Cablevision on Evan Hoffman

FCC Report shows Verizon much faster than Cablevision

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:14:18 +0000

The FCC recently conducted a study of some of the top broadband ISPs in the country and measured customers’ actual bandwidth as compared to what the ISPs advertised. FiOS really came out on top.

The report is available on the FCC site. The bottom line, though, is that Verizon FiOS averaged nearly 120% of advertised speed (i.e., more than was advertised) and Cablevision was between 50% and 75% of advertised speeds. Latency (ping) was also heavily in FiOS’s favor.

Verizon stood me up

Sun, 15 May 2011 12:00:51 +0000

Several weeks ago, I scheduled the FiOS install for 5/14/2011 and they said it would be between 8am and 5pm. I got confirmation emails (welcome to FiOS) and a confirmation call on 5/12. I waited all day yesterday for Verizon to show, and they never did. I called at 11:58 AM and gave my order number to see if they could tell me roughly what time the tech would be here, since I didn’t want to sit around all day if the tech wouldn’t be there until 4 PM. They couldn’t. They said we were still scheduled for today, between 8 and 5. I asked if they could call the tech scheduled to do the installation and see when he thought he’d get here and I was told they couldn’t.

My Last Optimum Online Speed Test... Ever?

Fri, 13 May 2011 22:54:23 +0000

Speedtest of Optimum Online Boost.

Going back to FiOS

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 01:40:05 +0000

I’m not sure why these guys operate this way - they’re more than happy to lose me as a customer and then throw huge discounts at me to get me back. If they’d just give me a good price I’d love not to have to go through this rigmarole. But after being with Cablevision for 2 months I checked Verizon’s pricing and it beat my current deal with Cablevision.

FiOS digital voice with number ported for free; 25/25 Mbps internet; HMDVR free “forever” plus a second HD STB, Showtime, Movie Channel and Flix. Since I already had the battery thing installed last time I had FiOS they gave me a fair discount. Basically the whole package for $87/month + tax, price locked for 2 years, no contract. Not as great of a deal as I’d had with FiOS originally, but it’s pretty good, and FiOS’s service is definitely better than Cablevision’s. I’ve heard Cablevision was rolling out their “DVR plus” service with all programs recorded “in the cloud” rather than on the actual box, but it’s been two months and I haven’t heard of it coming to Long Island. So basically 2 years later Cablevision’s service is exactly the same while Verizon has iPhone apps to control the DVR and use the phone as a remote, plus DVR that’s much faster and just generally better service.

Speed comparison: Optimum Boost vs Verizon FiOS

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:26:38 +0000

Optimum Boost advertises 30 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up. Here’s a speed test I just ran at Ookla’s SpeedTest.net:

(My desktop is plugged into the router, the router is plugged into the Arris cablemodem.)

Here’s one of the last speed tests I did with Verizon, on 2/15. I had the 25/15 internet package:

(Desktop was plugged into 8-port Linksys 100 Mbit switch, the switch was plugged into the FiOS/ActionTec router.)

After switching back to Cablevision, FiOS users can't call us.

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:39:02 +0000

So we switched back to Cablevision and it went pretty well, but apparently Verizon users can’t call our house number (ported from Verizon to Cablevision). Verizon users have to call from their mobiles in order to complete the call. I’m guessing that Verizon hasn’t updated their systems to indicate that they no longer “own” our number and is trying to route the call inside their network. Sucks because I can’t imagine Verizon jumping to help fix this since I’m not their customer anymore.

Back up on JustHost.com

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 22:14:47 +0000

As I expected/feared, Cablevision still blocks port 80 so I had to move my site to external hosting. I signed up with JustHost.com, which has (supposedly) unlimited storage and bandwidth transfer for ~$5/month. Not happy about their DNS handling, and that my 404 pages are apparently filled with ads & popups now, but with the discount code I found it came to about $42 for a year of hosting. Not bad.

Back to Cablevision (upcoming downtime)

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:59:18 +0000

So the credits are finally wearing off my FiOS bill. I was paying $49/month for about 8 straight months for all 3 services plus HBO & Cinemax (a ridiculous price) with great phone & internet, plus HMDVR and 2 boxes. My most recent bill was $127 which includes a $40 credit that ends this month, so next month’s bill will be $170 or so.

Cablevision’s been beating down my door for weeks to come back, but they couldn’t come close to the deal Verizon had given me so it was easy to fend them off. But after this recent bill I gave them a call and signed up for the Optimum Triple Play. They have a special deal for people coming back from FiOS: $69/month for all 3 services plus Boost (30/5 Mbps) and a DVR. I added another box and HBO and it came to $100.30. So as of Friday I’ll be on Cablevision and this website will probably be down until I find a new home for it - maybe Wordpress.com.

FiOS speed 10 months later, better than ever.

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:44:48 +0000

I switched to FiOS in December, 2009, and I was pretty apprehensive, having been a Cablevision customer for many years. I really had no problem with Cablevision’s service, I just thought their pricing was much too high in the face of the new competition (and deals) Verizon was offering. I ended up going with Verizon due to their awesome deal, but now it’s almost a year later and I can’t imagine going back to Optimum. It’ll probably come down to price when the current promo pricing I have with Verizon ends, but if the price was equal then no contest - I’d stick with FiOS.

How to cancel Cablevision service

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 23:14:58 +0000

To cancel your Cablevision service, you need to call them.

Nassau county: 516-364-8400.- Suffolk county: 631-267-6900 and 631-727-6300.

Other phone numbers are listed here:

http://www.optimum.net/Support/PhoneList

Cablevision loses WABC (Channel 7)?

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:34:51 +0000

Wow. Glad I left. I imagine this will be temporary (like the HGTV ordeal earlier this year).

