[LA] Jumping ship from U-verse to Cox

Our residence, with whole-house, 5-box DVR, 18Mb internet and phone has been with AT&T U-verse for two years. Realizing that we weren’t going to get any better download speed, and reluctant to begin negotiating with retention (especially considering our decision to drop 2 of the STBs and say adios to the “land line” phone), we doubted that our current bill would be lowered by much, if at all. I’d been itching to go with Cox for at least internet. Even if we wouldn’t be able to get Premier’s 100Mb most of the time it’s sure to be a lot snappier than U-verse DSL. A tech who came by recently to swap out a couple of misbehaving boxes, after checking with his magic tablet, verified that although paired bonding to our location was possible, the benefits would be negligible. AT&T got our business originally as a result of their coming in a shade over 25% lower than our then-Cox bill for similar services. Even after feeding this info to Cox they were unwilling to match it. Hindsight has taught us that the claims for fiber-like internet that we were pitched 2 years ago by the AT&T hired street walkers were fairytales. A previous visit to the local Cox store revealed their “Silver” package; a triple bundle which included HBO, Showtime, Starz and Cinemax (the only premium channel we lack), Cox phone and 100Mb internet. It has an attractive price (don’t they all when various box fees and sundry taxes aren’t included?). My sister, whom I share the house with, was dead set against paying for phone service of any kind but she couldn’t deny the fact of how much more our monthly bill would be without it, much like how I wondered how AT&T could make such a similar offer two years ago. Earlier this month I’d gone online to assemble a bundle with just TV and Premier internet. To my amazement, a la carte Premier internet was less expensive than it would be if bundled with TV, which makes no sense to me; the proposal I’d created had it at $20 more per month then it would have been as a separate service! Likewise, two premium channels bundled with just internet cost almost as much as four would when part of Cox’ triple bundle. The only option we added to this Silver bundle was their HD Movie Pack (which includes among others: TMC (big fan!), Sundance and Epix). A previous post here by me solicited user opinions of Cox’ current gateway offerings, which ultimately convinced me to forego Cox’ box and make use of a 5th gen Airport Extreme I’ve had, unused, in its box, since purchasing it in 2011; that, and purchasing my own modem. I’ve got my fingers crossed that five years of slumber won’t have an adverse effect on the router. Thanks to Amazon Prime Day I was able to score a Cox-approved Netgear CM400 8 X 4 Modem for $39.99. Hopefully it and the Airport Extreme will make nice with each other. We’ve got an install date scheduled for the 26th of July. Our salesperson recommended emailing her with the model and serial number of the modem soon after delivery, so she could in-turn enter that data in time for the tech on the 26th. I was assured that even though we chose to decline using Cox’ Ubee gateway and go instead with our own equipment, the tech wouldn’t leave the premises until everything was functioning as it should. Good thing, as I also plan on getting a TP-LINK AV1200 (PA8010P) Powerline kit to feed a Windows 7 desktop which lacks WiFi, 3 rooms away, prior to the install date.