Review by Mister 
UPDATED: 2.6 years ago
member for 2.8 years, 37 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
 Brooklyn,Kings,NY
 $34 per month
 about 3 days
 "Connection is now stable"
 "Service desk is almost useless, if you need something done about line quality post in direct forums"
 "Things are better now but annoyed it took so long to fix."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I have Optimum online as part of a 3-in-1 deal (cable, internet, and voip). I started using this service in May when I moved to Brooklyn and was pleased with it until recently. I'd never really bothered to test my line speeds as for the most part everything was fine. I tend to play a lot of online FPS games in the evenings and my pings are usually great and very low packet loss.
According to my package deal I should be receiving rates of "up to 15mbps/2mbps , up/down". Ordering the service was very easy, I just did it over the phone and it took maybe 20-30 minutes. Bear in mind I was also setting up cable and phone services as well. The installation was straightforward and the technician was helpful and did the job quickly. The home equipment is fine, a motorola modem (SBV5120), which I'm using through a LinkSys wireless router. I tested the setup with the Optimum people without the router and still received packet loss so it wasn't my router causing the problems. The IP is dynamic.
However just after Christmas my line quality began to deteriorate in the evenings until about 10-11pm EST. Then it would begin to get better again. At first it was a minor annoyance but since last weekend it's been horrible almost all the time. Packet loss is extreme and I had to call them up to request technical service. Luckily I was able to schedule a visit for 3 days later and will post more once they test my line.
I have been using the line quality testing tool and speed tests on this website and was dismayed to see my connection performing so poorly compared to other Optimum customers in other areas. I'm hoping that the visit on Thursday will clear up my problems. I'll post more after the technicians visit. On the whole my experience with Optimum online has been very satisfactory and I'm hoping that my current situation will be remedied.
Update:
Well it's been a couple of weeks since the Technician came out to look at my connection. He did verify that there was nothing wrong with my setup and that the problem was due to a the signal getting soaked up in the evening by all the users online in the area. He said he would tell the company the problem and that they would most likely install a stronger amplifier in the basement of my building.
Since then my connections has been a little better but my pings and latencies still climb to 10x their values in the morning. Download speed goes way down from high of about 10Mbits/sec in the morning to less than 2Mbits/sec at night, and that's according to Cablevision's on speed test tool. Going to get on the phone with them and see what the hold up is. I'll post more when I have something else to report.
Update:
I had my second service call yesterday. The long and the short of it is that Cablevision had not installed enough outlets/connections in the basement of the newly constructed building I live in to service all the apartments appropriately. After convincing the service guy that the problem was real he finally did check my transmit levels, and sure enough he found out there was a problem. After checking the connections in my apartment he came up to tell me that my problems probably started after an cable installer (Cablevision is the only one that services my area) had spliced the lines so that I was now sharing one line with 4 other apartments. He further commented that all the lines were being shared because there were not enough outlets. The real remedy according to him would be for cablevision to install more hardware in the basement of the building and to install a signal booster to strengthen the signal coming off the main feed and into my building. Since Cablevision sub-contract out those jobs it would mean the coordination of several companies, one to install the hardware in the basement and another one or two to install the signal booster, in order to fix my problem and those of other people in my building.
This problem has now persisted for 8 weeks.
Update:
Going into my 12th week of terrible connections. About to have my 5th service call to address the same problem as my 1st service call. Every time I call the service department and they check my line they agree there is a problem and will be sending a tech. The tech comes out. Looks around, goes down into the basement, and then leaves. Nothing has changed. This time though I'm gonna go down into the basement and see for myself what the connections are like down there. On my 4th service call they didn't even come up to the apartment. According to them someone, who was neither me nor my girlfriend, told them everything was fine and so they left without even calling up to the apartment to make sure. Excellent job OOL! Blind monkeys could do a better job.
Update:
Finally the problem has been fixed (4/6/2007) by the techs in the OOL Direct forum, thanks very much to OOLTECH and halw. They did in two weeks what 5 service calls and two months of waiting failed to do. My service is now as it should be, nice and stable. I've upgraded my review ratings but they're still lower due to the fact that the service desk was not able to fix my problem. Connection reliability is also low because for 3 months the connection was terrible. The tech support score should be 5 stars for the forum people and 2 stars for the service desk. Increased services and value for money slightly.
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