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 Review by kdshapiro 
UPDATED: 1 days ago
member for 10.4 years, 2911 visits, last login: 2 days ago
 Eatontown,Monmouth,NJ
 $200 per month
 about 1 days
 "Very fast speed and above average reliability"
 "Telephone help line routing system is frustrating to use unless you have OV"
 "Very satisfied with overall service"
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(ratings above consensus)
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September 2010:
Nothing out of the ordinary has changed since last review. Speeds have been consistent. I continue to be satisified with the service and the price point at which it is offered.
June 2010:
Nothing much has changed since May 2009. Within the last two months speeds have been extremely erratic. I made a service call, a Cablevision employee came right on time. Ended up replacing the modem with an a new SBV6220. Tech was very thorough. Speeds are now back to normal.
Other than this blip there have been no other issues with the service.
May 2009:
Triple play recently ended, No major outages to speak of since last review. Speed is consistent. Thinking of ordering ULTRA.
Dec 2008:
It's been about 7 months since the account has had the triple play for $185.
OV quality has been excellent. Internet service with Boost has seen a upload speed bump from 4.6mb to 5.2mb.
OOL for the last several years has had excellent uptime records and service since last review has been excellent.
Area has had a number of power outages and the cable modem is protected via ups. However, Cablevision should throw the battery pack into their VOIP modems for free, for those customers whose equipment is not protected. Why do they make you spend $40 on a batter?
May 2008:
Got OV, ported one copper number to OV, Cablevision gave me Triple Play. Installation went without a hitch. Tech found issue in feed to house from box and reran feed. Cablevision came a few days later to bury the cable. Netting everything together saving about $30/month.
Speeds have been great, service has been great.
Prior review:
In the area I live OOL is the exclusive provider. So it's a good thing the service is great. The account has Boost for $10/month. Policies recently have changed to uncap downloads. Rumor mill has it uploads might be increased to 10mb. That's more upload bandwidth than I was getting when I ordered OOL 7 years ago.
At my current location I had OOL come out for service visits twice. Both visits were handled professionally, with the techs doing exactly what we asked. I've been to the walk-in centers a number of times for different reasons, they sales staff was courteous and handled the requests quickly.
I've never had a problem with tech support, and have used them a few times. They were always willing to help and were very courteous.
Biggest complaint is with the telephone routing system, thank goodness I don't need to use it often.
Bottom line: TV and internet cost $195/month with gold package, Boost, 2 non DVR converters and 2 DVR converters. A bit pricey, but we are satisified with the service.
Followup comments:  Rojo
join:2009-04-14
New York, NY | Did you get Ultra? From your monthly $bill it looks like you did. How have your Ultra speeds been? | |
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Review by Ultra1
Posted: 3 days ago
Fair warning: reviewer joined this week
NYC
$99 per month
about 3 days
"Ultra speeds amazing"
"$300 activation fee"
"fastest avail in my area"
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Fastest speeds in my area. Ultra is a nobrainer for heavy downloading. Love it so far. Wish there wasnt a $300 activation fee.
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Review by kevin_pink
UPDATED: 5 days ago
member for 3.8 years, 455 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Bronx,Bronx,NY
$100 per month
"FAST when in service (but not worth the trouble)"
"Speed fluctuates from day to day (moreso on a D2 modem, obviosly)"
"Worth the money (unless you live in a FiOS area)"
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One time not too long ago, the service went down to like 5 kbps upstream and 100 kbps downstream for a WEEK or so, completely USELESS.
overall my experience with OOL was not very good. during times of day when i actually wanted to use the internet, the speeds were poor at best.
pricing went up to $200+ recently so i had to say goodbye to OOL.
good riddance
UPDATE: 8/30/2010
Back to OOL after approximately 1 year with Verizon FiOS (triple play with TV, net, & phone). An OOL worker showed up at my house last week asking us to switch back to OOL, and we hammered out a [win-back] deal with her. OOL agreed to pay off my Verizon ETF ($360), give me (all with IO Silver) 3HD boxes, 1HDDVR, VOIP phone with world call, Asian channels(from India), and the MLB package for the remainder of the year. I won't say the exact price (because I haven't received the bill), but since it was a win-back deal, the price is supposedly $100/mo.
Verizon started charging over $200/mo when I added international calling. This had to stop so I called them up and went on the direct forum here, to see if I can fix it. But no, the next bill came and there was no change, so I canceled the service.
