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Review by marrr 
UPDATED: 193 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 3174 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Bridgeport,Fairfield,CT
 $64 per month
 "The Speed!"
 "None"
 "All that matters is SPEED!"
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(ratings above consensus)
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Ending up upgrading to boost along time ago and I love it.
A++++
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 Review by Anorexorcist
UPDATED: 194 days ago
member for 4.2 years, 350 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Stamford,Fairfield,CT
$50 per month
"Extremely fast and stable service"
"Some of the pre-sales & contractor tech staff aren't knowledgable or very professional"
"Optimum Online is a great service, offering fantastic speeds at a reasonable price"
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Since FiOS isn't available in my area the only other option I considered was DSL. However, in terms of speed available, there is no contest between DSL and Optimum. The savings gained with DSL isn't worth the loss of speed and stability that you get with Optimum Online.
Currently paying 49.95 a month for Cablevision's standard Optimum Online service. Starting 5/22 I will be paying $100 a month for Cablevision's Ultra service. Up to 101 mb/s down.
Initially a contractor installed my line and did a rather poor job. Cablevisio'n subsequently sent out a Cablevision employee (non contractor), he did a fantastic job.
I have Optimum Voice, I received a Webstar modem.
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 Review by HAFields
Posted: 202 days ago
member for 8.8 years, 140 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Riverside,Fairfield,CT
$60 per month
"Service is generally reliable and onsite support is very good"
"Initial installation was careless, after repairs, all is well"
"A little pricey, but reliability comes at a price."
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I've been an Optimum customer in two locations for about 5 years and have added Boost in the last few months. Generally, service is very reliable. When required, support onsite is usually available within 3-5 days. Like every ISP, some techs are top notch and very motivated to fix whatever is wrong. Others, are not.
I subsequently learned that during the initial install "box wire" was used to run cable service from the street box to my home. This degraded performance and had to be replaced. Boost helped.
All in all, well I find the service a bit pricey, I appreciate the reliability.
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Review by brmail
Posted: 203 days ago
member for 4.7 years, 244 visits, last login: 193 days ago
Brooklyn,Kings,NY
Contract price not specified.
 about 30 days
"boost service is really good, port 80 is open + spped as awesome"
"good service"
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Quick self installation. Web-site allow to open port 80 and 25 . 30Mbps/5Mbps speed is very good for the price. No problem so far
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 Review by kdshapiro
UPDATED: 204 days ago
member for 9.6 years, 2714 visits, last login: a few hours 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"
"Very satisfied with overall service"
| Pre Sales information:
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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.
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Review by bronxlcsw
UPDATED: 208 days ago
member for 4.1 years, 544 visits, last login: 6 days ago
Bronx,Bronx,NY
$29 per month (12 month contract)
about 2 days
"The fastest and most reliable ISP period. End of story."
"Are you kidding. This is the best thing since sliced bread."
"If you can get it then dont even bother with Verizon. Its the best deal period."
| Pre Sales information:
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May 6th 2009
Well Verizon fios became available and for economic reasons i made the switch to FIOS. However, i dont retract anything i previously wrote about OOL. They are still in my opinion the best and fastest internet available. This is even more true because they have started to offer 102MBS download. I will miss the high speeds and reliability.
July 4th 2008
Well I actually am in my 8th year with OOL and its been there 99.99 percent of the time. Even when i experimented with Directv and Dish Network i still remained loyal to OOL and Optimum Voice. There is nothing better period. End of story. Its simply the best. When other ISP providers are actively testing new bandwidth limits OOL keeps its promise of truly unlimited service. I will remain a loyal OOL customer even if FIOS comes to my block.
5/25/07 Well I moved and in order to get the triple play discount again my wife used her name for opening an account. As a result we have phone, internet and OOL internet. The boost service is what we have and its very very fast. 30mbs down and 5mbs up. On all the tests i get about 95% of advertised speed. Its amazing. I do alot of legal music downloading from yahoo music and can download say 100 songs in 10 minutes or less. The only issue i have is that the boost service comes with webhosting. The tools they give though are not to user friendly to computer novices.
Well after i posted the below review OOL decided to Boost speeds to compete with verizons upcoming FIOS service. I personally think they are overreacting because in NYC area where most residents live in apartment buildings Verizon has yet to come up with a viable plan to offer FIOS to MDUs. OOL has boost 30mbs down and 2mbs up. Its very reliable but due to recent upgrades there were outages that lasted several days. This was unfortunate but this has only happened once in 5 years. Speeds are close to advertised. Customer service is great if you know who to talk to. I usually ask a VIP for assistance on disconnects and he has been a blessing. I only wish the offerings from there video unit and VOIP was as good. I would sign up.
I had the service years ago when they started in yonkers. It was rock solid then and i actually thought speeds would decrease over time. They have not. What you see is what you get. close to adverstised speeds on a wireless g router nontheless.
Followup comments:  
BLUNTED 1
join:2003-11-13
Floral Park, NY
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Optimum Online
| OOL is not vetter than verizon i have tested verizon and OOL in the same house and fios beats it hands down if you want connectivity but if you want worse speeds and tech support then get ool but the speeds are not constant and you dont get 95% of the speed its more like 80% sometimes and 50% other times. it gets really bad sometimes and i even filed a complaint with the BBB about this so dont get OOL. | |
| ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16
Stratford, CT | paystub pls ? Cablevision should pay you for this advertisement.. oh, they probably already do. lol | |
| bronxlcsw
join:2005-09-21
Bronx, NY
·Verizon FIOS
·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| I Love Optimum Online Well i am one of those nuts that constantly tests the connection and i have never had lower than 95% of advertised speed. Look i hate cablevision because they rip you off with television service but i need to give credit where credit is due. Verizon may be better but i have no way of testing in my neighborhood (Pelham Bay Bronx) Only regular verizon 3/768 service. I am telling you what i experience on OOL service. I have no stocks or financial interest. | |
| |
BLUNTED 1
join:2003-11-13
Floral Park, NY
·Verizon FIOS
·Optimum Online
| Re: I Love Optimum Online my friend lives in the bronx and he has problems just like everyone i know has problems with OOL. sometimes its good and sometimes its bad and it does this every week but for $45 a month its a good deal. i'm just saying verizon is better and more stable for everyone rather than some OOL nodes getting more users and getting slower speeds.
