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For ANYONE with Optimum Internet service

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Optimum is still sub-optimum!!!
 
So I searched online with my zipcode and I saw that Optimum had their 50/25 service for $44.90 and their 75/35 for $59.95. So I called and bitched to retention. They said I should have called earlier as they would have taken $20 off my phone bill had I not dropped the service. I had triple play and am in the process of dropping the cable TV. I explained I went with Ooma and only pay $4.08 so they stopped talking. He told me all those deals are for new customers only and they don't include installation or the modem fee. As a long time customer I do get my modem for free. I told him I still was not happy that new customers get a better deal. He said he would see what he could do and put me on hold. While he could only cut my price by $5 he did change my service from 50/25 to 200/35 but said my modem would not support it so he would be sending me a new one in the mail and I just need to send the old one back. That price is for a year. Don't know what else he had to say as the phone went out. I started thinking to myself maybe this Ooma is crap as I never had that issue with my Optimum phone, but then I looked and saw I had lost my internet connection. The idiot who knew we were on VoiP reprovisioned my line while we were talking which is why connection was lost. I went to speedtest.net two minutes later when it came back online and see with this modem I am now getting 94/37 versus the 50/25 I had a few minutes ago. Guess the modem is limiting that and it will go up when the new one comes.

 

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Could be a couple of  things, the modem might be limited to a 100 meg connection to your WAN port and / or your internal network ( ethernet cards, hub, router... )  is 100meg.

 

You would need a gigabit network to support those speeds.

 

Easy enough to check these things.

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Could be a couple of  things, the modem might be limited to a 100 meg connection to your WAN port and / or your internal network ( ethernet cards, hub, router... )  is 100meg.

 

You would need a gigabit network to support those speeds.

 

Easy enough to check these things.

 

 

Also, check the "throughput' of each of those devices, especially the router.  While the device might accept inbound traffic at 1Gig, if it has to do packet inspection and forwarding or NATing, rule checking, etc. (as routers do), the "throughput" might be quite a bit less than 1Gig.    I have FiOS 150/150 in my house and two routers (one FiOS router for the TV, and my own for my Internal network). The FiOS router worked fine.  Got full 150/150 as measured by the web based speed test sites.  But I was not on the router that went to my Internal network. Sure enough, it was the throughput rating, which was about 65mb out of the router. I had to upgrade to the next version of the router which output at 335mb... more than accomodating for FiOS 150/150. 

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Don't pay to rent a modem from them, and be wary of "free" equipment, it might be a hidden or rolled-up equipment charge. Rental has been an ISP continuous income tactic for years, with its roots going back to the days of rotary phone rentals from Ma Bell.

 

For cable service, any DOCSIS 3.1 modem will get you up to a gigabit (look on Amazon or eBay). If you're on a very tight budget, DOCSIS 3.0 modems are cheaper and will still get you about 150 Mbit/sec download and 100 Mbit/sec upload.

 

It's much cheaper in the long term to buy your own, and don't take BS about it not being supported. It's an established standard and works with any US cable internet service.

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While true for many, Optimum does not charge longtime customers for modems, only newer customers.  As I said they are dropping my price, upgrading the service and sending me a DOCSIS3 modem to replace my DOCSIS2 modem that I don't pay for.

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Don't pay to rent a modem from them, and be wary of "free" equipment, it might be a hidden or rolled-up equipment charge. Rental has been an ISP continuous income tactic for years, with its roots going back to the days of rotary phone rentals from Ma Bell.

 

For cable service, any DOCSIS 3.1 modem will get you up to a gigabit (look on Amazon or eBay). If you're on a very tight budget, DOCSIS 3.0 modems are cheaper and will still get you about 150 Mbit/sec download and 100 Mbit/sec upload.

 

It's much cheaper in the long term to buy your own, and don't take BS about it not being supported. It's an established standard and works with any US cable internet service.

 

It's supposed to be supported but at my home in Upstate NY I have Time Warner. I tried 2 Linksys, 1 Netgear and one other router whose name escapes me at the moment. All 4 suffered poor performance and dropped connections. All four worked flawlessly here on my Optimum connection.

 

I spent hours on the phone and with techs and at the house to solve the issue. Their final decision was my equipment is bad. They didn't care that it worked on another network. 

 

I grudgingly rented their router modem combo and it works flawlessly. I am certain they are scamming the customer.

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My internet constantly shits out with "Optimum Offline". I need to call and see if they can match the Fios deal I got in the mail or I'm dropping them. All fees included I'm looking at $50 more a month for Optimum.

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To each their own.....

 

I have used Optimum for over 20yrs......  I can count my issues on one hand.... 

 

I will stop by every 12-14 months at the Optimum Store in Randolph on Rt10, and talk to a Rep.... gives me a promotion deal for another year..... no fuss

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Optimum is still sub-optimum!!!
 
So I searched online with my zipcode and I saw that Optimum had their 50/25 service for $44.90 and their 75/35 for $59.95. So I called and bitched to retention. They said I should have called earlier as they would have taken $20 off my phone bill had I not dropped the service. I had triple play and am in the process of dropping the cable TV. I explained I went with Ooma and only pay $4.08 so they stopped talking. He told me all those deals are for new customers only and they don't include installation or the modem fee. As a long time customer I do get my modem for free. I told him I still was not happy that new customers get a better deal. He said he would see what he could do and put me on hold. While he could only cut my price by $5 he did change my service from 50/25 to 200/35 but said my modem would not support it so he would be sending me a new one in the mail and I just need to send the old one back. That price is for a year. Don't know what else he had to say as the phone went out. I started thinking to myself maybe this Ooma is crap as I never had that issue with my Optimum phone, but then I looked and saw I had lost my internet connection. The idiot who knew we were on VoiP reprovisioned my line while we were talking which is why connection was lost. I went to speedtest.net two minutes later when it came back online and see with this modem I am now getting 94/37 versus the 50/25 I had a few minutes ago. Guess the modem is limiting that and it will go up when the new one comes.

