An Honest Cox Internet Review, According to Customers

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.