Cox Downloading Speed and Security Suite

[jelwell]

I moved into Cox territory in North San Diego County at the end of February 2007.  At that time, my downloading speed typically ran about 8.2 Mbps, which I thought odd inasmuch as I'm only paying for the advertised 7 Mbps.  Over the next month and a half, I sometimes saw speeds as high as 11.x Mbps.  In recent weeks, my dowloading speed has dropped, on average, little by little to about 2.x Mbps.  Occasionally, I've seen speeds as high as 6.x Mbps.  I haven't called Cox yet about the low speed because, for some strange reason, I don't notice my web pages are loading any slower at 2.0 Mbps than they did when I was getting 11.x Mpbs.  However, I plan to call Cox for whatever it's worth to inquire about this speed issue one day soon.

I downloaded and installed the Cox Security Suite in early March, and it was a continual headache until I removed it yesterday.  There was apparently a conflict with a Google time/calendar gaget that caused my system's time to advance one hour periodically.  Another problem was key stronkes were dropped when typing into a user ID or password field periodically.  That problem was solved by resetting the parameters of Internet Explorer 7 to factory settings.  Still another problem that was never solved was the phishing function periodically could contact the mother ship and had to be reset periodically.

The biggest problem of all was the suite software started slowly or not at all upon booting the computer.  When it wouldn't start, it used 100% of my CPU time and prevented almost anything else from running.  After a fresh install, the suite would run OK for a few days and then begin its slow-starting behavior and finally not start at all.  At that point, it was often very difficult to remove the suite from the computer.

Last night after the suite wouldn't start again, I, with great difficulty, removed it again from my computer and attempted another fresh installation.  This time, the suite wouldn't install after several attempts.  So, I called Authentium, which is the manufacturer of the suite for Cox for the umteenth time.  After the tech listened to my dreary complaint, he told me the suite won't run properly with XP Pro, which I'm using, and some other operating system I forget.  He said Authentium is recommending AVG security software for systems that won't run the Cox Security Suite.  In addition, he told me there wasn't much hope the problems with the Cox suite running on XP would ever be resolved because the software engineers are busily working on a suite for Vista.   Consequently, my opinion of Cox Communications, at the moment, is very, very low.

I did download and install a 30-day trial copy of AVG, and it seemed to work well except for one very bad thing.  The speed of my computer was reduced to a crawl.  So, I quickly deep-sixed AVG.

Today, I downloaded and installed a 30-day trial version of PC-cillin Internet Security 2007, which is running fine at the moment.  However, this software doesn't contain ad and pop-up blocking.  So, I turned on Explorer's pop-up blocking function, which seems to be working OK.  However, I'm still short an ad-blocking function.

[Polt]

I live in North San Diego County, and I always get higher speeds than what I pay for.  Ive never had a problem with slow speeds.  As far as their security suite, ive never used it and never plan on it.  I just have Norton and googles pop up blocker.  Sad to hear you are having such problems, good luck.

[iced98lx]

I've got a solution for you.. ditch the lame suites and install Avast Anti-Virus (Free for home use!) and use firefox with AdBlock Plus and filterset G updater.... No ads, no popups, no viruses.

Chrsi

[Guest PeePs]

i think all the Lavasoft products work good too, i use the ad-aware antivirus and also the ad-watch, which is always active and blocks any attempts to modify the registry, some cookies, my homepage, it blocks pop-ups, and other things like that with minimal interference of daily computing.

[partysource]

:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Download Connection is:: 23477 Kbps about 23.5 Mbps (tested with 12160 kB)

Download Speed is:: 2866 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Server 1)

Test Time:: 2007/06/17 - 11:09pm

Bottom Line:: 409X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 0.36 sec

Tested from a 12160 kB file and took 4.243 seconds to complete

Download Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 298.46 % faster than the average for host (cox.net)

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-1JE3KD6C7

User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en) AppleWebKit/522.12.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0.1 Safari/522.12.2 [!]

[jelwell]

This is an update on my post titled "Cox Downloading Speed and Security Suite".  Enjoy!

After several calls to Cox and two Cox technicians visiting my residence, my low, downloading speed problem appears to be solved.  Calls to Cox did no good except to get technicians dispatched to my residence.

The first technician agreed my downloading speed was dismal, put a pad on the cable input to my modem, and switched my cable connection to another source.  I think the pad is an impedance-matchng device, but neither technician could adequately explain its function.  Nothing the first technician did solved my speed problem.  So, he left, saying he would see if any of my neighbors were having problems and would report my slow-speed problem to Cox.  I never heard from him or Cox again.

The second technician immediately focused on my modem being the problem.  Between the technician visits, I noticed bizarre behavior of my downloading speed apparently caused by my modem.  After disconnecting power to the modem for a few minutes and then reconnecting it, the downloading speed would shoot to speeds as high as 20-Mbps!  Then, the speed would reduce to 1 - 2.x Mbps a few hours later.  After a few such tests, the modem wouldn't start (i.e., all LEDs solid on) for 20 to 30 minutes to several hours.  When the modem would finially restart, the downloading speed would again shoot way up into double-digit territory.  I had asked the first technician to replace my modem with another to see if the modem was the problem, but he refused, saying it was "too complicated".  However, the second technician replaced my modem in a few minutes, and my downloading speeds increased immediately and have stayed high ever since.  Speeds vary but are typically 8 to 20 Mbps as indicated by testmy.net and Speakeasy.  Inasmuch as I'm only paying for 7 or 8 Mbps, depending on the Cox source for that information, I'm now a happy camper.

I suspect my downloading speeds that are much higher than the advertised Preferred-customer speed could be caused in part by the new PowerBoost feature Cox has recently implemented.  However, the second Cox technician was not familiar enough with that feature to confirm or deny its involvement in my much higher than adveritsed speeds.

As for my security problem, the test copy of PC-cillin I installed worked well for a month.  So, I bought it.  I asked why PC-cillin doesn't block ads and pop-ups and was told it does but only if they are threats to the computer.  So, I've accepted using Internet Exporer 7's pop-up blocker, which works pretty well, and living with ads, which aren't very annoying to me.  Actually, I probably should be looking at ads, for occasionally one benefits me.