i'm also sorry to say i bet you dont always get that speed because everyone in the bronx doesnt get that from all the speed tests i looked at in the speedtest list so post some test to prove it. OOL SUCKS FOR CONSISTENT SPEEDS AND THEY DO NOT GUARANTEE THE SPEEDS THEY OFFER SO YOU CAN GET HALF OF THAT SPEED AND IT IS FINE WITH THEM CAUSE IT IS UP TO SPEEDS. | |
| NYC Girl
Premium
join:2007-02-04
Bronx, NY | I Love OOL Too :) FIOS is going to be too expensive.  I live in a new building and I don't think they will rip out Cablevision for Fios anyway. | |
| | 
bhan261
join:2001-02-12
New York, NY
| Re: I Love OOL Too :) said by NYC Girl :FIOS is going to be too expensive. I live in a new building and I don't think they will rip out Cablevision for Fios anyway. They probably won't rip out Cablevision. Our building was wired by RCN after Time Warner had already wired it. I'm assuming Verizon will also be allowed in the building if they ask. | |
| | | NYC Girl
Premium
join:2007-02-04
Bronx, NY
·Optimum Online
 ·Optimum Voice
| Re: I Love OOL Too :) said by bhan261 :said by NYC Girl :FIOS is going to be too expensive. I live in a new building and I don't think they will rip out Cablevision for Fios anyway. They probably won't rip out Cablevision. Our building was wired by RCN after Time Warner had already wired it. I'm assuming Verizon will also be allowed in the building if they ask. This is true, thanks! | |
| 
Bobcat
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL
| Your review made me laugh quote:
If you can get it then dont even bother with Verizon. Its the best deal period.
Well Verizon fios became available and for economic reasons i made the switch to FIOS.
So much for OOL being "the best deal". Ha, ha.
Cablevision sucks donkey balls.
--
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. | |
| | | |
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 Review by SSidlov
UPDATED: 208 days ago
member for 9.7 years, 1548 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Pompton Lakes,Passaic,NJ
$54 per month
about 1 days
"Connection is VERY Fast; with Boost network more stable"
"Cable is shared access; OOL has highest penetration in US"
"If speeds the thing, Cablevision's OOL can provide it. For more $$ they will be full service ISP/Host"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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5/4/09 -- I just upgraded to Boost once I was assured that my area has been upgraded to DOCSIS 3.0 (Not that Boost is Docsis 3, but that the upgrade wouldn't be a PITA while the system was reworked with new boards, etc. I have a wrt54GL that's overclocked to 250 (safe, no extra cooling) and with the SPI still turned ON, I can get 30mbps. This is fine, my wireless seems faster too (though I know that seems silly.) I'm hoping that they redefine the Boost tier to a higher speed soon, just like they did when Boost was introduced and they added 5mb/3mb to the old OOL service. I think 35 or 40 would be nice, I would have to buy a new router, though to support that throughput.
Speaking of wireless, OOL has put in WIFI all along my town's main street, and it covers the HS and middle school, too. I noticed the network about 3 months before it turned on officially. You use your OOL email id to log in. From what I hear it makes all the kids with the wifi phones and netbooks happy.
OOL has not changed the basic pricing for OOL for years now. It has begun to offer Tiered services, Boost was the first new tier and now finally after much talk and false starts Ultra (101/15 mbps). Boost is only an additional $10 if you have OV services else it's $15. Ultra is an amazing $99. If I had to run servers at home (and I can with boost) Ultra is certainly a thought for someone who always needs to get something from the host fast or even for a small business.
In the meanwhile, the service is (in my neighborhood) reasonably stable, sure like most cable connections, as the neighborhood ages and the neighbors become more sophisticated in their internet usage, primetime service speeds lower. There were moments when I couldn't clock 5mbps on the regular service, which is not really bad, but not the 15mbs that we're paying for. Anyway with Boost, that seems to drop to about 22mbps, still worthwhile. THere are often complaints that CV doesn't split the areas when they become oversaturated, but I know that's not the case, as CV finally put the 160 townhouses behind my property on a separate box as a part of the docsis 3 upgrades. Even my non-boost service improved when they did that.
Finally, CV is against metered internet. I am always happy to hear that and happy that I am not in a ATT, TW or Comcast area where they seem to keep talking about this as a viable standard. This is an attempt to go back to the very early days of computer usage and bill you for your cpu time. CompUServe used to bill $25/hr prime time for what would seem extremely slow speeds. (I used to have a 300 baud and a 1200 baud half duplex modem to dial up with - cost $500 back in the 80's but then so did a 10mb hard drive.)
11/1/07 - 6 YEARS! TIme flies. OOL continues to make me a liar by announcing that there will not be any increase in rates for the OOL service. But still after all this time , the newserver still sucks, and email can vanish or be unreasonably delayed. CAPS however, seem to have vanished as no one has posted having them in a while, and I'm running my BT uploads not at full throttle but at a healthy 50KB. Boost is looking good to me for the bigger mailboxes (assuming I can get the mail in the first place). While the FIOS people are announcing synmetrical services, the complaints about rate increases, customer service and instability in the FIOS network are increasing. We all await what will happen if CV gets purchased by someone not the Dolans, the complaints about TW and Comcast are about things we don't want to have here.
8/8/07 - After 3 years, they have not changed the pricing, but they have improved the service. Tiered pricing has arrived, but they offer no cheaper tier and more services with higher speed (and priced) tiers. Can we expect to see even faster base tiers? It all depends on FIOS. Some people say that this is a issue for those areas with it, but with FIOS's extra fees (they are a Telco which has to charge the taxes, etc that CV is exempt from), some people are switching back. My area got split/rewired to support some townhouses they put in behind me, so my speeds and service are not bad at all, most of the time. CV continues to have the highest penetration. It's a shame they can't do better in apartment houses and coops where wiring is always an issue.
4/7/06 - Higher speeds have ben applied to the network and the normal user can expect to get 2mb upload and 13+mb downloads. Boost service which is 30mb download and 2mb upload is also available for up to $15 extra depending on what other CV services you subscribe to. Both Boost and the normal upgrade may require you to upgrade your equiptment. Some of CV's older cablemodems are not capable of the new speeds. For the first time "B" wireless networks will be slower than the Wan connection. Many routers can not handle more than 10mb WAN connections. Even if they can the SPI and other firewall and antivirus/spam functions on the router or your computer will trim that down. As an example, a new version 6 NetGear MR614 Wireless G will only produce 5mb downloads with the SPI firewall enabled, and 9mb without. It claims a 100mb wan port but doesn't have the processing power to do the upgrade. Linksys WRT54G (version 4 and earlier) can be loaded with third party firmware to give up to 28mb without the SPI firewall, and 18mb or so with. There are a couple Dlink's that claim 60mb throughput (gamer models) with SPI enabled, and you may need these to get the 30mb throughput. Additionally, the 30mb throughput people are being put on a different frequency range than the regular net folks. This is very good news as the heavy users may not clog the network as much, but the 2mb upload is the same all around so, perhaps people think that they can still upload without regard to anyone else. Capping is still being done, so beware.
