 |
| ||||
 |
Home | Reviews | Speed Test | Tools | News | Forums | Info | About | Join |
***UPDATE 6/11/2024*** I thought I would provide an update several months out. Service is still very stable and consistent. Early on in the cutover, there did seem to be some slow downs as more users were switched over from the HFC network. There hasn't really been any outages to date. The one complaint I have is the hidden price hike, to the tune of nearly $40/month. They baited the area into switching to "Zoom Extreme" @ 1gbps with no data limits in December 2022 and January 2023 for 12 months at no additional cost to your current monthly service. The rack rate for Zoom Extreme is $109. This is rather high in comparison with the competitor, AT&T at $80 rack rate for 1gbps. I had stand alone service prior to the promo at 300mbps for $68.95/month with just a DOCSIS modem, I do not use their gateway/pods and have a Ubiquiti Unifi network setup in my house. When it came time for me to cutover to fiber, they let me keep it at that rate. They used to give a price break if you just went stand alone modem, they no longer do this. I just have the Adtran ONT and don't want their gateway or wifi pods, but they charge the same rate. However when the promo expired, the best they would do is knock $15/off rack rate, bringing it to $95/month. They do not match AT&T's rate around here, presumably because AT&T's coverage is still rather scattered, though they are slowly filling in. Of course, I live in a development surrounded by AT&T fiber for 2 years now but it has not expanded into our development yet. The 300mbps rate prior to was $76 for those that went with the gateway "Zoom Enhanced Wifi". Those that bit on the promo and subsequently switched to fiber now have received a $20-$40 monthly price increase. Though they have never "raised their rates", this was sort of their way of doing it. They had a humbling in 2022 when AT&T's deployment began, but now that AT&T's deployment has slowed, they are right back to the monopoly attitude. I dinged them on the "Value for money" rating, because they are quite high for the average price of 1gbps now. If I had AT&T, I could get the 2gbps service for close to the Armstrong 1gbps rack rate. ***UPDATE 9/22/2023*** Armstrong is overlaying their entire coax infrastructure with XGS-PON. My area was converted and as of Tuesday I was able to schedule my transition. Was able to have it installed in two days. Testing 1000/1000, 2ms latency. Didn't think I'd notice much difference since I was already on 1gbps/20mbps on DOCSIS 3.1, but I'll tell you, the reduction in latency is noticeable on all devices including TVs and phones by the responsiveness of web browsers and apps. Best of all, no gateway required. This network is built upon the ADTRAN Total Access 5000 system. They gave me an Adtran Micro ONT (GPON over XGS-PON but that's OK I'm only running a gig) which hands right off to my Edgerouter X SFP. I bashed Armstrong for years being the monopoly they were. However, they aggressively invested in this fiber network and really upped their game, especially with AT&T entering the market, which seems to have stalled. The direct ONT connection makes this a superior choice. I've complained on here for years about the data caps , pricing, and degrading reliability of their coax network, but they made it right and showed their commitment with this investment. When you build the right network, you will undoubley notice the true benefits of a good fiber network when it's available to you. Install tech was really quick, clean install, and very knowledgeable. First 3 pictures are from an RFoG setup at my parents house. The new pictures of the ONT and speedtest are for this review. Couldn't find an Armstrong Fiber ISP option, so this will appear as a cable review. ***UPDATE 1/19/23*** Just wanted to give a quick update as I need to give credit where credit is due. I have been harsh on Armstrong due to their monopolistic practices of the last decade+. Due to pressure from competition from AT&T in this area, Armstrong has begun to make significant adjustments. They are no longer the only game in town. Received a promo to upgrade to Zoom Extreme at no additional cost for 12 months. This brings me to 1gbps with unlimited data on DOCSIS 3.1 and will put me at symmetrical gig once we are converted to XGS-PON for $68.95/month until the promo is up. They have begun placing last mile fiber and drops. Next step will be splicing and converting customers. This puts them at a nearly $10/month advantage over AT&T at 1gbps. This is, however, only if you are grandfathered at the modem only rate for Zoom. New customers that sign up for Zoom with enhanced wifi pay closer to $80. As far as performance, I generally test 850mbps-1gbps. In the evenings, I do occasionally notice that I am closer to 500mbps. This is likely due to congestion. However, they only guarantee 500mbps on DOCSIS so you can't really complain. I also do notice occasional interference on some of the channel stats. This will also effect speed and cause packet loss. That part will go away once we are off of RF/HFC and switched to fiber, so I am just dealing with it. Customer service is, and generally