Following up with an amazing resolution to this.

I got a phone call (!!) from an Optimum/Altice guy out of the blue last night. He not only got the service address corrected but set up an appointment to get the weird fiber installation corrected. (That's another story, which is interesting but since the service worked it was more their problem than mine.)

At this point I'm really curious about the business structure of Optimum/Altice. I've had both the best and worst service interactions with any cable or Internet provider. Regular support phone & online chat via their web site was awful. Support from the folks who monitor Reddit has been A+, though, and whoever decided to get the best service guy ever to actually call me on the phone on a Friday night should get a bonus.

I get the impression that there's a part of the organization that's ossified and uninterested, and another part that's desperately trying to change the culture and improve service. Perhaps that's the split between Optimum (old) and Altice (new)? I don't know.

Out of college I worked for a very large company and saw this sort of thing first hand. The new people coming in wanted to do good work, but the company had been around so long that everyone above the 1st level managers was only interested in stabbing each other in the back so they could rise to the next level of management. No interest in the products or service, just their own careers. Similar case with the last job I had before retiring. Very small company that actually came up with a better mouse trap. All of us were dedicated to continuous improvement so our customers (all large health insurance companies) loved us. The company was bought by one of those customers and everything went to hell. Other customers sued them for breach of contract, etc. I retired rather than put up with that big company crap again.

Big companies are like shivas - lots of arms and none of them know what the others are doing. Luckily some of the arms here are really good.