At least with Boost they are starting to offer decent services which is why I upgraded the ratings. You can register a domain name with OOL, have your own mail server, FTP, HTTP server. Ports 25 and 80 are opened (but I think I read somewhere that you have to ask first).15, 1 Gigabyte mail boxes for your mail and 10 @yourdomain.xxx accounts (using thier server). Additionally, they will give you 300mb of web space These features are only with the additional cost Boost service. It makes them more comparible to the DSL service that is offered by Verizon in this area.
FWIW: I was capped again....a very long discussion with the 'unlock team' and the fact that I have 6 computers connected here, brought them to say that 15-17kps will keep you from ever being capped....but BT works fine with this though your ratios are blown and seeding is a joke....makes you wonder how the server stuff is going to be handled and what's the limit on that....(I read/heard 130kps but the capping people said they were not aware of any difference between regular service and Boost customers...)
2/3/06 -- Still awaiting the faster speeds here, but increasingly the network is able to handle uploads better and longer. The main reason for this is the 128kbs minimum that VOIP needs to work well. CV has stablized the network to provide this minimum upload. They may do it by limiting your download temporarily if you have constant upload. Email is still slower than it could be. I haven't tried news servers in months....
Capping seems to be back in full, they cap you now to 140kbs on the upload leg. You can still download, but what happens is that the repsonse time from the DNS servers is so bad during peak hours and your response to web servers makes them respond slowly. I think that it's not a issue of upload values as I admit to uploads at 50kps which is under the cap amout, but that you are flooding the upstream links with BT connections comming and going.
12/13/05 -- Well, I'm not the first to report it, but they have announced a 50% increase in the basic speed for everyone to 15/2mps at no price increase. For $9 -$14 more a month, they will give you 30mbs download service. I swapped my old SB4100 modem out for the SB5100 series to be ready when they get to my area. Should be completed in July '06.
CV has held the prices steady for 3 years now. The new Tier services aka Boost represent the first increases, but you will get double the standard speed.
With that 30mbs service you can host a FTP, HTTP or mail server too. Uploads are limited to 128kps. Might as well get a real hosting service if you want to do more than put up some photos of the kids..I have GIGS of photos on Kodaks web site and it costs nothing, I just have to buy a few prints now and then.
They have upgraded the mail server software to the newest SUN package, it seems much better and faster, but they also have many more mail-stores than in the past.
News services are farmed out and sometimes really really slow under well under 100kbs. I've pretty much given up on them.
3/10/05 - Many of the OOL users updated and revised thier reviews downward. The entire Unhappy Camper list on the front page of DSLR was OOL. The cap disapeared. Some speculate it was a system problem, but if it was, then I, at least, think that they would have admitted it, they could have garnered sympathy. Yesterday, Verizon announced officially which towns would have FIOS before the end of the year. Wycoff, Franklin Lakes, Oakland are the towns nearest me. Except for Passaic, Verizon has cherry picked the most affluent towns in Bergen County. I wonder when and if they will do Pompton Lakes.
3/09/05 - Well, I haven't been updating this, there simply wasn't that much new to comment on. But, now there is:
UNANNOUNCED AUTOMATED THROTTLE NOW ON OOL. IF you have a serious download - say a Linux distro -- and it takes over 10 mintues, you will find that you will go into a pattern of full speed for 10 minutes, 3mb for 10 minutes. Very annoying.
Capping: I believe that capping is strickly based on complaints from other on the same node as you and/or flooding of CV's servers by requests to connect with your active BT due to incorrectly configured software on your machine. Once you get capped however, your node is added to a monitoring list making it harder to used P2P software. FWIW: I have been capped twice now, once for 100kbs and once for 50kbs running over an hour. Since I am collecting certain shows as they are released, I can usually get them in 15-20 minutes. The techs who restarted my service said that you can't do it continously for an hour, and you should take a break. I believe that there are software packages that will do this kind of stop and start TCPIP on windows and linux distros.
2/5/04- I still don't understand how some people can claim that they are getting good service with the news server, my non-windows programs for scanning the programs (which are RFC compliant) simply can't connect for very long 1-2 minutes). Moz will connect and download everything, but I don't want that as I have programs to strip out the mime and put the UUE stuff together for me.
12/04/04 - Current Status: well if you take the time to read what I've posted in the past, one of my posts about the outsourcing of the news server has actually happened. Unfortunatly they picked some service, I forget which, which totally sucks. I have a couple automated newsreaders that check on a time schedule and will plow through entire newsgroups looking for downloads, and although they can connect once they've plowed through a few hundred messages (mostly the spam) they stall, and don't actually download anything. Mozilla seems to work fine, but I don't have the time. So on this basis, I still downgraded OOL's news services. Even text groups are affected by this lousy connection policy.
Mail for me has been about the same. The bulk folder still doesn't work. They have a nice touch with the home page for OOL
and a sign on cookie that will say "You have mail" and tell you the number of messages, however, I find that this is not always correct as when I go to my non-windows computer which is constantly polling my multiude of email accounts every few minutes, and ask it to download the nn messages that the OOL home page claims, there are none. and it wasn't downloaded in the prior automated session either. There must be some sort of sync problem between the two machines.
Speed is still the thing, but it is totally possible that like most people who live in areas with a high acceptance of OOL, and Optimum Voice, that you are experiencing slowdowns. Lots of people are complaining on the boards.
OOL needs serious improvement to thier DNS servers. They are too slow, and overworked. I was getting way too may 404's on major sites. I stopped using them by changing my router to use other DNS servers.
DSL has been improved and if you are under 10K feet from the CO you may be able to get 3mb service from Verizon for $15/mo less than OOL. If you fall into this category, I would say go for it, as Verizon doesn't seem to have the complaints regarding the news server, etc. I will mention that Verizon has removed some binary groups from thier service according to some articles I've read.
