We sifted through details on pricing, speed and data, and customer service for these two internet service providers (ISPs). Let’s dig in and find out which is better for you, Cox or CenturyLink. The 150 Mbps plan is good for a family of light internet users or a couple of heavy internet users. Some folks on our team are die-hard gamers, and they play online with speeds around 150 to 200 Mbps. View Cox Plans | Read the Cox Internet Review But if you can get CenturyLink’s faster speeds, it quickly topples Cox as the best value internet provider. CenturyLink’s Simply Unlimited Internet comes in speeds of 15 to 100 Mbps, and each plan costs $50 a month—a price that the ISP promises to not to change. And CenturyLink’s fiber internet delivers speeds of 940 Mbps for about $65 a month. So the CenturyLink Simply Unlimited Internet plan could be a pretty good deal if you can get 100 Mbps speeds in your area—or it could be a bad deal if you’re stuck with only 15 Mbps. But if a good deal is what you’re after, it’s kind of hard to beat CenturyLink’s promise to not jack up your price. The ISP also won’t cap your data or make you sign a contract. That’s the gold standard of internet deals, in our opinion. View CenturyLink Plans | Read the CenturyLink Review On the other hand, Cox does offer promotional prices for three whole years on its 50 Mbps and faster plans. That’s a long time to stick with a price in internet land, where most ISPs jack up your price after only 12 months. If your internet needs to support a large family or your home office, you’ll need more speed. But we think you’ll find better deals than Cox’s 500 and 940 Mbps plans. Especially if you live in a city where you can get CenturyLink’s fiber internet. CenturyLink’s price for gig speeds is one of the lowest around. At first glance, Cox and CenturyLink offer almost the same range of speeds. But remember, CenturyLink internet speeds will vary based on where you live. So even though it advertises 15 to 100 Mbps speeds for its DSL service, you might see only certain speeds advertised in your area. Advertised download speeds are all well and good, but you want to pay attention to how well your internet provider delivers on the speeds it promises too. In our analysis of what internet speeds Cox and CenturyLink customers saw, Cox ranked 16th out of 38 total ISPs. On the other hand, CenturyLink ranked 28th out of 38. We can only hope both ISPs improve their speeds in the future, and we fully expect CenturyLink’s fiber internet service to zoom past its DSL internet.
Cox data cap: 1.25 TB CenturyLink DSL data cap: Unlimited CenturyLink fiber data cap: Unlimited
Cox improved their customer service scores in the past year while CenturyLink slightly declined in theirs, but sadly these two ISPs still fall below the internet industry average score of 65 out of 100 on the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report.1 If you do need to call your ISP, take a deep breath and try some of these customer service tips on for size. They might get you through your customer service call without flipping a table.
Cox customer service: 1-800-234-3993 CenturyLink customer service: 1-866-642-0444
But if you’re a budget-savvy internet user who’s not relying on download speeds to keep streaming or gaming, CenturyLink is hard to beat.
Prices: CenturyLink. We’re mighty impressed with CenturyLink’s promise to not hike up prices. Cox does offer fairly competitive prices for its slower plans, yes, but they’ll get bumped up after one or three years. Internet speed: Cox delivers faster download speeds than it advertises, so it’s clearly our pick for internet speed. CenturyLink tends to underdeliver, and its fiber internet remains unproven so far. Data: CenturyLink. CenturyLink internet comes with unlimited data. Compared to Cox’s 1.25 TB data cap, that’s a dream come true. Customer service: Both Cox and CenturyLink need to work on their customer service. Just like most ISPs.
We also gathered our own in-house data on how these ISPs perform when it comes to speed so you can get an idea of what it’s actually like to use these internet providers.
