Optimum customers report outages

Much of the tristate area was plunged into the past Friday evening as a service outage knocked out internet and cable service to Optimum customers across much of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. Optimum customers reported widespread outages to internet, phone and TV service Friday.

The reports began around 8 p.m. and appeared to be centered around New York City, according to downdetector.com.

The outages reportedly extended throughout the tristate area, covering most of Connecticut and New Jersey.

“I saw your story about Optimum and wanted to let you know that we are aware of the situation and appreciate our customers’ patience as we work diligently to identify the root cause and resolve the situation,” said Altice USA representative Lisa Anselmo in an email. Altice USA is the parent company of Optimum.

The company’s customer service Twitter feed was flooded with reports of outages from irate customers.

“Optimum / Cablevision is having issues since 7:49 PM EDT. RT if it's down for you as well #Optimum/Cablevisiondown,” @DownDetector said on Twitter.

Optimum, the consumer brand for Cablevision, offers cable television, internet and home phone service under the Optimum Online, Optimum TV and Optimum Voice brands for homes and businesses in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and parts of Pennsylvania.

Customers took to social media with their complaints. Some had no cable, some had no wifi, and some had lost both.

Fabiani @ny_fabo said, “I was losing my mind trying to fix my internet router. Find out #Optimum has a outage!!! Twitter is more reliable than customer service.” ·

Another customer, LSP@lsposner said, “If it weren’t for Twitter there’d be NO info and no customer service regarding #optimum outage. All cable. All phone. All internet. At least they’ll pay us back fairly for the inconvenience.” That was followed by two laughing emoji.

On the DownDetector website, nearly 6,000 comments had been lodged, with outages reported from the Bronx to Dutchess County, from Norwalk to New Rochelle, and from Trumbull to Torrington.