Many customers credit Cox cable internet for being fast and reliable—but pricing and customer service could be better.
An Honest Cox Internet Review, According to Customers
Although Cox's prices skew higher for the speeds you get and you don't get unlimited data, this cable provider is still a worthy pick for many customers. If you sign up, you get a variety of plan options, bundle bargains, and gigabit capabilities. Cox also offers free self-installation, which is a small perk that a lot of its cable competitors don’t offer. And it appears to be building up its fiber-internet infrastructure, with symmetrical speeds and multi-gigabit capabilities now part of Cox’s menu of customer options.
“Overall, I'd say the service is pretty good and dependable,” said M. J. Stevens, a Cox customer of 15 years who lives in San Diego, California.
I did extensive research and interviewed 17 current and former Cox customers to put together this review. My findings suggest that, while Cox has its ups and downs, it's more than adequate for most households.
Guide to this Cox Internet review:
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Get to know Cox internet: Plans and pricing
Cox offers cable internet plans that start at 100Mbps for $50 per month, up to 2000Mbps for $149.99 per month. This is a discounted price for the first 24 months, and afterwards regular rates may apply. All plans have a monthly data cap of 1,280GB, equivalent to 1.25TB. That's a ton of data, so you likely don’t have to worry about exceeding your cap during a month. Still, it's not unlimited data, so there's always the possibility of using more than you should. Exceeding your cap during the month leads to an overage fee of $10 per 50GB. Some Cox plans have annual contracts with cancellation fees, while others are contract free. Make sure you know the terms of the deal before you sign up.
Which plan is right for you?
The best plan in terms of price and speed for most households is the Cox Go Faster plan with 250Mbps for $70 per month. The Go Faster plan has fast enough speed for up to three people in the household to work from home, play games, and stream shows all on their own device. If you have a few people in your household who aren’t always using their own device, then it can work well for an even larger household.
Cox fees for modem and installation
Panoramic Wi-Fi equipment rental
Free for 14 mos. then $15/mo.
Professional installation
$100.00
Self-installation
Free
Overage fees
$10 per 50GB (up to $100 a month)
Cancellation fee
$0
Data as of 05/29/2024.
How did we research this review?
Our fact-based research process centers around interviews with internet customers from across the country, helping us understand how internet services hold up against diverse needs and challenges.
To put together this review, we talked with 17 current and former Cox internet customers. We let their experiences guide our research and shape our conclusions. We looked closely at the fine print surrounding Cox’s plans, speeds, and prices, and we also looked into Cox’s efforts to build up its fiber infrastructure to provide a “fiber to the home” connection for customers.
For all our internet reviews, we give a rating based on three main criteria—speed and reliability, dollar value, and customer experience. We then average the ratings to make an overall score.
Our breakdown of Cox internet features
What’s the skinny on Cox internet? Here’s the Reviews.org take.
Speed and reliability
While it’s not one of Reviews.org’s five fastest providers, Cox still has formidable speeds. Looking at results from our speed test over the past year, Cox delivers average downloads of 160.347Mbps. That’s a great speed, ranking Cox faster than major competitors like AT&T, Spectrum, and Frontier. Cox also gets a respectable average upload speed of 26.442Mbps, which is much slower than a fiber provider like Windstream but faster than many cable providers. And while it may not get fiber-optic speeds, Cox is faster than CenturyLink DSL or Frontier DSL packages.
As for reliability, customers who spoke with Reviews.org gave a mixed picture. While many found Cox reliable, some mentioned frequent outage issues. “The download and upload speeds varied wildly,” said software developer Aaron LaBounty, a former Cox customer in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In terms of speed and reliability, a fiber internet provider capable of “fiber-to-the-home” connectivity will always be a better choice than Cox’s cable offerings. Fiber isn’t vulnerable to electromagnetic interference in the same way cable is, and fiber infrastructure tends to be newer, making it less likely to break down. On fiber internet, you can also get symmetrical upload and download speeds, giving you added bandwidth to handle video calls, livestreams, and other upload-heavy tasks. Plus, fiber service from providers like Google Fiber or Quantum is often cheaper than Cox.
Still, Cox holds its own against other cable internet competitors and has the edge on budget-friendly 5G home internet too. 5G providers Verizon and T-Mobile have been coming at cable customers hard with competitive pricing and lots of deals, but since 5G literally runs on cellular networks, 5G internet services are prone to all the interruptions you expect from your mobile devices. Fixed-wireless providers like Verizon 5G and T-Mobile 5G cannot match Cox internet speeds.
