An Honest Cox Internet Review, According to Customers

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 internet speeds typical 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 giant Spectrum, and this provider offers competitive promotional rates that might make a Cox customer rep sweat.

That said, Cox keeps pace with 5G providers like Verizon and T-Mobile. The instability of a 5G fixed wireless connection means it can’t match Cox for bandwidth and reliability, but they are affordable and have set prices. 

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). Folks told me:

• They’re satisfied or mostly satisfied with Cox as a provider
• They enjoy the easy set-up
• The internet plan prices are on the more expensive side
• Technicians left cabling where they worked without cleaning it up
• Customer service can be difficult to communicate with

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.”

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, with recent maps from the Federal Communications Commission showing that Cox has fiber infrastructure set up widely across its nationwide network footprint. The provider has been offering gigabit and multi-gigabit internet plans—something that’s usually only available through fiber internet. The fastest plan reaches download speeds of 2,000Mbps.

A spokesperson didn’t respond to our requests for comment, but other experts 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.