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***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
When I moved, I had 2 options, as most do: The local telco, or the cable company. In this case, I went with the cable company, since the Telco in this area is a total joke. Rocky start with Armstrong, as the sales rep assured me that Sunday installs could be done, only to discover that they do no work whatsoever on a Sunday. I was angry enough to consider cancelling at that point, but, once again... the Telco is a total joke, around here. After installation, I was genuinely surprised as to how fast the internet itself was. 50mbps out of a relatively small ISP, when Time Warner would struggle to give me 20, sometimes. Not that any of that matters, of course... all the speed in the world doesn't mean anything if you're capped at a draconian 200 gigs. So, for all of my compliments regarding how reliable and fast the service is, I essentially can't use it to its' full potential. I essentially now have to watch and meter my internet usage just like I would on a mobile plan, which is, quite frankly, disgusting. Rumors are spreading that fiber is coming to this area within the next 2 years, and if so... I'll happily return everything to Armstrong to enjoy the Internet the way it should be. *UPDATE* 4-28-16 Speeds remain consistent. Doubled, actually. I'm sure they can afford the upgrades with the absolute robbery that occurs when you hit their cap. Paying 15 extra a month for 100 extra gigs. I'm impressed with the speed, but to be blunt, the company can still shove their caps where the sun doesn't shine. *UPDATE 2* 2-24-2017 Speeds have dipped slightly from the 100mbps+ I had been getting, but the cap was raised to a full terabyte. I still think that caps are a gimmick, but a terabyte is so much more manageable and fair than the 300 gigs I had previously. It's caused me to do a near 180 on a Armstrong. *UPDATE 3* 5-24-2017 Reconfigured a few things and had my modem updated. Service is screaming, now. 200+ mbps down and just scraping 20mbps up. I still think the caps are a load, but you can't beat the speed and the connection for this area. *FINAL UPDATE* After 3 years of a bill that was JUST internet and 120$ a month, I can finally say that my Armstrong days are behind me. Fiber came to my neighborhood through my telco for half the price and double the speed. They didn't try that hard to keep me, either. All I can say is that maybe now Armstrong will actually have to try to be competitive. member for 8.7 years, 279 visits, last login: 90 days ago updated 90 days ago
Since my initial review, I moved to consumer class, there was no longer a benefit to business (i.e. caps) It's always been stable, and now my neighborhood has been migrated from HFC to GPON! gig symmetrical for 110 a month, plus 5 for a static IP... I have Armstrong's Business Internet 3. I am grandfathered into a lower price. The speed has increased twice in two years. Service is very stable. There is no additional fee if you just need a non-router cable modem. Very happy now that it is faster for the price than what those living near me can get from Comcast (although I miss being able to get FiOS where I used to live.) member for 20.9 years, 2506 visits, last login: 3 days ago updated 1.4 years ago
Updated 10/7/2021: Speeds and uptime are good. Price dropped to match competitor. Now $100/mo Updated 10/26/2020: Coaxial cable switched to fiber. Speed upped to 1 Gbps symmetrical, no cap. Updated 3/16/17: Caps upped to 1 TB, speed upped to 200/15, Price upped $8/mo. Updated 7/28/16: Netflix streaming issues have been dealt with and no more buffering every 15 minutes. Consistent speeds. Speed tests routinely run about 110 download/11 upload. Modem reboots are less frequent. Haven't hit the cap yet, but I keep an eye on how much we use every month. Updated 5/10/16: Recent bumps in speeds and caps. Paying $65 for 100/10, 300 GB cap (internet only, higher if you subscribe to more services). Recent issues streaming Netflix with new speed upgrade. Prior to new speeds, middle quality video streamed Netflix fine to Samsung Blu Ray player with Netflix app, rarely, if ever buffered. Now it buffers once every 15 minutes (or more).... Updated 6/17/15: Received my modem and hooked it up and now I am typically getting 33+/3+. Now I wonder how long it will be before they slap us with a rate hike for our new modems. Thus far they have not adjusted the bandwidth caps.... Updated 6/15/15: I heard that Armstrong has started a modem swap program (replacing DOCSIS 2.0 modem with DOCSIS 3.0 units), which can be initiated through the website »www.armstrongonewire.com ··· GoFaster. This modem will allow 30/3 instead of 15/3 for the same $44.95/mo (taxes included), since Armstrong has recently bumped their download speeds for all packages (new tiers are here: »armstrongonewire.com/int ··· els.aspx). I ordered a new modem and it should arrive tomorrow. I will report on the self install. Updated 4/22/15: Still at 15/2 for $44.95/mo (total bill, including taxes, fees, surcharges, etc.). Way better value than Frontier. Occasionally (once per week or so, seemingly at random times) the internet connection will drop and I need to reboot the cable modem and internet connection will return. Other than that, I don't have any issues. Netflix/Amazon Prime stream fine. Since I don't have cable TV, my cap is 200 GB. Thus far we haven't gone over the cap, so I haven't dealt with that yet. Updated 3/16/14: Speeds are being bumped from 10/2 to 15/2 for $5 more/mo ($44.95). Definitely better than Frontier. Without any other significant competition in the area the $/Meg is still pretty high. The caps are getting a bump as well (see »www.armstrongonewire.com ··· licy.pdf section VI.