44 replies to this topic

[DirtyLarry]

Yep, you read that right, I am switching my ISP from FIOS to Cablevision, and it is currently causing me great angst.

The deals Cablevision are offering to current FIOS subscribers who were once Cablevision subscribers are just to good to pass up.

Due to how Verizon makes people do a new contract every 2 years, my Internet is now the slowest it has ever been in my house. Since I have the FIOS basic plan, I am getting 15/5. I know that is better then a decent amount of people, but keep in mind at one point I got 45/15. That used to be my "basic" service. But now that Verizon has changed their plans, the only affordable one is indeed the one I get currently.

I called FIOS to let them counter offer, and they offered a decent deal, but I would have lost several of the premium channels I currently have. But my internet could go up to 50/5. It is just the loss of the channels, plus the fact it would still be $25 more than Cablevisions offer, that is making me not choose to stick with them. I also have had less then ideal dealings with their billing and tech support departments.

Cablevision is offering all of the premium channels (except Cinemax, which is no loss), a free Wireless N Netgear Router, a free Amazon Kindle Fire, and a free 2 year subscription to the Major League Baseball Season Pass (if I only watched Baseball).

But the big change is I am now going to be a Cablevision Ultra subscriber, which the advertised speeds are 50/8. Now I know FIOS speeds are always very reliable, but Cablevision now claims to also have a mixture of fiber optic and hybrid fiber optic network, so their speeds are also supposed to be very reliable now. Even if my new Cablevision speeds to fluctuate some, they should still be higher than my current 15/5. However I am hoping the speeds stay constant. Also about 7 months ago at work we had Cablevision install a business line for us. It has been nothing short of ROCK SOLID. No downtime at all, and we get 110/15. Now obviously that is a business line, but due to the great experience I have had at work, I am much more open to trying them at home. A good example of word of mouth so to speak.

The main reason I have made this switch, is a $47 a month savings.

I have also been told that the install today is going to be incredibly easy, as Cablevision is just going to be able to "piggy back" on the current lines Verizon has installed. So everything should stay exactly the same inside my house, which is key. It is just the outside line that will change.

So wish me luck. Cablevision will be here between 8-11 (it is already 9 am). If everything goes smoothly, I should be up and running this afternoon with a new ISP and faster speeds.

[SHoTTa35]

Oh welcome then. We had that major outage the other day but besides that it's been great. Generally as long as you have a D3 modem you'll be fine. FiOS is pretty sweet and i'd hate having to switch to cable but for costs it's a no brainer to me (if it were available here, we only have U-Verse to compete )

You did say "ULTRA" which is usualyl the 101Mbps speeds, Boost+ is 50Mbps which is what I have now at home and work. They do a little over provisioning too as you can see here:



Other than that it's not bad at all, upload is the only place I wish it was better but maybe with the new FiOS Quantum stuff will kick CV in gear!

As for their claim of them having a hybrid fiber network, that's always been true but it's fiber to the node rather than to the premises as with FiOS. The node is the unit on the light pole then they run coax from there to your house.

I think your main angst will be the TV service, well in that I don't use their cable boxes, just ClearQAM on my HDTV so I get all the basics which is all I need for sports. I stream* shows instead but with fast internets, that's no problemo

[DirtyLarry]

SHoTTa35, on 31 August 2012 - 13:08, said:

Oh welcome then. We had that major outage the other day but besides that it's been great. Generally as long as you have a D3 modem you'll be fine. FiOS is pretty sweet and i'd hate having to switch to cable but for costs it's a no brainer to me (if it were available here, we only have U-Verse to compete )

You did say "ULTRA" which is usualyl the 101Mbps speeds, Boost+ is 50Mbps which is what I have now at home and work. They do a little over provisioning too as you can see here:



Other than that it's not bad at all, upload is the only place I wish it was better but maybe with the new FiOS Quantum stuff will kick CV in gear!

As for their claim of them having a hybrid fiber network, that's always been true but it's fiber to the node rather than to the premises as with FiOS. The node is the unit on the light pole then they run coax from there to your house.

Indeed thanks for the correction, and you are right, it is Boost and not Ultra (Ultra is the business line we have at work). So do you always see the same speeds regardless of what time of day and what day it is?

I had Cablevision YEARS ago, and there was a major issue with the consistency of the speeds, which they claim to have fixed that issue, but would love to hear from someone who uses them if your speeds are indeed consistent.

