Cox Sold Me a Service They Didn’t Offer

Just last week I wrote an article how after 11 years of being with Dish network I decided to switch to Cox because I was having some trouble with Dish Network Dish Anywhere service being unreliable for streaming the Video on Demand and the 2nd TV stream was unstable at best.  Meanwhile I had spoke to Cox and they told me their live streaming over the Internet did not require using your own router wasn’t your actual DVR streaming.  I laid out my situation how I travel back and forth from AZ to CA and needed the ability to watch live TV or my DVR content on the Internet.

The Cox representative told me the advantages of Contour and Cox Live Television over the Internet and that I could watch Live TV from anywhere and that it didn’t stream up from my DVR but was served from their cloud instead.  The did let me know Contour didn’t work except on the home Wi-Fi but I could watch live TV over the Internet from anywhere with the Cox TV App.

I was excited, as I knew the Falling Skies premiere was yesterday and one thing we don’t get to watch in CA is live TV while we are here part time except for the CNN app.  To my dismay I learned after already paying $60 for the installation that their live TV or any sort of TV streaming only works when your mobile device is actually on your home Wi-Fi network.  It defeats the purpose of TV on the go and having that restriction, because this basically negates any benefit from watching TV on a mobile device if you have to be connected to your home Wi-Fi network in order just to watch TV streaming over the network.   If I was on my home Wi-Fi network I would just watch TV on one of the 2 TV’s that have boxes.

This was false advertising, but I did read in fine print it says this clearly if you look at their website for the service which I didn’t do before hand and I just assumed what the sales rep told me was accurate.  Naturally I called to complain after I found out and they offered to transfer me to a service representative who may be able to give me a rebate or discount or something to offset my displeasure, but 30 minutes on hold I had to take another call and abort my mission.

Now, the Cox Guide is faster, their Internet is fantastic but their Live TV through mobile is very limited and only works if your iPad, iPhone or mobile device is actually connected to your home Wi-Fi network.  Not exactly giving you your movies and live TV on the go is it?  It lets you move from one room in your house to watch your content on a tiny screen in another room in your house and that’s about it.

Dish Network with Dish Anywhere should have been better, but the fact that it users your own broadband upstream even with Ethernet or Wi-Fi I couldn’t get it to be stable and the DVR kept locking up once a week, though this was the DVR model before the Hopper so maybe the Hopper would have been more stable.  Maybe I should switch back to Dish?