(E) for more information). Updated 5/7/13: Still consistent speeds. More speed for the same price as DSL..... Goodbye Frontier! Updated 4/24/2013: So far things are quite nice. No slowdowns noticed during peak hours. Latency is 30-40 ms. Speeds are consistently near the 11 Meg download and vary more for upload, 3-5 Meg. It appears that Frontier is about to lose a customer..... 4/19/2013: After being without DSL (3 down / 768 up) for almost a week with Frontier (»Review of Frontier Communications by OSIU, for the gory details) I ordered Armstrong Zoom Internet only 10 down / 2 up on 4/12. First install date was 4/17 but I picked 4/19. Installer (contractor for Armstrong) ran a drop from the external box to my networking cabinet in the basement and despite it being relatively hidden, did a nice and neat install job. Once everything was hooked up, I plugged a laptop in and checked it out. IE pulled up Google quickly and a speed test gave 11/5 (during middle of the day). Now we will see how the evenings go and if there are any slowdowns. member for 20.6 years, 4265 visits, last login: a few hours ago updated 1.7 years ago
Speeds have increased alot and are very good for the price member for 22.9 years, 9523 visits, last login: a few hours ago updated 1.8 years ago
[Updated 10/2/21] Currently on their Zoom Extreme tier which advertises 500+ Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. Needed the unlimited data allowance where I was working from home. Ever since my technical issues were resolved from the initial installation years ago the service has been extremely reliable. Speed tests often show I'm getting the advertised speed or higher than quoted download speed. Upload speeds on this tier are hard-capped to 20 Mbps so you hit that mark but won't exceed it. I just wish Armstrong would bring their upload speeds in line with other cable ISPs across the nation (like at least 35 Mbps for their Extreme tier) and lower their pricing. -------------- [Original from 2015] Ordered the Zoom Pro package advertised at $59.99 regular price, as a new customer got the package for $25.95 for six months. The ordering process was average I ordered online found it weird the company requires new customers to pay for an entire month of service in advance none of the bigger companies like Suddenlink and Comcast requires this. Other than that it was average got the order completed and chose my install date. The install was good the tech was very nice gentleman brought an Arris modem (don't remember the model) the tech said signals were good but didn't want to test connection before leaving. For the most part it was a frustrating experience with Armstrong, couldn't use the internet at all hardly 90% of the time I tried to use the service I wasn't able to and one of the few times I was able to use the product pages loaded very slowly like dial-up speeds. Was able to get a speedtest done on 9/3 Within the first week I spoke with technical support on the phone 3 times and had a total of 3 techs come out within the first week. They said the issue wasn't with my home or the equipment but Armstrong's lines. Two techs said they went to the local office to let them know and told me what they told the local office. On 9/4 went to the local office and spoke with the tech supervisor after being promised to be contacted by a higher up three times. The local office researched my account and he sent another tech out to check their lines in my area that tech came and told me they did find a few issues and repaired them but everyone but me had great connectivity before and after the repair. He asked when I am usually home told him anytime before 3pm and another two techs came out on 9/10. They checked the signal from inside the house and found issues with the wiring going into my home so they replaced it. They tested the signals and they came back strong but when they tested the modem via my computer it was still pulling slow speeds. So they took the modem the 1st tech installed and installed an Arris Touchstone SB6183 (looked like a Motorola modem you can get at Walmart). After that modem was installed they tested the connection and I was getting around my full speed. My most recent test as of this review: While the download is about 12Mbps away from the advertised 50Mbps that's a little understandable because at this moment I'm using wifi on my main computer due to an issue with my ethernet port not