 

 

 

What model modem do you currently have? If its not an Arris 802/822/1602 then you don't have a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and its not capable of the speeds you have been upgraded to. Once the modem is swapped you should get those speeds hardwired out of the modem. After that, it will depend of your router as to what speeds you will get. 

 

If your router splits networks - to a 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz network, you have to use the 5Ghz network to attain the 200Mbps speeds. The max throughput on the 2.4Ghz frequency is roughly 70Mbps on a perfect day when the stars align. 

 

There are other factors involved that can affect speed/service. Could be outside issue(bad drop/fittings outside) or the configuration inside the home. RF noise/ingress can affect it as well. 

 

If you have any questions, you can PM me. I am an in house service tech for Optimum and I'll try to help you out as best I can.

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That is interesting.  Just checked and it is in fact an Arris 822 so I wonder why they are saying I need a new one?  The 94-97Mbps I was seeing was on a 2.4GHz connection.  I am also seeing 99 on my wired ethernet to my PC but that may be a function of the physical cable I am thinking as it is CAT5.  My network card is set to 100 full duplex as when I set it to 1,000 it just won't seem to work.  I did a speed test today on my AppleTV which is on 5Ghs and it showed 199.45 down and 36.62 upload.  What was strange is that when I did the same on my iPhone at the same location also on 5Ghz it only showed 165.72 and 36.75.  Just checked the iPhone on 2.4Ghz and it only gets 33.38 / 36.70, while in 5Ghz it is now showing 70.39 / 23.24?  These later tests were at a different location which is actually closer to the router.  Wonder why that might be???

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To each their own.....

 

I have used Optimum for over 20yrs......  I can count my issues on one hand.... 

 

I will stop by every 12-14 months at the Optimum Store in Randolph on Rt10, and talk to a Rep.... gives me a promotion deal for another year..... no fuss

Interestingly during sandy I lost cable tv. I have a generator so everything was running and I was able to the optimum wifi hotspot which was cruelly working for a while. It eventually went down, probably during repairs, but I only remember that and perhaps one other time in 17 years.

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That is interesting.  Just checked and it is in fact an Arris 822 so I wonder why they are saying I need a new one?  The 94-97Mbps I was seeing was on a 2.4GHz connection.  I am also seeing 99 on my wired ethernet to my PC but that may be a function of the physical cable I am thinking as it is CAT5.  My network card is set to 100 full duplex as when I set it to 1,000 it just won't seem to work.  I did a speed test today on my AppleTV which is on 5Ghs and it showed 199.45 down and 36.62 upload.  What was strange is that when I did the same on my iPhone at the same location also on 5Ghz it only showed 165.72 and 36.75.  Just checked the iPhone on 2.4Ghz and it only gets 33.38 / 36.70, while in 5Ghz it is now showing 70.39 / 23.24?  These later tests were at a different location which is actually closer to the router.  Wonder why that might be???

 

TM 822 shows :Ethernet port 10/100/1000Base-T Gigabit Port, Download speeds up to 343 Mbps

So the modem would not be the problem.

Look at the LINK light on the modem, the manual shows 10/100 is yellow, green is 1000.  If the light is not green whatever the modem is connected to is the limiting factor.

 

For short distances you can typically make due with CAT5 cable, Gigabit should be CAT5e or CAT6.  This would not limit the speed you connect at, just the reliability of data transmission.

 

Since your ethernet card shows a selection of 1000, you probably have a hub or router between the modem and your PC that is only capable of 100 Mbps.

The 2.4GHz and 5Ghz are wireless frequencies to your hub/router.  The wireless speeds you show are what that device would be capable of doing, this would vary greatly based on signal strength, interference from other devices, wireless standard used, number of antennas on the wireless device...  It is not necessarily the speed you will get.

 

5Ghz will typically have less interference due to less devices on those frequencies, but it will cover less distance then 24Ghz.

 

The number of streams the modem can handle really only comes into play during times of heavy network congestion, picture the holidays when everyone is home.

,

 

On a side note:

 

I can't  quite understand why people 'need' these super fast internet speeds for the home, its all marketing hype and bragging rights.  Typical 1080p streaming is 5Mbps.  Can't see paying for extra speed that most likely never gets used.  I'm sure there are rare exceptions other then piracy.  I also can't get over the PC's people buy to browse the internet and send emails with.  It's like having a Lamborghini to drive on a 25mph road.

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The light on the Modem is Green.  Guess I will have to check what else might be the issue.  I am fairly sure it is not the router, but I do have a Switch hooked to the router that expands the number of wired ports and it is not super new so maybe it is only rated at 100.

 

As far as the bandwidth I was always happy with the 50/25 but since they offered me faster for no money I took it.  I went with the 50/25 mainly for the faster upload speed and number of mailboxes and max size of email attachments.  Since I do a lot of photography and upload very large image files the upload speed had become an issue with their standard service.

 

As far as streaming you are correct about 1080p only needing 5Mpbs but sometimes it spikes up to about 15.  The issue really becomes how many things you have running on the network at once and I have quite a lot.

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Out of curiosity, what was the solution?

Cable from router to PC?

Yup the cable was the issue. Also need a reboot after changing cable as it did not recognize a difference till a cold boot.

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