5 days
(5 "school days" / week) * (4 weeks / billing cycle) = 20 days
The 500GB you added on would support 3 kids zooming 8 hours per day. This still leaves 750GB of the 1.25TB cap, or 750 hours, for "social/downtime streaming.".
BIG HOWEVER:
As previously mentioned, No kid is streaming 8 hours per day for school. The average school day is around 6.5 - 7 hours, which includes multiple hours of non-classroom activities that there would not be replaced with streaming. So, even if you replaced hour for hour classroom time with constant streaming you are looking at most 5 - 6 hours per day.
Posted on 8/13/20 at 11:58 am to TeddyPadillac
quote:Yep, it is completely one-sided, very anti-consumer. Unless some miracle happens (SpaceX ramps up quickly with no caps, smaller ISPs start getting into the game, or the big boys decide to start being ethical
I have no say in the contract. I can redline it and send it back to them and they'll tell me to go pound sand. I have no choice but to accept whatever they put in their contract, as every ISP is going to have the same crap in every contract. My choice is either don't have internet from anyone, or accept whatever terms they say. little one sided dont you think.
), it's going to take a lot of consumer pushback against caps or some legislation.Posted on 8/13/20 at 12:47 pm to Hulkklogan
quote:I'm just saying the 95th percentile billing is based on momentary bandwidth used, not the amount of data transferred. While there is obviously a relationship there, the costs do not align with what we are billed for.
I work for an ISP and I can tell you that our tier-1 transit providers charge us significant money per megabit at a 95th percentile (to offset anomalies) to use their transit network. It's come down significantly in recent years thanks to competitors like Hurricane Electric and GTT disrupting guys like AT&T and Level3/CL, but at one point several years ago we were paying $1.20 per megabit for transit traffic. Multiply that by the many gigs we transport to them and.. it gets expensive. It's significantly less per Mb now, but now we have to pay for transport to ATL and Dallas also.
For example, I could self-throttle my connection to 25% of the speed I pay for, reducing my ISPs peak use (and hence their 95th percentile charges), and still blow past a 1TB data cap in just a couple days. In fact we could all self-throttle, essentially re-schedule our bits to level out the consumption and reduce the ISPs cost considerably, and still be dinged for overage charges.
Put another way, I can intentionally shift my consumption to off-peak hours, reduce my ISPs cost to support my use, and still be charged more than those who are driving the costs up.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm just trying to explain the disconnect between ISP costs and what they charge customers for.
quote:You are correct, at least for people like myself. I am lucky to have 2 choices for ISP (Cox and Eatel), and even though Cox offers better speeds and I believe higher overall quality of service, I have Eatel because they don't have data caps. That's the main reason, anyway. Two other reasons are dealing with Eatel's support is a breeze compared to the nightmare of Cox, and also Cox's reps will straight up lie to you about your fees.
I still agree with your overall thought here. My company does not have data caps and I believe that provides us with a competitive advantage.
Posted on 8/13/20 at 12:55 pm to NPComb
I called and upgraded my plan. Also upgraded my equipment to handle the increased workload the family is putting in. So far so good. In the end it only costs me another $10/mo with them giving promo pricing for a year.
Posted on 8/13/20 at 1:09 pm to Fat Batman
quote:Minor nitpick, but video conferencing is two-way, so depending on quality settings it could use more bandwidth than Netflix.
Netflix cites one hour of streaming standard def equates to about 1GB of data, at 4K it's more like 3GB. Using Netflix here because streaming video is pretty high consumption and definitely on par with video conferencing.
This kind of highlights the real problem with metered billing, though: we just don't have a clue how much data a given activity will use. That next link you click might use 1KB or 10MB. We don't know if the video we are watching is using 500MB or 5GB per hour. We don't know what all of our "smart" devices are doing at any given time. Maybe some device or program has a bug and it locks up while burning 50gigs per hour.
The more I think about it the more pissed off I get.
