Optimum Online
Encyclopedia
Optimum Online is a broadband Internet service provider
subsidiary of Cablevision.
Optimum Online serves some parts of the New York City metropolitan area, the Bronx
, Brooklyn
, Westchester
, and parts of the states of New York
, New Jersey
, Connecticut
, and Pennsylvania
.
2.0 cable modem
.
subscribers.
In Spring 2011, Optimum Online Boost was replaced by Optimum Online Boost Plus for their consumer tier; for the same price, it increases bandwidth to 50 Mbit/s downstream and 8 Mbit/s upstream. (Business customers do not yet have access to the Boost Plus Service.)
es to an Internet access plan. It consists of a routed /29 CIDR IP subnet (8 IP addresses) providing 5 available IP addresses for host computers or customer premise routers. The subnet
is provisioned with Cisco 800 series routers which are locked by the service and cannot be customized. Static IP service includes configuration options via Optimum Online's account web interface for reverse Domain Name System
(DNS) resolution of the IP addresses to customer provided domain name
s. The customer's domain names must resolve to the corresponding IP addresses when configured via the web interface. A set of port numbers for SMTP (25), HTTP (80 and 8080), and common proxy ports (1080, 3128, 6588) is automatically blocked from external access to the subnet, but may be individually enabled in the web interface. The cost for this service is $24.95/month.
, governed by service level agreement
and offered by incumbent phone companies. Lightpath sells Metro Ethernet based dedicated Internet access, multi/single point to multi/single point Layer 2 metropolitan LAN connections, and voice services. Cablevision Lightpath has an extensive peering network with Points of Presence in Newark, New Jersey
; New York City
; Ashburn, Virginia
; Los Angeles, California
; and Chicago
, Illinois
, although the service is only available in the NYC metropolitan area (NY, NJ, and CT). Lightpath is a carrier grade service with a 99.99% uptime service level agreement, and dedicated/guaranteed bandwidth, it should not be confused with the HFC
-based Optimum Online service which is best effort and has no guarantees about its performance or reliability or uptime.
s on its users. Users reported that after an undefined period of continuous upload usage, they have been capped from 2 megabits upstream to 150 kilobits upstream, a 92.5% decrease in upstream bandwidth. There is no information available to the consumer about OOL's capping policy. Getting uncapped is an often lengthy process, requiring OOL representatives to call a customer back at their house. The criteria for getting capped seems to differ from customer to customer. Cablevision claims that the decision is based on the CPU *utilization* of their gateway servers, and they cannot give a customer any parameters with which they can avoid capping. They claim to offer only "burst upload service". Discussions by capped OOL customers have concluded that any sustained usage of upload bandwidth (between 5 to 24 hours) will eventually result in a bandwidth cap. Users would not be able to use BitTorrent, FTP, or any server application
without eventually getting capped. This can be avoided by setting a max upload speed of 10-15 kB/s, for BitTorrent users this effectively means you can seed, but only by a very limited amount (and stopping the torrent after finishing). One could indefinitely seed a torrent at 10 kB/s and never get capped. This would essentially exclude an Optimum Online customer from utilizing video conferencing or anything else that would be sending large amounts of data over a "high speed" connection that the customer is already paying for. Cablevision states that this is in accordance to a clause in their user agreement, where they may "use whatever means necessary to ensure the security and stability of their network". The upload capping seems to affect nodes that are crowded, as some users have never experienced an upload cap despite the fact they upload at max constantly.
Capping reduced a user's bandwidth from 15Mbit/s–2 Mbit/s (1920 kB/s–256 kB/s) to around 4.5 Mbit/s–140 kbit/s (576 kB/s–17 kB/s). The impact of the download speed reduction is caused by there not being enough upload bandwidth to send the amount of TCP acknowledgment packets needed to sustain a 15 Mbit/s download, a limitation of TCP, the reduction in download speed is not caused by a cap in the cable modem profile like the reduction in upload speed, but a side effect of TCP not having enough upload bandwidth because of the upload cap. After being throttled, there is no notification by Optimum Online other than reduced bandwidth performance. The customer must call Optimum Online to find out what has happened. Only then does Optimum Online inform the customer of the cap and tells its customers that after the fourth incident of throttling, your service will be terminated permanently. However, some users have called and Optimum Online customer service representatives have claimed that capping does not exist except for those users running servers, and when they check your account, claim that the user has in fact not been capped. OOL users can download large quantities of data without being capped.
