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Friday, October 22, 2004

Bill's Atomic Rant: I Hate Optimum Online!
From the "I Just Gotta Say It" Department: I have come to know and loathe Optimum Online, not only because of its insipid commercials, but also because of its entirely unspectacular customer service. Here's the deal: At least in theory, once per month the government runs a test of the emergency cable network. Yeah, yeah, they've been doing it on network TV for years... You get this notice on the TV screen, on top of a red background, plus a godawful modulated tone. It can last anywhere from 10 seconds to 30 seconds. If that's all that happened it'd be no big deal. Unfortunately, the same cable line that feeds my TV also feeds my cable modem. When the alert is finished, so is my connection to the Internet --each and every time. Here too, if it only happened once a month, as apparently it's supposed to, I could deal with it. It's for safety. This morning was the fifth time this month. (And yesterday afternoon the mail server was down.)

Call tech support? Hahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaahaa! I did that this morning. For the first five minutes of the call, the "tech" tried to connect me with the TV side of the company because, obviously, this was a television problem. Then we went through intermediaries, three of them, as each explained that he or she had no idea what was happening. We finally did get to the TV side and they wanted to schedule a visit. Duh!! Of course, this was the first time they'd ever heard about the problem. And, just as of course, there was nothing they could do about it anyway because the government was seizing their cable lines and sending out that "once a month" signal whether they wanted it to happen or not.

Sure, it all works if I power off the modem, unplug the router and the switch, wait a couple of minutes, power up the modem, wait for it to make its connections, then power the router and the switch. But this shouldn't happen.

(Sorry about carrying on like that, but today's the anniversary of my birthday and I just seem to be more outraged than usual about this stupid stuff.)

Alice Responds: Happy Birthday Bill!! I spent my own day in Hell trying to hook up a wireless router and network to an IDSL fixed line connection. But it works, so it's not a totally bad day! DLink has great tech support. Major shout out to the tech who got me up and running. Two floors up from the router and actually have a good signal strength to boot. Go figure. Sometimes the tech Gods are kind.

--Send Bill a Happy Birthday email and then post your own horror stories in the comments below. We'll showcase the best ones here next week.

# Permalink Posted at 7:43 AM 14 comments Email this Link

Comments on this Item:

You're kidding? Where are you at??

I had Cablevision's IO and OptimumOnline in Yonkers, NY. It was FANTASTIC. Support was ok the few times I had to call, but I never really had to call but to get service connected and then disconnected when I moved away. The broadband speeds were insane. I could get about 70K/sec upstream and have seen 500-600K/sec downstream. I absolutely LOVED it.

Sure it cost an arm and a leg, but that's no different from any other cable company I've used. They had Time-Warner in the city, and their broadband connection reminded me of dialup by comparison.

It's hard to imagine such different experience from the same company. Maybe it depends on the area you're in?

While I'm talking about comm-related companies, let me just say that I LOATHE all things SBC. Ugh.

# posted by Terry 8:18 AM

Oh, and Happy Birthday Anniversary.

# posted by Terry 8:19 AM

Cablevision is my friend. Just because service was screwed up for a month while they had to move the neighborhood hub a couple of blocks. No warning. No service the first day. For the next month cable was very fuzzy and the cable modem would usually shutdown between 10 am and 7 pm. And of course, no credits for lost services.

Not to mention that my original cable modem bill of $30 is now $45? $15 increases in only 3 years? I thought volume is supposed to bring prices down?

I'm less then 2000 feet from my CO. I guess I should consider Verizon dsl.

btw, happy birthday.

# posted by rg 8:30 AM

Mine started out at $21.95 during the offer (because I was a valued Cable customer and an early adopter of "Optimum Gold"), was somehow raised to $29.95 when the paperwork arrived after the 30-day free trial, and now sits at $49.95. (But I can get I/O for just $8.95 more...)