always has been, very good. Techs are very knowledgeable and the phone support is American and well informed. With the above said, I have changed my tune a bit and it's good to see Armstrong nearly back to it's humble roots, I just wish it didn't take competition to do so. I will update again, with pictures, once I am converted to fiber. The fiber pictures attached to this review are old from my parents residence 15 years ago when Armstrong built out RFoG in their area. They are, however, using the same splice cases. ***UPDATE 9/9/22*** Well, per the below, as predicted, once competition arose things would change. In March, AT&T announced they would begin rolling out XGS-PON to a good chunk of the area by year's end. Here's what I noticed from Armstrong: The data cap meter suddenly broke a few weeks after the announcement with no explanation. The Zoom I service is supposed to have a 1TB cap. It has actually since just within the last few weeks started working again. I think people questioned what happened to it. They still tout the caps, but the meter wasn't working. You know, got to keep an eye on usage so you don't go over. Literally the same week of AT&T's announcement, there was a rapid hanging of fiber on poles by Armstrong. Almost like they hit a panic button. It literally couldn't be more obvious. Armstrong also suddenly rolled out DOCSIS 3.1 in this market, bumping Zoom I to 250/20, with download over provisioned to just over 300mbps. Prices have remained steady, but Armstrong should be aware the price point is $55/month in comparison to their just over $70/month for about the same speeds, and AT&T does market launch promos putting 300mbps at $30/month. Though Armstrong is visibly deploying fiber, AT&T is leaps and bounds ahead as they already have placed PFPs and trenching underground neighborhoods. It appears Armstrong has hit a supply snag or is going to bankrupt themselves (i don't know how with their prices and no competition for a long time), while AT&T with their buying power has called a checkmate and has actually been deep building fiber gradually since 2015 for businesses and cell towers, they are now just splicing in PFPs and adding additional fiber for capacity and tying it all in and offer FTTP. Even though it didn't seem like it, AT&T has actually been putting more into their fiber network during the last decade than Armstrong has. Armstrong had intensions of milking the HFC plant here and we would have likely been closer to the 2030 side of their transition timeline had AT&T not made a move. When Armstrong got wind, it was like oh shit we better do something. Armstrong's initial investment was in the mid-late 1990s and from there it was just add more fiber for capacity and upgrades nodes/taps/CPE/headend equipment as needed. Armstrong can't leverage the existing HFC fiber and convert to XGS-PON without significant interruptions, so they are building out all new fiber. T-Mobile has also entered the local market with 5G UW Home internet. However, the general trend has been that capacity has tanked with more users, so I would say they're less of a threat for Armstrong, but certainly more of a competitor than Armstrong has had in nearly 2 decades. Armstrong hasn't had to worry about AT&T in this market since about 2005, but that's about to change quickly. Onto the service itself. I've noticed on multiple fronts a shady practice. It seems they are still deploying DOCSIS 3.0 modems as to not have to buy so many DOCSIS 3.1 and only when the customer complains do they swap for a 3.1 modem. Literally overhead a modem swap with a neighbor. Obviously because going XGS-PON is going to move everyone to an ONT/Gateway setup. I can see the average joe ordering zoom extreme not realizing what he ordered, not testing, getting a 3.0 modem and only actually get 500mbps and not 1gbps. When Joe gets smart, he complains, and at that point they give him a 3.1 modem. There also seems to be neglect of the coax plant now. Several bouts of noticeable random interference resulting in occasional speed degradation and error correction resulting in higher pings as a result. Again, why invest in the HFC plant? My modem access only half works, sometimes it will reset to the admin login (and not to the default) and I'm locked out until another update, so I can only keep an eye on the channels sometimes. What you notice is a large amount of uncorrectable errors, but then you reset the counter and it's good for awhile, and then you see modem log entries indicating a connection issue, and then you notice the uncorrectables jump again on random channels. This behavior has been on and off for a few months now, it isn't the modem nor my wiring. The issue would certainly be more constant if it were the modem. A straight shot from the tap to the demarc and to my modem, no extra cabling or splitters to consider. When calling to complain, I'm told "oh, there was an issue in the area but it seems to have corrected itself", translates to we know there's interference and we aren't gong to do anything to fix it because we don't want to maintain the HFC plant. Just about every other day there is a video outage, even though I don't have TV service, there's usually a