Cablevision has also stated that Optimum Online Boost members can also be capped, which many have claimed as odd because they advertise the service as allowing members to run a server on their connection. Capping of members on Optimum Online Boost is extremely rare compared to customers on the standard plan (15 Mbit/s-2 Mbit/s). It is suggested by online user communities and occasionally by Cablevision service representatives, for users who are capped on the standard plan to upgrade to the more expensive Boost plan to get uncapped, and to prevent/reduce the risk of future cappings. Under-the-hood, the Boost plan uses a separate pool of bandwidth from the standard plan, which may explain why it would be treated differently.
Cablevision, which also offers Business Class connections, which have identical speed tiers, prices and nearly identical feature sets, caps them in exactly the same way as residential accounts. All of the above applies to Business Class connections. Cablevision Business Class should not be confused with the business targeted Metro Ethernet/Fiber based Cablevision Lightpath service. It is much more expensive and is a dedicated connection with a service level agreement
.
Optimum Online:
Users may not run any type of server on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, SMTP, POP, HTTP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums;
Users may not register or point a domain, sub-domain, or hostname to any Optimum Online IP address. Moreover, Users may not have traffic redirected to The Service;
Users may not resell, share, or otherwise distribute the Service or any portion thereof to any third party without the written consent of Cablevision. For example, Subscriber may not provide Internet access to others through a dial up connection, wireless access or host shell accounts over the Internet, provide e-mail or news service, or send a news feed.
Users may not copy, distribute or sublicense any software provided by Cablevision, except that Subscriber may make one copy of each software program for back up or archival purposes only;
Optimum Online Boost:
Users may not run any servers except for a webserver (HTTP) and mail (SMTP) on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, POP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums.
Users who opt to run a webserver must do so on port 80 only. Webservers running on any other port will be deemed a violation of these terms.
Similarly, users who opt to run a mailserver (SMTP) must do so on port 25 only. Mailservers running on any other port will be deemed a violation of these terms.
Users opting to run web or mail servers are expected to secure those services and maintain the security of those services on an ongoing basis. Mailservers are to be configured against open relay and third party exploitation.
Users may not resell, share, or otherwise distribute the Service or any portion thereof to any third party without the written consent of Cablevision. For example, Subscriber may not provide Internet access to others through a dial up connection, wireless access or host shell accounts over the Internet, provide e-mail or news service, or send a news feed.
Users may not copy, distribute or sublicense any software provided by Cablevision, except that Subscriber may make one copy of each software program for back up or archival purposes only."
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
subsidiary of Cablevision.
Optimum Online serves some parts of the New York City metropolitan area, the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, Westchester
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
, and parts of the states of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
.
Standard offering
The basic Optimum Online service offering provides 15 Mbit/s downstream and 2 Mbit/s upstream (as of June 2006, previously 10/1) Internet connection speed. Subscription costs $44–49 monthly. The service is provisioned with a DOCSISDOCSIS
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-speed data transfer to an existing cable TV system...
2.0 cable modem
Cable modem
A cable modem is a type of network bridge and modem that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a HFC and RFoG infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high...
.
Optimum Online Boost Plus
Optimum Online Boost service increases the provided bandwidth to 30 Mbit/s downstream and 5 Mbit/s upstream. It was phased in during Fall 2006 at an additional cost of $14.95/month, or $9.95/month for Optimum VoiceOptimum Voice
Optimum Voice is a VoIP telephone services provided by Cablevision for its Optimum Online customers. Customers must have Optimum Online first before using Optimum Voice as it uses the Internet for phone session.- World Call :...
subscribers.
In Spring 2011, Optimum Online Boost was replaced by Optimum Online Boost Plus for their consumer tier; for the same price, it increases bandwidth to 50 Mbit/s downstream and 8 Mbit/s upstream. (Business customers do not yet have access to the Boost Plus Service.)
