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 Review by StreetSpirit 
UPDATED: 127 days ago
member for 7.2 years, 4133 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Roslyn,Nassau,NY
 $65 per month
 about 3 days
 "Connection is stable. Speeds are holding. Ultra tier introduced! When it works, its pretty cool!"
 "Ultra uses Boost's 609mhz downstream channel may cause congestion. YMMV, some nodes are fine, many more are CONGESTED. Boo!"
 "I think this is a fine ISP, one of the fastest if not the fastest in the country, but I experienced loads of problems...."
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* Note - This review is updated by top posting. Apologies but it's too late to reformat it.
July 24, 2009
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OOL Boost has been performing well in my case, which caused a re-assessment of my review. Brooklyn has been doing well, and more importantly, the medical office in Roslyn Heights has not experienced any problems for a while now, maybe upwards of 8 months.
I currently have OOL BOOST in three locations, Brooklyn 11224, Roslyn [Nassau County] 11576 and a BOOL [ Business OOL ] in a medical office in the Roslyn Heights 11577 next door to my home.
This review previously focused on the poorest performing line, the one in Brooklyn, however, I decided to take into account all three accounts and recent developments of the new ULTRA tier, which literally is the fastest residential cable service in the country!
I love the BOOST perks, and have had good courteous people help me in time of need. As things were not always so smooth, this review had years of history. It's no longer accurate, and I decided that after 8 years, to wipe the slate clean and begin fresh from 2009.
It's by no means a perfect service. There are many problem areas, and it seems the way Cablevision reacts is to send the customer with the problem a string of cheap contractors, who'll try this, and that, and the other thing, usually by changing a splitter or clipping/replacing the heads of coax cables, or swapping your modem for the umpteenth time. The problem is, the previous contractor did all of that!
It takes a lot of energy and persistence to even get them to admit there's a problem.... This of course drives customers nuts and causes churn to FIOS.
Cablevision has to really look at this policy of sending inept people who do not wish to spend more than a couple of minutes at your home. But real techs cost $, heh.
Yes, I had long standing downstream problems on one of my accounts, and yes, I am not always the happiest camper, however, taking into account the free wi-fi access which to this customer is very handy (say I'm visiting relatives in Bklyn. Three city blocks from their home is the Coney Island boardwalk, and a hotspot _right there_. - ie, pick a bench or lay down a towel, and start surfing!
I used this when we went to the NYC Aquarium a few weeks ago. While the kids were oogling the fishies, I was googling the species and giving them interesting little facts about them on my wife's iPhone!
Now that's progress! The pace at which technology is moving these days is incredible. For example, ePaper fooled both me and my wife! And no tree huggers need suffer - no trees are hurt in the manufacture of ePaper!. 
I've had admirable downstream speeds, and the cable connection itself is as steady as a rock in all three places. The office connection has not gone down in over a year; my modems have uptime in the months!
Summer is here, and my signal levels did not creep upwards. Speeds like I said have been up to par, and generally I've been happy with the way it functioned since February.
The news however is not about BOOST.
Optimum Online introduced a DOCSIS 3.0 tier, the first one in our case. I uploaded some screen captures from various posted speeds on the Ultra plan.
The tier is residential, costs $99 dollars, uses 3 channels bonded together [609mhz, 615mhz, 621mhz IIRC (surprisingly, it shares one of the 6mhz wide channels with BOOST, 609mhz.).
The ULTRA tier has not yet introduced upstream bonding due to lack of certified equipment, however, I'm sure now that Verizon is running it's 50/20 tier at 50/35, we shall see some upstream improvement with time as hardware becomes less expensive and more sophisticated.
The ULTRA tier costs $99 dollars per month, however, there's a controversial 300 dollar "activation fee" on top of the 40 install fee. This is obviously to prevent month to month dabblers from month to month customers who just want to experience those speeds for a few months.
The ultra screen captures are _reproduced courtesy if people in the Optimum Online Forum.
Regards
Jan 19 2009
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Packet loss rears it's ugly head. Not a single word from OOL or Cablevision, "All systems are GO!" on their never-changing network status screen, they have all our email, info, telephone numbers and can easily let us know at least when calling that a tech wouldn't help. Well here's the latest from the dysfunctional world of OOL where customers have to share tidbits of news with themselves just to figure out wtf is going on with their broken service:
»[OOL] Solution for slow OOL.