Installation:
I don't mean to be nit-picky... but the installation was dirty (coax fittings and shavings left all over), the installer kept insisting to me that Ethernet is not Ethernet, and that my MI424's Ethernet jack operates at a different "frequency and bandwidth" than the Ethernet from the modem -- so it may work now, but it WON'T work in a week/month/year from now. *sigh*
Service:
So apparently nothing has changed with OOL. Same slow TV boxes, same slow internet. I got 1 DVR from them and that's a little faster but still not up to par with the FiOS boxes. The internet I signed up for is 30/5, but they provisioned me for 15/2. I'm on a D3 modem SBV6220) with 3 channels bonded, but the speeds are not consistent and I can't seem to even be able to pull the full 15Mb from a single thread anywhere -- most I can pull is ~800KBps. Speedtest.net shows the correct speed, for 15/2 tier, but in actual use it is not so.
»www.speedtest.net/result/933698000.png
STAY AWAY FROM THIS ISP!!!
UPDATE:8/31/2010
There was a problem with 1 of the HD STB's where it would shut off intermittently, or just go blank, as well as having vertical lines all throughout the display. Yesterday, the OOL tech did not listen to me when I told him all about this problem during the install; he went on to simply crimp on a new connector to the coax then they left.
When changing channels on the box we had, it would take 4+ seconds to display the picture and sound; the menus were also laggy, but not as bad as that. It's a pain to find anything to look at with such a device... even compared to the same model box on a different line in perfect working order.
The internet was not very consistent, hard to hold even 1MB/s on a single download even though speedtests showed 15/2; this is with a D3 modem (SBV6220) as well. Not hard to sustain greater (3MB/s+) speeds on FiOS on the same server at the same time.
Goodbye OOL -- AGAIN... The service is just too poor.
I guess I am spoiled having been on FiOS for a year. :/
Back with FiOS. All I had to do was reconnect all the STB's & router to the ONT in the front; I called them back up and told them to reconnect/reactivate.
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Review by Zores
UPDATED: 7 days ago
member for 8.5 years, 150 visits, last login: a few hours ago
New Milford,Bergen,NJ
$117 per month
"20-30 Mbps at New Milford, NJ. Decent price for Triple Play promotion with Boost."
"No longer under contract left for FIOS."
"FIOS 25/25 costs more but the stability is better then OOL Boost where I live."
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8/30/2010 Update
Been with FIOS now since January of 2010. Ended up canceling OOL because the speeds kept being sporadic. It was never really fixed and when FIOS became available I jumped ship.
The price was better with FIOS since I was being charged $150 from OOL with triple play since my contract was over. I can't say the price was better then OOL when I was under contract, but the service is phenomenal where I live.
My speeds never change or fluctuate at all, it is the same 24/7 no matter when I test. Whereas OOL was always fluctuating depending on time of day. With this level of consistency I am getting from FIOS here in New Milford, NJ, I will never go back to OOL again unless they offered me something absurd like $99.99 for triple play with OOL Ultra. And even then I would have to think about it.
6/11/2009
My net was out for 1 week with intermittent issues during May. Problem was due to congestion on the network. Techs notified me that a fix was rolled out. Issue was resolved satisfactorily.
I really appreciated the fact they took the time to tell me what was going on. I like the service I received from contacting the techs at the OOL Direct Forum. I can compare my outage experience (2007-2008) with Charter HSI in West Covina, CA, they were awful in resolving my issue compared to OOL. They had me down for 2-3 months there.
Pretty consistent Internet service in Bergen County for the past decade. I've had OOL in Closter, NJ and New Milford, NJ. I've had OOL since year 2000.
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Review by johnner1999
Posted: 14 days ago
member for 1.6 years, 277 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Litchfield
$29 per month
"Price (during promotion), speed as I have not had any issues in my area..."
"Price (outside of promotion) to be honest none other then price"
"My only other option for internet service is AT&T DSL (no U-Verse in my area) which to me is over priced for the speed given."
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I switched from a $45 AT&T DSL line to OOL with a bundle price with TV, Internet and phone. Now the phone I don't even have connected, but the price is about $60 less per month then I was paying with DirecTV and AT&T and I get much faster internet speeds. Now this great price is fixed for 2 years, after that the standard price will most likely make me think of going back to AT&T.
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 Review by Melatonin06
UPDATED: 14 days ago
member for 8.5 years, 3382 visits, last login: a few hours ago
NJ
$50 per month
"Very average speed, 5 mail accounts"
"Mail server burps, upload speed cap"
"Average"
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OOL is average. upload cap, average speed, 5 mail accounts, Email server burps.