working on my computer. As of this review I haven't had issues I can play online games like I used to with Suddenlink then Comcast. DirecTV On Demand works well with the internet service so does streaming music. Just not a fan of the data cap for Internet only users. I have to monitor my data usage with them because in the past I've used more than 200 GB with my old ISPs but never exceeded 210 GB. My honest opinion despite Comcast's horrible customer service over the phone at least when I needed a tech (which was once) they were very good and checked everything from the connection to the modem. I was only down for a day not half a month compared to Armstrong. However they did give me credit for the service for the first 15 days which was nice of them. I just wish in small areas like this there was more competition and other companies that offer high speed internet. Value for the money? For the promotional price it is but at its full price of $59.99 no it isn't. I would love to have a higher upload speed but in order to get 10Mbps I would need Zoom Pro III @ $119.95/mo which is laughable to me considering Comcast/Xfinity offered Blast! @ 79.99/mo with 75Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Big greedy jump there in my honest opinion. member for 9.5 years, 642 visits, last login: 19 days ago updated 2.7 years ago
I now have Zoom extreme along with phone with privacy defender and dropped $20 from Zoom III/phone/privacy defender combo I had previously. It took some tweaking of my Asus RT AC68U router to get the speed (hardware acceleration on, spanning tree off, jumbo frames off) Not sure if the last two are needed. It took two weeks because I did not know I was responsible for fishing the fiber optic through the wall/attic. Easy enough if you go slow to not bend or kink the fiber optic. Unlimited (not 100% sure what that means at this point) may be a big from 2 TB a month. Not that I come even close to 2 TB. Another fiber provider is in the Medina area, but not available at my house. Previously had Zoom III and then the older review below. [Had the zoom 500 setup back about 6 months or so ago. Had a problem with the internal wiring causing intermittent dropouts, tech support not much help so troubleshot it myself with info about the diagnostics in the surfboard 4200 found here. Haven't had any trouble since. Newsgroup server is not the best. If you need that a third party is necessary. Got the VOIP service through them with a new Arris Touchstone 402G "modem". Works fine, no issues so far.] member for 20.6 years, 2127 visits, last login: 1 day ago updated 3 years ago
Please read my full review to get a better understanding of Armstrong, as the bullet points above don't really tell the whole story! I first was hooked up to Armstrong back in the summer of 2015, and so have had service for around two years now. Prior to that, my only internet options consisted of satellite, a mobile hotspot, and later a WISP. None of these were very good so the switch to cable internet was like night and day. I'm in a rural area so the coax hanging from the telephone poles only went partway down the road we live on. We were able to flag down an Armstrong technician one day and ask him what we had to do to get service. Fortunately he was able to convince management to run the coax another mile or so down the road past other houses, and the line ends at our house. They then had to run the cable a good two or three hundred feet underground to our house, and they didn't charge us for the installation. The technician that we flagged down actually was the same one who came to install our service as well. He did a decent job with the install other than the fact the eMTA was held up by a thick electrical wire running down the wall. Overall, I am extremely impressed with the whole installation process, especially after hearing how many ISPs tend to charge thousands just to run the cable on your property. The fact that they extended the existing coax to go further down the street still surprises me, so I have only good things to say about that part of Armstrong. A+ There have been several times where I've called into Armstrong, and can say that each and every time, except for one, the customer service representatives were friendly and well mannered. Their tone of voice and attitude is always good, and they try to help you out. There was only one time where I had a guy snap at me, and I believe it was because I told him the upstream DOCSIS channel wasn't locking, to which he didn't understand what that meant so he snapped. Other than that, completely polite. I will say that the guys on the phone are probably about what you would get at other ISPs regarding technical proficiency, and they unfortunately don't really have any method of escalation. Even the supervisors don't seem very privy to additional information, so you start to get the feeling that you are walled off from what's going on if you have questions that are outside of the realm of "Why doesn't my wifi turn on." I actually had to explain what TX and RX meant to one of the representatives, as