Optimum Online review

Optimum Online includes five separate e-mail accounts of up to 20MB each, which should be plenty for most families or small businesses; however, some competitors provide nine accounts with their broadband service, as well as a personal Web page. Also, since Optimum Online doesn't include a dial-up account, it's not the service for people who travel. The company's Traveler service will sell you blocks of dial-up minutes that are good for a year. While Optimum Online works well with instant-messaging services, it has mixed success blocking spyware, pop-ups, and spam at the server level. Optimum Online recently added The Digiticians' PCCare maintenance software to its extensive array of free downloads.

Those used to dialing up for every connection will find Optimum Online liberating. The always-on data service uses DOCSIS 2.0-based connections and dynamically assigns an IP address to each. We've used the service for five years, and over the course of two weeks monitored its speed using CNET's Bandwidth Meter. We found Optimum Online's performance dependable, sometimes topping out at over 5Mbps, but reliably delivering an average download speed of about 3.3Mbps--more than enough for most Web work or for sharing a connection among family members. Still, it's far from the fastest service available. For those in the habit of transferring large files over a VPN connection, bear in mind that Optimum Online's upload speed is only between 600Kbps and 900Kbps, as measured by Speakeasy's online bandwidth gauge.

Although Optimum Online offers free support, its online and phone offerings are tolerable at best. E-mail replies arrive late, and you can wait on the phone 20 minutes before talking to a technician. The well-stocked support site offers technology tutorials, e-mail setup tools, plenty of downloads, and a way to check on the connection's status. However, the Answer Center mixes helpful, up-to-date information with canned answers that were irrelevant to our situation. Unfortunately, rather than using a centralized toll-free number, you have to call your local cable office for help. The support lines are staffed 24 hours a day, but the call is not toll-free. The generally knowledgeable support staff promises to respond to e-mail messages within 24 hours, but it missed the mark on several occasions. Many of the replies merely told us to call the support line. On the other hand, Optimum Online's installation-and-repair technicians are resourceful and well trained.