status message saying there's a video service outage on my dashboard. Used to have a ton of respect for the company, but that respect was lost with price gouging and bullying (data caps-it's for network performance protection-no it's because you don't want people cutting tv for streaming). Now here comes karma. There will be a massive Armstrong exodus in this area this Fall and Winter unless there's a massive price drop and removal of all data caps. There only hope is that it's a gradual drop off and not a rapid decline, my guess is AT&T will get backed up quickly on installs. And I'll still say this, the techs and local service are some of the best people, knowledgeable. They cannot control what the greed at the top is doing and honestly I feel bad for those techs. ***UPDATE 8/31/2021*** Used to be a good, wholesome, customer first and family oriented company. Once they realized there was no telecom competition, due to local refusal of telco to upgrade beyond ADSL, they got greedy. Data caps, or "allowances" as they call them, and high prices. Interestingly enough, they do not impose caps in their non-tv markets, such as their NY fiber buildout. The company narrative is that data "allowances" prevent network abuse, the reality is they are protecting their TV service in hopes you subscribe to their overpriced CATV and not choose a streaming alternative. Yet, for $50/month extra, you can abuse the network however you see fit. This adds up to about the cost of having internet bundled with TV, imagine that. Reliability is also becoming a concern. I notice buffering on several video streams. My network is solid, built my entire house with a Ubiquiti network during construction, cat6 throughout with 2 access points and most TVs connected with Ethernet. It's not me, it's you. Several uncorrectable errors on the 32 bonded downstream channels and noticeable noise increases. And yes, I know how to check for ingress. There are no splitters or cluttered wiring, it is a straight run right to my modem from the pedestal in my yard, to my demarc, and to my modem. Plant is showing wear. Without competition, they could care less. Tech support has become arrogant. During the pandemic, I would call several times about capacity issues locally, they acted like it wasn't a problem. Slow speeds, high pings, became the normal, emphasized by the pandemic but was starting in 2018 and 2019 as well. I am paying $68.95 a month for 150mbps/20mbps. Areas where, for example AT&T offers fiber, are paying $35/month for 300mbps/300mbps with no data cap. I can't wait to see how their attitude changes once they start to feel the pressure. When we built our house, they buried a coax/single mode fiber drop, have yet to see any signs of that fiber changeover. ***UPDATE 3/7/2018*** Updating again due to annual speed increase. There's nothing much to say, other than the excellence of speeds. I mean, I get 300mbps for $77.95/month. Not too many parts of the country can say that unless there's a FTTH provider. The "standard" package if you will, is 200mbps for $64.95/month. Here's the negative: there's a data cap. It's 1TB for Zoom Express and Zoom I, I have Zoom II and therefore I get 2TB. Everything Zoom II>Zoom Extreme is 2TB. Zoom Extreme is their gigabit package and it's not available everywhere. The next package down is 500mbps Zoom IV which is available everywhere (in the territory that is). It goes Zoom Express (10mbps/1mbps), Zoom I (200mbps/15mbps), Zoom II (300mbps/20mbps), Zoom III (400mbps/20mbps), Zoom IV (500mbps/20mbps) and Zoom Extreme (1gbps/25mbps). Caps: They'll tell you it's to prevent network abuse, bull shit, it's 1. they have a monopoly and 2. a protection of their TV service. I have the Arris CM3200A, Puma 6 chipset, some have complained about latency but I don't do enough gaming to comment on that. Speedtests are consistently over 300mbps, usually closer to 330mbps, again I have Zoom II. The rumor is that they will be building out a GPON network, the HFC system will be going away. This system will be separate and replace the HFC network. It's a 10 year plan. I suspect if AT&T gets their heads out of their asses and rolls out FTTH in this area that Armstrong will match by getting rid of the data caps and price matching accordingly. Give me Armstrong over any other cable op in the US or give me FTTH. Any tech support, prem techs that visit, are always positive & knowledgeable, period. Never anyone not happy to work for the company and never a dumbass. Always knowledgeable and thorough. With the pending GPON network build it doesn't seem like we will see DOCSIS 3.1, it will stop at 3 and then go full GPON gradually in certain areas gradually replacing the whole system. I could be wrong, just what it seems. They have a TV service, called EXP, that basically communicates back their their gateway using a Tivo interface. My guess is this is a segue into IPTV over a fiber network. One more thing to comment on. Armstrong is very involved in the communities to which they service. For example, they sponsor our local flag day festival every year. They also do local programming and provide programs for our schools and communities. ***UPDATE 3/1/17*** Updating my review due