Cox to Begin Charging $50 Extra to Avoid Usage Caps This Week

Megalith

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Cox Communications is unveiling a new option for customers this week that allows them to avoid usage caps and overage fees for an additional $50 every month. Currently, those in capped markets have to pay $10 for each 50GB of data consumed beyond the one terabyte cap. Customers also have the option of paying an additional $30 per month for 500GB of additional data.

A memo being circulated among employees on the changes downplays the impact of these restrictions on consumers, repeatedly trying to argue that confusing and unnecessary usage limits aren't a big deal because the majority of Cox customers won't run afoul of them. "An overwhelming majority of data is consumed by a very small percentage of internet users," a memo to employees documenting the changes reads. "The new choices are great options for the small percentage of heavy users who routinely use 1TB+ per month and prefer a flat monthly rate, rather than purchasing additional data blocks."
 
WTF....how is this not a scam? $50 for the potential of not going over? Complete and udder BS. This the the exact reason why they need the Net neutrality rules need to be strengthened and not removed......
 
Capitalism working as intended. I charge more cause I can, and therefore I will. Competition? Is that this thing I paid special legislation to make illegal?

flip_over_desk.jpg
 
WTF....how is this not a scam? $50 for the potential of not going over? Complete and udder BS. This the the exact reason why they need the Net neutrality rules need to be strengthened and not removed......

basically they're charging what comcast already charges for their uncapped business line without the requirement to come up with a fake business to get the service which you have to do with comcast in some areas.

either way if you're not exceeding 1TB of bandwidth a month this service option really doesn't matter. but hey if you like paying 10 dollars for every 50GB of bandwidth over the 1TB cap you use instead of just paying 50 dollars to use as much as you want be my guest.
 
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Capitalism working as intended. I charge more cause I can, and therefore I will. Competition? Is that this thing I paid special legislation to make illegal?

flip_over_desk.jpg

You talk about capitalism working as intended, but then mention government monopoly enforcement through regulator capture, so I am not really sure you understand what either of those are.

crony capitalism?

More or less, correct, however the difference between the two is not even close and should never be confused, as it seems the person he quoted did.

basically they're charging what comcast already charges for their uncapped business line without the requirement to come up with a fake business to get the service which you have to do with comcast in some areas.

either way if you're not exceeding 1TB of bandwidth a month this service option really doesn't matter.

I always used my home address for the business, they would always ask and I straight up told them it's "personal for work, no actual business at the location of service" and they always told me "ok" and moved on, they don't really seem to care much, however, if its the same price as business....GET THE BUSINESS CLASS. The level of service and response times are not even close, all the techs I had once they came out for setting up the service and I talked to them about computers and networking, they understood I was not a normal user and would give me their own business card with work cell phone, they told me not to use the ticket system and to call them directly. Only ever had to call him once and he was at my place within 30mins of calling him.

With that said, I dropped them once ATT finished it's install, 1gbps/1gbps for $80 a month.
 
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Technically its an oligopoly but that can be argued since centurylink in a lot of places is terrible. I think Texas is still pretty ISP competitive.
 
Just another money grab. If I only use 10GB per month and my neighbor uses 110GB what's the difference between that or we both use 100GB?
 
Just another money grab. If I only use 10GB per month and my neighbor uses 110GB what's the difference between that or we both use 100GB?

again it's optional, basically they're money grabbing against their highest bandwidth users which quite frankly if you're burning 1TB of data a month on a consumer line you can afford to pay the 50 bucks extra a month for all those movies you're not paying for. ;)

I always used my home address for the business, they would always ask and I straight up told them it's "personal for work, no actual business at the location of service" and they always told me "ok" and moved on, they don't really seem to care much, however, if its the same price as business....GET THE BUSINESS CLASS. The level of service and response times are not even close, all the techs I had once they came out for setting up the service and I talked to them about computers and networking, they understood I was not a normal user and would give me their own business card with work cell phone, they told me not to use the ticket system and to call them directly. Only ever had to call him once and he was at my place within 30mins of calling him.