Right now, I get 5-7mb service most of the time. But if your cables are loose, waterlogged, weather/animal damaged, etc, you won't get those speeds. In a lot of areas the wiring in the streets is damaged. Complain have CV come and fix it, it will improve your cable television services too. And I've run BT software uploading several gigs over a few days (emphasis on DAYS) at a time limited to 40kb/sec total without being bricked. There still is no official posted policy for bricking, and I suppose at this point they will never publish one, as only a few people uploading will ruin the node for an entire neighborhood.
What to look for in the future? Well, Verizon has started putting out FIOP to a number of neighborhoods in the OOL territory. This may force OOL to do the upgrade to DOSCIS v2 which will double the speeds. This will be expensive for CV but since it will not require rewiring not as drawn out as the original rollout. Just a chip/board change on all those silver boxes in the streets out there. I don't see much in the way of price changes as $50 is sort of the max that most people will pay, and they are sorely jealous of the $29 intro pricing.
------ Original Review 12/2001-------------
In mid-December 2001, I braved the Mall crowds (it was crowded here in Northern NJ), went to the Wiz (a cablevision company) and purchased a $99 modem with a $29.95/12 mo contract for OOL.
When I got home, unpacked the modem, plugged it into my router (I already had DSL) and reconfigured that router for OOL rather than PPPoE, it was up and running at about 2 MB/sec. I spent a couple days re-tweaking each machine for the faster OOL. I was rewarded with 4mb/sec at each box. I had cable running from my living room to the home office, but it worked.
A visit to the Cablevison Customer Service department, and I got a bi-directional amp to compensate for my wanting to put the modem on the 3rd split in my house. Amp cost $26.00, and they gave me two splitters free.
I had the CV people come and put in a new drop in my office, that was free. Took a week to get them to come, they came one time and left in less than an hour.
After the tweaking and in my final setup, I generally get 5-6mb. I had to upgrade the firmware on the router to attain that speed. I think that's pretty good for 3 splits, an amp and a SMC Barricade router. No complaints. If you check out the OOL speed charts here, you will find that most people are getting 3.5mb, and that is the level of service that you will find getting official help from OOL will end at. Like most Help Desk people they are only really knowledgeable about Windows ? I run OS/2 on one box.
When I don't get that kind of throughput, it drops to about half. Why? Well, maybe someone is running too many peer2peer servers or game servers and unlike DSL what the other person in your neighborhood does, can affect your speed. But frankly, 2.5mb is fine; when it drops to 80K it's annoying. If this happens your best bet is to visit the LIOPTONLINE mail list at yahoogroups.com. OOL techs and IT people participate in that mailing list, and have been willing to check out a connection (remotely) after normal hours to see if there are problems in your network segment, and turn that information over to the proper OOL Network people.
The only other problem is that pricing. I wish I had signed for a two-year contract at the time. At the end of December OOL announced a price increase. Cablevison is/has been notorious for rate increases. On the other hand, they have upgraded the whole system to fiber, and are in the process of rolling out digital (more money for the setup boxes). With my OOL, the bill is going to be a bit over a hundred a month, and I have the lowest qualifying tier of service for a reduced rate on OOL.
Verizon, with whom I had my DSL account, honored my pricing after the contract ran out and they raised rates. Yes, it wasn't as fast, but after it was working (a month in my case) and Verizon fixed their network, it was very reliable and consistent, but 1/10th the speed of the cable.
======UPDATE after nearly 6 months===============
1. Again OOL is all about SPEED, not much else matters, and as long as your neighborhood network node is not overloaded (there are reports of some being overloaded with a result being severe slowdowns) you can tweak up your machine and get great download speeds. Remember however, that OOL's speeds are within the OOL network, and that means that you are only as fast as the outside net, you may be able to get 10/mb downloads from OOL's server, but you will be lucky to find web sites that can give you that web page faster than 300K in the normal course of things. YMMV.
2. Like every ISP startup, OOL has not been able to provide great service beyond the connection so, there have been many complaints about the news server which is overloaded (they only allow two connections at the same time) and they have limited space allocations. For some busy TEXT newsgroups there may only be a day's postings forcing you to visit daily.
3. Unlike other ISPs OOL does not offer any web space. If you were looking to share family photos without the bloat that sending them by email causes, OOL is not the place and you'll have to find some other service on the web to share.
4. OOL blocks port 80 and servers are against the TOS.
5. OOL has no web based access to thier email server. You must configure a email client (e.g. Outlook, Pandora, Netscape, PMMail2000, etc.). [A Web Interface has been installed, see later portions of this review.- SBS]
6. OOL has no dial-up when the service is out. I was offline from OOL for 30 hours after severe weather moved through my region. This also means that if you travel and want to connect you can't. I have an account with another ISP that offers dialup, web space and email scanning so that I can make up for the missing services. [OOL offers OOL Traveler, an extra charge dialup service, see later portions of the review. - SBS]
7. OOL is owned by a company notorious for annual rate increases. Shortly after I got OOL the pricing for the service went up $10 a month. Non-cablevision subscribers pay up to $49 a month for the service, and a lot of subscribers feel that for the speed that you get that's all that matters. When you signup for OOL take the longest contract (usually 2 years) that you can purchase, you won't be sorry.
========update 6/16/02==================
OOL has been spending a lot of time and money upgrading the News Server which I complained about in the update. The text groups (at least those that I follow) now have about a week's worth of postings. Downloads are capped apparently based on the load/time of day around 500K. Connections are still capped at 1 or two connections.
At this time, there has been a lot of discussion on the Yahoo Group LIOPTONLINE regarding what to do about this with some OOL executives. In todays world, a bit less than 500 Gig of news feeds are appearing daily, the vast majority of them in what are refered to as the "Binaries" groups. This information is usually copyrighted materials that are being pirated, and there is discussion if this should be treated differently than the text groups so that more text can be stored and retrieved at higher speeds. Interesting stuff and based on the posted discussion, I didn't realize that there were people who download many gigabytes daily collecting old tv shows and movies.
On another point, the issues are still the same, no matter how fast OOL is on it's own network, either the web itself, caps at the originating sites or OOL's multiple connections to thier backbone provider is not enough to give anything really remarkable outside thier network. And as CV (OOL's parent company) rolls out it's IO digital TV services over the same network, I believe that we will see some degrading of the service for the 'pure' internet.
Update ===== 7/30/02 ==========
1. Improvement in news server? Well, the text groups are getting even more space. Want to download any binaries? Go elsewhere or plan on doing it daily with a program that hold incomplete binary parts for a few days. (News Harvest is one.)
