TheLizardMan
Honestly, a lot has to do with where you are located since most of the systems use different capacity OC's to get out of the city. Reports in this thread will not be a hard and fast rule of the speeds you would see if you went back. Even in the same system I've seen speeds MUCH better than mine, and I'm happy with what I get.
Without giving away more info that I would like, I can say that there have been serious problems associated with the conversion. Cox was pressed to make the move in a VERY short time once @Home went belly up. All systems were converted within days of each other and a conversion of that size is not at all possible without some problems.
Where I live, I will say that my service has improved. I haven't had any trouble at all with the email, and that was a big pain in the butt as anyone with previous @Home experience can verify. As far as speed, that has improved as well. I got speeds of 165KB (not kb) at best with @Home. Since the day of the conversion my speeds have been 2.5 to 2.9MB\sec down with a 256kb upload cap even during peak hours. I haven't seen those speeds in a long time so I'm not complaining because some are faster.
As far as the IP lease, there have been issues with the DHCP that have caused some to be anywhere from 2 hours to 24 hours, and maybe even some with a 7 day lease but I don't know that to be a fact. A lesser known problem in the future could be a lack of IP's which will bring about IP reclamation; meaning simply that IP's leases could be shorter so they can be recycled by the ISP. No BS, just a possible scenario that must be considered at this time. You can always hard code and hope it holds. Trying to stay as neutral here as possible about the conversion since I'm sure as hell not selling anything.
Some have had, and still may be having serious problems and their concerns are quite valid. However, there are tens of thousands of thousands of other users who have had no problem at all. I don't have any special tricks or pull where I live, and my experience has been positive without the need to call tech support. The install CD that comes with the install mainly does two things: It will release the hard code status if necessary to allow the new Cox IP to be pulled. Second, it walks the user through initializing and setting up email in Outlook Express. I didn't use it, and most in here wouldn't touch it since they are quite capable of configuring their own equipment. All said and done, I wouldn't want to go back. The speed increase has been the best part of the conversion.
Check with the people in your area and see what they think. I suggest ruling out any negative responses about tech support or intermittent connectivity. Those will pass once the system becomes more stable and the phone lines to support are not quite as jammed as they have been.
No flames please.
Good luck!
++++EDIT+++++
Forgot about your newsgroup question.
I don't use them much, but a friend of mine was absolutely giddy last week when talking about the speeds, and there are over 54,000 of them. Much more than @Home.