At first they refused to offer me customer service because I had a router and switch in the system, and if I want a second modem for PC that doesn't like WiFi downstairs and around the corner, it's another $49.95 --even if I pay for the modem.

Support is handled locally as often as possible but can also be handled from their central location as well, depending on volume. In NJ, Garblevision and its associated UpYours Online internet service are not all that they can be. (Remind me sometime to tell you about the cable guy who showed up at my home after I called in about poor picture quality...)

# posted by Bill 8:43 AM

With me, it's a sad love/hate relationship. But the problem is simple: Optimum Online is not an ISP. They're a cable company who offer one interactive channel.

What's the difference? IPS's generally have some heads-up support people, offer web storage, quick email, and Usenet. Cablevision does'nt have web storage, their email can take hours to deliver, and they deliberately downshift the Usenet connection. The may have some smart support people, but I've never spoken with them, it seems the only thing they can suggest is "reboot the computer", "reboot the modem", or "reload Windows." !?!

All Optimum Online is is a semi-reliable high speed (sometimes) connection to the WWW portion of the internet. But they're like a drug dealer: They may be expensive, but where else are you going to go? I still can't get DSL. I've got two free dial-up services, but the speed leaves them as emergency back-ups.

# posted by Anonymous 8:52 AM

Happy Birthday Bill.

If the mail server was down yesterday, does that mean we need to resend any mail sent yesterday afternoon?

# posted by Cyrus 9:02 AM

We moved to Blacksburg, VA in June 2004 and have used Adelphia as our home office ISP since then. Surprisingly, reliability has been good. About once each month we'll loose internet service for roughly an hour or so. My one experience with customer service was nigh unbearable though. I called on one day, and was able to reach a local service desk to inquire about fees. Service was of course prompt and helpful. Then, I called the next week, and the same local number had begun being forwarded to a national customer service line. I spent about a half hour on hold, and was then forwarded from one call center to another because they believed Blacksburg was being routed incorrectly. After being told that the first customer center was dead wrong, and being forwarded BACK to the original call center, I hung up. I then simply drove to the local Adelphia office, and 20 minutes later I walked out with a cable modem, and their HDTV DVR unit. An old lady named Shirley did in 20 minutes what 100 million dollars in customer support technology and several hundred people across the country could not do in 120 minutes. Go figure.

Sean.

# posted by Sean 9:05 AM

All ISP's have got to be going crazy trying to find a way to keep you from getting more than one computer hooked up to one bill. The guy in Radio Shack thinks the telephone company knocks you off-line (DSL) periodically on purpose. I believe it. My router gets knocked out so bad at least once a month that I have to reinstall it, not just reboot.

Shirley

# posted by Anonymous 10:24 AM

Bill, you hit the nail on the head with the "Red Screen Of (Modem) Death". You, and your ISP have an ENGINEERING problem at the cable plant ... not a technical issue. Fine words to be splitting, to be sure, but lets look at things from THEIR point of view, shall we?

Cable dead ... technician can fix ... call technician
Internet dead ... IT Dude can fix ... call IT Dude
Billing problem ... You're dead ... Call accounting!

For everything else, there's "HOLD"

Now ... let's look at how cable modems work (ok, I know YOU know this, but humor me please). One (or more) cable channels are designated for data, not video service. If, however, someone forgot to reprogram the video/audio switcher, you have a non-video channel being fed emergency (and emergency-test) video, which disconnects the existing "programming" to allow your television to display said warning (or test) message.

You need to talk to the cable company's Facility Engineer or Chief Engineer about "an interference issue regarding their cable operations". Once you get to this level, ask what channel they have assigned to Optimum Online. If this question is difficult for the person to answer, you have the wrong person. You need to insist on talking to an engineer.

Once the engineer admits knowing which channel is used for OO, ask them "Why then, if this is a totally digital, non-video service, do you still have this channel programmed in your emergency alert switch? At best, it's a configuration issue, at worse, a cable needs yanked.