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1/5/2009
OOL and BOOST and not performed very well since November, but that could just be holiday traffic... Many question whether full price for BOOST is still a worthy deal.
»[OOL] Atrocious peak time speeds continue. Nothing fixed in bkly
»Terrible Speeds, Brooklyn NY
»[OOL] Really Poor speeds in 11235 & Information about Nuvision
»Bronx Boost issues
»[OOL] Atrocious Speeds in 08901
And there's many more.
I'm fed up enough to consider leaving for inexpensive DSL. Why should I continue to pay premium price for this crap? 4mbit downstream?! OOL lost their marbles. I will give them a month or two to get their act together...
If you;re in Brooklyn and are thinking of getting OOL, or especially upgrading to BOOST, consider waiting until Cablevision gets it's act together.
===
BOOST DOWNSTREAM FIX STATUS: not yet repaired....  , not going to be repaired.
FIRST DATE OF PROBLEM AND REPORT TO ISP: 12/2007...
^
Too long of a story to bother with.... it's resolved as of now. ... Snipped
** NOTE - The below screen captures are only to demonstrate people's posted speeds on the ULTRA plan. I do no yet subscribe to Ultra. Three BOOST accounts is enough for now.
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Thanks for reading my half-coherent ranting,
Dave
Attachments:
Followup comments:  JTZ
join:2009-02-01
| Packet lost Hello, I actually registered just to do the line test and check out what's going on with the massive packet loss.
I see that it is not just me having the problem with OOL in Brooklyn.
I've called and called, they did nothing to "fix" or even locate the problem. The 2 "tech"s they send out, 1st one didn't know what a packet loss is. The 2nd swear that a line that is split outside of house makes no difference in signal strength since it is in the "cable box".
Anyone have any idea to what is actually the problem in the area? It could be my line, which I am going to have them test/replace coming Tuesday. But so far as I read on, it is happening to a lot of ppl in the area. | |
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StreetSpirit
Premium
join:2002-08-13
Roslyn, NY
 ·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Re line test Yes. I've been seeing packet loss during select hours. Usually prime time, of course correlating with the usual prime time traffic-jam.
When you perform a line quality test here, expect 2-4% or higher from the West Coast test, it's always been that way (on several ISPs, it's not OOL). However the East Coast test is almost always 0% or 2% when there is no packet loss.
Is there a pattern to your packet loss as to time of day?
Are your speeds otherwise up to par?
Regards- | |
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 Review by howard_s
Posted: 132 days ago
member for 132 days, 1 visits, last login: 51 days ago
Alpine,Bergen,NJ
Contract price not specified.
"Adequately fast (16.5/2.2 mbps)."
"Sometimes speeds are variable."
"Pretty much average for a cable connection these days."
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Self install was fairly simple, speeds are adequately fast. An O.K. connection overall.
Followup comments: sharksfan3
Premium
join:2004-02-16
Poughkeepsie, NY | Average? Compared to who? | |
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 Review by Willy
UPDATED: 138 days ago
member for 9.1 years, 3173 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Clifton,Passaic,NJ
$49 per month
about 1 days
"Very fast and always on"
"None"
"A great service"
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I went from DSL to Otimum Online almost 2 years ago. I'm paying less than I did for DSL (for the 1st 24 mo.) and the same as DSL after that, but Optimum Online is 10X faster.
I think my connection went down once in that time. The email is less reliable and was probably down 10 -12 times in the last 2 years, but never for very long.
Over all I thing OOL is great.
Update 09/22/04
I still think OOL is great
Update 01/19/2008
Ditto. OOL is a great ISP
Update 07/13/2009
I just switched to Verizon FIOS.
The main reason is the combined service of TV, Broadband, and phone is about 50% less than Optonline, Direct TV, and the phone standalone phone service.
So far I'm very happy with FIOS
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 Review by Viet Vet
UPDATED: 140 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 3408 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Oceanside,Nassau,NY
$148 per month
about 3 days
"Speed has been consistently 17-19MBS in off peak and 9-11 MPS in Peak times."
" Level one support is poor!"
"The monthly cost mitigates, the hassle of switching to FIOS."
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I am an ex employee with a less than stellar view on OOL management and the way they treat there employees. I left of my own accord after over four years of service. The only thing management cares for is it`s self and getting the the sub of the phone and taking the next call. There HD service is improving.
Followup comments: Attack Gypsy
join:2007-05-10
Bridgeport, CT | Management Finally, someone who agrees with me.
