Is Cox's Gigabit Service Worth the Cost? Here's What I Found After Doing the Math

I've written my fair share of internet service provider reviews and read through enough fine print to know when an internet plan is a good deal or not. But unless you're frequenting the terms and services of the country's biggest names in home internet, as often as I am, you're likely not sure what to look for in a decent internet plan beyond speed and cost.

Shopping for internet is often a confusing process -- and overall low customer satisfaction with the industry reflects that. Internet service providers certainly don't make the process any easier.

While looking for a plan, you'll find that most internet providers market their plans by speed alone, with little context as to what those speeds might actually mean for you. What separates, for instance, a 300Mbps plan from a 500Mbps plan, other than the price?

Cox tries to give some insight into what you can expect from each speed tier by labeling its plans with varying degrees of "fast," though some might find those labels confusing, too. What was previously known as the Go Fast plan is now ConnectAssist, a low-income plan with 100Mbps of speed. From there, Cox's speeds only get faster -- literally.

Fast, the next tier up, features 300Mbps, followed by Go Even Faster, 500Mbps, and Go Super Fast, gig service with download speeds up to 1,000Mbps, or 1 gigabit per second. Finally, select locations may also have the multi-gigabyte option to Go Beyond Fast with speeds up to 2,000Mbps.

What counts as "fast," "super fast" or even "beyond fast" is relative to your speed needs. 100Mbps may seem fast to one person with limited connected devices, but that likely won’t cut it in a larger household with many devices. For such households, notably those that rely heavily on streaming for entertainment and have more than two heavy internet users, faster speeds will deliver a better experience. Still, the need for more speed seldom justifies the jump to a gigabit or multi-gigabit plan.

Cox's gigabit plans, Go Super Fast and Go Beyond Fast, offer plenty of speed, but are they worth the cost? The answer depends on how much you want to spend each month on your internet connection, the internet speeds you need and the available internet providers in your area. Let's look closer at Cox's Go Super Fast and Go Beyond Fast plans to help you decide if either is right for your home.

Going super fast and beyond

Cox's Go Super Fast is the fastest internet plan Cox has to offer in most service areas with speeds up to 1,000Mbps down and 100Mbps up over a cable or cable/fiber hybrid connection. Select areas may have access to an additional gig tier, Go Beyond Fast, which offers max speeds of 2,000Mbps down and 100Mbps up.

What's with the significantly slower upload speeds? Cox primarily uses a cable internet network that, while capable of delivering gig download speeds, won't support symmetrical upload and download speeds like a fiber connection can.

Video conferencing, online gaming and uploading files like videos and images to social media are the biggest uses of upload speeds, all of which can get by on 10Mbps or less, so upload speeds of 100Mbps are more than enough for the average household.

Cox Go Super Fast starts at the promotional price of $110 for the first two years, after which the price jumps to the standard monthly rate of $120. The introductory rate for the Go Beyond Fast plan is $150, which increases to $165 after two years of service.

If $110 to $150 sounds a bit high for a single gig service, that's because it is. Many providers, including Quantum Fiber, Optimum and Xfinity, charge less ($50 to $75 per month) for a gigabit connection. The same goes for the 2Gbps plan from Cox. Verizon Fios, Xfinity, Kinetic and many others offer slightly lower pricing for speeds up to 2Gbps.

Another thing to be aware of is that Cox cable internet plans have a 1.28TB monthly data cap. That's a generous amount of data (the average household uses less than half that amount in a month), but it's a threshold that is more easily crossed when you have faster speeds that can support more devices and data-demanding activities such as streaming in 4K picture quality.

Exceeding the data cap in a single billing period could add $10 per 50GB block you go over. Plenty of internet providers don't force a data cap on your monthly speeds and might be a better fit.

Faster speeds often make for better value

While not priced as low as much of the competition, Cox's Go Super Fast and Go Beyond Fast plans offer the best bang for your buck compared to other Cox internet plans.

Like with most internet providers, higher-tiered Cox plans have a lower cost per Mbps, which is a good indicator of a plan's overall value. You'll get the lowest cost per Mbps from Cox with multi-gig service, though that doesn't necessarily make the monthly cost a realistic rate for internet.

But the added value stops there

You'll get more speed for the money with gig and multi-gig service from Cox, but that's it. There are no extra motivators, such as free equipment rental, unlimited data or even a special signup bonus like a gift card or streaming service subscription, to get you to sign up for gig speeds.

While a little something extra with gig service shouldn't necessarily be expected, it's not out of the ordinary. In fact, a number of other providers save their best promotional offers for the gig speed tiers. Frontier, Verizon Fios and Xfinity, for instance, often reward gig customers with their highest gift card offers.

Is the Cox Go Super Fast plan worth the cost?

My verdict is: Not really. Gigabit speeds are the best bargain when it comes to Cox internet plans, but it's not the best we've seen in comparison to other gig providers.

If you're interested in gigabit speeds, shop around before committing to Cox's Go Super Fast or Go Beyond Fast. AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon Fios, among others, offer gig service in many of the same areas serviceable for Cox and are likely to come with faster upload speeds and better signup bonuses, not to mention the lower pricing.

For some, Cox may be the only high-speed provider in the area. In that case, I'd recommend the Go Even Faster plan (500Mbps) over gig service. Speeds of 500Mbps will support streaming, gaming and more on multiple devices at once.

Cox gig service FAQ