| Optimum Online false bandwidth claims |
Louie
2008-04-09
Customer Service:20%
Product Quality:20%
Delivery Time:%
Site Usability:15%
Pricing:25%
Overall Satisfaction:20%
| Contacted Optimum Online on 2008-04-09
I know it's mostly a numbers game, and that most users cannot receive the advertised bandwidth from any ISP.
However since it *is* a blatant lie from Cable Vision, I feel it important to call them out on it.
The Optimum Online web site advertises internet speeds of 15 Mbps. The actual Optimum Online bandwidth in this location is a steady 2-3Mbps. Now I realize not all segments are created equally. But...It's off by a factor of 5+!
Furthermore it is extremely ironic that Optimum Online lists "Phone Company High Speed Internet" at 3Mbps, which is at the top end of Optimum Online's own service performance.
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| Outages are rampant with Optimum Online |
Louie
2008-08-02
Customer Service:20%
Product Quality:20%
Delivery Time:%
Site Usability:15%
Pricing:25%
Overall Satisfaction:20%
| Contacted Optimum Online on 2008-07-27
I've been with Optimum Online for 3 years now. I've suffered daily internet telephone (VOIP) outages since the beginning. At my previous location in Bohemia NY, we had to run over an 802.11 WLAN, consequently I've always thought that was the issue and I was constantly rebooting equipment, I purchased range extenders, and could never resolve the problem.
However to my surprise since I've moved to Mastic, NY the Optimum Online services are still causing the same problems and this is new equipment with no WLAN. Tech support keeps trying to push the problem off on users and their equipment. The cable box is on the first splitter and one phone line goes directly into the cable box from OO. Their own tests show strong connection strength.
I've gotten so irate that I've been running a data logger to see where the problem is. It shows that a few times a day for a minute or two, the first router which cannot be reached is Optimum's, DNS is affected as well. Still they claim that my problem is unique and it's only on my line. They are just denying the problems exist on their network. However I believe that the problem could be network wide since Bohemia and Mastic are very far apart. I will prove this by running data loggers at other houses and correlating the outages.
As an aside, there was a major outage for the whole block last Saturday, however this one was caused by a sever thunder storm. We called up and they said they would not consider it an area outage until more than 5 people called in to complain, even though everyone's connection was dead. This isn't so bad except that their remedy was to send a serviceman no sooner than Wednesday at noon. That's 5 days we are paying for service without internet, telephone, or TV. Cablevision did fix the major outage, however did nothing to resolve the frequent outages and never called or showed up for their scheduled appointment.
It sucks that Cablevision is a monopoly. Competition would force them to act or risk loosing customers.
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| Optimum and Domain hijacking |
Louie
2008-12-09
Customer Service:20%
Product Quality:20%
Delivery Time:%
Site Usability:15%
Pricing:25%
Overall Satisfaction:20%
| Contacted Optimum Online on 2008-12-09
Somewhat recently, within the past several weeks, we noticed that we are seeing an Optimum Online ad page show up while using the computer.
It turns out that Optimum Online decided to instruct it's DNS servers to start falsifying DNS records for non-existent domain names. Requests for these domains are redirected to an Optimum Online/cablevision controlled website showing ads no doubt matching the domain name requested.
One might think that this is a rare occurrence, but for those who are used to typing in computer names for file shares or other LAN resources may start to see Optimum Online's ads instead. After a few times, this becomes annoying enough to seek alternative DNS servers.
Enter OpenDNS. OpenDNS provides third party DNS services specifically to bypass the local ISP DNS servers. By entering the third party IP address, the traffic should never reach Optimum Online's DNS server for them to inject redirection code to ad sites.
However I discovered that Optimum Online's routers have been configured to intercept all DNS traffic, even the traffic that are supposed to go to other providers like OpenDNS. This is infuriating and inexcusable. The only purpose their actions have is to force customers to receive more ads. If they did this for network management purposes that may be one thing, but it's clear that they've only done this in interest of obtaining ad revenues with through unsuspecting customers. It's a big land grab with no benefit to anyone. |
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