Optimum Online Ultra
Optimum Online Ultra was introduced in May 2009, boasting bandwidth limits of up to 101 Mbit/s downstream and 15 Mbit/s upstream for $99.95/month.($50/month more for current Optimum Boost members with Optimum Voice) At launch time, it is the highest bandwidth Internet access service for the residential and small business market in the US. This service also has an additional charge of $300.00 for an activation fee. Ultra utilizes the new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem standard.Static IP
Optimum Online Static IP service adds dedicated IP addressIP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es to an Internet access plan. It consists of a routed /29 CIDR IP subnet (8 IP addresses) providing 5 available IP addresses for host computers or customer premise routers. The subnet
Subnet
The word subnet may refer to:* In computer networks, an abbreviation for subnetwork.* In mathematics, a subnet of a net in a topological space....
is provisioned with Cisco 800 series routers which are locked by the service and cannot be customized. Static IP service includes configuration options via Optimum Online's account web interface for reverse Domain Name System
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
(DNS) resolution of the IP addresses to customer provided domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
s. The customer's domain names must resolve to the corresponding IP addresses when configured via the web interface. A set of port numbers for SMTP (25), HTTP (80 and 8080), and common proxy ports (1080, 3128, 6588) is automatically blocked from external access to the subnet, but may be individually enabled in the web interface. The cost for this service is $24.95/month.
Optimum WiFi
Optimum Online provides free wireless Internet access to its subscribers through a network of WiFi access points located in public areas, such as train stations, shopping centers, school neighborhoods, sports fields, parks, business districts, and other areas by hosting wireless hubs that require online subscribers to register Optimum Online accounts on the internet.Network information
Cablevision also owns Lightpath, a company with an optical fiber network providing service to the New York metro area. It competes and presents itself as being an equal but cheaper alternative to T1, T3, Frame Relay, dedicated fiber, and leased line products based on time-division multiplexingTime-division multiplexing
Time-division multiplexing is a type of digital multiplexing in which two or more bit streams or signals are transferred apparently simultaneously as sub-channels in one communication channel, but are physically taking turns on the channel. The time domain is divided into several recurrent...
, governed by service level agreement
Service Level Agreement
A service-level agreement is a part of a service contract where the level of service is formally defined. In practice, the term SLA is sometimes used to refer to the contracted delivery time or performance...
and offered by incumbent phone companies. Lightpath sells Metro Ethernet based dedicated Internet access, multi/single point to multi/single point Layer 2 metropolitan LAN connections, and voice services. Cablevision Lightpath has an extensive peering network with Points of Presence in Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
; New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
; Ashburn, Virginia
Ashburn, Virginia
Ashburn, Virginia is a census-designated place located in Loudoun County, Virginia, northwest of Washington, D.C., and is part of the Washington Metropolitan Area...
; Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
; and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, although the service is only available in the NYC metropolitan area (NY, NJ, and CT). Lightpath is a carrier grade service with a 99.99% uptime service level agreement, and dedicated/guaranteed bandwidth, it should not be confused with the HFC
Hybrid fibre-coaxial
Hybrid fiber-coaxial is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network which combines optical fibre and coaxial cable. It was commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s.-Description:...
-based Optimum Online service which is best effort and has no guarantees about its performance or reliability or uptime.
Bandwidth capping criticisms
In the past, Optimum Online imposed bandwidth capBandwidth cap
A bandwidth cap, also known as a bit cap, limits the transfer of a specified amount of data over a period of time. Internet service providers commonly apply a cap when a channel intended to be shared by many users becomes overloaded, or may be overloaded, by a few users...
s on its users. Users reported that after an undefined period of continuous upload usage, they have been capped from 2 megabits upstream to 150 kilobits upstream, a 92.5% decrease in upstream bandwidth. There is no information available to the consumer about OOL's capping policy. Getting uncapped is an often lengthy process, requiring OOL representatives to call a customer back at their house. The criteria for getting capped seems to differ from customer to customer. Cablevision claims that the decision is based on the CPU *utilization* of their gateway servers, and they cannot give a customer any parameters with which they can avoid capping. They claim to offer only "burst upload service". Discussions by capped OOL customers have concluded that any sustained usage of upload bandwidth (between 5 to 24 hours) will eventually result in a bandwidth cap. Users would not be able to use BitTorrent, FTP, or any server application
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
without eventually getting capped. This can be avoided by setting a max upload speed of 10-15 kB/s, for BitTorrent users this effectively means you can seed, but only by a very limited amount (and stopping the torrent after finishing). One could indefinitely seed a torrent at 10 kB/s and never get capped. This would essentially exclude an Optimum Online customer from utilizing video conferencing or anything else that would be sending large amounts of data over a "high speed" connection that the customer is already paying for. Cablevision states that this is in accordance to a clause in their user agreement, where they may "use whatever means necessary to ensure the security and stability of their network". The upload capping seems to affect nodes that are crowded, as some users have never experienced an upload cap despite the fact they upload at max constantly.