Posted on 8/13/20 at 1:44 pm to Korkstand
quote:
The more I think about it the more pissed off I get.
careful you'll end up like CAD. I've been WFH since March and whole my increased appetite for torrents definitely plays into my usage the fact remains I have to pull large sets of files from our company servers in the hundreds of GB range to my personal computer for use in mailing out on USB drives for various purposes.
I don't have a choice. I have to use my Comcast data even if I'm on the corporate VPN because our office is closed.
I get a small allowance for home internet to offset this but this alone puts me over 1TB within the first couple weeks every month.
This post was edited on 8/13/20 at 1:56 pm
Posted on 8/13/20 at 1:55 pm to Korkstand
quote:
Cox offers better speeds and I believe higher overall quality of service,
Can you elaborate? Let's just say I have a vested interest.
ETA
I got you on the rest - yeah it's not a 1-for-1 data transfer per-user kind of charge. And we are in agreement on data caps. It's just a way to extract more money from people. If you're truly worried about power users, make the cap like 5GB or 10GB so average families aren't fretting about a cap.
This post was edited on 8/13/20 at 1:59 pm
Posted on 8/13/20 at 2:09 pm to Korkstand
The numbers I have seen put a Zoom group call around 1GB/hr at the high or 720p setting and if for whatever reason you wanted to use 1080p (enterprise only) you'd be starting to knock at that 3GB/hr. You are right, conferencing is uploading and downloading video, but the streams you are dealing with in Zoom are just not as data-dense as Netflix and therefore still use about as much data despite the additional flow.
Posted on 8/13/20 at 5:23 pm to Hulkklogan
quote:Eatel has recently upped their speeds in my area, but Cox still has them beat on the top end. Not a big deal to me though. And I had my fair share of service interruptions during the years I had Cox, and so far I'm not displeased with Eatel, but (of course anecdotally) I've noticed a few more issues with Eatel. For example about once a month my connection drops completely (though usually only for a few minutes), and also more recently I've been having packet loss issues. Sometimes <1% drops for 10 minutes, sometimes >30% dropped packets for hours at a time. Admittedly I have only been with Eatel since I've been working from home the last couple years, so the fact that I have noticed more issues could be entirely attributed to that.
Can you elaborate? Let's just say I have a vested interest.
The fact remains that Eatel has not been rock solid for me, but none of it has been a show-stopper and customer service is miles better than Cox.
quote:Exactly, but you and I both know it's not about power users or "data hogs" or network management. It's strictly about coercing people into paying for cable TV.
If you're truly worried about power users, make the cap like 5GB or 10GB so average families aren't fretting about a cap.
Posted on 8/13/20 at 5:32 pm to Fat Batman
quote:You're probably right, I believe Zoom only transmits a thumbnail amount of data if you're viewing a thumbnail video. In other words, watching 16 tiled thumbnails that total the size of 1080p will only transmit about the same as a single 1080p stream. Plus framerates are surely lower.
The numbers I have seen put a Zoom group call around 1GB/hr at the high or 720p setting and if for whatever reason you wanted to use 1080p (enterprise only) you'd be starting to knock at that 3GB/hr. You are right, conferencing is uploading and downloading video, but the streams you are dealing with in Zoom are just not as data-dense as Netflix and therefore still use about as much data despite the additional flow.
Posted on 8/13/20 at 8:46 pm to Korkstand
quote:
Eatel has recently upped their speeds in my area, but Cox still has them beat on the top end. Not a big deal to me though. And I had my fair share of service interruptions during the years I had Cox, and so far I'm not displeased with Eatel, but (of course anecdotally) I've noticed a few more issues with Eatel. For example about once a month my connection drops completely (though usually only for a few minutes), and also more recently I've been having packet loss issues. Sometimes <1% drops for 10 minutes, sometimes >30% dropped packets for hours at a time. Admittedly I have only been with Eatel since I've been working from home the last couple years, so the fact that I have noticed more issues could be entirely attributed to that.