With that said, I dropped them once ATT finished it's install, 1gbps/1gbps for $80 a month.

ahh yeah out here they're super strick on the business lines because they can be since they have zero competition.. century link has been saying fiber is coming out here for the last 6 years yet they only just installed to the universities and colleges in march of this year yet they constantly have people going door to door trying to sell a service that doesn't exist nor has a timeline for it being installed. but i know how to milk comcast and have been paying the same 90 dollars a month promotional price for the last 10 years for their blast service + 2 X1 boxes.
 
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I wouldn't have a problem with this IF they gave me a rebate every month I'm under the cap.

If I have a 1TB cap and I only use 500GB, they should refund me $30 for the 500GB I didn't use.

You can go for months only using 200gb/month, but then your machine crashes and you use a lot bandwidth restoring files, downloading your steam library, etc. and get hit with huge overage charges.

If they are going to implement caps, they should also roll over any unused data to the following month (or 2 months). That way you don't get ripped off the one month you go over.

These ISP's are just begging to have the government step in and start regulating them as a utility.
 
They just introduced caps in Phoenix last month (2 month grace period then they start enforcing). Honestly I was surprised (actually I was utterly shocked) to find out I only use about 250 gigs a month. I run my IT business out of the house so I'm downloading tons of stuff for clients as well as my own substantial needs and my wife and child are streaming stuff all the time. So I have to admit that it takes a lot to burn through that Terabyte.

That being said, I still think these caps are utter BS and only reflect the lack of competition in this field. The only competitor that Cox has here is Century Link DSL which has very limited availability and generally the service/support is absolutely terrible. But so far, Century Link is not imposing caps so that gives them a leg up in my book for sure. Still have to wonder what the landscape would look like with at least another strong competitor much less 2 or 3 more strong competitors. Methinks these caps would disappear in a hurry!
 
again it's optional, basically they're money grabbing against their highest bandwidth users which quite frankly if you're burning 1TB of data a month on a consumer line you can afford to pay the 50 bucks extra a month for all those movies you're not paying for. ;)

I easily burn through 500GB per month backing up a Minecraft server. Again, if the "vast majority" never use that much what is the difference?
 
I'm on Cox, and I rarely go past half of my monthly 1TB cap, despite being cordcut and all the OTT television I watch. (pretty much abandoned OTA broadcasts too)

I wouldn't have a problem with this IF they gave me a rebate every month I'm under the cap.

I'd prefer the unused bandwidth rolled over into the next month's cap.
 
Hey, extra fees for what used to be free worked so well on the Cox TV side, they implemented it on the ISP side as well. Looking at the $4 local station surcharge and $3.50 regional sports charge. Meanwhile they just added 2 HD shopping channels and 2 HD CSPAN channels and took away one decent channel. Rah! A lot of this started when Google scaled back their fiber plans. Now it is back to the smoke filled back room gentleman's agreement between AT&T and Cox. At least where I live now.
 
I still think there is colluding going on with the cable companies because if there is Comcast/Cox/Charter/TW in an area the rest are not to be found. The only alternative is DSL and in most cases that I have seen people say the all of big names are not a choice in one area for competition....
 
They just introduced caps in Phoenix last month (2 month grace period then they start enforcing). Honestly I was surprised (actually I was utterly shocked) to find out I only use about 250 gigs a month. I run my IT business out of the house so I'm downloading tons of stuff for clients as well as my own substantial needs and my wife and child are streaming stuff all the time. So I have to admit that it takes a lot to burn through that Terabyte.

That being said, I still think these caps are utter BS and only reflect the lack of competition in this field. The only competitor that Cox has here is Century Link DSL which has very limited availability and generally the service/support is absolutely terrible. But so far, Century Link is not imposing caps so that gives them a leg up in my book for sure. Still have to wonder what the landscape would look like with at least another strong competitor much less 2 or 3 more strong competitors. Methinks these caps would disappear in a hurry!