And believe me, this was not an easy decision on my behalf. I overall love the reliability of FIOS, it is just their prices are outrageous. To get what should be the same exact services, and in some cases much better offerings overall, for $45 less a month, that just helps overall in the grand scheme of things.

Thanks for the fast response. They are not here yet so I am on pins and needles waiting for this all to go down.

[z0phi3l]

Unless it's changed in the last year since I worked for Cablevision's Tech Support, your speeds will be fairly stable and close to the max or better, our rule at the time was half or more and things were considered OK, less than half speed and there is a problem, if you have a problem and need Tech support, get past lvl1, they do all the basic stuff only, lvl2 is where things get done or you will need a lead/sup. Never dealt with the TV side but I heard their Cable Card setups were great and fast, but that the boxes were crap

[DirtyLarry]

z0phi3l, on 31 August 2012 - 13:38, said:

Unless it's changed in the last year since I worked for Cablevision's Tech Support, your speeds will be fairly stable and close to the max or better, our rule at the time was half or more and things were considered OK, less than half speed and there is a problem, if you have a problem and need Tech support, get past lvl1, they do all the basic stuff only, lvl2 is where things get done or you will need a lead/sup. Never dealt with the TV side but I heard their Cable Card setups were great and fast, but that the boxes were crap

Thanks for sharing. While I personally do not feel half speeds are okay, that is still better than my current connection, so I could in theory live with that I suppose. Maybe.

Just got the call, they are on their way. if I am posting back in a few hours, it should be from my new connection, and no doubt I will be doing speed tests all day for multiple days.

[jerzdawg]

Ya know.. when I saw this on the front page I worried it was you posting this. Cablevision has been coming to my house on the regular trying to get me to switch. Usually I am just able to tell them no NFL network.. no deal. Well.. the sales lady must have taken notes because she came back the day the deal was made to bring the NFL network to Cablevision. Im currently getting 25/25 with Fios and I just cant justify the switch. I think cb's deal was $122 and I am paying $135 with Fios. I have a feeling you will end up back with Fios at some point...at least you should be able to keep the free swag.

[DirtyLarry]

jerzdawg, on 31 August 2012 - 13:45, said:

Ya know.. when I saw this on the front page I worried it was you posting this. Cablevision has been coming to my house on the regular trying to get me to switch. Usually I am just able to tell them no NFL network.. no deal. Well.. the sales lady must have taken notes because she came back the day the deal was made to bring the NFL network to Cablevision. Im currently getting 25/25 with Fios and I just cant justify the switch. I think cb's deal was $122 and I am paying $135 with Fios. I have a feeling you will end up back with Fios at some point...at least you should be able to keep the free swag.

We are currently paying $156 with FIOS, and that is with the 15/5, new deal is $115 through Cablevision (does also include NFL network) with claimed 50/8. So yeah, had to take the risk. You know I have loved FIOS, but just cannot justify the extra costs if Cablevision can pull off what they are promising.

As I said, FIOS did come back with a counter offer, which did include 50/15, but it then takes us down to their basic cable package. And was still at $137 after tax. Which is still $22 more than the OOL deal.

It is also a 30 day no risk trial, so that kind of helped solidify the deal.

The one thing that may mess the whole thing up, is we have to keep the Verizon line to keep her work phone, mainly fax. Or else it becomes a nightmare with the paper work every month. So yeah, if OOL cannot install while keeping the additional phone lines we have through Verizon, I am just going to tell them thanks but no thanks. They claimed it would not be an issue though.

[SHoTTa35]

Speeds are steady all day long as you can see from my posts in the speedtest.net thread on here as well as other post on DSLReports.com. I was just gonna mention the 30 day trial thing so you can even keep FIOS side by side and go from there.

You should be able to do 2 lines with CV with the 1 modem so you should be goood.

[+Chris123NT]

Good luck with it, I know after all the problems I had with Cablevision back in the day I'll never go back. Especially after the whole capping thing and the way they treated me like i was some kind of criminal for using my connection.

[SHoTTa35]

What capping thing? There should be no caps at all on CV, I downloaded 182GB the other (in about 8hrs I might add ) and didn't hear a quip from CV about it. Did about 400GB last month but normally I only do about 180-300GB though so maybe that's why.

I've had them for abour 2 years now and have had a few issues but nothing major in the way of days/weeks with the same issue, usually a few hours.

[+Chris123NT]

SHoTTa35, on 31 August 2012 - 14:20, said:

What capping thing? There should be no caps at all on CV, I downloaded 182GB the other (in about 8hrs I might add ) and didn't hear a quip from CV about it. Did about 400GB last month but normally I only do about 180-300GB though so maybe that's why.