The fact remains that Eatel has not been rock solid for me, but none of it has been a show-stopper and customer service is miles better than Cox.
Ah, just noticing where you're at - Eatel in Ascension is all fiber and offers up to 1Gb, so I was confused as to package differences. Where you are used to be Clear Choice and yeah - HFC plant. Sorry for some of the troubles you've had. RF is out of my realm of expertise.
This post was edited on 8/13/20 at 8:48 pm
Posted on 8/14/20 at 12:45 pm to NPComb
Cox gave me a lot of free data for several months then upped their base amount. I’d say they were fairly accommodating.
Posted on 8/14/20 at 1:50 pm to TeddyPadillac
(no message)
This post was edited on 1/11/21 at 12:26 am
Posted on 8/14/20 at 4:42 pm to NPComb
You still have 25 percent left you.
You leave streaming services on when you are leaving the house or walking off jot even watching.
Your kids are doing the same.
Relax
You leave streaming services on when you are leaving the house or walking off jot even watching.
Your kids are doing the same.
Relax
Posted on 8/14/20 at 10:33 pm to Hulkklogan
quote:
Hulkklogan
This has been happening for the last hour or so.
quote:
439 packets transmitted, 311 received, 29.1572% packet loss, time 440960ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 17.352/30.147/307.330/25.014 ms
Still happening another 2 hours later.
This is what a typical 5 minutes of pings looks like during these times:
I don't know if that is indicative of a routing issue at the ISP level, a signal issue at my end, my hardware, or if anything at all can be deduced from this type of pattern. It just seems odd to me that I get a consistent 18-20ms for a few seconds, then a big spike, some drops, then another spike then down to the good pings again. And just as quickly as the problem crops up, it will go away completely for hours or days.
This is hardwired to my router. Maybe after everyone stops streaming I will hardwire straight to the modem to eliminate the router as a possibility.
This post was edited on 8/15/20 at 12:32 am
Posted on 8/16/20 at 10:02 pm to Korkstand
Honestly it sounds like a local RF plant issue. I've seen that kinda thing when there's a bad modem on the node talking out of turn or spitting garbage onto the plant. I'm not an RF guy though so take that with a grain of salt. Have you opened a trouble with support?
This post was edited on 8/16/20 at 10:03 pm
Posted on 8/16/20 at 10:25 pm to Hulkklogan
Yeah, they want to try a modem swap which sucks because I bought my own.
They could send someone out to test the signal but I doubt they will find anything wrong. It typically works perfectly during the day and for days at a time. I only notice a problem one or two nights a week, usually between 9PM and the wee hours of the morning.
I have not noticed any correlation with temperature or rain, unless it's something crazy like rain seeps into the line and then slowly works its way to where it causes a problem hours later. I had a problem like that years ago where a squirrel had chewed through the insulation up near the pole, and when the tech unscrewed the fitting at my box to test the signal water poured out. It was unusable almost all the time then, though. This time it's just 30% packet loss for maybe 4 hours out of the week, and the rest of the time zero loss and great speeds.
They could send someone out to test the signal but I doubt they will find anything wrong. It typically works perfectly during the day and for days at a time. I only notice a problem one or two nights a week, usually between 9PM and the wee hours of the morning.
I have not noticed any correlation with temperature or rain, unless it's something crazy like rain seeps into the line and then slowly works its way to where it causes a problem hours later. I had a problem like that years ago where a squirrel had chewed through the insulation up near the pole, and when the tech unscrewed the fitting at my box to test the signal water poured out. It was unusable almost all the time then, though. This time it's just 30% packet loss for maybe 4 hours out of the week, and the rest of the time zero loss and great speeds.
Posted on 8/17/20 at 4:19 pm to humblepie
quote:
Cox' top plan the 940 MB one still has only a 1.25 TB cap.... It is the 13th day of the month and I am at 1.7TB so there is no way that cap is going to work for me.
Cox will remove the data cap for $50 a month. Whether or not you want to pay that is up to you.
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