Verizon is toast. Anyone have experience with Cox HSIA?

wsuffa

wsuffa

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Bill S.
I've lost patience with Verizon. Wasted another day sitting home waiting for a tech to arrive to test and try to resolve an intermittant loss of sync on a business DSL line. 5 missed appointments in 30 days on one lousy business phone line with DSL, costing me 25 hours of cooling my heels. At 5 PM the excuse was "the techs had too many other assignments dealing with irate customers, so they'll be there tomorrow". I won't. And even "tomorrow" is no guarantee. The promise that they can "guarantee Monday", but they promised someone today.

It's a sordid story.

In any event, for about the same cost as the phone line and DSL, I can get a business DSL circuit and static IPs from Cox Cable. They have a 2-3 day delay before they can get an install done, but it should be much more satisfactory than VZ.

So, my question for folks here is: ANy of you have Cox high-speed internet? ANy have their business internet? Any issues? Install and tech support reasonably good for those occasions where issues come up? Most importantly, do they keep appointments? ANd is the service reliable?

Thanks.
 
I had it, it was fine when it worked, when it didn't, Cox support sucked. Sorry to hear of your troubles - I ditched Cox for FIOS as soon as it was available, and it's been fabulous - and cheaper than Cox. But I suspect that service, no matter who the provider is, is going to be a local issue.
 
Bill, is http://speakeasy.net a possibility for you? They have always gotten a lotta love on dslreports for having a no nonsense deal where you can get
a dedicated IP address and can run servers.
 
Mike,

The problem is last mile. Speakeasy would need to use VZs circuits to get to my house. And that means they need to deal with VZ techs to make it work. And that is where the current problem is. The techs blow off appointments with total disregard for the customer. The demarc (NID) is inside the premisis - and they don't want to move it, even though it would make life easier for everyone.

I've been down the CLEC road before with Primus/whatever they are now which ran over SBC lines. SBC's field techs were unresponsive, and the circuit never worked reliably. It was an absolute nightmare, I pulled the plug and had to threaten lawsuit when they wanted to charge for the full first-year contract. I pointed out that the 15 trouble tickets were discoverable, and they backed down. The problem was wholly an SBC issue.

I ended up on SBC internet service, and (surprise!) ended up with acceptable service, responsive techs, and a relatively clean line. We got the RBACK3 issue resolved with the help of the corporate rep, but the last-mile issues that existed with Primus disappeared.

I really have no desire go down that road again. Especially since Verizon can't keep appointments for its own customers.

Unlike San Antonio where I had three choices (SBC, Comcast, Grande), I only have two pipes passing the house: Verizon and Cox.

Verizon can't keep an appointment if their business depended on it (or anyone else's for that matter), and Cox is a question mark (with several good reports about their responsiveness).

Metz, thanks for the thoughts. I hope that business support with Cox is better than your experience. All I really need is the pipe and IP addresses. Assuming their routers & equipment works, we should be fine. Assuming power doesn't go down on the cable network, which is always a potential issue. FiOS is not available, and frankly, I have no desire to give money to a company that considers customers a nuisance. (... you're right about a local issue, but VZ's problems come from the top. It took a day and a half to get a response to requests made by the State Corp. Commission).
 
wsuffa said:
Mike,

The problem is last mile. Speakeasy would need to use VZs circuits to get to my house. And that means they need to deal with VZ techs to make it work. And that is where the current problem is. The techs blow off appointments with total disregard for the customer. The demarc (NID) is inside the premisis - and they don't want to move it, even though it would make life easier for everyone.

I've been down the CLEC road before with Primus/whatever they are now which ran over SBC lines. SBC's field techs were unresponsive, and the circuit never worked reliably. It was an absolute nightmare, I pulled the plug and had to threaten lawsuit when they wanted to charge for the full first-year contract. I pointed out that the 15 trouble tickets were discoverable, and they backed down. The problem was wholly an SBC issue.

I ended up on SBC internet service, and (surprise!) ended up with acceptable service, responsive techs, and a relatively clean line. We got the RBACK3 issue resolved with the help of the corporate rep, but the last-mile issues that existed with Primus disappeared.

I really have no desire go down that road again. Especially since Verizon can't keep appointments for its own customers.

Unlike San Antonio where I had three choices (SBC, Comcast, Grande), I only have two pipes passing the house: Verizon and Cox.
...
Click to expand...

You may not have the same experience now. These days Verizon may be in more trouble by not responding to a CLEC than to a mere consumer customer. There are firm performance rules actually due to the way it was screwed up before. I think a lot fo that is on a state-by-state basis and was really driven by the ILEC wanting to be cleared to offer long distance. But there are firm rules now on how CLEC work orders have to be handled.
 
mikea said:
You may not have the same experience now. These days Verizon may be in more trouble by not responding to a CLEC than to a mere consumer customer. There are firm performance rules actually due to the way it was screwed up before. I think a lot fo that is on a state-by-state basis and was really driven by the ILEC wanting to be cleared to offer long distance. But there are firm rules now on how CLEC work orders have to be handled.
Click to expand...