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Review by MovieLover76
UPDATED: 20 days ago
member for 359 days, 166 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Keyport,Monmouth,NJ
$29 per month
about 7 days
"Reliable connection, Speeds consitantly high, reliably low ping for VoIP"
"price will go up after 12 months"
"worth it."
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I have had optimum online for over 2 years and constitantly been pleased with it, moved to another location that had fios as an option but since the house was already wired for directv didn't choose fios, as far as the internet service goes I'm very pleased with optimum, I hated there cable service, so leaving for anything directv or fios was a no brainer for me.
Honestly I choose optimum over fios because I had a lot to do while moving and I didn't want to have to babysit a verizon fios installer all day when I had a lot to do.
and while technically better technology, we have fios at work and the speeds and pings are almost identical, so I choose the shorter install time and cheaper price (well for the first 12 months atleast)
Update - speeds have been slightly inconsistent, at peak hours connection drops down the 6-8 Mbit and has a couple times dropped down to about 1 - 2 MBit which was a major problem as I was trying to watch netflix HD, I may have to upgrade to boost, I don't need more than 15/2 but this node seems crowded, in my last apartment I had to upgrade to boost to get the consistent speeds as well, I was trying to save a few bucks. I'll give it a few more weeks and decide
Update - I was on boost while I was under the first year commitment, as it was only $45 a month on the promotion, switched back to regular ool for the past 2 months and the inconsistent speeds issues appears to be working fine,
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Review by Fumbles
UPDATED: 25 days ago
member for 80 days, 6 visits, last login: 25 days ago
Imlaystown,Monmouth,NJ
Contract price not specified.
"It's Fast When It Works"
"Unreliable, Overcrowded Nodes"
"Not Worth the Price for the hassle"
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Update: 8-12-10
The king is dead.
Upload speeds are abysmal and no, I've done nothing to get myself "capped". The node really is just that saturated. Multiple truck rolls found no fault with anything in my home or out on the pole.
Interesting side note, a friend of mine who lives 10 minutes away also has OptOnline and also had an IP on the 69.x.x.x node. Recently their setup changed, and with the new MAC address they were assigned a new IP in the same node as mine (173.x.x.x). Now they too have been experiencing almost daily slow downs and the same issues I've had to suffer with for months.
It is not our homes, our wiring, our modems, our routers, our PC's. It's our Service Provider. Optimum seriously needs to fix their network performance/split the node. They've put profit above customer satisfaction.
I am switching providers once a comparable service is available and I will not recommend OptOnline to anyone if it can be at all avoided. They've just lost a decade long customer with their lax performance and service.
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Update: 7-14-10
Several days after the initial tech came out and replaced some splitters we had a line tech check the poles up and down the street around the neighborhood. While the service is somewhat more stable with less disconnections the speeds are terrible still. The only conclusion I can draw is the node I'm on is horrifically overcrowded. I never had this problem on my old node that had an IP starting with 69.x.x.x and my troubles only began after being bumped to the New Brunswick node with an IP of 173.x.x.x
Optimum seriously needs to address the overcrowding issues and get back to the reliable, fast service I remember from years gone by.
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Update: 7-1-10
The Optonline tech came out and checked the values at the tap and during the day I'm still seeing ~6% packet loss during non-peak hours. Outdoor splitters were replaced for what little good it did. I was told that another service tech would have to come out and check some more things, but it is definitely not an issue in the house, with the routers, wiring/splitters or at the modem. It is at the tap further down the line. Right now online gaming is impossible due to constant disconnections and lag due to their horrible connection quality.
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Update: 6-30-10
After another night of slow down during peak hours I made the call to OOL Tech Support and it was confirmed by a level 2 Supervisor that I was experiencing around 14% packet loss(!). I had rebooted the modem/router setup and the splitters have all been changed a month ago on the advice of the first tech support call. The modem is on it's own line at the first split from the drop and all the TV's in the house are run from the second split. My modem signal levels were good and I have a scheduled appointment to have a field tech check outside for any problems on 7-1-10.
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You will definitely get the advertised download speed most of the time but lately there has been frequent service interruptions and a lot of traffic during peak hours resulting in lower speeds and intermittent packet loss. Upload speeds always take a dive during busy periods and are erratic at best, sometimes being fine and sometimes being nonexistent.
Overall it's not worth the cost for the average user. If rock solid reliability is your priority you might find this provider severely lacking depending on where you live.
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 Review by tsifox
UPDATED: 25 days ago
member for 10.2 years, 4143 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Locust Valley,Nassau,NY
$40 per month
about 40 days
"No complaints.Very reliable,speed is great"
"Overall the best ISP I ever had."
