Altice Updates Dunellen on Optimum Cable and Internet Upgrades

DUNELLEN, NJ – The Borough of Dunellen has continued conversations with Altice USA (Optimum) regarding their cable and internet service disruptions and customer service issues with the Borough.

In September 2020, Mayor Jason Cilento issued a letter alongside the Mayors of Piscataway Township, Robbinsville Township and Hamilton Township to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, requesting them to investigate Optimum regarding the quality and consistency of their service.

Following Mayor Cilento’s letter, representatives from Altice’s government affairs department responded to the Borough regarding service interruptions. The Borough was updated on plans to upgrade services by the splitting of two network nodes that will provide greater capacity to residents in Dunellen. Nodes are used to distribute TV and Internet bandwidth throughout a geographic area. Optimum describes this as a means to “virtually add” lanes to an Internet highway that allows for customers to have greater bandwidth.

Optimum has informed the Borough that the node splits are estimated to be completed before the end of the year. In addition, two other nodes in the Borough are being triaged to determine if they have congestion issues and need to be split to add more capacity.

Optimum continues to address issues throughout the Borough and asks that residents to reach out to them regarding their connectivity issues. They also indicated to the Borough that the majority of the issues consumers are having is with WiFi connectivity.  This has mostly been due to consumer behaviors related to remote learning and working due to COVID-19. In response to this, they have created four channels for residents to inform Optimum of their issue.  Contacting Optimum via any of these channels will result in a trouble ticket being created that will direct a repair team to assess and address the issue:

• Visit optimum.net/support/outage
• Message Optimum at optimum.net/chat
• Send Tweet to @Optimumhelp
• Call (866) 950-3278

The Borough of Dunellen will continue to work on behalf of its residents to ensure Optimum makes service to their Dunellen customers a top priority.