2. I upgraded my router (I have three PC's connect, and a print server) to a newer model, and I get the full 10mb that OOL can offer. Still 5mb is normal for me. You must spend time to tweak your PCs. You may need to re-tweek after installing any communications type software.
3. OOL and DSLREPORT members still promote the KISS method of install, put your cable modem behind the very first split. This is not always possible, and you can still get great speeds. My modem is behind the 3rd split. I have an OOL approved bi-directional amp just before the second split. Works great. I get the full bore download at times when the network isn't busy.
4. OOL has live support via the web. That service doesn't support anything but windows operating systems. Phone Live support can be more helpful on an indivdual basis, but policy is not to help once you are above 3mb and/or not at all on a non-Windows system.
5. Watch out for the Wiz trying to get rid of older cable modems. The Motorola 4100 Surfboards are better than a lot of the other models except for the TeraJet.
6. Take a contract. The no contract option exposes you to all rate increases OOL may wish to make. There is no uility board in NJ to protect you.
==========UPDATE 1/3/03=====================================
1. My contract has run out. My new rate will be $44.95 a month as of a couple days from now.
2. Web mail is now availble for free. Some functions work best with Internet Explorer due to OCX or other MS only functions.
3. For an additional cost you can have travel access to OOL. There are special conditions for the charges that you should investigate. A cheap 9.95 dialup may be better.
4. News server is better, but still not great.
5. Mail server is better but still not great or 100% reliable and still very slow at sending out email and getting it. They have added Brightmail and virus scanning.
6. Continued price increases.
7. Caps. What they are, who knows? But if OOL detects (they use a program) that you are uploading too much or too long, they will put a temporary cap in place. You have to beg Customer Service to have it removed. Takes 2 days I hear.
8. CV has done a heavy rollout of thier digital service (iO) which also uses DOCIS as it's basis. There may be more shared bandwidth issues where they have implimented QOS protocols however, the upstream packets are few are far between. Same for VOIP service.
9. Still no webspace.
10. When I had my iO (digital cable) installed, they had to replace several segments of cable inside and outside my home. That resulted in a 7db improvement of the signal. The bi-directional amp was moved to just prior to the Cablemodem where I have fantastic signal strength without damaging my iO connections.
11. The CV people who are on the LIOPTONLINE and Cablevision_digital groups at Yahoo Groups are fantastic. They have been of serious help when the inital installs have been bad. (My mom got OOL at her house and the install was botched.)
======5/15/03 Update================
1. Speed is still the thing.
2. CV went back to the $10 discount monthly from the $5 they had imposed, so my monthly is back down to $39.95.
3. Mail is faster, but the Brightmail (spam filter) is NOT 100% -- an opt out function has never worked from Day One. You must use the Web Mail function to clear out your Bulk Mail folder or you may waste your 20mb mail space with SPAM before it drops the email after 30 days.
4. News server is sporadic. People who are downloading GIGABYTES of data to make DVD's of shows and such complain all the time. If you are looking for more standard fare there are still thousands of binaries available. News server speeds are also very variable ranging from the slow 12K to more respectable speeds.
5. OOL now has 852K subscribers. December 2001 there was only 150K. What growth! IT can also be used as an excuse for the poor other services.
6. The answer to the 'why do some people get capped?" question has not been aswered. Also the why doesn't iO (digital cable) have more HD channels and how many more could be added without CV upgrading the hardware is also not answered. CV has a strange customer relation policy, similar to the one where the customer is treated like a mushroom - kept in the dark and fed manure.
======Update 11/01/03 ============================
1. SPEED, SPEED, SPEED, OOL manages to keep the speed coming, but won't tell anyone what the caps are for uploading.
2. ONE MILLION OOL CUSTOMERS!!! Tremenous growth, but maybe not enough invenstment in the services other than the main transport.
3. OOL has upgraded thier mail server hardware, it still sucks, but it has moments when it works correctly, and quickly.
4. SpamAway appears to have been updated/fixed according to reports, elsewhere. However in 5 email accounts that get over 100 spam messages a day, no email has ever been id'd by SpamAway as being spam! ON the webmail portion of the mail service, they have added an icon that moves selected email to the bulk folder. Items in the Bulk Folder only last a day. I have never seen anything in the bulk folder that I didn't put there.
5. News server? Surely you jest, it is slow, my backup ISP's news server is just as fast and it's a dialup service.
6. My rate went back up to $45 a month. I get a $5 discount for subscribing to iO CV's digital TV service. January is not that far off, and that's when CV puts the screws to it's customers. a holiday tradition. Between the iO and OOL service we pay over $120/mo to CV. $1,440 a year -- how much more can they soak us for? Well, that's the January Surprise we're waiting for.
====Update 4/24/04================
The January Surprise was an modest increase in the CV portion of the bill, OOL has stayed at $45/mo after the $5 iO discount.
I am only going to write about two items this turn, Mail and News.
Why I downgrade OOL on these services so much? I get 12,000 emails a month including SPAM which is running 33-45% overall but almost 95% on OOL accounts. Since most of my communication is via email -- reliable filtering, reliable delivery and reception of email is critical. As it stands, I route 80% of my email to my DIALUP email account instead of OOL's mail server, because it's faster and more reliable. Faster? Why is it faster? It's faster because when I'm on the phone with someone and I need to send a file, I can do it, and they can recieve it while I'm on the phone with them, OOL's server has not been as fast and that reduces the impact of my call. OOL also appears to have problems getting off of Black Lists and as soon as they are off of one, they end up on another. Cable affords me a 24/7 connection, and my client email program runs and gets email on all of my accounts 24/7, every 2 minutes. My DIALUP ISP can filter out all viruses accurately, they have an ADJUSTABLE spam filter, that I can change the parameters of so I have it set at 90% likely that email is spam, I could make it 91 or 99 percent likely. OOL doesn't allow the same functions. OOL can't get the bulk folder working correctly. It is therefore not reliable since it may false positive my email. It ain't just about speed, and I have to pay $20/mo more to be comfortable with my email service.
Mail -- well they attempted to return to the practice of moving Spam to the BULK Folder which you can only see when you use the Web Mail interface. It worked for about a week or two, now nothing. I strongly recommend that you put Anti-spam filters on your PC's email program (or use Mozilla or Netscape's Tools which has a 'baysnean' filter which usually work very well) and turn of the SpamAway on your account. Although you will have a dramatic increase in the number of emails, you will be able to at least review the spam for errors in detection. Even with SpamAway turned on and properly moving the email to the Bulk Folder, you would have to remember to use the web interface every couple of days to prevent dropoff.
