Optimum Onnline Boost problem

[frankienyc123]

I have a 30down/5mb up cable connection from optimum onnline. It has worked flawlessly until this morning. Ive always gotten nice speeds of around 26mb down and 4.5mb up. But this morning when i turned on my PC my internet connectiopn was extremely slow I mean it took a few minutes for yahoo.com to load!! I checked all my connections and my settings and everything seems ok. did a speed test and I am only getting around 256k up and down! There was a big storm with alot of rain and wind last night so im wondering if something on the pole outside was damaged??
So I called Optimum Onnline and told them the trouble, they asked abunch of basic questions and made me check some settings on my PC. They ten proceeded to insist it was my Zone Alarm firewall causing the problem. I was pretty sure it wasnt the problem since just yesterday my speeds were fine. So I disabled it anbd it didnt help, I also treid two other computers that dont have firewalls and both had similar problems. Yes the Optimum Onnline tech kept insisting that my Firewall was the problem!!! Are these guys just morons or are they trained to blame problems on the customer?? I finally convinced him to file a report and said it would take 24-72 hour for someone to come look at it! Anyone ever had similar problems?? I really need to get my connection back up and working I use a VOIP as my primary phone so im now without a phone service as well. Ive been thinkin of switch to FIOS for sometime no and after the expereince with Opt Onlines tech im really considering it now. The only bad thing is that FIOS doesnt offer anywhere near the 30/5mb speed that you get with Optimum onnline ANy ideas on how to fix the problem??
thanks
Frank

 

[evongugg]

Tell us more about your setup. Do you have a router, etc?

 

[Guest]

Have you power cycled your cable modem. Most cable modems have 192.168.100.1 as an IP Address. You can look at the signal levels using a browser. Did the Optimum tech review those? You can also check http://www.dslreports.com/forum/ool for more help.

Grumpy

 

[tsriverman]

I'm trying to find out if others in the Northern Bergen County NY Optimum Online service area are experiencing this problem.

We have been having problems with Optimum Online Boost for a little over a month. We have called and had them visit our site over a dozen times and most of the techs have their own ideas of what the problem is ranging from noise on the line, too weak a signal, too strong a signal, adding filters all resulting in no change. Of course this has worked well for over a year and we have come to depend on it for daily data synchronizations from our data center.

The issue has varied from very poor speed in both directions in the beginning to close to published downloads but very poor upload speeds (<500b/s) right now, and it happens about half the time, the other half working normally at published speeds (and this is regardless of weekdays or weekends - business hours or not).

Today, the call center person revealed that OOL released a Cisco software upgrade to Boost about a month to a month and a half ago that seems to have created a problem.

They have already tried removing boost but we can't tolerate it given the amounts of data we sync, the VOIP and filesharing traffic and to be honest, once they think the problem is 'fixed' (in their definition we stop calling), we never hear from them.

One would think that they would revert back to the previous revision of the Cisco software but I'm not sure others having the problem know how widespread the problem is (or is not - maybe it's me).

Anyone have any feedback?

 

[nycityboriqua]

I have OOL boost service and for the last weeks two had severely bad connection speed and hours when the services is completely down. Bronx NY Allerton and barnes ave. OOL please please fix our connection, we depend on your service!

 

[petechefchik]

Have had the same issues inlcuding my IO Phone going out for hours at a time.
After several visits, and no resolution, I was told that Cablevison did an upgrade in my area in January that changed the frequency at wich they transmit data. These lowere freq offer more throughput and in theory mean more bandwidth. However they are also more succeptable to interfence from line noise (faulty wiring and outside interference). Boost uses an even lower frequency and is even more succeptable to these problems. I was told that I should cancel the Boost, whcih has never given me more than a 10mb DL speed even on a good day. By cancelling boost it should fix the problem until they can fix any noise creating connections in my area.

Is this ridiculous or what? I pay a boatload of money - Double what new cusomters getting tripl play would, and the only solution is to accept stnadard interent service and eal with the possible slow downs that they still can't fix?

I have been an optonline customer since DAY 1 - I went to The WHiz to get my first cable model the day they offfered highspeed in my area - thats how long ago it was.

I am fed up with them. Im asking for a credit for the 6 mos of Boost which never was fast anyway, and the new cusomter rate. If they dont give it to me - Im gone. FIOS here I come.

 

[tekkie7762]

I am glad to see everyone is having the same problems I am having. My speeds are around 15mbs down and 5 up. Tech support said it was a problem with the line, well it was and that fixed it for a day. Next time I called they said it was my router, so I bought a new router, same problem. Next they tell me its my cable modem. So I placed a service call to replace the modem. Now this is funny.... the new modem knocked my speeds down to 13mbs down. The tech that came to my house said the average speed he sees for everyone on boost is 16mbs to 21mbs down. My up speeds fine. So why are they advertising up to 30mbs when I never see it?

 

[chaospromos]

Yes the Optimum Onnline tech kept insisting that my Firewall was the problem!!! Are these guys just morons or are they trained to blame problems on the customer??

I worked for that company for several years in multiple facilities including the Tech Support Call Center. About half of the techs are very intelligent and the other half are just trained for the job and once it goes over their head they either have to brush you off or pass it to a department that can fix the problem.
They are also trained not to do anything to troubleshoot your PC beyond basic networking options and settings.

There are so many reasons you could be experiencing this problem, chances are if the tech couldn't resolve it for you, then it's beyond the scope of the tech either on your side or cablevision's end. In my experience, 99.9% of all internet related calls I took were due to user error, customer's PC configuration, or basic wiring issues like an unplugged network cable.

The other .1% were due to outages(cable network issues that we are updated on all the time), or the least likely issue, the node or tap problems that physically affect the network.