well as the whole Puma 6 modem issue, so I've done my part to help educate a couple of them  We went with a TV, Internet, and Phone bundle. I don't really use the TV or phone very often, but the Tivo box that they include with their EXP service is very easy to use and loads much quicker than the DVR that we had previously used with DirecTV. The Tivo interface is probably about as good as you can get for a TV system. It has numerous features such as built in Netflix and Plex, as well, which is a huge bonus. The phone service doesn't need to have much said about it. It works reliably and has a lot of features that I wasn't even aware of until I looked around on Armstrong's site: »armstrongonewire.com/Con ··· uide.pdf It has about as many features as some of the VOIP providers, although it isn't quite up to that standard. The internet service was initially 30Mbps down and 3Mbps up if I remember correctly back in 2015. They actually provision for 10% more so in reality I would rarely ever see speeds lower than 33Mbps down and 3.3Mbps up. They quickly bumped up those speeds to 50 down and 5 up (55 and 5.5). Now this year they have increased speeds yet again with a whopping 100Mbps down and 10Mbps up (110 and 11). Keep in mind I am on their regular Zoom plan, which is one above their paltry Zoom Express plan which has only 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up. By itself, Zoom is $58 per month if I am reading their website correctly, and so with 110Mbps down and 11Mbps up, I think that is a fantastic value for the money. Most providers charge substantially more for that kind of plan from what I've seen, so good on Armstrong for taking the initiative to provide these speeds. Armstrong operates in a few different states, and each region seems to be different, but in the area I'm in, I've had extremely reliable internet. I'm used to WISP or satellite internet flaking out whenever it rains, but Armstrong has only gone down a few times since I've been with them, and usually only for a couple hours at most. One evening someone apparently hit a telephone pole nearby and they had service restored in under 2 hours. I believe that the longest outage I've experienced was a few hours, but it may've not even been that long. I tend to frequently test my internet speed and have rarely seen the speeds be lower than 100Mbps and 10Mbps up. Most of the time I get a perfect 110Mbps down and 11Mbps up as well. In fact I would say that the only times the speed hasn't been right was the couple of times where they had fiber cuts or other network issues going on. Now of course I talked about the good and now I must talk about some of the bad stuff relating to the internet connection. One of the things many people complain about are the data caps. Everyone hates the data caps and it's easy to see why. I believe back in 2015 I was limited to 300GB a month. This was at the time an exorbitant amount of data and I couldn't really understand why people were up in arms about it, but as I've gotten more and more used to watching 4K YouTube and Netflix I understand what they mean. They did raise the data caps when they increased the speeds earlier this year (2017) but even so I have a 600GB cap per month. Usually I don't even bother looking at it because I am primarily a gamer so I tend to not watch a lot of videos but this month I have and am over 90% of my monthly limit, fortunately the cap resets tomorrow. I wish Armstrong wouldn't implement data caps, but they currently do and so it is definitely something to be aware of. Keep in mind just by myself I can easily use 25-30GB of data each day by watching a few hours worth of 4K YouTube. They do now offer a 1 TB cap if you go to their Zoom II or higher plans, or you can also pay $50 each month and get unlimited data, so that is one option. Another issue that Armstrong could work on is the lack of approved modems. Their site officially lists three: armstrongonewire.com/Support/Internet/Articles/ApprovedModems, but if you call in and ask they actually have a few that are approved. The problem is that most of those modems are intended for ISPs, and therefore customers are unable to purchase them due to that. So you can actually only purchase the Arris CM820 that is listed on their approved modems page. Now you might ask why you would want to purchase your own modem. After all, Armstrong bundles the modem rental price into your monthly bill, so you don't save any money by using your own modem. I was under the same opinion until the defective Intel Puma 6 chipset issue came to light. There are dozens of cable modems on the market with this chipset in them, and due to a design flaw, it suffers from latency spikes up into the triple digits, as well as slow TCP and UDP performance. You can read more about that here: »SB6190 Puma6 TCP/UDP Network Latency Issue Discussion. The problem is that out of all of the modems that Armstrong has approved, they all use the Intel Puma series of chipsets in them. Believe me as I have contacted them many times about this problem. Each and every one of them either has a Puma 