Optimum Questions (East Texas)

803 Views | 2 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by txyaloo
hijakeroo123
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My parents currently have DSL for their internet for their internet service, but their phone provider recently sold off their market (Tyler area) and the acquiring company is running it into the ground. The only other provider available to them is Optimum (formerly Suddenstink). For their address, they are advertising 100 Mbps service for $60/mo (not including taxes/fees), with included modem/router combo that they are advertising as Optimum Gateway 6. With this in mind, I have several questions:

1. Is this pricing normal? My wife and I live in Plano and this is right around what we pay with Spectrum, but for 300 Mbps service and not on introductory pricing. Seems a bit odd to be paying the same amount for 1/3 of the speed, but I also recognize that these guys have a captive customer. Meanwhile, my wife and I have multiple fiber options as competition.

2. Will this speed be sufficient for 4K video? Their internet usage isn't super exhaustive, so this is definitely the most taxing use case that they would run into regularly. Their current DSL service typically falls back to 1080P (and sometimes lower) when streaming.

3. Is the included modem/router any good? For my wife and I's internet, I purchased a separate modem and router as the equipment Spectrum issued at the time would constantly drop connection, and I wanted a mesh system. However, I would prefer to have my parents on Optimum-provided equipment as I don't want to give any excuse for their customer service loons to blame problems on user-provided equipment. Otherwise, I am their main tech support, and want to avoid attempting to diagnose internet problems from two hours away.
Lathspell
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Pricing will change based on your area. If they live out in the middle of nowhere, prices can be higher than someone in Plano.

That speed should be plenty. 4K at 24-30FPS requires 35-45 Mbps.

Modem/router will never be top of the line, but that shouldn't affect any consumer needs too much.
txyaloo
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The biggest issue with Suddenlink is their rental equipment. Buy your mom a good DOCSIS 3.0 modem and a good router. I had Suddenlink in two different cities for nearly 2 decades and never really had problems, but I always used my own equipment.

Expect pricing to go up early. I would expect that $60 to double after a year or two with yearly increases after
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