I think that OOL has two issues they have to solve, and that is how do they allow every account to possibly accumulate 20mb of spam and then roll off only a few mb per day or get more people to use the Web Interface.
As far as the Web Interface goes, it's improving. Take a look at the OPTIONS page, you can set it up to require spell checking, the address book is okay but there is no way to coordinate it with your own address books. They finally fixed the errors that appeared when you used a non-Microsoft browser to access it.
News: what can I say? In my humble opinion (IMHO), it is WORSE than ever and it is at the point of being TOTALLY UNUSABLE. I use my dialup ISP's newserver which serves via the web at the SAME RATE OF TRANSFER (but with consistent speeds and no breaks from the server) as OOL's, and they only have 40,000 customers, not 3.5 million. OOL needs to rethink news services and how they can best continue servicing thier customer base. Outsourcing may be the way to get rid of the headache that Usenet feeds have become. OOL makes enough money, and they can use the hardware dedicated to the news server to upgrade the mail servers.
FWIW: I upgraded my 4 port router to 8 ports. I have a wireless AP too for the laptops. My oldest PC a k6-III 400Mhz died and a new P4 2.4G w/800mhz FSB and ATA133 drives has just arrived.
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Review by psbny
UPDATED: 209 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 1153 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Peekskill,Westchester,NY
Contract price not specified. (12 month contract)
"adequate speed, good price as part of a promotion"
"slows down too often due to other users on node"
"better to call it adequate online instead of optimum"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
no real complaints as i knew what i was getting when i signed up. decided it was worth the decrease in price to deal with congestion at peak times during the day. I'm actually now looking forward to when they yank the promotional price so I can go back to FiOS.
forgot to add that my wife was home when the install was done and the tech screwed up my whole home network by disconnecting my fios router. i guess he thought that it was a modem and couldn't be used as just a router which it can since that's all it is, a router.
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Review by jmc56
UPDATED: 210 days ago
member for 280 days, 6 visits, last login: 210 days ago
Stamford,Fairfield,CT
$205 per month
"Using Optimum Boost with blazing fast sometimes."
"Incredibly slow up and down - sometimes"
"Better than the competition, usually. But a pain in the neck on circuit problmes."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
Today 5/3/2008, service is so so for Optimum Boost, roughly 3.3 to 4.1 mbps upload and testing in or around the 22mbps on dsl reports. One speedtest.net, it indicates being over 30 and 5. The quality of the service has become somewhat better in the last month.
We had a tech out to check earlier internal connects (done by cablevision) and who also took a look at the house to street connects. Added a booster at house entry, cleaned and checked connects outside. several were replaced. Television works better. He said there was one change he would have made had he done the install (we've been top tier a long time). He noted the change but noted it in service report.
A neighbor had a similar problem except worse, sufficient that service made a change of equipment at the street, not certain what. There's been significantly better luck with Boost. FWIW, someone questioned the service rate I used. The figure of more than $205 includes Boost, telephone and television. The rates for the first year are lowballed and go up quite sharply.
Earlier, noted Uploads from OPT for several weeks dropped from a peak of about 5,000 or a bit more. LaA tests show it to be 0011 and 38. - for close by servers.
It's not just one day, but for about a month, unacceptable. Optonline has simply disappeared some of the time.. It wakes for a time, then slows down from before. Somehing like a loose connection or overloaded.
I've had Optimum Boost fsince shortly after it was released. Have used op data, telephone and cable service, since it was available. No real complaints about phone and tube. It's the g-d screwing around the circuits and crap.
There is a loser who keeps posting claims that I've exaggerated the cost of OOL. The blank for monthly cost says "include all charges." That's exactly what I did. It was clear by the context the bill include telephone and TV.
I assumed that people with average intelligence understood that Cablevision sold its Optimum services as either stand alone or bundled. I have a bundled package - television, VOIP, and Optimum boost, plus a DVR. The price now is about $211 for "triple play" which is advertised against FiOS bundles. That's after the end of promotional pricing. If you look at this moment at the Optimum site, you'll see a pitch for all three in the Triple Play.
We view the Optimum products as a unit for a SOHO. It seems OOL has problems more frequently in some areas than in others. We've lost all service for up to three days, completely so that the UPS for the modem didn't help. It's only happened once.OpT added some additional backup power packs.
Followup comments: sharksfan3
Premium
join:2004-02-16
Poughkeepsie, NY | $205 per month for Optimum Online?
BS! | |
| | jmc56
Premium
join:2009-02-22
·Optimum Online
| Re: $205 per month No, Bullshit is what an idiot does when he doesn't know what he's talking about, but still shoots straight from the mouth, bypassing brain. You could have been more polite and I might not have such low regard.
I am a Triple-Play customer of Optimum for several years and a long time customer of Cablevision before. That means for the unwashed that I have full telephone service, Optonline with Boost and full iO television including a DVR.
As a long time customer, I get the privilege of paying more per month than do the new signups who pay 29.99 for each of the three services. Add boost to that and a DVR You have just passed the promotional first tier price you get for a year to more than $100. I pay $211 a month. When I works right, it's good and its better on the cost of telephone service.
Cablevision doesn't go out of its way to mention that the price roughly doubles after the first year. It's actually a bit worse because the price increases usually apply only to veteran customers. As far as it goes, they're pretty good, much better than the days when I switched to satellite and happily dropped off their boxes. Fwiw, it's still better than cable plus tel from the bell people.
I'm with cable because Verizon (or whoever took over SNET) was doing what the cable guy usually does, choked my dial service (that far back) and afer a couple of years of okay service throttled it down from 56k to 14400 and said it met their tarriff.
But like I said, you don't know what you're talking about. | |
| | | sharksfan3
Premium
join:2004-02-16
Poughkeepsie, NY | Re: $205 per month Your review was for OPTIMUM ONLINE. You do NOT pay $205 per month for OOL.
OOL =/= iO =/= OV | |
| | | | jmc56
Premium
join:2009-02-22
·Optimum Online
| Re: $205 per month Stop being a jerk and stop posting silly flames. You've crossed over the line into personal harassment with your simple minded idiocy. I get a single bill for Optimum services. If your bill is smaller, good for you and get lost.
the triple play, as a premium product, is priced as a package and the price includes all three. You do not peel out something for an idiot who has some kind of personal fixation I don't intend to pander to. FIOS is selling its product as a unified package.