100% agree with that.. it's just sad that most of the states that have implemented anti-competitive protection laws to stop exactly what isp's are doing right now by locking down entire cities/counties but if you're willing to pay enough then they'll gladly look the other way and forgot the law even exists. for example where i live will always be controlled by comcast with century link sitting in the background. every time the city tries to let a new isp in comcast threatens to move their datacenter that's here so the city caves. hell comcast even threatened the city when a non profit organization tried to come in and provide basic broadband service the rural farm land areas that comcast wanted nothing to do with in the first place and tried to argue that they would be installing a wireless service to provide them internet access.. so the city denied the non profit access and comcast installed a wireless tower that only reaches 2 miles away from it no where near the rural farm area's, lol.

and yes someonelse you're correct, seattle is your perfect example of isp collusion since the city is split up between all the service providers there and none of them are allowed to cross the invisible lines they setup.
 
The only competitor that Cox has here is Century Link DSL which has very limited availability and generally the service/support is absolutely terrible. But so far, Century Link is not imposing caps so that gives them a leg up in my book for sure. Still have to wonder what the landscape would look like with at least another strong competitor much less 2 or 3 more strong competitors. Methinks these caps would disappear in a hurry!

Might want to check that once more. The DSL I now have with them is far more solid and stable than I had with Cox. The nice thing about the service I have is that it's always max speed. No sine wave burst then wait periods.

Cox can eat a bag of dicks.
 
And yet, according to Fucking Pai (his real name) there is plenty of competition and options for us the slaves.

This country is a joke.
 
I'm convinced Comcast's data usage tool is wrong, but I'm not about to let them know. There have been months where it would list my usage at 50GB when I downloaded multiple games that border on that amount by themselves. Either that or they simply don't count certain usage (like Steam or Netflix).
 
ok, who's downloading terabytes of porn ?

a 4k porno typically runs 12gb per file.
And you know there hasn't been a good pc game out lately.

$50 more for uncapped internet, you'd better be downloading the internet 24/7 to get your money's worth.
 
I need to start checking my usage. I pay $65 for 150/15 for cox. Centurylink just added my area for gigabit for $85 flat. No cap. Decisions, Decisions.
 
Well with 5 people in the household we had to cut back with the cap. Now we will pay the $50 extra and just get rid of cable.
 
Were you connected via wifi as a guest?

Nope. I'm hard-wired via my PC, Xbox, and PS4. We connect wirelessly with our phones and my wife's PC, but we're using our Comcast account to do so. We actually have the xfinitywifi guest functionality full-on turned off on the router. They either aren't counting some usage or their data measuring tool is wrong. Either way, I'm not complaining.
 
I need to start checking my usage. I pay $65 for 150/15 for cox. Centurylink just added my area for gigabit for $85 flat. No cap. Decisions, Decisions.
Time to cancel my shit and open another account. Fuckers are getting me for $85 AND I have cable with them.
 
If this was implemented the only way I could see someone paying for it would be if unused data rolled over. No matter how you paint it, sure looks like a money grab.
 
I wouldn't have a problem with this IF they gave me a rebate every month I'm under the cap.

If I have a 1TB cap and I only use 500GB, they should refund me $30 for the 500GB I didn't use.

You can go for months only using 200gb/month, but then your machine crashes and you use a lot bandwidth restoring files, downloading your steam library, etc. and get hit with huge overage charges.

If they are going to implement caps, they should also roll over any unused data to the following month (or 2 months). That way you don't get ripped off the one month you go over.

These ISP's are just begging to have the government step in and start regulating them as a utility.


They are regulated as a Utility, broadband internet was classified as a Title II Utility years ago. Then the FCC imposed new Privacy rules awhile back, and on Congressional review the rules were struck down. Now the Government is looking at backing off the Title II classification.

I have had Cox Cable internet service for like 15 years now. They've always been great. Not specially cheap, but solid service and no hassles overall. In all that time the cost of my service has gone up a total of about $10 since I first got it. I can live with that cause my income has gone up far more.

My wife and I use all the bandwidth we want, I game all night, she streams and plays games on two devices at once, and we never get close to 1 TB. If I did run close to that I might consider paying the extra for essentially unlimited data. See, although I never get close to the cap the truth is I have always known there was a cap with Cox, they are just telling us that they are going to actually enforce it now.

Someone else here has to be able to confirm that Cox did in fact have a data cap, that it wasn't strictly enforced, and only charged for violating it if someone really systematical abused their cap.
 