May be. But if VZ treats it's own small-business customers badly and with impunity, they aren't going to treat the CLECs any better.

FWIW, we have a Covad circuit in the office that comes in on VZ lines. It took VZ 4 weeks after Covad tried to make it available to get it clean and operating properly. They failed to remove some crap coming off one of the punchdowns, and it took that long to get a tech out.

We'll see how Cox does, then look at the alternatives.

Pricing for (Cox 6M/2M w/5 static IPs) is less than (Verizon 3/756 w/static + the required phone line).
 
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Update: I gave Cox the go-ahead at 2:30-ish, by 4:30 they called to ask if tomorrow (Saturday) was soon enough and would I please choose from windows of 10-noon, noon to 2, or 2-4 PM.

And Verizon called to confirm Monday. I informed them that unless they could confirm early Monday AM, that I'd have to reschedule for Thursday because I had business meetings with international guests on Monday PM, Tuesday, and Wed PM. Of course Verizon said no, it would be sometime before 5 PM, to which I said "heard that before". Reluctantly they rescheduled for Thursday. She also outright lied to me, telling me they came yesterday but no one was home.

Oh, then I got a call back saying that they were closing the trouble ticket, and that I'd just have to call the business office on Monday to have the line downgraded. When she called dispatch, that's what they told her to do. But I already have the slowest offering that they provide for static IPs, and they can't do anything for me unless I ask for a downgrade. (Bu-double-hockey-sticks-s***). I insisted they keep the trouble ticket open until I call the business office monday - at which point I'm going to tell them where to stuff their services. After all, they could have made that determination 3 days ago and saved me 8 hours out of the office - it makes me glad I didn't waste Monday, too.

No one deserves this kind of treatment.

Follow-up with the State Corporation Commission, FCC, and the investment analysts I know. The third one is the only reason they'll care.
 
Update II:

The appointment for Cox to come was 10AM-Noon today. They showed at 9:45. Ran the line exactly where I wanted it inside, dropping it down the inside of a wall. By 11, we were fully up and running. Apparently Cox offers business customers 4-hour response time, 24/7. Hope I don't need it.

Meanwhile, while Cox was here, Verizon's automated system called to say "the problem has been solved, we're closing the trouble ticket". So, I spoke to the reps to get it reopened (I want it open when I call to cancel). They talked to dispatch - who said "we downgraded his circuit, so it should work fine, close the ticket". They determined the distance from the CO is too far to support the contracted service - this is something they should have done when they qualified the sale, and again should have done before they asked me to sit around on my ^ss waiting for a tech to show. Of course, tech support can't enter a cancel order - I have to call Customer Retention for that.
 
So far, I'm pretty happy with tech support, too.

When I tried to bring over a box to use the second and third static IPs, only the first IP would route out. Some work on my part determined that the modem would only pass the first IP that accessed it after it was turned on. Called tech support. Told him the symptoms, and he said "I think I know exactly what's wrong on our end". He pulled up my account info, reprovisioned the modem to pass all 5 IPs, and stayed on the line and observed as I used the three IPs I currently have configured for this line. He apologized for the inconvenience....

VZ would have blamed me.

Let's review: 7:45 Saturday night and Cox Tech support knew what was wrong, fixed it immediately, stayed on the line and asked me to check it out, and apologized for the inconvenience. Verizon can't even fix a problem on a weekday.

So far, quite good with Cox....
 
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Does anyone know if Verizon is actually the DSL supplier in its systems or if they have contracted that service out to a third party who just pays them a fee?

I am pretty sure that some telcos do that. The DSLAM to the subscriber is some other companies equipment as is the service center and provisioner.
 
smigaldi said:
Does anyone know if Verizon is actually the DSL supplier in its systems or if they have contracted that service out to a third party who just pays them a fee?

I am pretty sure that some telcos do that. The DSLAM to the subscriber is some other companies equipment as is the service center and provisioner.
Click to expand...

At one time there had to be regulatory barriers that required the DSL/data company to be separate from the ILEC. That has changed. The major telcos own their own DSL/data companies - including Verizon.
 
wsuffa said:
At one time there had to be regulatory barriers that required the DSL/data company to be separate from the ILEC. That has changed. The major telcos own their own DSL/data companies - including Verizon.
Click to expand...
Good to know. I have not been keeping up on the wired side much. I had been involved early on with activities in TISPAN which was next generation fixed data networks but even then we were looking beyond DSL into true packet networks for telcos. It was mainly driven by the Europeans and we would meet most of the time in Sophia Antipolis on the French Riveria. I MISS those meetings!!!
 
smigaldi said:
Sophia Antipolis on the French Riveria. I MISS those meetings!!!
Click to expand...

One member of my department works in our facility there. I keep trying to convince our manager that we should meet there instead of Chandler, AZ or Hillsboro, OR. He hasn't bought into that yet. :dunno:
 
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