Cox says I have too much voltage on my coaxial lines

Sounds like BS to me. If the modem powers up and doesn't catch on fire then it seems happy with the incoming voltage. And given that "too much voltage running up the coax" doesn't make much sense.

I'd tell cox to get their asses back out there and make it work like now.

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I saw his handheld voltage meter, it was showing a little under 75 volts. I looked it up, and apparently that’s high.

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What was he testing? What was it hooked to? The signal coming from your modem or coming down the coax from outside?

Did the cox guy tell you to call an electrician, or did you decide that?

AFAIK the signal strength on the coax has nothing to do with your mains voltage (which if there was a real problem there you would see other problems). The modem can adjust its own output and cox is responsible for signal strength on their end.

You need to call them and have them explain the exact problem and what THEY are doing to fix it.

None of that makes sense. The signal on the coax is controlled by cox. And there's no way a bad outlet could cause the signal on the coax to be too high, much less take down a whole block whatever that means.

The cox guy either has no idea what he's doing, or they are having some major issues that they know need to be resolved and they are distracting you with the blame game so you don't do too much fussing.

I would demand a reason for the outage in writing and also a bill credit.

Typically, when voltage is present on a coax cable, they are getting leaky voltage from a power cable running parallel for too long a distance where there is a capacitance built up between the two. This would typically happen if the power cable and coax were in the same trench or conduit. This would not typically happen in the attic or walls of a house. Also, coax should be a shielded cable to dissipate any capacitance, unless the coax is very old. For 75V to be present, it seems like something that is happening on the Cox side. If your coax was touching an outlet or something in the house that was energized, it would typically carry 110/120V.

As to catching fire, voltage doesn't typically cause fire. It would have to draw some load that would cause amperage to be present on the cable, which could happen. If the amperage was too high, it could get very hot, melt the cable, thus causing the jacket on the cable to catch fire.

I would press Cox more. Keep asking for higher up people...escalate it until you get someone that can tell you exactly what you are looking at. If its coming from outside, turn off your main and see if the 75V is still present. If so, then it is definitely their issue to fix.


ETA: I meant to reply to the OP, but just realized I replied to Kork.

This seems pretty simple to isolate. Did he disconnect the house at the demarc and test there?

check your ground, disconnect it from Entergy

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check your ground, disconnect it from Entergy

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i had a customer get a $250000 whole house system and theater fried because Cox didn't properly ground their connection to the house. Your advice should be to PROPERLY ground the coax coming into the house.

It sounds like a line amp on the other side of the cable tap is open causing the tap to pass it through. Also, the tap could be faulty. The technician can't do anything about it but submit a ticket to the cable plant managers. They're the ones with the big bucket trucks.

That much interference can cause the internet to go to crap if the internet carriers are below 60Hz which some are that low.

If he submitted a ticket, the cable plant guys should be out to investigate and fix it.