Verison and Cablevision understand what they're doing. That you don't is your problem. The three services are related and it's not all that unlikely you can lose two or all three at once.
No one misunderstands this in the context of the review. The package as a whole is important to me. If it's not to you, then just get up and walk somewhere else. I'm not interested in anything you have to say. Stop. Cease. Desist. Get Lost. Find somewhere else to sputter. | |
| | | |
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 Review by Jeffrey
UPDATED: 215 days ago
member for 6.9 years, 2671 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Huntington Station,Suffolk,NY
$40 per month
about 17 days
"Price, uptime, ease of exchanging broken equipment"
"customer service, internal/external/environmental changes effect speed"
"Excellent speeds if you do your homework and everythng is wired properly."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection Reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
4/28/09 Update:
Via the use of the Cablevision Direct forum here, my Boost ordering problem is fixed. After weeks (since 3/7/09) of the run-around on the phone with the representatives unsure why my modem would go offline as soon as Boost was ordered, the issue has been resolved.
Technican came to the house the evening of 4/27 to investigate. Found bad tap, stripped RG6 leading to first and only splitter in my garage, which also was bad. Replaced what needed to be replaced, and now the speeds are FULL Boost speeds. The technician took merely an hour to assess the situation, run new lines from the street to my garage. He ran one of the lines right for the cable modem and the other line leading to my one splitter for the TVs.
A speed test on 4/28/09 displayed:
down - 31718 kbps
up - 5105kbps
Solid. Truth be told, these are higher speeds on my parent's current Fios connection.
Excellent work, and review changed to reflect recent CV performance.
4/22/2009 Update
Over the last 2 months, the connection seems a little better. Two outages since I signed up in late December 2008. Web browsing speeds have improved, and there has been no slowdowns in peak times that impact any sort of normal usage on our part. If this is a change from my use of OpenDNS, or just that congestion problems don't affect my neighborhood, I don't know.
The only issue I have had will hopefully be corrected soon. On 3/7/09, I tried to order Boost. Chatted with a technician online, who said he'd order Boost for my account. I waited for a few hours, and Boost speeds did not show up. I then chatted back, and they saw a problem and suggested I call tech support. So, I called tech support and asked for Boost. The technician saw the issue, enabled Boost, and then the modem lost sync and couldn't regain it. This was my first outage. After an hour of watching the modem try and regain sync, I called back and CV confirmed that Boost was enabled on my line. I explained that while not on Boost, I had a good connection. With Boost enabled, my modem appears to lose sync. So, I asked that Boost be removed. Representative said OK, and my modem regained sync.
A week ago, my bill shows I'm being charged for Boost. So, I called support on 4/12 and asked to have the charges reversed. The rep said they would, and after a week, the charges still were on the bill. So, at this point, I figured as long as I am being charged for it and the charges seem unable to be removed, I figured I'd try and get Boost. Posted to the CV Direct forum here on DSLReports, and a technician has to make a housecall to fix whatever needs fixing.
If the Boost speeds can occur, and this problem is resolved, I'd have to say I'm pretty happy with CV and their Optimum Online product. The customer service is sometimes spotty, and while I haven't had the best of luck, Optimum Online has been much better at this address than my old address.
*** NEW review at a different address ***
If you have read my review below, you may be wondering why I'm back with CV. Well, let me do some explaining. The review below was for my old address where I did have CV for the times described. I did get Fios at that address, and you can read my review of that separately. I recently moved to a non-Fios area, so I am back with CV, and this review will be as accurate and as honest as possible.
My fiancee and I moved into our new home in December 2008. Realizing that Fios was not in our area yet, and that I did not want the hassle of Dish or DirecTV, I elected to subscribe to CV's "triple play" package. There has been some good, and some bad, and I'll explain below.
It took about 17 days from making the call to sign up to actually get the technician to the house to start service. During this time, I tried to do what I could to ensure that I would have the best connection. Remembering my previous service with CV, I wanted to do things the right way the first time, so that any issues I had could not be related to anything inside my house.
So, I rewired my entire house with RG6 and cat5e. I replaced the 2-way splitter that the previous owners had in the garage where the main line came in with an identical 2-way splitter. On one of those "outs", I ran a brand new RG6 cable to a new 3-way splitter. At this 3-way splitter, I ran new RG6 to three rooms where there would (eventually) be TVs. Now, back in the garage at the 2-way splitter, I ran a new RG6 from the "2nd out" to my basement's patch panel and router, and where the modem would go when CV showed up. I then wired 5 rooms with cat5e, and terminated everything at my patch panel.
On 12/27/08, CV was scheduled to come between 2pm and 4pm. I took a half-day from work, and got home at noon. Long story short, 4PM came and went and I called customer support. They said the tech was "on the way". 6PM comes and goes, tech not here. CV still says the tech is coming. At 8PM the tech called and said he'd be here in 30 mins. He showed up at 8:20PM.
He quickly hooked up our HDDVR and a regular box, both of which worked and gave a great picture. He then hooked up the modem, and the signal was apparently good enough and everything was ok. He was about to leave before properly hooking up Optimum Voice, and he for whatever reason didn't want to hook it into my phone connection outside the house, so we just plugged it into an existing RJ-11 port inside and backfed the rest of the ports in the house. Since I barely use the phone, this was acceptable.
Upon seeing my caller ID, name name was spelled wrong, which is still wrong to this day, regardless of how many times I call customer support.
The video picture is great, although our DVD crapped out within the first few days and I had to exchange it. The replacement works fine, no problems.
The Internet is basically what I expected. It's adequate, but I wouldn't call it fantastic by any means. Jitter is relatively low, but still disrupts some of my Vonage calls. Latency is about what is expected. Initially, I had some terrible issues regarding slowness when viewing websites, but a change to OpenDNS seemed to have solved that. Speeds are exactly as advertised, although during peak ours it's not consistent. I'm on the 15/2 plan, and between 12AM and 2PM I do get that most of the time. In other times, I'm lucky to get 10/1.
I'd pay the extra $10/month for Boost, but it seems many CV customers with Boost are having lots of packet loss issue at the moment, possibly related to DOCSIS 3 deployment issues, so for now, I am not subscribing to Boost.
Unlike Verizon, up-time hasn't been 100% but it's been darn close.
