After Optonline Email Debacle What Choice Do I Have?

That is one thing I worry about, the lack of choice and competition in cable access to broadband. Even if I dropped Cablevision’s VOIP service and went to say, Skype I’m still using that over Cablevision’s Optonline broadband service to support it. It was bad when you had to choose between cable TV or an antennae but not that you HAVE to get your broadband basically through one and maybe, maybe two providers, this lack of basic customer service is appalling. It’s making me think about all the other services I use from this company that I rely on everyday: phone, tv, broadband.

Alternative: Smart phone?

This ridiculous customer service we’re getting from Cablevision over the email outage makes me rethink how much I rely on them for many other products and services. (I am a Triple Play subscriber with DVR.) Seems the only other choice I have is to use a smart phone and pick a halfway decent data plan from a cell company to access internet and have a host of free email services. With the focus on mobile in everything from banking to news the way to side step big cable providers may be using smart phone to access the web. You don’t get the big screen real estate and it’s hell to watch feature length movies on but at least I can use it for basic browsing and activities like searching for information that I need to do on the web, including checking my email.

Email Alternatives?

I still use email heavily. That’s not going away but my strategy for relying on email may need to be rethought. I can use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, my blog and a ton of alternate free web based email services instead of optonline email. I have a bunch of other free web based email services that I use but I do rely heavily on Optonline mail. Know what, after this, I am going to chance that. Maybe gmail is more reliable.