#*@#$@# Cox Cable
 

Yesterday, my wife calls me and tells me the cable went out around 12:30 PM. It comes back barely a half hour later, so I call cox cable to let them know of the problem. They tell me there was a local accident that knocked out service for a portion of New Orleans, and that it should be fixed in a few hours. 5:30 PM comes last night, I get home - no cable, no internet. I call the cable company, they deny there was ever a large cable outage earlier in the day, they try a couple of troubleshooting tips, and then they say we need to send a repairmen out to fix it.

This is the third time they have had to send someone out in a year and I've been frustrated by the frequency with which my outdoor cable lines have had to be fixed. Furthermore, despite my family ordering every service they offer, they can't send anyone out until Friday. They tell me if I had asked for help earlier in the day, I could have gotten a Weds. appt, but as I point out to them, they dissuaded me from putting a work order because of "the big outage" which they now deny.

Oh well, long story short.. I only have internet access at work, and today was very hectic. So, Guessestimates 3 won't be ready until at least Thursday. My apology for the delays. Also, I might not respond to all of the PM's I have until Thursday.

For those in the eNFL, I did send in a file from work, so hopefully my team doesn't falter ;)

Those of us in the sticks with dial-up access wish we could get crappy service from a broadband ISP.

Now you know why they call themselves...

SI

Cox Cable in New Orleans has sucked ever since I can remember.

*counting down the time until we have a parody thread that says: #*@#$@# Cox Arquette*

I'm waiting for the The Afoci version:

#*@#$@# my Cox (please)

Get DirecTV Dude!

Speaking of DirecTV, I've had my 2-receiver system for about 3 years, and 1 of the receivers is apparently dying on myself already. It keeps shutting itself down. The tech I spoke with on the phone tells me that the signal strength isn't the problem, so it looks like I'm going to have to replace it. Anyone else had to replace a box this quickly?

Now this puts even more pressure on me to consider buying one of those TiVo things, which I know I won't get much use out of.

And...going off on another tangent, I read an interesting article on CNN yesterday about how TiVo is in danger of losing its market because no one knows the difference between TiVo and the DVRs being sold/rented by cable companies. I must admit, until I read that article, I didn't really know there was a difference, either. Pretty much every cabel company is using DVRs with another company's software, meaning that TiVo is faced with losing its place in the market that it created just a couple of years ago. Even DirecTV may not need TiVo anymore, since they apparently just purchased a company with a subsidiary that makes DVRs and/or the software for them. Fascinating stuff, really.

I'm going to be VERY tempted to switch to DirecTV for my TV needs this weekend, if Cox doesn't fix my problem friday afternoon/evening. However, I would also need an alternative for my cable modem. From my most reviews I've heard, DSL is not as fast as Cable Modem. Is this true or just propaganda? I certainly am too acclimated to high speed to go back to a dial-up connection, but I might consider a DSL line if the service was better and the efficacy was similar.

Define fast.

DSL has better ping times, cable has better maximum bandwidth. For downloading files and just plain web browsing bandwidth is better. For online gaming, ping is far more important, as little bits of data need to get places fast.

Also, with cable, you share that bandwidth with your neighbors. If everyone on a block has cable, and go surfing at the same time it slows for all of them. Not so with DSL, your line has a maximum banwidth (which will likly be much less than cable's) but you can usually count on having that much.

I have had DSL for four about years, and never had a problem with speed. Any speed issues I have are almost always a result of everyone else trying to download the same file as me (fof2004) and thus limited by the server, not my connection. I can generally download a 100MB file in 10 mins or so. Page loads are rarely more than 5 seconds, even for graphically intense pages, and when they are (*cough ESPN.com*) they are on slow servers.

In short, you'll probably never notice the difference (like you would say, gaming online with satellite). Of course, these are generalities, and some of what I am saying may not be true in your locality.

For Internet I have Roadrunner.....absolutely love it!

For TV....I have DirecTV and TIVO.

I have been satisfied with both so far...

I just checked out Roadrunner, unfortunately the only service they offer here in New Orleans is through Cox Cable :(

I believe they are inherently a cable service.

You can still get them if you don't subscribe to cable tv, but around here it costs $10 more per month. Thus, I have DSL (and DirecTV).

Well, I found what was wrong with my cable... It looks like one of the nurse's that lives in the building I live in tried to steal my cable. She even poked her head out when I and the cable man were looking at the exchange box. Of course, I can't prove it was her, but she made a suspicious comment and she is the only other person who has an apartment in my building. It was clear someone had unhooked my cable, as I'm sure it didn't unscrew itself. Anyway, it was a quick 5 minute fix, I just wish they could have sent a guy out on Tuesday instead of Friday to fix this little problem.