Here is the bottom line. No where near as good as Fios, but it's better than DSL. Right now, I have one foot out the door, and have already contacted Fios (and received a response from Fios Engineering) that they will be here in about a year, shortly after my "triple play" will expire. At that time, without blinking an eye, I will be switching to AT LEAST Fios Internet. CV's TV and phone package is darn good, but their Internet can't hold a candle to Fios Internet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------
I've been an Optimum Online subscriber since January of 2000, so I think now, given that it's almost December of 2004, that I right a review. 
Back in 2000, the price was $29.95 a month. In late 2002 that changed to $34.95, and then in 2003, it changed to $44.95. These prices also take into account our "bundle discount", as we are Cablevision TV (iO) subscribers.* (see end of review).
First impressions with the Optimum Online service were great. Speeds were great, got 500KB/sec down and nearly maxed out the 128KB/sec upload speed. The download speed I was getting was limited due to the WAN port on my routers at the time (Linksys BEFSR41 and then Netgear RP614). After I changed routers in late 2003 (Zyxel Zywall 10W), download speeds increased and top out at roughly 1.2MB/second. Upload speeds, due to the current cap at time of writing this, remain unchanged.
Over the last four years, the service's speed and reliability has been fantastic. I give an "A+" for speed and reliability. However, the other aspects of the service (something that I believe we pay for, not just the "connection") have degraded, as I will explain below.
Connection: Like I stated above, the uptime is fantastic. I've had the same IP (although no static IP is available for residential accounts) for months. After getting a Motorolla Surfboard 4200 modem in 2002 to replace my faulty CMX, things have been great.
Tech Support: I'm a bit of a tech-geek myself, so I have little use for the tech support. They have been good for me when I have asked for a repair tech to come to the house to check out water damage to the wires, so I have nothing negative to say here. The only thing that got a little annoying is when you get a Level 1 tech on the phone, and they ask tyou "do you have a router or switch, and have you rebooted the modem?" This is always step 1, and CV will not troubleshoot your connection with any networking equipment on your network. Feel free to hook it up after the issue is resolved, but they (rightly so) only care about the cable modem signals.
Email: In recent months, the email servers have been better than in the past. However, off and on, Optimum Online's email has been less than relaible. Delays in sending email (even to another optonline.net) customer have often been delayed hours. Many people complained that email they know was sent to them was never received. Additionally, sometime in 2001 I believe, CV installed "Brightmail spam filtering" on their email servers, which has been less than reliable. When it was introduced, you couldn't opt-out, even though their TOS said you could. This presented a huge problem for me because I only trust me to handle my spam; I prefer a client-side anti-spam package (like Spampal) as opposed to a server side (Brightmail) anti-spam package. The occasional email server issues still continue, where using your POP client to download your email results in an error of some sort. Most people will agree that email is relatively unreliable, and many people - including myself - have opted to buy our own domain and handle the email that way, which leads to my next point.
Port 25 blocking - CV recently (mid 2004) blocked port 25. This presented a problem for many of us who use email on our domains. Unfortunately, this is a relative common practice in the industry now.
Newserver: From 2000 through early 2002, the newserver from CV was good. Retention on text groups were about 3 weeks, and binary groups were a few days. Download speeds peaked at about 400KB/sec. Sometime in 2003, and continuing through the present, binary groups barely have 48 hours of retention. More importantly, stalling and reduced speed have been big problems. It will often take the good part of an hour to download the headers, which before the speed decrease, would only take a few minutes. Speeds, if you're lucky, top out at 80KB/sec instead of the old 400KB/sec. The solution to this, for me, was to use a 3rd party for Usenet. I pay about $25/month to Giganews for unlimited usage, and speeds often top out at 1.2MB/sec down, maxing out my connection.
Many people might read this and say, "gee, pay someone else for your email and news, why bother staying with CV. Just go get DSL." Well, easier said than done. DSL is not an option for me because it's not so much the download speed that I'm interested it, but the upload speed. CV's 128KB/sec upload is very good, and overall the connection is very reliable. I'm serious when I say I do not remember the last time the connection went down for me - may be the "great blackout of August 2003." (Incidently, some people on Long Island with generators reported that their Optimum Online connection was working for a short time during this outage.) DSL is not a viable option for us, even though it would be $30/month compared to my $45.
*Note: Due to ever-rising Cablevision TV prices and lack of channel additions, after 19 years of service with us, we will be dropping them as our service provider for cable TV. Instead, we will be getting The Dish Network. This will result in a $5 increase in my Optimum Online service, as any person without a certain level of Cable TV service from Cablevision will get charged $5 more per month for Optimum Online.
I hope this review is helpful to those who have the service, or who are persuing it.
Jeff
---update:3/6/05----
After 4+ years with CV's Optimum Online serivce, I am now leaving. FIOS from Verizon is now available for my town, and that is the better option.
Recently, CV has had many problems. User's speed connections are now throttled every 10 mins to 1/3 of max speed. In addition, DNS issues have been wide-spread lately.
Coincidently, this comes at a scary time with CV's future, as Mr. Dolan fired some of the board members and declared himself king.
So, my time with Optimum Online is now over. It used to be a great service, but no longer.
On a positive note, thank you Cablevision, for 4+ awesome years of service as the country's leading internet provider. Until recently, no caps, no throttling, and 10mb/1mb performace was normal.
Good luck with any potential sale to AOLTW.
---Update 6/4/05:
Well, after my 3/6/05 reply, two friends of mine cancelled their Optimum Online service and went to Verizon Fios. They said install and service was great. So, I weighed certain options, read reviews, and made an appointment to have the Fios install. Coincidently, between the time I made the appointment w/ Verizon and when they actually came, my Optimum Online service deteoriated repidly. Pages not loading, slow speeds, non-constant throughput when transferring large files, etc.
This being said....from when I signed up with CV for Optimum Online in Dec. of 1999 through about the Spring of 2004, service was excellent. Email was not too reliable, and neither was the newserver, but I use 3rd party providers for those. My connection was the full 10/1, and uptime was impecable. Uptime is still awesome, but the throttling, capping, and reduced speeds (see the Optimum Online forum for all this talk), made me realize that I'm paying the same price $44.95 for half the speeds.
1999 - 2002; $29.95 [Speeds: 10Mb/1Mb]
2003; $34.95 [Speeds: 10Mb/1Mb]
2004-present; $49.95 [Speeds: 7Mb/less than 1Mb]
Fios provides me with true 15/2 service, a fiber line, and awesome uptime. No issues at all.
Thank you Cablevision for 4 years of service, unfortunately, something better has come along. Bye bye.
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