I have had Cox Cable internet service for like 15 years now. They've always been great. Not specially cheap, but solid service and no hassles overall. In all that time the cost of my service has gone up a total of about $10 since I first got it. I can live with that cause my income has gone up far more.

If the cost had only gone up $10, I wouldn't be complaining.
I've had Cox for over 20 years, and my city was one of the 2 cities that they initially tested cable internet access.
There was no speed or data caps originally, although it was limited by the half duplex 10mbit Ethernet connection to the cable modem.

Current price is almost double what I originally paid, and the TV service has gone up significantly too.
Only way I can get a reasonable price is to call them each year and tell them to cancel my service.

15 years ago I had internet, cable and phone with COX. The current price is about 60% higher than it was back then. Only difference is that the internet is about 4x faster.
I've dropped the phone service as it got too expensive. (switched to Ooma at less than $5/month), and I've come really close to dropping cable TV and switching to satellite.
I have no choice for internet, since I can't even get DSL at my address. Family uses too much to just use cell phone data at home.
If I ever move, I'll make sure there is a choice at my next place.


I also have COX business at work (currently 100 mbit up/down, plus 3 T-1 voice lines), and every couple years price goes down. Opposite of what they are doing to home users.
 
Last year Cox had 750GB cap for 100/10 service and 2TB cap for 200/20 service. They upped the speeds to 150/10 and 300/30 but made both have 1TB caps, so the lower tier got a 33% increase while the faster tier got a 50% decrease, WTF!!!.

This is our usage over the past 4 months,
cox-data-8-2017.jpg
 
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I'd just like to point out that Cox has a generous 1Tb limit. I'd be pissed about this if they were using a 200Gb limit.

Also, Cox is one of the few ISPs I know that doesn't tell you to go pound sand if you call to negotiate the price. Every year I call, ask for retention, and the nice lady (usually) drops me like $20/mon. I pay $55 for the $80 package.

You literally just need to tell them their price is too expensive for what you're using and you're going to look at other options. That's it.
 
Goodie, first the Ultimate Package had 2 TB data limit (not enforced at the time), then increases speed, quietly reduces to 1 TB data limit (will start enforcing next month), I use around 1.8 TB - 2.5 TB every month, so guess I better be ready to give up a few other services, oh wait, Cable TV, duh.... :)
 
If the cost had only gone up $10, I wouldn't be complaining.
I've had Cox for over 20 years, and my city was one of the 2 cities that they initially tested cable internet access.
There was no speed or data caps originally, although it was limited by the half duplex 10mbit Ethernet connection to the cable modem.

Current price is almost double what I originally paid, and the TV service has gone up significantly too.
Only way I can get a reasonable price is to call them each year and tell them to cancel my service.

15 years ago I had internet, cable and phone with COX. The current price is about 60% higher than it was back then. Only difference is that the internet is about 4x faster.
I've dropped the phone service as it got too expensive. (switched to Ooma at less than $5/month), and I've come really close to dropping cable TV and switching to satellite.
I have no choice for internet, since I can't even get DSL at my address. Family uses too much to just use cell phone data at home.
If I ever move, I'll make sure there is a choice at my next place.


I also have COX business at work (currently 100 mbit up/down, plus 3 T-1 voice lines), and every couple years price goes down. Opposite of what they are doing to home users.

I dropped the cable TV about 10 years ago, went to satellite, then I dropped that and I have no TV service at all, not for years. I am so happy I did too. I used NetFlix for a few years, ran through most of their content I liked, dropped them, wife was ordering from Amazon a lot so I paid for Amazon Prime, that got me some content, with Game of Thrones I have been running HBO Now as well. As soon as GoT is done, I'll probably dump HBO Now and go to something else for awhile or maybe even back to NetFlix for a stretch.

My cable service with Cox is like $60 a month, Prime runs maybe a little over $10 a month but I'd be spending some of that in shipping charges without it so I'm happy there. HBO Now is $15 a month and I have got my moneys worth easy. The total is like $95 a month and that's flexible. I was paying over $160 before, trust me I prefer this arrangement.

The only thing that isn't great is Sports, but man, if Sports was my thing, I bet I could find a good alternative to Cable and Satellite for that too.
 
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