Frustrations with high-rise MDU in NYC

For those of you who have a "real" FiOS deployment, where they run the PON fiber to your actual premise, you are lucky. Many of these high-rise deployments in NYC are using MDU ONT's that are poorly understood, misconfigured and the techs that are dispatched are not equipped properly to troubleshoot.

To be clear, these are the MDU's that take a network side PON signal and convert to a coax feeder for video and a bunch of 2-pair 100Mbit Ethernet runs; this is not the VDSL-type.

Of course the techs focus 90% of their time on trying to replace cabling. Verizon could save a ton of money and reduce truck rolls by having their installers use cable analyzers to qualify all of the recycled runs (remember the deployment model in high-rise MDU scenarios hijacks existing cabling: one coax and 2-pairs of twisted-pair copper to get into the actual premise). In fact it would make sense even for FTTH deployments as well.

From what I can tell, it seems that the MDU ONT's do not have enough self-test/diagnostic information for Verizon to remotely troubleshoot all the way to your CPE (Actiontec in this case). Does anyone know how to escalate these issues to the right department such that they could send a tech who understands the technology and knows that if you have 50ms of jitter trying to ping your first hop aggregation router that something is broken?

Maybe I'm just used to a different level of customer service, but I've been on the phone with Verizon tech support and they aren't trained properly on what the nominal ranges of correct installations are supposed to be. Why isn't there an installation qualification mode on the Actiontec CPE router to run a battery of tests?

I'm continually surprised about how poorly organized Verizon is with regards to FiOS considering the magnitude of investment that has been made.

Any contacts/suggestions would be much appreciated.

Accepted answers

kspinka

I've got some good news to report: my latency issue has finally been fixed! After 2 weeks of calling tech support, having engineering tickets opened and then closed, numerous repairmen wanting to change cables and replace the devices at my premise, I was contacted by the area sales rep with a form-letter to check on the status of my installation. I replied to him, explained the details of the situation, and gave him the latest ticket number from engineering. He immediately escalated it (around 10am) and the issue was fixed by 11:15pm the same day (yesterday). The service has been stable for the last 12 hours!

If you guys are having issues, contact your Area Sales Manager!

Thanks Albert!!!

All comments

mschauber

On mamy of your points I couldn't agree more. Speaking to FiOS support is like talking to a newly hired level 1 help desk support technician who hasn't been trained on the companies procedures, applications and hardware.

If you're lucky to get a technician that speaks English clearly, the chances they are going to know the different between bandwidth and speed or Mb/s and MB/s is 1 in 500. The little training they give these techs is to follow a script and that everything fits into one of those scripts.

Having previously been a NYC 911 dispatcher as well as an EMS dispatcher, I know how important it is to think outside the pre-prescribes processes. Not only do you have to deal with different personalities that need help in different ways, you have to deal with the fact that you can't prepare for every situation. But what Verizon does is tell their service techs to simply make you think what you want is not possible and to try and get you off the phone. They don't see the benefit in "going above and beyond." But why would they, they get their money either way.

I'm a network engineer and I had to walk the FiOS install tech through my installation because he become totally lost when I told him I need an ethernet connection from the ONT and not a COAX. A few hours later when his partner came up, who was doing an install in a different apt in the building, she started saying she was having a problem. I asked a few very basic questions (can you ping the router, etc..) and was able to fix her problem which she has been working on for 3 hours while on the phone with FiOS support.

Teach these people to think, to make decisions and not just to be robots and do one thing exactly the way you want it done and you'll find they do a better job, a faster job, the customers are happier (until they realize how poorly they are treated as an existing custumer vs a new customer,) and the tech will be more productive because they will have more time and feel better about themselves and the work they are doing.

Hubrisnxs

best contacts, outside of normal support (i.e, over the phone, and chat support) are the following two.

Verizon Direct and Verizon Twitter Direct Support

Good for complex issues that are outside first line supports area's. Or courteousness, and patience, and calling them and allowing them to escelate when appropriate. I have never had a problem steering a front line rep into escelating my issue for me, and then when it's escelated - it gets in the right hands through normal channels. but if you don't have time for courteousness, or patience to deal with over the phone support, then try one of the above methods.

kspinka

If you guys are having issues, contact your Area Sales Manager!

Thanks Albert!!!

kspinka

Well, they broke it again...I guess I shouldn't have set this thread to solved yet. What a waste of time and life dealing with this.

dslr595148

Rats that is not good. Demark as solved, so that users browsing the forum can see at a glace that you need help.

prisaz

Log into your router and make sure you do not see any devices that do not belong to you. Disconnect everything on the COAX WAN except the splitter and the incoming COAX to your router. Reset your router. If items start showing up on your router that are not yours, you could have a router to router link with another customer or customers. Every coax feeding a MDU should have a low pass filter on it. Most of the time they are not installed in the unit and in a large installation it is easy to miss one coax. Especially in an existing COAX building. What can happen is a loop between VDSL connections through the router MOCA features. This would be a 5-860mhz low pass filter on the incoming coax. Now if you have no coax and TV service this would not be causing issues. I have heard of loops like this causing issues for other MDU installs.

Just a thought. You would be seeeing other issues if this was the case, but depending on what type of TV hardware and other items you may have on your network, it may not be noticable. But being as well informed as you are, you would have noticed. But here is one that was found on a small installation. If you are in a large install, it could be easily overlooked.

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Trouble-logging-into-my-Verizon-router/m-p/233541#M15377