Capping reduced a user's bandwidth from 15Mbit/s–2 Mbit/s (1920 kB/s–256 kB/s) to around 4.5 Mbit/s–140 kbit/s (576 kB/s–17 kB/s). The impact of the download speed reduction is caused by there not being enough upload bandwidth to send the amount of TCP acknowledgment packets needed to sustain a 15 Mbit/s download, a limitation of TCP, the reduction in download speed is not caused by a cap in the cable modem profile like the reduction in upload speed, but a side effect of TCP not having enough upload bandwidth because of the upload cap. After being throttled, there is no notification by Optimum Online other than reduced bandwidth performance. The customer must call Optimum Online to find out what has happened. Only then does Optimum Online inform the customer of the cap and tells its customers that after the fourth incident of throttling, your service will be terminated permanently. However, some users have called and Optimum Online customer service representatives have claimed that capping does not exist except for those users running servers, and when they check your account, claim that the user has in fact not been capped. OOL users can download large quantities of data without being capped.
Cablevision has also stated that Optimum Online Boost members can also be capped, which many have claimed as odd because they advertise the service as allowing members to run a server on their connection. Capping of members on Optimum Online Boost is extremely rare compared to customers on the standard plan (15 Mbit/s-2 Mbit/s). It is suggested by online user communities and occasionally by Cablevision service representatives, for users who are capped on the standard plan to upgrade to the more expensive Boost plan to get uncapped, and to prevent/reduce the risk of future cappings. Under-the-hood, the Boost plan uses a separate pool of bandwidth from the standard plan, which may explain why it would be treated differently.
Cablevision, which also offers Business Class connections, which have identical speed tiers, prices and nearly identical feature sets, caps them in exactly the same way as residential accounts. All of the above applies to Business Class connections. Cablevision Business Class should not be confused with the business targeted Metro Ethernet/Fiber based Cablevision Lightpath service. It is much more expensive and is a dedicated connection with a service level agreement
Service Level Agreement
A service-level agreement is a part of a service contract where the level of service is formally defined. In practice, the term SLA is sometimes used to refer to the contracted delivery time or performance...
.
Hosting a Server
"In addition to the prohibitions outlined in the Acceptable Use Policy, the following restrictions apply:Optimum Online:
Users may not run any type of server on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, SMTP, POP, HTTP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums;
Users may not register or point a domain, sub-domain, or hostname to any Optimum Online IP address. Moreover, Users may not have traffic redirected to The Service;
Users may not resell, share, or otherwise distribute the Service or any portion thereof to any third party without the written consent of Cablevision. For example, Subscriber may not provide Internet access to others through a dial up connection, wireless access or host shell accounts over the Internet, provide e-mail or news service, or send a news feed.
Users may not copy, distribute or sublicense any software provided by Cablevision, except that Subscriber may make one copy of each software program for back up or archival purposes only;
Optimum Online Boost:
Users may not run any servers except for a webserver (HTTP) and mail (SMTP) on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, POP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums.
Users who opt to run a webserver must do so on port 80 only. Webservers running on any other port will be deemed a violation of these terms.
Similarly, users who opt to run a mailserver (SMTP) must do so on port 25 only. Mailservers running on any other port will be deemed a violation of these terms.
Users opting to run web or mail servers are expected to secure those services and maintain the security of those services on an ongoing basis. Mailservers are to be configured against open relay and third party exploitation.
Users may not resell, share, or otherwise distribute the Service or any portion thereof to any third party without the written consent of Cablevision. For example, Subscriber may not provide Internet access to others through a dial up connection, wireless access or host shell accounts over the Internet, provide e-mail or news service, or send a news feed.
Users may not copy, distribute or sublicense any software provided by Cablevision, except that Subscriber may make one copy of each software program for back up or archival purposes only."