At this point, you SHOULD be on your way to relief; if the engineer didn't realize this channel was getting video feeds inappropriately, they'll probably be happy to get it resolved. If they DID realize it, kindly remind them that as a concerned OO user, you were taking the quiet, back-door approach to service interruption; that if necessary, you'll discuss the issue with OO, complete with interference (outage) times and dates (1).

Be nice ... it's probably a simple mistake that's easily corrected. You can haul out the elephant guns if the nice approach doesn't work.

By identifying an engineering/interference issue, you'll make the engineer happier ... someone else may have noticed and may not be as accomodating and gentle as you (2).

Regards (3),

Rick

*******
Footnotes:

(1) You do have records of this, don't you? You might even find the cable channel in use and record the data being replaced by the video during the monthly test as an absolute "gotcha" in case they deny that "this could ever happen".
(2) Go ahead, snicker ... but nice USUALLY works, and if it doesn't ... you can still be as outraged as you like ... in fact, you can be so with a clear conscience ... 'cause "they asked for it".
(3) Happy anniversary of your Birthday.

# posted by Rick 10:51 AM

Horse-blinder customer service is not limited to the ISP business areas.

My neighbor put a garden spade through my buried cable. No problem, the last cable guys who came by left a 500' reel of coax behind so I went down to the Shack for a couple of connectors. A new 60' line accross the lawn and my daughter can watch Lizzie McGuire. Now I'll I have to do is call Comcast and get the damaged line repaired.

I called and scheduled appointments twice. Each time, they reported that they couldn't find a problem. They didn't check the work request, they just did a remote diagnostic and found that everything appeared to be working properly.

I finally outsmarted them by disconnecting my temporary repair and then calling. They came right out, fixed it... and took my 60' patch cable.

# posted by Anonymous 10:55 AM

I put the network switch in a drawer when the technicians came over. When they asked "Are all of these computers going to be online?" I simply replied, "No, those are for offline work." Then as soon as they left, I hooked everything back up. I suppose you could call it stealing (or at least misuse) to connect multiple systems to the one modem. So I guess in that sense I'm wrong, but I'm not losing any sleep over it.

As a sidenote, my IO and OO were costing me about 70 a month. Gah. Now I have roommates, and sharing utilities saves a LOT of money. We have Adelphia.

I hated DSL when I had it, but that was a few years ago. Maybe it's gotten better?

# posted by Terry 11:06 AM

Well, I have never really had a problem with my DSL, other than days and days of getting it connected because my house was built in 1926 and the telephone wires in maybe 1950.

For me though, my horror story is that I pay $ 26 a month for 256 kbs "broadband" (much more like medium-band) when some people pay that much for 1.5 Mbps cable, and those lucky folks in Texas get 5mps for only $ 35 a month with that nifty fiberoptic line option. Sure sounds like a horror story to me, one of the first good reasons not to move Fargo, ND (yes, I do like the -40º weather, like my dad says, keeps out the rifraff).

# posted by Cyrus 11:40 AM

/* rant */
Oh man, I feel your pain, Bill. Loathe isn't a strong enough word for how I feel toward the dross that they call customer service. I have recently ended (as far as I'm concerned) a year-long struggle with CableVision and their Optimum Online "service". Their billing department failed to consistently send bills to the right address for nearly a year and after at least half a dozen calls. After several incidents including techs appearing at my house to reclaim equipment and other billing fiascos, I was required to do their clerical work, and was never once offered credit for loss of service, loss of sanity or loss of personal time. I owe them money, but since they have no idea what my address is (never got a bill), I'll never have to pay.

It scares me that our economy is in the shift to a service-based one, because if there's anything big corporations are really poor at, it's service.
/* end rant */

# posted by Anonymous 12:37 PM

Alice: This is probably redundant to say, but I'll say it just in case:

ENCRYPT.

:)

# posted by Terry 2:10 PM

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