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Review by tmpchaos See Profile

  • Location: Hoboken, Hudson, NJ, USA
  • Cost: $49 per month
  • Install: about 3 days
  • No Cap
fast instalation and very fast speeds (especially after tweaking)
none (yet...)
should have gotten it sooner...
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I started out on the net quite a while ago (anyone else remember 2400 modems and dial-up shell accounts?)...been through all the speeds, until I finally decided to get broadband both for the speed and to free up the phone. I started out with Flashcom/NP, and had a reasonable experience with them (4 weeks for installation-in the midst of the verizon strike, and speed about as promised, 400k). I was a happy camper, until they went under, and gifted me with Hellocity/NP. The changover (in retrospect) went very smoothly, with no loss of time. The connection was a little slower (370k), but nothing to get worked up over. Then the problems started. Outages, mail server problems, dns problem, until I went down completely, about two weeks BEFORE the death of NP. Finally got Hellocity to tell me that it was a MAC address problem, and that NP was going to fix it. Of course, we all know what happened next... I put up with six weeks of their dialup (constant drops) while waiting for them to reprovision me; in the middle of April, when I called, they told me my new CLEC would be Verizon (oh, joy...), and that I shoud be up in about two weeks, Then, a week later, I received the infamous DJ letter... So I went to look for other options. It turned out that I had only (on a practical basis) two options- Earthlink (via PPOE), or OOL. Looking things over, I decided to go with OOL (for speed, and installation timeframe). They got me hooked up in 3 days; the technician actually called me on the day of installation to see if he could come early (and did so). I got the modem the next day, and hooked it right up. Had a bit of a problem with the registration setup, but I called tech support, and they did it from their end with no problem. I also asked the tech about my main concern about cable (line overload), and he told me that they monitor the lines, and switch as necessary to maintain speed-which, in general has worked quite well. Speeds have been anywhere from 1200-8000k, and, in fact, a current test via Speakeasy shows 2482/825 to San Francisco and 5651/908 to NYC. The lack of a static IP hasn't been a problem (it hasn't changed yet), and it works fine with my system- G3 powerbook, G4 desktop, both with VirtualPC; everything is uniformly fast. In all, I'd say pleased.

The only quibble I have is with customer service, after the price increase. It's taken them three months and counting to change the charges.

Speeds have increased to a relatively consistent 14/1.8 M, while the price is now 49.95. They've swapped out my old modem with a new SA, which is unfortunately configured to not let the user see some of the typical information (signal or status).

Update-

The SA died, and was replaced with a Motorola 51xx. In September, I began having speed issues, which became progressively worse until I became annoyed and contacted OOL. They've replaced the 51xx with a 6220 Docsis3, and speeds have not only returned to normal, but have been consistently above 15 down.

member for 23.9 years, 9511 visits, last login: 9.3 years ago
updated 10.1 years ago


mb6
join:2000-07-23
Washington, NJ

mb6

Member

modems

I remember 300 baud modems, Apple-cat modems (1200bps proprietary) and ascii-express. Had more fun then than we do now! I used to run a BBS with a whopping 5 meg hard drive. Ah the good old days...

markd16
Premium Member
join:2000-12-14
East Stroudsburg, PA

markd16

Premium Member

Re: modems

hahahahahahah!!! ascii express!!! boy, there's a blast from the past. I still have 3 Apple //e's with 300 baud Micromodem 2e's.. what a riot.. what was your BBS called? I prob called it.

St0ney
join:2001-02-25
uranus

St0ney

Member

OH yea

I had 2400 modem...I had to manually start up my mouse and keyboard each time i turned on the computer. Thats how old mine is
System

Anon

The Best!!!

All i have to say is...
I dumped Verizon the day Optimum Online was Available in my area.... The best online connection that i _ever_ had.!!! AAA+

Robwhatup
join:2001-01-19
Mountain Lakes, NJ

Robwhatup

Member

Speedtests

Speakeasy's speed tests work well, but usually only at the neareast (for ool either NYC.speakeasy.net or BOS.speakeasy.net) the San Fran, La etc., do not work as well because there is more lag, check out your ping to the west coast ones... you will find they are 3-4x what the east coast pings are. (nyc.speakeasy.net I get 13ms with my OOL)
secretcomp
join:2000-01-23
Oceanside, NY

secretcomp

Member

Re: Speedtests

Can you go to the »www.dslreports.com/tweaks section of the site, ruun the test, and send me the info, for example:

Your Tweakable Settings:
Receive Window (RWIN): 64120
Window Scaling: 0
Path MTU Discovery: ON
RFC1323 Window Scaling: ON
RFC1323 Time Stamping: OFF
Selective Acks: ON
MSS requested: 1460
TTL: 64
(less any hops behind firewall)
TTL remaining: 53

is mine, it would really help, as I cannot get above 3.4 mbps, and you are getting over double, I have tested, and if you have Windows ME, 64240 is a better RWIN than 64120, if you left the MSS alone, at 1460. (64120 is not multiple of 1460), thanks for the help, do you have an AIM SN?? Or ICQ or MSN????

Robwhatup
join:2001-01-19
Mountain Lakes, NJ

Robwhatup

Member

Re: Speedtests

I have nearly the same settings, ROBWHATUP on AIM so you can reach me if you want, RWIN of 64240 and MTU of 1500 is about it, but my signal is impeccable!
System

Anon

OOL Rox all

Well, in 1998 coming into freshman year, i got all excited; the telephone company (Hell atlantic at the time) started running new wire and so did Optimum in my town. Optimum didnt run the south end of town (where, inevitably I live). So i called up optimum and hell atlantic; asking when DSL / Cable would be available in my area. Optimum told me 1999 as did Hell atlantic, and true to their word in February 1999 I called up; optimum was ready but Bell wasn't ; and sure enough by the beginning of march I was online and revving it up. The whole way thru the ride has been excellent; I called up and they came to my house whenever I had a problem; ie wrong Nic in my comp; moving comp to different room, etc. When i first got the service i got download speeds of up to 2500 K / sec (yes, 2.5 megaBYTES a second, drool over that) in download. Even now i get a very nice speed on my new (albeit capped) cable modem. I have to say it is probably the greatest service, lotsa people have had problems w/ hell @lantic (now verizon) and to this day there is STILL not DSL service in my area.