to recent speed increase. I bit on a promotion bate back in December and went to their Zoom II (Pro) package, which at the time was rated at 110/10. Yesterday, they did an across the system upgrade and now I get around 220/20 on a speed test. Their standard Zoom service went from 50/5 to 100/10. Unbelievable speeds for this area and really, better speeds then the other major cable op in the area, TWC Spectrum. The area is covered by these two cable monopolies with no overlap, so there is no competition. No competition from AT&T, the fastest they offer in this market is 24mbps in very limited areas. Most can only get ADSL up to 6mbps or nothing. Laughable. FTTH seems far fetched and a fantasy from them in this area. Some fiber going up, but doesn't appear to be FTTH. The copper telephone system sits there and rots. The provided modem is an Arris CM820. Some users have reported issues with Armstrong in providing their own modem, I have not tried and have no desire to. I am also running a Linksys WRT1900ACS with DD-WRT firmware. Caps have gone to 1TB in their higher tiers, an improvement but still a clear protection of their TV service. If anything, the customers that support the TV service should get unlimited data, they won't because they don't want to deliver that message. They won't come out and say that, they will tell you it's to prevent network overuse, but that's BS. You can get their unlimited option for $50/month with no throttling. Caps are really the only negative opinion I have about the company. I have always had nothing but the best customer service. Hold times are always low, agents are local and speak English clearly, and are pleasant to work with. Network is very reliable, I can't recall any outages or downtime. Pings are good, generally under 50ms across the country and under 10ms regionally. I would like to see a little competition, but it would take Gigabit FTTH to the home for me to change providers. Even if hell freezes over and AT&T rolls it out here, I suspect Armstrong would be quick to respond. ***UPDATE 4/13/16*** Thought I would update my review due to another speed increase. They are generous with speed, I will give them that. Pings are great, never have a problem. Generally under 100ms wherever I go, and under 10ms anything near the local area. Speeds are very consistent, constantly around 50mbps/5mbps and often higher. The new speeds for Standard Zoom are now 50mbps/5mbps, making virtually no competition in the area. AT&T doesn't even attempt to compete. No Gigapower and no U-verse. This makes Armstrong a monopoly in the area, and they take full advantage with price $49.95 for the Standard Zoom and a 200GB cap if you only subscribe to an internet package, 250GB with 1 other service (in my case, television), and 300GB for triple play. Offering these types of speeds only makes your users want to use the bandwidth for HD and 4K Netflix, Amazon, and the like, only to be slapped with the warning of nearing the cap or charge of going over. They are also beginning to outsource some of their technician calls to Baker installations out of New Castle, PA. I use to have great respect for Armstrong in that they sent a well represented, well trained, very knowledgeable, and clean looking tech and truck with every call. Now, it's a toss up. My last service visit involved Baker installations and a 20 something year old that smelled like cigarettes and talked like he was hood and couldn't do the install because it was an upstairs interior room. I talked him into leaving me an amplifier and slitter and did it myself, thankfully I still had coax left over from a spool of coax I had to wire my old house with and some RG6 connectors. Armstrong always has and continues to have a great service and above all a reliable network, but, the usage caps and prices are outrageous. Please go back to the days when you didn't cap, and maybe we'll shut up about the price. ***UPDATE 6/22/15*** Updating due to recent speed increase. Now getting right around 30mbps/3mbps at around 10ms ping for $45/month. They sent me a Arris CM820 to replace my old DOCSIS 2.0 modem, was already configured and ready to go out of the box. I did come close to my usage cap last month because I have a security camera archiving to Google Drive, I got my little warning from Armstrong that I will be charged if I go over. Pricey, yes, but well worth the speed and reliability. Only competition in this area is AT&T (No U-verse available, they may as well not even bother) with up to 6mbps standard ADSL available, around $35/month. An extra $10 and you get 5x's the speed and superior performance. I dinged them on Services and Value for money due to caps and price. ***UPDATE 2/14/15*** Reviving this review due to move to Armstrong territory last summer. There's not much to review, consistent speeds 15mbps/2mbps. Have had service for about a year and a half at this address. Motorola Surfboard SB5101 provided with service, no issues at all with this modem. A little pricey $44.95/month for 15mbps, but when you have a monopoly with little competition it's justifiable. AT&T does not offer U-Verse here, so it's $35 for 6mbps ADSL service or spend $10 more and get reliability and more than