BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP — After hearing the complaints of many township residents about faulty cable and internet service at a Township Committee meeting last month, Altice has announced it is taking steps to reduce network congestion in the service area.
“As we learned from Altice, there are currently 21 cable nodes in Bedminster through which Altice (Optimum) Internet service is delivered,” Bedminster Mayor Lawrence Jacobs said in a statement posted on the township’s website. “There are additional nodes in neighboring Bernards Township that also provide cable service to Hills residents in both Basking Ridge and Bedminster. Each node is capable of serving between 200 and 500 households. As the number of users on each node increases, the service level suffers.”
Jacobs reported that a total of seven nodes in Bedminster and Bernards Township are in the process of being split in an effort to reduce network congestion and to provide improved Internet performance. Four of these node splits have already been completed, including one that serves Bedminster homes in the upper Hills–serving the Parkside, Signal Point and Smoke Rise neighborhoods–and one that serves Bedminster homes in the lower Hills–serving the Stone Run and Fieldstone neighborhoods, as well as homes adjacent to Hills Drive.
The other three (3) nodes are in the Bernards Township portion of The Hills, but at least one also serves homes in the Bedminster section of The Hills.
To date, Altice has been coordinating its efforts with the Bedminster Township Committee and The Hills Master Associations, since the splitting of the nodes involves construction work on property under the control of the condominium associations.
“We urge each master association and each neighborhood condominium association to work with Altice to ensure the remaining work is completed in a timely fashion,” Jacobs said.
Altice also is upgrading the capacity of existing nodes in Bedminster to deliver higher throughput.
“We have also asked Altice to explore the feasibility of expediting its fiber roll-out in The Hills, so that more homes can be served through higher speed connections than is currently possible through the existing Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) network. Altice has committed to an internal time and costs analysis to determine the viability of this undertaking, and we should have more information about this in the months to come,” Jacobs said. “We understand the frustration that our residents feel about their Internet service. It wasn’t very good before COVID, and the COVID pandemic has only magnified the problems. We have become more reliant on Internet service – working, going to school and conducting our social interactions from the confines of our homes. This is an inopportune time to live with deteriorating Internet service.
“Rest assured that the Township Committee will continue to work with Altice to ensure that customer service issues are being addressed and resolved in a timely fashion, and that the appropriate measures are taken to identify and remedy the root causes of these persistent service problems.”
Jacobs said that residents who are unable to resolve an issue directly with Altice customer care can reach out to the company’s government relations executive, Marilyn Davis at [email protected].