Oh, but make sure your numbers aren't TOO good, or you'll be monitored because "you must be doing something wrong." | |
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 Review by Yellowbeard
UPDATED: 141 days ago
member for 8.2 years, 1935 visits, last login: 69 days ago
Melville,Suffolk,NY
$45 per month
about 5 days
"Relatively Fast Connection Speeds"
"None so far"
"Order the service"
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OOL is a service that I would recommend to anyone who can acquire it. The time from ordering to success took long only because of bad weather (nobody wants to go out in a storm) and too many splitters in the house. As for bad experiences, the only ones were loss of connection, but those occurred in the first 6 months of service and have not returned since.When it comes to price, I would say that $40.00/month is a fair price for the service($50.00/month w/o cable service). I've had OOL for 2+ years and must say that it was the best choice I've ever made.
01/21/2004-Still using OOL. No complaints.
05/05/2004-Same as above.
04/18/2005-Same good service still.
04/29/2008-Moved to new location, still in Melville. Service is now Boost. Still Great.
7/10/2009-No complaints. Still good service. Waiting for RS-DVR now.
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 Review by mike340t
UPDATED: 149 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 242 visits, last login: 19 days ago
Cresskill,Bergen,NJ
$150 per month (12 month contract)
about 3 days
"Extremely reliable, service is ok, never needed cust service!."
"Speed not always constant, install, they keep billing even after you cancel !!"
"I know it always works which is all that matters. Cust service is horrid .."
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Update: Really horrible... July 2009
I moved in May and returned all equipment and canceled on May 28. They physically disconnected on June 1st. I got a bill to my new home for June, so I called and they said "I will receive an updated bill without any charges for June"..
June 30th I receive a bill saying I'm a month late and with a charge for July as well.. Keep in mind I canceled May 28th.. I have called them again and they tried to say I never canceled.. So I said I have the paper work proving I did in person and returned all equipment. Then they said the account wasn't"closed" I was like how can that make sense when I returned all equipment and the service was physically disconnected as well.. No answer to that.. Now supposedly I will receive the correct updated bill without all those extra months of charges.. we'll see..
Overall, I am glad I am not stuck with OOL and have FiOS as a option because it is way better than OOL.. I am getting every channel and more speed for alot less!!!
Update: Over One Year Later.. March 2009
Connection is reliable in terms of no outages except for downed lines 3 times in a year due to storms but.. service was always returned promptly..
Now speed is an entirely different issue... I have yet to get any sort of constant speed like I used too.. It is so damn random..
Overall it is a great service as long as you don't need to speak to a representative because I have yet to speak to anyone helpful but then again that is the norm it seems..
I originally was looking for FIOS but that's been a slow roll-out as it's been available eight blocks away for months but not here yet. Was offered their DSL service with DTV but not what I wanted. I got the basic triple play plan which included free install and speeds of 15 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up.
Talking to the sales rep on the phone was easy and fast. The install tech was rude one! The new modem he "installed" was having problems and I told him the ethernet port on the modem was not working and he told me as long as works via at least USB my job is done. He would not change it for nothing. Told him I can't use USB because that's too slow and can't use router. But still a no go. He said it's installed on my part. Luckily had an OOL store down the road and I exchanged the modem after he left which worked great.
I've had OOL when I lived out in Brooklyn and never had a prob or needed cust service ever. Hoping that stays true!.
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Review by csmcdem
Posted: 150 days ago
member for 320 days, 28 visits, last login: 27 days ago
Marlboro,Monmouth,NJ
$40 per month
"Boost is fast, Good Support, Web Hosting"
"Not free"
"Great service and cheaper than FiOS."
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The boost package (30mbps/5mbps) allows me to host my web server and is great with usenet. I download on usenet at my max speed (30) and upload at my max (5). The monthly cost is $40 (triple play + 10 for boost). The order/install was easy. Went to optimum store and picked up the modem. The speed is relatively constant, over the past 2 years I've only had slow speeds and loss of service 2 times. If your looking for speed, go with optimum.
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Review by Jportnoy828
Posted: 150 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 16 visits, last login: 92 days ago
Plainview,Nassau,NY
$100 per month
about 7 days
"100mbps advertised ive hit 85 in tests"
"300$ activation fee"
"very fast"
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Optimum Ultra
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Review by UnnDunn
UPDATED: 155 days ago
member for 3.9 years, 234 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Brooklyn,Kings,NY
$69 per month
about 14 days
"Consistently as fast as advertised; no filtering, caps or restrictions"
"Increasingly unreliable with massive packet-loss issues and responsive but ultimately ineffective customer service."
