Optimum Online
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Optimum Online (OOL) is an Internet service provider subsidiary of Cablevision.
Optimum Online serves Long Island, other parts of New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Westchester, parts of New Jersey, and Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
[edit] Service tiers
[edit] Standard tier
- 15 Mbit/s down – 2 Mbit/s up (was 10/1) phased in June 2006. Roughly $44-49 monthly.
[edit] Boost tier
- 30 Mbit/s down – 5 Mbit/s up (was 30/2) phased in Fall 2006. An additional $14.95/month, or $9.95/month for Optimum Voice subscribers.
[edit] Ultra tier
- 50 Mbit/s down – 50 Mbit/s up (Currently in beta testing)
[edit] Network information
Cablevision also owns Lightpath, a company with a mid-sized fiber network providing service to the New York metro area. As of June 2006, cablevision has finished upgrades on their network and now offer speeds mentioned above. Cablevision has an extensive peering network with Points of Presence in Newark, New Jersey; New York City; Ashburn, Virginia; Los Angeles, California; and Chicago, Illinois.
[edit] Bandwidth capping criticisms
Optimum Online imposes bandwidth caps on its users. Some users have reported that after excessive upload usage, they have been capped from 1 megabit upstream to 150 kilobits upstream, an 85% decrease in upstream bandwidth.There is no information available to the consumer about OOL's capping policy. Getting uncapped is an often lengthy process, requiring OOL representatives to call a customer back at their house. The criteria for getting capped seems to differ from customer to customer. Cablevision claims that the decision is based on the CPU utilization of their gateway servers, and they cannot give a customer any parameters with which they can avoid capping. They claim to offer only "burst upload service". Discussions by capped OOL customers have concluded that any sustained usage of upload bandwidth (between 5 to 24 hours) will eventually result in a bandwidth cap. Users would not be able to use BitTorrent, FTP, or any server application without eventually getting capped.This would essentially exclude an Optimum Online customer from utilizing video conferencing or anything else that would be sending large amounts of data over a "high speed" connection that the customer is already paying for. Cablevision states that this is in accordance to a clause in their user agreement, where they may "use whatever means necessary to ensure the security and stability of their network". The upload capping seems to affect nodes which are crowded, as some users have never experienced an upload cap despite the fact they upload constantly at max.
Capping reduces a user's bandwidth from 15Mbit/s–2 Mbit/s (1920 kB/s–256 kB/s) to around 4.5 Mbit/s–140 kbit/s (576 kB/s–17 kB/s). After being throttled, there is no notification by Optimum Online other than reduced bandwidth performance. The customer must call Optimum Online to find out what has happened. Only then does Optimum Online inform the customer of the cap and tells its customers that after the fourth incident of throttling, your service will be terminated permanently. However, some users have called and Optimum Online customer service representatives have claimed that capping does not exist except for those users running servers, and when they check your account, claim that the user has in fact not been capped. OOL users can download large quantities of data without being capped.
Cablevision has also stated that Optimum Online Boost members can also be capped, which many have claimed as odd due to the fact that they allow for members to run a server on their connection.
Cablevision, which also offers business connections, caps them in exactly the same way as residential accounts. They will also be reduced to the 4.5 mbit/s– down, 140 kbit/s up (576 kB/s–17 kB/s) with no notification.
[edit] References
- BroadbandReports.com review of Optimum Online policies
- BroadbandReports.com forum postings
- Press release stating Boost goes to 5Mbit/s upload speed
- Press release regarding Optimum Online Ultra
[edit] External links
- www.optimumonline.com Optimum Online sales and service website
- www.optonline.net Optimum Online customer portal website
- www.cablevision.com Cablevision Systems Corp. (parent company) website; offers Optimum Online in combination with other services
- www.optimumlightpath.com Optimum Lightpath sales and service website