I've had them for abour 2 years now and have had a few issues but nothing major in the way of days/weeks with the same issue, usually a few hours.

From 2003 until 2007 they would cap your upload speed to 150kbit for crossing some unknown limit that seemed to change based on node load. This is well documented on DSLReports, under the capping thread. It should still be there although it hasn't been an issue since FiOS got a good foothold in CV's area.

Worst of all it was a hard cap and you had to call in to get it lifted, and some doofus from their security department would call you back and scold you like a kid.

[+BoneyardBrew]

I was a loyal Optimum/Cablevision customer for many years until I started having serious issues with them. Basically, the internet would drop out on a daily basis for minutes at a time on top of being only a fraction of the speed we paid for. Contacting support left the issue unresolved and when suggesting we may switch they simply let us. No counter-offer, no apologies for the issues, etc.

We switched to FiOS and couldn't be happier. Now we get better and far more consistent speed (actually more than we paid for), faster TV (the Cablevision UI was always horribly laggy), and your standard unlimited phone service. Cablevision representatives always come to our door trying to get us to switch but after our past experience with them we refuse to, regardless of how much they can save us (which in the grand scheme of things isn't much when the service barely works). I have a friend that switched back to Cablevision from FiOS because of a good deal and he has had nothing but problems since.

Anyway, I'll end my rant there. If Cablevision's service is more reliable in Jersey then it is in New York you've made a good choice. Best of luck!

[jerzdawg]

DirtyLarry, on 31 August 2012 - 13:58, said:

We are currently paying $156 with FIOS, and that is with the 15/5, new deal is $115 through Cablevision (does also include NFL network) with claimed 50/8. So yeah, had to take the risk. You know I have loved FIOS, but just cannot justify the extra costs if Cablevision can pull off what they are promising.

As I said, FIOS did come back with a counter offer, which did include 50/15, but it then takes us down to their basic cable package. And was still at $137 after tax. Which is still $22 more than the OOL deal.

It is also a 30 day no risk trial, so that kind of helped solidify the deal.

The one thing that may mess the whole thing up, is we have to keep the Verizon line to keep her work phone, mainly fax. Or else it becomes a nightmare with the paper work every month. So yeah, if OOL cannot install while keeping the additional phone lines we have through Verizon, I am just going to tell them thanks but no thanks. They claimed it would not be an issue though.

yea... i get the price thing.. Verizon is def not as good as they used to be with their "deals" to keep customers. I feel like I used to get all sorts of free stuff (premium channels, $300 visa card, etc) whenever I threatened to leave. Now... nothing in comparison. maybe ill call today.. see if they can offer me anything... good luck with cablevision...

edit - do they have the multiroom dvr thing? cause that is still something I like to have with fios

[SHoTTa35]

Chris123NT, on 31 August 2012 - 16:01, said:

From 2003 until 2007 they would cap your upload speed to 150kbit for crossing some unknown limit that seemed to change based on node load. This is well documented on DSLReports, under the capping thread. It should still be there although it hasn't been an issue since FiOS got a good foothold in CV's area.

Worst of all it was a hard cap and you had to call in to get it lifted, and some doofus from their security department would call you back and scold you like a kid.

Oooooh that sorta cap you mean. Yeah i remember those, but I thought if you were seeding torrents* or "being a server" which is against their TOS you would get that. Granted uploading stuff to Amazon/Dropbox/etc wasn't that popular back then but I never had issues with upload speed caps.

I should probably point out that I had OOL in 1998 also, ! I had 8Mbps service while most people were still on dialup, with some on DSL 768Kbps. I had a 3Com Sharkfin modem that i bought at Nobody Beats the Wiz back then. This was in the days of Geocities homepages though, not much to do with 8mbps back then. LOL

Their multiroom DVR thing is now Network DVR+ which isn't as good IMO but you can watch shows from any box however, it is sorta like OnDemand instead of "DVR" in the normal sense.

* = yes i know torrents weren't around back then maybe IRC servers or whatever.

OH and WTF, where is DL? Did it fail so badly he can't get back online? That's not a good sign if that's the case.

[tsupersonic]

Lucky you, you actually have a choice of ISP's. Where I am now, I have 2 choices: 1) Time Warner (Roadrunner) - which offers fastish speeds but is unreliable. 2) Frontier - Really slow and extremely expensive. I'm with Time Warner now, and I have 20/2, for $45. It blows. They haven't rolled out DOCSIS 3.