double the speed. Could care less for the usage cap, thankfully I haven't come close but Armstrong is just jumping on board with the bigger companies. Had to call service earlier in the year due to modem losing connection, but that was due to a corroded incoming line. That was replaced and all has been well ever since. Service is quick to respond, hold times are minimal, technician was here in a few days. I don't have to think too much about it, it's fast and reliable. Attached pictures are from my parents address when Armstrong ran fiber in their township in 2009, in this township it is standard FTTN but service is just as good. It is the same system, just an older build out. Same channel line ups, service offerings, etc. ***UPDATE: 11/14/09*** Well I said I would update this past summer during my spring review but...there is simply nothing to review. It is by far the best possible service in this entire area. This township went from no broadband to the best in the entire area. My speeds are constant, I'm on the 5000k/500k (Zoom 500) package and my speed tests are consistently around 5000kbps and 500kbps. I haven't experienced a single outage since my last review either, in fact, I don't think the modem has been power cycled nor has my IP address changed. I've been hearing rumors of a speed increase towards the end of the year, so we'll see what happens over the next month. If they do so, I'll review to reflect those new speeds. Cheers to your Armstrong and thank you for seeing the potential in Coitsville Township! ***UPDATE: 3/24/09*** Well, there's really not much to say other than�it works! Speeds remain constant between 4500kbps-5000kbps on the downstream and 400kbps-500kbps on the upstream. I run my internet radio station with no interruptions related to my internet connection at all...period. The modem has only been off once and that was when we lost power for about 12 hours due to a wind storm back in September, the weekend I got service, and finally after about 8 hours the back-up battery built into the modem (since it's for both internet and phone) went dead and the whole thing went dark. But since coming back up...my IP address has not changed. We had another wind storm beginning of February that knocked power out, but everything still worked because 1. They have good back-up power to the node and 2. My UPS and modem stayed up and I never lost internet connectivity so I used my wifi and battery on laptop whenever I wanted! TV service is also great from them. Attached to this review are some pictures of the set-up to show the difference between standard cable and FTTH cable. What I have is actually very similar to Verizon FIOS, structure wise. Here's to you Armstrong and to the future and DOCSIS 3.0 when it comes out! I'll review again this summer. Thank you for everything!!!! ***INITIAL REVIEW in September of 2008*** Well, what can I say, I finally have true broadband! For several years, we were tossed around from small cable op to the next which was nothing more than a group of greedy investors. This coverage area became the only one in the area that had never been upgraded to anything beyond basic cable. When surrounding areas were first introduced to broadband & digital cable 1996-2000, we were left in the dark, and remained so until now. It wasn't long however until Armstrong realized the market potential here and soon added us to their Boardman, OH system. They started about this time last year surveying the area and started hanging support wire to hold what was going to become fiber optic cable running from pole to pole. Finally in August, the project was completed. They run fiber optic cable straight to an omni box which is mounted at the premise and then coax is run into the house from there. Now onto the service. Install took about 3 hours because we had them wire 6 TVs and plus the area of the main PC for Cable modem. Technician was very nice and knowledgeable, knew exactly what he was doing. Many may think a 3 week wait for an install is unreasonable, but considering they just turned up service here and everyone, and I mean everyone flocked to the sales personnel when they came around, they can only do so many installs a day. Plus I had to opt for a Saturday install to be here so that's pretty reasonable. Speeds are pretty consistent. I'm on "Zoom 500" advertised as 5mbps/512kbps. I get around 4.5mbps/500kbps on a speed test which I consider reasonably competitive to the fact that with DSL you only receive about 80% of throughput. So my speeds compare to someone on a 6mbps DSL line. Bottom line though, I finally have true broadband. No more crappy DSL because I'm "too far out" and no more waiting for a cable system to be upgraded. I've bitched and moaned for years, but I have nothing to complain about anymore! Attachments:       member for 21.5 years, 7830 visits, last login: a few hours ago updated 34 days ago
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
·
- ISP Reviews
- Review an ISP
- Latest
- GBU
- Information
- Hardware
- FAQs
- Community
- Join
- Welcome
- Members
- For Sale
- Forums
- All Forums
- Follow
- Site
- Mobile mode
-
© DSLReports.com
Est. 1999
Tuesday, 16-Jul 00:10:05
Hosted by
Liquid Networks