"A great service that is worth the cost, marred by lackluster customer service"
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On my particular street in Brooklyn, NY, Optimum Online is the ONLY choice for broadband internet access; I am too far from the local exchange for DSL service, and FiOS has not been deployed here yet.
Fortunately, Cablevision does a pretty decent job. Real-world speeds are consistently in line with advertised data rates both up and down, and there are no caps or restrictions. Call quality is also excellent. I have the Optimum Triple Play package with Boost, which advertises--and delivers--30Mbps down and 5Mbps up. I have gone from a Motorola SURFboard voice modem to now using a SciATL WebSTAR unit.
Now the bad news: I have recently began experiencing random, intermittent and sometimes prolonged periods of extremely high packet-loss, often as high as 70, 80 or even 100%. Customer service has been responsive, but largely ineffective in solving the problem. I don't necessarily blame them, because the problem is so hard to get a handle on, but it's also clear that they do not have any mechanism for dealing with problems like mine, that require more in-depth investigation rather than a simple tech visit. I've been living with it since the packet-loss issues are infrequent, but it is highly frustrating.
Another problem I have had is somewhat more damning: I can't seem to get an original copy of my bill. I use their eBill service to pay my bill online, so I don't regularly get Optimum bills in the mail. However, I needed an original paper bill as proof of address. Numerous requests through customer service for a copy of my bill yielded no results, and when I finally contacted the city about this issue, I received a PHOTOCOPY of an original paper bill.
I use those examples to illustrate the main problem with Optimum: namely, the customer service, and specifically its complete inability to handle non-standard problems. If your problem cannot be solved by either resetting your equipment or having a technician do a line test, they seem unable to help you.
When the service works (and for a very long time, it DID work 100% of the time) it is fantastic. But now it works 85% of the time, and they don't seem to be set up to figure out the problems for the other 15%. If I were a business, I would have dropped them a long time ago, but as a resident, it's tolerable. Barely.
Full disclosure: I used to work for Madison Square Garden, which is owned by Cablevision.
Followup comments: BKConnection
join:2007-02-19
Brooklyn, NY
| From Bushwick OOL customer with Empathy I can definitely see where you're coming from.
Get this - I to live in a neighborhood where Optimum is the only choice for Cable, Internet and what have you.
I decided to opt for the Optimum Boost package since it gave me the bang for my buck that i have been looking for, especially since it give me the flexibility that i need when it comes to its web space.
I have been having the same problems as you with a high amount of packet loss - and from time to time - a complete loss of everything. Here's the catch: my Cable TV works just fine.
I've dealt with their customer service and I have had 3 technicians come out to take a look at the problem and each one of them have came back with the same result: a high signal but something wrong at the poll.
According to Optimum's rocket scientist team of customer service reps, the problem that was supposedly at the poll was fixed approximately 9 days prior to this post. Problems still persist and right now, my speed as of the last speed test has dwindled down to 8 M/s down, 3 Mb/s up.
Moreover, a customer service representative says that the minimum speed we are supposed to get over the boost package is 5 Mb/s down. I find this very, very hard to believe especially when - for almost 3 years - we have never, ever had this problem.
I feel sorry for the techs that come out here and refer to a supervisor only to have to come back out there again.
Regards,
Josh
Brooklyn, NY OOL Customer | |
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 Review by Wiz
UPDATED: 164 days ago
member for 7.8 years, 2696 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Bronx,Bronx,NY
$44 per month
"Download is the best, Upload is good"
"POP mailserver, slow newsgroups"
"definitely worth it"
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I am From the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. Around January 19 2002, it was decided I was going to get Optimum Online. I went to the Wiz in Co-op city, went up to the Optimum Online counter, and within 45 mins, i was out with everything I needed. I came home, and hooked everything and was online quickly. With a little tweaking, I get up to 8 Mbits down, and on average 1Mbit up. On Mac OS X which I discovered later, I could even get these speeds with no tweaking necessary. Optimum Online is a very strange service. You love the speed and you know its better than everything else but you get pissed off at Cablevision anyway. The Mail isnt that great, the Newsgroups just plain suck, and you have to constantly cap your upload or cablevision will do it for you.
Even with these bad sides, it is still the best out there...
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