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Things have been great for these past few years.Once or twice a year there may be connection issues which are widespread.Overall,their speed and reliability are great.
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 Review by La Luna
UPDATED: 29 days ago
member for 9.1 years, 4164 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Warwick,Orange,NY
$60 per month
about 1 days
"FAST FAST FAST, reliable, stable connection, phone support has been better"
"no web space for 15/2 tier"
"Excellent value for the money, probably the best"
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Having had OOL for two years now, I can't really say enough about how good it is. Regardless of the issues some may have with the recent introduction of capping for upload bandwidth abuse, I feel OOL is STILL the best service for the money.
I see the speeds below consistently; the OOL speed test on the OOL forum seems more reliable, giving me a 1MB dl result most of the time.
2003-01-14 23:31:05 EST: 7826 / 834
Your download speed : 7826947 bps, or 7826 kbps.
A 955.4 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 834492 bps, or 834 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!
The install process was extremely simple--got the install package directly from our local CV office, which included (at that time) the Sharkfin modem. We had OOL up and running within an hour. I have since purchased a Toshiba PCX1100U modem, which increased my speeds from the 5000dl range to what they are now. Other than one issue of a s/n ratio problem which was resolved with an upgrade to my area, I've had no major issues. The occasional outage is very rare and so far, have been short lived. Some people have had serious, recurring e-mail problems but I've only had a problem a few times. E-mail not being delivered, being delayed, or servers down.
The few times I've had to contact tech support have been either an excellent experience or a nightmare, depending on who answered the call. That area could be improved in my opinion. Also, you generally have to wait on hold for an unacceptable amount of time before actually talking to someone.
As my contract has just expired in December, I am expecting a rate increase shortly, but even so, compared to what else is out there, OOL wins out, hands down.
4/17/05 My monthly rate increased as expected. Despite complaints from a handful of people regarding a drop in OOL speeds, my experience continues to be excellent, top notch, with NO drop in speeds. I would still recommend OOL to anyone. I have also had Vonage VoIP service for almost year, and it has been rock solid and stable with OOL as well. I also now have a second modem, a SB5100, running to my computer while my son uses the Toshiba for his PlayStation, both off of the same OOL line (both on my OOL account), and my speeds remain solid even when he is playing.
10/13/06 Updating since moving on 9/1/06. Had a brand new install at my new home, now in NJ. The install tech showed up right on time. This house had cable line previously installed, but the cable needed to be replaced and changed because of where we wanted our tv's/computers. The tech spent a good 3 hours here, changing everything around. He installed a new modem and hooked up my laptop to it (my main PC had not been moved in yet) and made sure everything was up and running as it should be. In the six weeks I've been here, my speeds with the new 15/2 tier have been great, I've had no speed drops or disconnects. I also moved my Vonage line with me and that is working perfectly as well with this solid connection. Nothing much has changed for me, I still am very happy with OOL and the service. All in all, it has been a good experience.
3/15/07 Boost....upgraded to Boost (30/5) service a few months ago. Again, everything is working exactly as advertised. I'm getting great speeds, both download and upload. I'm using a Linksys WRT54GS router. Vonage still working great. My upgrade was very simple. I did it right online at the OOL website. It took about 10 minutes for them to push the upgrade to me. I did have to reboot my modem (SAWebstar), which not everyone has to do, but that was it. Very painless. If you don't mind paying a few extra dollars, and you have use for increased speed, Boost is well worth it. Unlike the 15/2 tier, it also comes with webspace, which I haven't had the opportunity to try yet.
12/26/07 Still with OOL/Boost, no issues to report. Getting great speeds, both DL and UL. I have no complaints at all. If you are looking for that extra speed, this is the way to go. General service is solid, rarely any outages (I've had an occasional hiccup for a few minutes here and there, but not long enough to even call about....weather related? Work on their end?). Highly recommend OOL/Boost.
1/3/09 Still using OOL and having no issues or problems to report. Down time is virtually non existent. I did go back to non Boost since I moved, but will be going back to Boost. I get the speeds I pay for.
7/26/09 Still with OOL, no issues or problems to report. The service is great. I decided not to go back to Boost to save a few $$, plus my connection works so well, I didn't feel I even needed it. I would still highly recommend OOL to anyone.
8/7/10 Still with OOL. Nothing new to report. Everything working as expected.
Followup comments: Patseye
join:2001-08-28
Little Falls, NJ | Boost Have you gone to an N rounter. The speeds (bandwidth) should be faster. Also, put an N adapter to your laptops and they'll soar. | |
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