I have lived with COX in the Bryan/College Station, Texas area (internet and cable tv) for three years, the last two have been truly dreadful. My main complaint is that they continually change their services without notice in an effort to get the customer to pay more. For instance, they have changed their internet services four times since I have been with them. First I had 1mb for $30 a month, then they canceled that and I had to switch to 128 kb for the $25, then they canceled that and I had to go back to dial-up. Then they reintroduced 1mb for $30, but recently canceled that again and now I am at 4mb for $40. OK, so at least I am getting more for my money, but I don’t need 4mb, I would rather have 1mb and pay $30. There is no technical reason why they can not sell me 1mb for $30, or like the local DSL 1.5mb for $25. They just like my money and look for every angle to get more of it. Hey, I know that is business, it is just that they are so sleazy about it and I have to constantly watch my services and charges.
They are just very sleazy in the way they go about changing their services, not to give the customer better choices, but to squeeze more money out of them. I am in an area where DSL is unavailable, otherwise I would have dumped Cox and gone with DSL and DirectTV.
Cox’s Cable TV service is no better. Over the past month my channel line up has changed three times. With the last change they took away CNN, so I am left with only local channels, but I have Spanish channels. I need those like I need another whole in my head. But, I have to pay for it to get the internet access, so really, I am paying $60 for 4mb, not so much of a bargain.
Their customer service is dreadful, hold times are regularly over ten minutes and that is when I can get through, often the line is busy. Then I get bounced around from one department to another because I have multi part questions, which never seem to get answered.
Their advertising is very misleading, they are currently offering Digital Cable with a DVR for $25. Sounds great, except it is bogus, you first have to order, not one, but two tiers of digital channels to get this deal (the $25 is on top of the charge for the two tiers of digital channels) and the $25 is for the first two months only, what a joke.
And to add insult to injury, Cox’s service is unreliable. Their internet drops anywhere from one to five times a week. Usually, after restarting the modem, it comes back in just a few minutes. It typically does this at very inopportune times, like when I am sending a large email attachment or playing an online game. Ironically, their advertisements focus on how their service will not go down in a storm, like satellite, but it does. Curiously, the internet service goes down much more frequently then dose the cable tv.
I am moving next year and will be glad to be rid of Cox once and for all.
