E-mail Outages Stymie Cablevision Customers

Cablevision customers from Darien and throughout the region say they have experienced significant disruptions of their Optimum Online e-mail service since Thursday morning, creating what one customer described as "blackout of information."

Basic functions of the accounts—including the the ability to send, receive, and access messages—are said to be patchy or outright inoperative.

The exact extent of the outages is not known, but Gayl Pidgeon, a Darien resident, told Patch she had been without service since Thursday morning. Others reported similar circumstances across Fairfield County, New Jersey, and Long Island.

The company said it expects to be able to fix the problem shortly but declined to specify the exact cause.

"Cablevision is experiencing technical issues that have resulted in email delays and email access issues for some customers," Sarah Chaikin, Cablevision's Director of Media Relations, said in a statement. "We have located the problem and expect to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.  We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers, and we will update this announcement as more information becomes available."

Calls placed to Optimum Online's customer service line yielded recorded messages saying the company was "experiencing unusually high call volumes at this time"—plus a suggestion that subscribers try again later.

John Collins, a Greenwich resident, said he was among those unable to send e-mail since Thursday. 

One New Canaan Cablevision customer said that his wife received some discouraging advice when she contacted customer service.

"After an hour-long wait to speak to someone, [Cablevision] told my wife she should try using one of the free e-mail services," the subscriber said.

Tom Siebert, a customer from Weehawken, N.J., said he felt Cablevision was keeping its customers in the dark about the widespread outages.

"The lack of e-mail is maddening of course," said Siebert. "But Cablevision's customer service has been horrible."

Others have even taken to Twitter to express their frustration.

"Still no Optonline.net mail. Really?!" vented one Fairfield County resident.