Know something we should know? E-mail us your tips! We respect anonymity. »
Optimum Online Ultra, one month later: Hope you plan to P2P a lot
  • 5 Comments
by Nicholas Deleon on June 22, 2009

sherman

It’s been about a month since I subscribed to Optimum Online Ultra, the fastest Internet service in the country—sorry, Peter. Consider this a predictable, rubbish explanation of how my Internet habits—nay, my life!—have changed as a result of having a 101 megabits-down/15 megabits-up connection.

In so many words, nothing has changed all that much. My What.cd and HDBits ratios have improved, but that’s to be expected when you’re in BitTorrent swarms with lowly Comcast and Time Warner users. Having a 101 megabits at my disposal does make it easer to grab new releases quite speedily—I can’t wait till Entourage comes out, hello ratio boost!—but that’s about it.

So it’s safe to say Optimum Online Ultra is great for heavy BitTorrent users. Plus, no bandwidth caps!

Usenet becomes dangerous with Optimum Online Ultra. “Yeah, that movie sure would be nice to add to my collection.” Four minutes later, bam!

As far as legitimate uses go, ha! YouTube, used for watching reruns of Supermarket Sweep, is still a piece of garbage. Nothing loads any faster than it did when I had regular Optimum Online. (Of course, videos play while they load, so it’s not a huge deal.) Is that because Flash for Mac OS X is 100 percent dross, constantly causing Safari (and Firefox for that matter) to crash? Maybe; I’m not a scientist. The point is, I was expecting to click a YouTube link and have the video load instantly. That simply doesn’t happen. Same thing with Hulu: it’s still dog-slow, even though it plays as its loading. Like the Cablevision tech explained to me when he installed the service, my home connection is now faster than what what Web sites can provide. Until YouTube, Hulu and whomever else upgrade their infrastructure, I’ll be waiting for video to load just like everyone else.

So yeah, unless you’re a heavy P2P user, you really won’t see much of a difference between Optimum Online Ultra and the average broadband connection.

Such is my experience.

Comments rss icon

  • It is illegal to steal. If you can afford ultra super duper Internet service then consider actually buying the movies/shows/music/games/applications moron.

    Reading this has inspired me to shut down everyone using BitTorrent on the student housing networks I managed.

    Our society is in such decline and generations of people have the attitude that the world owes them. Grow up you effing spoiled brats before you are faced with reality and Mommy can’t bail you out like she has your whole life.

    Stop sheltering our children from disappointment, unfairness and loss so that they learn what these things are and become better human beings for it. Negatively affecting everyone around you so that you can have everything your way is unrealistic and will eventually come back around to get you in the end.

    • That’s kind of ridiculous. Pretty sure good creative material will always command a price because people don’t mind paying for it. Hell, Radiohead gave away an album and let you pay whatever you wanted for it, and still made a pretty decent sum of money off it. I think that’s pretty solid proof.

    • Zero 2 SOB in 2.5 secs. - July 7th, 2009 at 3:24 pm GMT+5

      waaaa waaaaaa shadup and let everyone do what they please, it’s thier internet and they r the ones paying for it. So go back to watching ur porn u dweeb.

    • “It is illegal to steal.”

      I shall quote V- “Stealing implies ownership”
      No one can own 0s and 1s no matter how much they try to brainwash me into believing the contrary.
      STFU and get some brain in the vacant space sitting on top of your neck.

  • SHUT DOWN TORRENTS????

    YOUR AN IDIOT

Leave Comment

Commenting Options

Enter your personal information to the left, or sign in with your Facebook account by clicking the button below.

Alternatively, you can create an avatar that will appear whenever you leave a comment on a Gravatar-enabled blog.

Trackback URL
Short URL
bugbugbug