On another note, I got my 3rd FiOS bill - still running a credit. That’s $43 for 3.5 months of great service. Good luck competing with that, Optimum.

Got my second FiOS bill

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:21:18 +0000

So I got my second FiOS bill a couple of weeks ago. After the issue with my first bill was straightened out I ended up paying about $43 for the first 6 weeks of service. Well, my second bill was about $90, but applied a $180 credit on my account, so the bill showed -$91. So basically the first 3 months of service will end up costing me about $43. Even if it comes to $90/month for the remainder of the contract, this is such a huge savings that I don’t see how Cablevision could match it.

.jobs domains - $120/year?

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:58:58 +0000

I saw that Cablevision has www.cablevision.jobs as the link for its jobs page. Curious, I looked up how much a .jobs domain cost. GoDaddy has them for $119! That’s insane!

FiOS Ping Test

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:07:14 +0000

Ran a ping test at pingtest.net today. Overall I can’t find fault with the FiOS service so far. Port 80 and 443 are open and I have them forwarded to my Linux box so I can actually run a webserver in my basement. I’m debating moving this domain over to my own linux box, since it’s super low traffic, but I probably won’t.

Only (minor) problems with FiOS are:

Cablevision drops HGTV, Food Network, and Travel Channel??

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:46:53 +0000

Boy, good thing I left Cablevision when I did… HGTV is my wife’s favorite channel.

In a separate case, the owner of the Food Network and HGTV, Scripps Networks, removed its channels from Cablevision’s lineups on Friday, a consequence of a breakdown in talks between those two parties.

“Viewers love our talent and our shows, which is why Food Network and HGTV rank among the top networks in cable,” Kenneth W. Lowe, the chief executive of Scripps Networks Interactive, said in a statement Friday morning. “But our valuable networks simply are not being compensated like top 10 networks by Cablevision. The distribution rates Cablevision pays for Food and HGTV are among the lowest in the industry.”

Got my first FiOS bill today...

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:41:59 +0000

Not good. The rep I spoke with had said she’d intercept the first bill and apply all the credits up front. I guess being Christmas she couldn’t, so I got this first bill of $208.22.

This is WAY more than it should be, even without the credits applied. There’s a $40/month credit missing, and they’re charging me for HBO & Cinemax, which I was told was a free trial for 3 months. On the plus side, the taxes are lower than I expected. Attaching scans of the bill. If this doesn’t get resolved when I call on Monday I’ll be heading back to Cablevision, I guess. The whole point of this exercise was to save money.

FiOS it is.

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:33:47 +0000

Fios was installed today. Took longer than expected but I guess it went well. FiOS digital voice is pretty good, has one or two niceties that Optimum Voice didn’t (caller ID info in the emails it sends, for instance). The Motorola STBs are way better than the Scientific Atlanta (or whatever) that CV provides… I’m awestruck that when you hit the Channel + button, the channel actually changes.

Cablevision offered to woo me back again but since the service was already installed I said no thanks. They did say they’ll pay the termination fee for me to go back. Interesting… Anyway, Fios’s speeds are pretty good, I got as high as 26/20 on the 25/15 line. The Actiontec router is pretty nice too (model #MI424WR-GEN2).

... or maybe I AM going with FiOS.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:16:25 +0000

Well, this was unexpected. Verizon is really playing hardball with pricing. When I called this morning to cancel my install appointment, Verizon countered and they offered an extra $30/month discount. I asked for an extra STB for free (I figured all they can do is say no) and while the rep said she couldn’t do that, she did increase the credit to $40/month which would more than cover the cost of the 2nd box. So as of this moment, I’m on for FiOS tomorrow.

Oops... sorry FiOS, I'm sticking with Cablevision.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:36:42 +0000

Well that didn’t take long. I got a call this afternoon from the same Cablevision rep I spoke with to talk about cancelling after I signed up for FiOS. Apparently they received Verizon’s request to port my number over and learned I wasn’t kidding when I said I was going to move to FiOS. And good news! I can now qualify for the Optimum Triple Play again!

The price Cablevision offered today was better than the $123 or whatever they stated last time I spoke to them, but I brought up that Verizon is offering 25/15, and I was getting like 8/2 at home. To compensate they added in Boost, which they couldn’t give me for free, but they did lower the price to $9.95/month, and she was able to give me the DVR for free. I said forget about the 2nd cable box (since with CV I can just plug in to the existing coax for additional TVs if needed - with Verizon being all digital you need a STB for each TV) and the final price came to around $109.

Oops... sorry FiOS, I'm sticking with Cablevision.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:36:42 +0000

I guess I'm getting FiOS... Farewell Cablevision

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:19:31 +0000

So I’ve had Cablevision for years. I mean, except for the couple of years I lived in Queens and when I was in college, I’ve basically had Cablevision my whole life. The service overall has been pretty good but the prices have been rising steadily. When I signed up a couple years ago for the Optimum Triple Play – TV, internet, and phone service – my bill came to like $90-$100. That’s a pretty good price for all 3 services as far as I’m concerned. It helped that Cablevision was for years the top-rated ISP in the country - I’d get 20 mbps down and 8 mbps up all the time. Over time they added caps to upload and I haven’t seen uploads over 2 mbps in a residential Optimum line in years, though at work I see ~5 mbps up over cable. I’ve moved around a lot over the past few years and I’ve kept Cablevision in each location and the service has always been at least acceptable. With this latest move, the service is still good, but download speed seems to top out around 8 mbps. That’s certainly not terrible, but not as good as the 15 mbps I was getting in the previous house.

I guess I'm getting FiOS... Farewell Cablevision

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:19:31 +0000