Cox Panoramic Wifi? Opinions? (1 Viewer)

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msahr

msahr

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I'm looking into a different "whole house" Wifi solution. One of my clients has a large 2-story house, he has about 28 connected clients from phones, tablets, 2 Tivos, laptops, a few "internet of things" things (cameras, etc). His current solution, which worked fine until about 2 months ago, is a 3 year old Netgear Orbi mesh system. It was great, but bad firmware updates and the promise of adding features, plus just being several years old, has rendered the system all but unusable most of the time.

So I'm looking into a major upgrade. Going to rip out all the Netgear doorstops and replace with... something. It's down to either a business-class Cisco Meraki hybrid hard-wired mesh system with PoE switches, at least 2 access points, maybe 3, and a Cisco router (they call it a firewall/security appliance but it's a router)...

Or the Cox Panoramic system. I can't get a real good feel for whether this system is any good, Cox has done a great job of owning search engine results on the system and all you get are glowing reviews on the Cox website or reddit users that complain about... everything... so that's no help. If you've got the system I'd love to hear your thoughts. Sorry for the long question. Thanks.
 
I have the TP-link Deco system with 3 access points in my 2 story, 3,000 s.f. house. Honestly, when I check, most devices end up connecting to the main one, except some Ring ones that are outside. I don't stream 4K, but WFH. I freaking HATE Cox, and would never support them with their hardware. I rock the oldest modem I can, and have bumped down to the lowest available tier of download speeds, which are fine for HD streaming Netflix, and anything else I do. I'm at 50 mbps now, and only have to shell out $55/mo to Cox. Works good enough. They pimp super high download speeds which virtually nobody needs (I am also not an online gamer). I usually have between 15-25 devices connected at any given time, depending on how many kids are home.
 
re_guderian said:
I have the TP-link Deco system with 3 access points in my 2 story, 3,000 s.f. house. Honestly, when I check, most devices end up connecting to the main one, except some Ring ones that are outside. I don't stream 4K, but WFH. I freaking HATE Cox, and would never support them with their hardware. I rock the oldest modem I can, and have bumped down to the lowest available tier of download speeds, which are fine for HD streaming Netflix, and anything else I do. I'm at 50 mbps now, and only have to shell out $55/mo to Cox. Works good enough. They pimp super high download speeds which virtually nobody needs (I am also not an online gamer). I usually have between 15-25 devices connected at any given time, depending on how many kids are home.
Click to expand...

I understand the whole hate on Cox thing. If I could somehow get business-class asynchronous CenturyLink at 400MB i would be so freaking happy. But alas, I don't want to live in an office building or industrial park (but the shop space to work on rigs would be amazing).

Thanks for the connected devices report. It's a main point. How old is your system?
 
msahr said:
How many connected devices does it have do you think? Because I know that's one of the major issues with this buggy Orbi system. So much potential...
Click to expand...

It's been running smooth with about 19 devices connected using various levels of bandwidth. The one cool feature is that you can prioritize certain devices so they get dedicated service regardless of the traffic the router is seeing.

The one reason I am not running the google nest myself is that it does not play well with PiHole and that's an absolute MUST in my opinion (it's basically a standalone DNS filter that stops ads from loading on your network... doesn't even let it count towards your data...)
 
msahr said:
I understand the whole hate on Cox thing. If I could somehow get business-class asynchronous CenturyLink at 400MB i would be so freaking happy. But alas, I don't want to live in an office building or industrial park (but the shop space to work on rigs would be amazing).

Thanks for the connected devices report. It's a main point. How old is your system?
Click to expand...
It's a year old. Got it when I started wfh.
 
msahr said:
I understand the whole hate on Cox thing. If I could somehow get business-class asynchronous CenturyLink at 400MB i would be so freaking happy. But alas, I don't want to live in an office building or industrial park (but the shop space to work on rigs would be amazing).

Thanks for the connected devices report. It's a main point. How old is your system?
Click to expand...
And I guess my main point on hating cox, besides a quarter century of crappy customer service and price gouging, is that now standard bandwidth has finally surpassed "most" home user's needs, yet they oversell like crazy. Not sure what kind of family "needs" gbps capability... I cut the cord, and then cut my internet bill in half by actually assessing my needs and buying appropriately.
 
I had the Cox Panoramic WiFi system for 2 years. Worked great until Cox removed the ability to adjust firewall port mapping on the router. They disabled it and moved the funcitonality to the cloud. Try as I might, I could not get it to work and was utterly frustrated and pissed with Cox for making the change.

I too went with the TP-link Deco system and I love it. I now just use the Cox device as a cable modem and have no plans of going back. WiFi 6 is the way to go!
 
OK so it looks like the TP-Link Deco is the way to go. I'm not a fan of the app-based interface but oh well. There's several Deco systems... which one?
 
I got the AC2200 Deco M9, 3-pack. I'm cheap, and like the ability to plug junk directly in. That's about as technical as I got.
 
Yeah that's the one I spelled out. $200 from Costco!
 
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