I am not giving a Cox a 5 because they have raised their prices and their internet service is starting to get unreasonable. On the other hand, I signed up for a price lock on my internet and they did reduce my monthly cost by $5. That sounds like a bad deal except for the early termination fee is only $2 for every month left. If centurylink gets their act together in my area I could be in for a switch on internet but we'll see. As for the cable we have the economy package and love it overall. We have had issues with the DVRs as it is the old equipment (not contour) but unlike satellite they always come out and replace it for free. As to the price of cable it is great. It is really all we need in the amount of channels, have the HD DVR for a reasonable price, and they don;t play the horrible price games I see with Satellite. Sure it goes up a little after 6 months ($10, and HBO another $5 for a total of $15) but it does not shoot up over $100 like Directtv. Additionally, if I ever get frustrated I can just cancel as there isn't any contract. If they get the internet in order I will be a 5.
On a related note some people have talked about issues with the boxes and that all they do is reset them. When we first got our box we did have issues for a couple weeks. Within that time they replaced it 2 times and it was promptly done the day after we called. I was then informed if we wanted we could always go exchange our box at one of the Cox stores for free. We had to do this one and we have not had any other issues. In all of these times the people were very courteous and even went out of their way to find a replacement box. It is an old system so some boxes will have issues but they still carry the economy package still which is an amazing value and have never charged me when they have come out even replacing all of my old outdated lines for free. If you don;t like the old system then go ahead and pay the extra for the new system, but don;t complain when they offer the old system for those who seek real affordability or maybe they just might stop.
My cost for tv ecomony and internet essential along with HBO and variety pak is not $140 as one person claims with a lot less than me. My cost is $102 and will go up to $115 in 3 months. No contract and if I got rid of HBO and variety it would drop below $100. Yes a lot of money and yes the cost internet is crazy but compared to what else is out there it is the best option right now. Compared to other options when it comes to tv it is exceptional.