6, or in the case of the Arris CM820, the Puma 5, which still has some issues, but to a much lesser degree. Now all that Armstrong would have to do is officially allow Broadcom based modems on their network, and this would've never been a problem. People who are gamers would notice this issue and could switch to a non flawed modem, no big deal. Because Armstrong hasn't officially approved other modems, you are basically out of luck unless Intel can develop a fix. So far it has been months and they haven't come up with one, but who knows whether or not they will come through. Now, something that you should know about DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems is that they all operate to the same DOCSIS 3.0 specification. There are minor differences between them but they all have to speak the same protocol, so it isn't like they are not compatible. In fact, there are rumors that you can actually sneak your own cable modem onto Armstrong's network, and rumor has it that the Arris SB6183 works perfectly when it is called an Arris CM820 The one real issue I wish Armstrong would address in my area would be the latency! I am served by their Rising Sun, Maryland location but from what I've heard customers in other areas that are serviced by different locations seem to have very low latency outside of Armstrong's network (~20ms). I wish that were the case for me, but it is not. The lowest latency that I can get outside of Armstrong's network would be around 60ms to servers hosted in New York City on Internap bandwidth, which is some of the best you can buy. Chicago and Atlanta tend to be around 80ms, and Seattle and the rest of California hover around 110ms. Even inside of Armstrong's own network I get around 40ms to their own DNS servers, which is pretty terrible. Now if you aren't a gamer you probably won't understand what the big deal is or why I'd even bring this up. Yes, for any customers who aren't gamers you will likely never notice this or give it one iota of thought, but for a gamer it's a huge deal. Latency has a big impact on online multiplayer games especially first person ones which I almost exclusively play. In Overwatch I get around 70ms latency and CS:GO is usually no better than 60ms. While this may seem small, it is definitely noticeable and puts you at a disadvantage. Try playing CS:GO on a connection with 20ms latency and then go to 70ms and tell me that you can't tell a difference. Better yet, ask a hardcore gamer if they can tell (hint: they will be able to). I actually called in one time and got a man who didn't usually work phone support but they had a high call volume so he was answering phones. He told me that he was aware of a lot of customers calling in to complain about the high latency for people served by the Rising Sun, MD location and that he had a meeting with the president of Armstrong, and would bring that issue up at that time. He said that the Rising Sun location was in need of an upgrade, and the fact that he told me all of that seriously impressed me. I don't think you would've gotten that sort of transparency from other ISPs, and I'll remember that. TLDR: Overall, I would say Armstrong is doing a good job of improving the services they offer and providing a great value as well. They installed my service even when it required substantial work for them to do so. Their customer support guys are always kind and friendly. You can always count on getting the internet speeds you're paying for, as well as reliable TV, Internet, and Phone service. The only area they could work on is getting more modems approved, working on a new strategy instead for the data caps, and fixing the latency for their Rising Sun location. If you're a gamer and you are in the Rising Sun area you probably won't be too satisfied, but otherwise I can say you will likely be very happy with your service if you are primarily watching video and browsing the web. Thank you for bringing me into the 21st century Armstrong! member for 11.5 years, 1438 visits, last login: 1 day ago updated 7 years ago
5/6/17 update: The connection was reliable at one point, but since the second price hike in 18 months, I have a lot of trouble connecting to OTT services. I see a lot more buffering than before as well. I'm now paying $58.95, as Armstrong keeps increasing the speeds, and moving customers into higher priced packages. In less than two years, my bill went from $29.95 to $58.95, which is almost double. They finally raised their data caps a bit for Zoom subscribers. It was doubled to 400 Gb/month now. All other higher levels get a TB data cap. Complaints against Armstrong seem to have went down since this bone was thrown to customers. They recently raised the prices, eliminated one cheaper plan, but did not raise the data caps. Armstrong has punitive data caps if you plan on streaming. With a family of four, who work and go to school during the day, we've had to ration our data like it's the 1970s gas crisis all over again to avoid their excessive overage charges. No rebate or roll over data if you don't use the data you've paid for. The $5/month Zoomshare is nothing more than a router rental fee. They don't disclose this. You have to figure it out and call them to come and replace it with your own router. You can have that charge removed. However, you are forced to use their modem. Don't let the tech leave without giving you a receipt. They'll say you'll get it via email. You won't. I will say the connection is good for the most part, very few outages. The speeds are as advertised, now. I was given a faulty modem at first, but the new one does well. They're are no other broadband providers in my area. DSL is not offered either. I'm stuck with this company and their price-gouging. If I known they were going to be this bad, I wouldn't have bought the house. member for 8.4 years, 3544 visits, last login: 1 day ago updated 7.1 years ago
I have now had Armstrong for about 2 Years now in my Rural Area near Medina, OH Area. I currently Have the Zoom II package only, no TV, or phone. But I am considering EXP possibly. Anyway my thoughts on the service and company. Armstrong Provides very fast, and reliable service to Northeast Ohio and Eastern PA. I currently get 220 Down, and 20 Up on their Zoom II. Very recently, A day or so before this review Armstrong doubled their speeds practically on all packages. Zoom II used to be 110/11 until the speed upgrade. They have also increased their dreaded caps on their service by quite a bit. But it still isn't enough! Especially on Zoom I and III and above. Basically you get a 400gb cap on Zoom I currently which is 100/10 down. This is not enough data for that much bandwidth PERIOD. And you only get a maximum of 1TB on anything above Zoom II. I think Zoom I should also get 1TB now. I believe that for I and II, that 1TB should be enough. But if your running 300+ Down 1TB probably is not enough!! A huge problem with Armstrong as you will see here quickly in the Armstrong Internet Forum. Data Caps. There is ABSOLUTELY no LEGITIMATE reason for Armstrong to be capping people on a Cable/Fiber service! It should be unlimited across all their Plans! They claim their are capping because of network congestion but in reality we are probably only using 25% of their network. They also claim that people that use more data, should pay more which is BS. So why are they doing this? They know they can take over a area and establish a Monopoly there easily since their is probably no competition. In my Rural Area, We have Centurylink, and Frontier DSL that cant even come close to competing with Armstrong. Henceforth, Armstrong is a huge Monopoly in my area and in many other areas. They cap their services so you buy their Television service, and so they do not have to compete with streaming services like Netflix, Prime, Etc which is absolutely disgusting. Another complaint I have is Armstrong not allowing you to use your own modem. They force you to use their quote on quote "Free" Modem. This is exactly what Charter got in trouble for, but since Armstrong is a small cable company they dont need to follow the rules. They also disguise their Modem/Router Fee as "ZoomShare" which is $5 a month and is confusing. Why cant they just put "Modem Fee" on the bill? It seems like they are hiding it. They also usually do not disclose to customers their is a data cap when they install their service. They never brought it up when they were installing my service but i knew they capped and asked them about it, and they told me truthfully that the cap was 300GB or something like that. Now the Good about Armstrong. Their speeds are very excellent and are probably superior to most cable company's. You can get 110/10 for $58 a month. I think their prices on their internet packages are reasonable as well. The internet has also gone down very few times and is very reliable as well. The Pings usually range around the 30ish range. Which is important because I play a lot of games. When they came to install it, it was very fast and the techs answered all of our questions. They ran Fiber around our entire Rural area within a few months, and before I knew it i was getting breakneck speeds compared to Frontiers DSL I used to have at 3/768k. Armstrong is really only the real option in my area. For me, the Fast Speeds and Reliability make up for the data cap in my case. Also about the Data Caps Luckily I have not come too close to them. But many others have passed the caps easily. I plan on staying with Armstrong for many years to come! Update 4/11/2017: Upgraded my modem and replaced Hitron CGN2 Modem/Router which I was renting from Armstrong for $5 a month to a Arris CM3200 Modem which they provide for free, since I already have a Netgear WNDR3400 Router. The Arris CM3200 is a 32x8 DOCSIS 3.0 modem and I am using 32 downstream channels and 2 upstreams channels right now. Also Downgraded from Zoom II package since I diden't need the extra speed or caps. I am now paying $58 a month and still happy with the service. »[Cable Speed test: 109.45/10.43 22 ms] member for 11.7 years, 697 visits, last login: 140 days ago updated 7.2 years ago
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