Dollar value
Unless you get a service bundle, Cox isn't the best deal. You can get faster speeds for a lower price from cable competitors like Xfinity and Spectrum compared to Cox—although the faster speeds you get from Cox, the better value your price is. And while you don’t have to fork over cash for a self-installation kit, you do have to deal with fees for renting a router and overage charges if you exceed your monthly data cap.
Opting for unlimited data costs an extra $49.99 a month. That’s simply not worth the price unless you’re a content creator or have a big family with lots of data users.
Cox offers some service bundle options that can reduce your monthly bills. The best bundle option is combining Cox Internet with a Cox Mobile, the company’s prepaid phone brand. A Cox Mobile phone plan costs between $15 and $45 a month, which is super affordable for a cellular carrier. Combining that with Cox Internet knocks $15 a month off your internet service.
Other Cox bundles let you combine your internet service with Cox TV, landline phone, or home security system—but the savings varies. M. J. Stevens, a customer in San Diego, pays for a bundle that combines Cox internet with a landline phone line and cable TV package. "But actually, if I ordered them separately, it would only be about five bucks more,” he said.
Customer experience
Customer satisfaction surveys show that Cox gets mostly average scores compared to other internet providers. For example, Cox scored just two points below the average score in a 2023 report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
A lot of customers Reviews.org spoke to aren't happy with Cox. That could be in part because it’s a cable provider—and those companies tend to get a bad rap among internet customers for offering inconsistent service.
"The customer service representatives are a very mixed bag," lamented Audrey, a social worker in Louisiana. She told Reviews.org that she experiences frequent outages but finds Cox isn’t proactive in informing her that her service is down. Instead, she ends up informing Cox instead. "Every time there is an outage, I call it in, and shortly after, our app is updated to 'there's an outage/event in your area.'"
How long it takes to get a real human on the phone: approx. 1 minute. I had no trouble at all getting a customer service agent to help me on the phone. However, current and former Cox customers say reaching someone is often difficult due to lengthy wait times and delays.
How the chat service is: not useful. Cox's chatbot has a name (Oliver), and let's just say Oliver could use an upgrade. Unless you're ready to sign up for Cox services or have a basic question, he isn’t able to provide direct information in a timely fashion. Oliver can route you to a human sales agent over chat, but responses are slow, and the agent won’t answer any questions unless you provide an address and other identifying information.
Overall quality
Cox is relatively reliable with surprisingly fast speeds. It's not the best value unless you bundle certain services, and it also needs some customer service improvement. But it’s well worth signing up for a Cox internet plan if you can’t get fiber in your area and you need faster and more reliable speeds than 5G home internet.
What Cox deals and promotions can you get?
Cox doesn’t offer a whole lot of deals or promotions to new customers. But you can save $14.99 a month on an internet package by getting a wireless plan through Cox Mobile, the cable company’s prepaid phone brand.
Cox internet add-ons and perks
Unlimited Additional Data Plan
Sign up for unlimited data for $49.99/mo.
What do customers think of Cox?
To get a full picture of the Cox experience, I talked to Cox customers around the country (including quite a few from Tulsa—as the Tulsa subreddit was very responsive to my questions). Some folks said they’re satisfied or mostly satisfied with Cox as a provider.
Isaac Chandler, an e-sports lounge manager who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, isn't in love with his Cox service. He feels the price is inflated for what he’s getting, and he’s experienced frequent-enough slowdowns and outages that he doesn’t find the service super reliable. But he’s still largely positive about the internet service.
"It's pretty easy to set up and doesn’t require any weird cabling,” he said. He’s also had positive experiences with customer service reps: “They solve my problems pretty quickly.”
But Chandler isn’t alone in thinking Cox internet is costly. Longtime customer M. J. Stevens also comments the service is too expensive for its value. "But I still do it because I get everything I need with a minimum of fuss and bother," he explained.
Many also think the customer service could improve.
Paul, a systems administrator in Tulsa, said his Cox internet service went down last summer due to a haboob, a type of extreme dust storm that regularly sweeps across Oklahoma in June and July. Technicians came by to repair the lines, but the work was piecemeal as they left behind a messy scene of downed coaxial cabling.
"We still have obvious Cox lines down in our neighborhood,” Paul told me. “They didn't actually replace the cable so much as [string] new cable, and they left the old cable lines just dangling off poles onto the ground where they dropped."
Lindsey Scotney, who owns a hospitality staffing company in Tulsa, recounts having a difficult time recently with a customer service agent. She had an unlimited data plan and called because she suspected that her speeds were still being throttled, and he kept interrupting her as she tried to get answers.
