So I have used cox for a solid 20 + years, and 2018 rang in some interesting behavior. Starting on the 3rd of January during peak hours I can no longer stream above 3 mbit. Now here is where it gets interesting. If I load up a vpn, magically I can get above 10, which is necessary for the hd content I am streaming. I am in Phoenix with this issue, but a buddy in Tucson has the exact same problem. We are both ex-IBMers and can see routing through level3 in Phoenix being the peering point outside of cox. Being that the vpn fixes the issue, it can only be one of two things. Either cox is shaping my packets during peak times where it sees streaming content, or they are being hosed out by level 3 during peak times, which was just purchased by their only competitor in phx (centurylink.) Either way, I am very concerned as my 100 mbit connection is now 3 - 4 mbit. I am really hoping this is a peering issue in Phoenix that Cox will be fixing shortly, but as I am not seeing others complain, I am uncertain where to go from here. Obviously I am already looking into centurylink, although without FTTH at my location, I certainly would prefer to use docsis 3 ( a technology I deem superior to dsl.)
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