Background: after my internet was installed back in July, it had been a bit spotty, but nothing out of the ordinary, up until January, when it became a complete trainwreck. I prodded Optimum Support on Twitter to get me appointments, since their phone system is a nightmare.
Me: Hi, my home internet connection has been completely down for the past few days and I was told to send my account info here
Me: Not sure exactly what I need to send - it's registered under "Thomas Boyt," number XXX-XXX-XXXX, zip code XXXX
Them: I have 11am-2pm or 2pm-5pm 2morrow & 8am-11am, 11am-2pm,& 2pm-5pm for Sunday. Please reply back with best time and contact# ^MK
Me: 11am-2pm tomorrow would be good, XXX-XXX-XXXX
Them: You are set for 11-2pm tomorrow and they will call to conf someone 18+ is home ^MK
The technician comes out, and adds a splitter to my cable. He says that since the cable was originally split between a router and a TV cable box, it should never have been plugged directly into the modem. Of course, the cable had been working fine since it was set up this way months ago, but whatever.
Adding the splitter seems to help. However, later that night, it goes down again, and thus the cycle of going "up and down" continues. I wait a few weeks, because it's tolerable, though broken. Eventually, it just starts going down for longer and longer, with periods of over 24 hours at a time.
Me: Hi, I was told to DM my account info here (again) - the account is under Thomas Boyt with the phone # XXX-XXX-XXXX
Them: (2/2) I am able to get a technician out there as soon as tomorrow. I have 11AM to 2PM and 2PM to 5PM available for you. ^RT
Me: 11am to 2pm tomorrow works for me.
Them: You are all set for tomorrow between 11am- 2pm. Truly am sorry once again.^RT
A technician comes out, replaces the splitter with a similar piece that is intended to "lower" the signal strength. He says the splitter is often at fault in this case. He ran tests using a phone app, and showed me they were all passing.
This seems to work for a few hours, and then once again goes down later that night.
Them: I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience. Your modem shows it is offline right now. What are the lights on the modem doing? ^JP
Me: They are cycling between the three middle lights (DS/US/online), while the “power” and “link” lights are solid
Them: I understand. It appears there's still an issue with the connection. We'll need to send a tech out to your home once more. ^JP
Them: Would tomorrow (1/27/14) between 11AM-2PM or 2PM-5PM be convenient for you? ^JP
Me: Unfortunately, no, I work 9-5. Are evening hours available?
Them: I'm truly sorry, I don't have anything available in the evenings for this week. Would the weekend work for you? ^JP
The fact that they can't schedule me a third appointment outside of weekday hours frustrates me, and I ignore this.
After further Twitter prodding:
Me: Hi, I was told again to schedule an appointment through DM (this will be my third this month)
Them: You can have an appointment 8-11, 11-2, 2-5, or 5-8 any day you wish. Someone 18 or older needs to be home. ^JD
Me: Okay, is 8-11 am tomorrow or Friday available? I didn’t know it was possible to schedule that early :)
Them: They are both available, please provide a contact number for the technician as well. ^JD
Me: Friday morning would be best, my number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Thank you so much! :)
As my emoticons indicates, I was super excited that they were so polite and able to schedule me a new appointment at such short notice.
Of course, karma kicked in. When the technician arrived, he wanted to take off the piece the prior technician had added, but had no pliers (apparently he had forgotten some equipment). Luckily, I had a pair, or that would have been even more of a waste than it ended up being.
After removing the piece didn't fix it, he told me the signal was "too hot" and he needed to access the cable origin in the back of my apartment, which I do not have access to. He told me the issue was that the Optimum Ultra internet I had was "too strong," and that the cables couldn't handle the faster speeds. I was told to schedule a time my landlord could come out and allow him backyard access.
After three appointments my status is as follows: I am trying to get in contact with my landlord to get backyard access. Optimum has given me no credits or refunds for the month of service that was down over 50% of the time. I have no other options other than my paltry two gigs of tethering connection on T-Mobile. Now that I'm back from a business trip, I will be trying to set up an appointment and possibly see if lowering my internet speed helps anything.
The tl;dr: do not do business with Optimum/CableVision. Do not move to a place where they are the only provider of cable. Do everything you can to not have to rely on them as a utility provider.
But, a sidenote: outside of the third appointment snafu, their Twitter support is pretty on-point, if nothing else.