“He hung up on me intentionally after telling me I was being abusive,” Scotney recalled. “I literally did not raise my voice at all and in a very calm voice just asked him to please let me finish what I was saying.”
Need to contact Cox customer service or tech support?
You can reach support through several different methods:
- Call +1-800-234-3993
- Chat with Oliver, the Cox virtual assistant
- Download the Cox app
Does Cox offer fiber internet?
Cox calls its internet service "fiber-powered," suggesting there's fiber in the cable network infrastructure but not in the connections running directly to residences (a connection known as “fiber to the home” or FTTH).
But it seems that Cox has been moving closer towards FTTH capability. Cox's website has a page that boasts about using a FTTH connection to provide internet for a sports stadium in Arizona, and recent maps from the Federal Communications Commission show that Cox has fiber infrastructure set up widely across its nationwide network footprint. The provider has been offering gigabit and multi-gigabit internet plans with symmetrical speeds—something that’s usually only available through fiber internet. The fastest plan reaches download and upload speeds of 2,000Mbps.
A spokesperson didn’t respond to our requests for comment, but other experts have clarified that Cox’s fiber infrastructure isn’t the same as what you get from a provider like AT&T or Verizon: The National Advertising Division (NAD) recently recommended—in a claim filed on behalf of AT&T—that Cox tone down the “powered by fiber” claims, noting that Cox’s network delivers a fiber-optic connection to area nodes. The company uses coaxial cable with a traditional copper conductor to connect the “last mile” into peoples’ homes.
The company also offers proper fiber-to-the-home service, but the telecom media outlet Light Reading reported that Cox’s FTTH footprint is limited, rolled out “on a more limited and targeted basis.”
It’s unclear how many of Cox’s customers can actually get a fiber connection to the home, but even customers on a cable connection can expect respectable speeds from Cox. Recent advances in technical standards (including DOCSIS 4.0 and Wi-Fi 6e) are enabling cable companies to offer multi-gigabit plan options and symmetrical speeds.
We’re eager to hear from internet customers about their experiences with their home Wi-Fi. Contact us at info@reviews.org to share your thoughts, recommendations, and hot tips.
Where is Cox available?
Cox internet is present in 18 states across the United States, with availability scattered around the South, Midwest, and East and West coasts. Want Cox internet? Run a search with your zip code below to see if Cox is available in your area or check out this list of Cox's available cities.
Cox vs. the competition
In terms of speed or price, Cox can't compare to fiber providers like Google Fiber and AT&T—the cable company simply can’t deliver the symmetrical speeds of a fiber-optic connection, which give users a huge boost for things like video calls, livestreams, and virtual reality. Many fiber providers offer faster speeds for around the same price, or even less.
Cox also doesn’t quite keep up with other major cable internet providers. The company doesn’t have as wide a reach as cable giants Xfinity and Spectrum, and both of the latter providers offer competitive promotional rates for the first year that might make a Cox customer rep sweat.
That said, Cox keeps pace with 5G providers like Verizon and T-Mobile. Both providers have raised their prices in recent months, and the instability of a 5G fixed wireless connection means it can’t match Cox for bandwidth and reliability.
Compare internet providers and prices
Cox internet FAQ
It’s worth getting Cox for reliable internet and fast speeds. The provider uses a “fiber-powered” connection that works by having a fiber that runs all the way to a central hub outside of your neighborhood, which is then connected to a coax cable to your home. This isn’t the same as a 100% fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network, so it still has traits of a cable connection like lower upload speeds. This does mean that Cox is able to deliver up to 1 Gig download speeds.
Cox internet is legit. Cox internet is the largest private broadband company in America, with networks in over 30 states for nearly seven million homes and businesses.
It’s not difficult to cancel Cox internet service, but you do need to call to cancel. You can also visit a brick-and-mortar store to cancel.
Cox doesn’t have cancellation fees, so you can cancel your service at any time without a penalty. Cox also offers a “Worry Free Promise” where you cancel your plan within the first 30 days of service and get your money back.
Fiber providers are better than Cox, which offers a “fiber-powered” network that is still essentially a cable connection. Some fiber providers that rank higher than Cox at Reviews.org include Google Fiber, Verizon Fios and AT&T.
Want Cox? Find it in your area.
Although some customers have their misgivings, Cox is worth trying out if you can’t get a more competitively-priced fiber provider to your home and you need fast, reliable Wi-Fi to handle all your streaming, gaming, and video calling needs. Enter your zip code below to see if you can get Cox where you live.