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Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

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Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#81

Post by kstrauser »

sneak wrote: post #61
userbinator wrote: post #33

a gigabit customer who was paying $50 extra per month for unlimited data was flagged by Cox because he was using 8TB to 12TB a month "Unlimited data" should mean you can saturate the connection 24/7. Anything less is deceptive advertising. For a gigabit connection, that would mean around 300TB per month.

They can lie all they want; they are integrated with the government and they have no consequences for fraud. I gave Cox over $2000 explicitly for unlimited data and still got nastygrams from them for uploading 4TB of my original digital photos to S3 for backup. It’s effectively illegal to start new ISPs in America, that’s why this shit happens.

I would absolutely forward those to my state's public utilities commission.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#82

Post by wmf »

cavisne wrote: post #47
zamadatix wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FTTH offerings from Ziply, Cox, Comcast, Google, ATT, Centurylink etc are all the same "shared media with high oversubscription" design too. Among them the typical ratio is ~32 PON users for the given "base rate" PON standard, similar to a typical ~20-50 for coax at a given DOCSIS standard. Both have better/worse examples (particularly early gigabit PON deployments were 64) but FTTH has rarely been about getting…

Im not sure Google is GPON (or has passive splitters at all). They were very early to deployments, and their plans are always symmetrical (which doesnt make sense for any standard *PON deployment).

It is PON. When the underlying network is 2.4 down, 1.2 up you can offer 1/1 plans (with some degree of prayer).

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#83

Post by userbinator »

ReverseCold wrote: post #46
userbinator wrote: post #33

a gigabit customer who was paying $50 extra per month for unlimited data was flagged by Cox because he was using 8TB to 12TB a month "Unlimited data" should mean you can saturate the connection 24/7. Anything less is deceptive advertising. For a gigabit connection, that would mean around 300TB per month.

I don’t know why they don’t advertise their oversubscription rate. The FCC should probably require this to be disclosed in some standard location. So many people are mad because “I paid for a gigabit and I can’t use the whole thing”… but like you didn’t pay for a gigabit you paid for a gigabit shared among 100 other people, which means peak-of-sums you should usually get gigabit, but it’s not guaranteed. The internet…

There's two (interrelated) values here --- speed ("flow rate") and volume.

"Unlimited data" refers to volume.

Gigabit refers to speed.

This customer presumably isn't too worried about the speed, but is rightly under the impression that he isn't being charged on volume and can thus use as much as the speed allows.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#84

Post by kstrauser »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #48
fn-mote wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you could seek recourse via your state Attorney General. You might hope the FCC would care (but they don’t). The GP already lost 6 days of work… how much would the likely payoff be to make it work their while to continue dealing with that company?

You can't buy the satisfaction that comes from forcing the phone company to do what you require.

> to do what you require.

"To do what they advertised to you."

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#85

Post by xcskier56 »

kstrauser wrote: post #37
wincy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I pay $70 a month for gigabit from Google Fiber and absolutely saturate that thing all day long up and down. A Google PM got me on a call and asked me if I wanted 20 gigabit for $200 a month the other day. No restrictions, I could run my business off my $70 if I really wanted to. I don’t know what Cox is going on about, they need to get with the program.

I pay $50 for 10 gigabits from Sonic. I don’t abuse it by deliberately running a speed test 24/7 or anything like that. I do use it for anything I want, at any time, without pausing to consider how much data it takes. Launch a NAS backup at 2PM on a weekday? Stream 4K video on 2 TVs at the same time? Download a mass of software updates? Without a second’s hesitation. The CEO is on record being very explicit that they…

I think US internet would give you a run for your money on best ISP in the country. Been doing gigabit symmetrical for probably close to 10 years at very reasonable prices. When I called customer support about having a static IP, just ended up talking shop with whoever was on the other side. Amazing

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#86

Post by presentation »

wmf wrote: post #78
ReverseCold wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why they don’t advertise their oversubscription rate. The FCC should probably require this to be disclosed in some standard location. So many people are mad because “I paid for a gigabit and I can’t use the whole thing”… but like you didn’t pay for a gigabit you paid for a gigabit shared among 100 other people, which means peak-of-sums you should usually get gigabit, but it’s not guaranteed. The internet…

Oversubscription ratios vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. Perhaps ISPs could advertise the worst case but that would make their service look worse than it is. And of course no ISP will be the first to disclose. BTW the FCC recently introduced "nutrition labels" for ISPs. https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandlabels

That’s why I think this has to come through rules and regs - any individual company can be honest, but it would probably come at the cost of dishonest competitors winning customers.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#87

Post by ta1243 »

FredFS456 wrote: post #63
nixosbestos wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: removing an apparently quite inaccurate comment. Apologies.

It /is/ how it works with PON based fibre networks. See https://blog.init7.net/en/overbooking-how-providers-divide-u...

Even if you had a dedicated fibre back to a 1G port on a switch in a data centre, there's going to be bottle necks at some point. Sure they could ensure that 48 port switch you're connected to has no contention, but non-blocking networks aren't cheap, and are needed in the vast majority of cases.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#88

Post by komali2 »

Privatizing infrastructure clearly isn't working. It's time to nationalize. Cox is basically a mafia at this point, able to sell "service" and then threaten you to use the service in some arbitrary way, but keep paying btw or you get nothing.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#89

Post by mattnewton »

presentation wrote: post #86
wmf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oversubscription ratios vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. Perhaps ISPs could advertise the worst case but that would make their service look worse than it is. And of course no ISP will be the first to disclose. BTW the FCC recently introduced "nutrition labels" for ISPs. https://www.fcc.gov/broadbandlabels

That’s why I think this has to come through rules and regs - any individual company can be honest, but it would probably come at the cost of dishonest competitors winning customers.

It has to be regulated because in most of the US ISPs have a de-facto monopoly on the infrastructure; the market has failed to produce more competitors with permits to dig and place fiber for a bunch of reasons.

Re: Cox slows Internet speeds in entire neighborhoods to punish any heavy users (2020)

#90

Post by fat_cantor »

A year ago, I had fast Cox internet for $70 per month. I moved a mile away, and Cox wanted at least $233 for any connection at any speed because AT&T was not a competitor in that neighborhood. I said no and relied on 5G until AT&T moved in a few months later with the $70 market rate. When business people take control of companies from engineers, we get enshittification. Cox has somehow managed to make me nostalgic for the enshittification phase, which has morphed into this logjammin phase where no one even pretends to be competent enough to fix the cable.
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