The Best Guide to Cable Packages and Alternatives

Cox Cable Packages

Cox Cable Packages provide some of the most reasonably priced television, phone and high speed internet available, but can their quality match their prices?


Cox Communications provides bundles cable packages, just like its competitors. However, it is in many ways the exact opposite of a company like Time Warner Cable. Time Warner Cable doesn’t really try to offer the best deals, but to provide a reliable cable package at a non-exorbitant price. Cox Cable deals, on the other hand, are designed to provide some of the best prices services available. However, as we all know, the lowest bidder often provides bad service, not simply inexpensive service. I will review whether or not Cox Communications is able to provide reasonably good service despite providing some of the cheapest cable packages on the internet. Note that in all cases, these specials may vary based on your location.

What do Cox Cable Packages Include?

Like most other cable companies, Cox Cable provides a number of different cable services. I will quickly go over their services and what they include:

  • Cox Television: Cox television service has two tiers of service, Cox Television and Cox Television Advanced, each with its own promotional term prices. The Cox television service is $48.99 for the first six months and around $58.99 after that, depending on your service area. Cox Television Advanced provides HD channels, and costs $64.99 per month and approximately $74.99 after that. Note that they also have basic cable service, but they don’t advertise it, which should be around $20 per month. You will need to call them, though.
  • Cox Internet: Cox internet service has a wide range of options, running from 3 MB per second to over 30 MB per second. Their Essential Service has $33.99 per month promotional term prices, but this increases $47.99 after three months and they also start charging for the modem. Their Ultimate Service costs $79.99 per month increasing to $99.99 per month after six months. They therefore provide a wide range of download speeds, with prices to match.
  • Cox Digital Telephone: Cox provides telephone service as well, including a wide range of options for long distance. On the one hand, there is basic service, which provides unlimited local calling. This costs $12.99 for the first six months and $22.99 thereafter. On the other hand, there is their international calling plan, which is $17.99 for the first six months and $22.99 thereafter. However, this is not unlimited calling, but the price for a flat rate of 5 cents per minute to most of North America.

How Are These Features Bundled Together?

Cox Communications offers a number of different triple play combinations of all of these features (a “triple play” bundle is one that includes telephone, intenet and television in a single packages). These digital cable services provide savings on the prices listed above. However, Cox bundled cable servides are especially inflexible, so you will need to buy exactly one of these three tiers of service:

  • MAX Bundle: The MAX bundle includes the mostly Cox’s most basic services. It includes their Essential television service as well as their basic telephone service. Curiously, however, it includes their Cox Television Advanced (all of their bundles do), rather than their Cox Television service, so it is not a bare bones package as one might expect. The cost of this service is $89.99 for the first year and $99.99 thereafter, which is a savings of $311.76 per year over purchasing each of the bundles independently.
  • MAX Family Bundle: I’m not sure why this is called the “family bundle”, since it seems to have nothing to do with families. It is a mid-range bundle, including exactly the same services as the MAX bundle, but with their 15 MB per second internet service. It coasts $114.99 for the first year and $124.99 thereafter, saving $383.76 per year in costs.
  • MAX Everything Bundle: This bundle includes all of the most expensive services that Cox has to offer, including its Advanced TV Ultimate, its 30 MB plus internet connection, and its inexpensive long distance plan. It costs $154.99 for the first year and $164.99 thereafter, for a total savings of $683.52 per year. At this point, Cox isn’t really an inexpensive company, but it is worth noting that this package is still cheaper than many other high-end cable and satellite packages.

Note that there is actually a serious issue with these packages: you can’t get reasonable long-distance rates unless you buy the MAX Everything Bundle. Whether this is simply an oversight or not is unclear, but it basically makes these packages unusable for anyone who plans to do any long distance calling and wants an inexpensive plan.

Conclusion

Cox Communications provides inexpensive and reliable services at some of the best prices. They are as reliable as any other company. However, their packages are especially inflexible, and the need to purchase their most expensive plan to get 5-cent long distance (something offered by almost every other long-distance plan) is especially problematic.

More information can be found on their official site.

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Cox Cable Channels: Cox cable channels include sports, local events and educational programming in several different regions of the country.