Verizon utterly fails to deliver high speed DSL

I'm trying to watch the Iditarod start via live feed. Others all over the country and even the world have signed in saying they are getting a good feed. In the last 2 weeks I've had a techclean and optimize my machine; I've talked to Verizon (who said it was a central office problem and would be better by Wednesday--10 days or more ago now); and after installing the new modem they sent me, they still can barely provide minimal speed, which isn't doing it. My feed buffers every cople seconds.

Verizon says they value customers, their utterly inadequate service makes that one of the great lies this company puts out. I do now give up! I'm calling my cable service tomorrow. I was hoping the day would come when verizon would actually be able to provide the highspeed DSL I pay for but it is clear they can't/won't. I feel so cheated and I more and more wonder why companies that promise service and don't deliver are allowed by the FCC. Clearly their interests are in wireless or fios but definitely not in those of us out in Washington County where neither is available through Verizon.

Accepted answers

kmgrayphd

From my point of view having worked with Verizon tech and just recently connected a new Verizon modem that they sent me (suggesting it might help) AND had an independent tech work with me and my desk top computer to see if they could find the problem and coming to the conclusion that verizon non-fios is simply no longer "high-speed" although it might have been 15 years ago. I'm signed up for a conversion to cable later this month. It can't possibly be worse and everyone in my area assures me it will be better. Verizon no longer even tries to give adequate service in Washington Co. MD where they have no residential Fios and they don't even have a cell tower! NO reason to continue as a customer with a company that has simply no reason to be interested in us any longer. You can forget this message but there was no "fix". Verizon failed me finally and ultimately and left me with no choice but to go elsewhere. But I gather mine is a situation common to all of us out here in this area, I just hung on with Verizon longer than the others I knew who kept telling me to leave. So I finally am.

All comments

dslr595148

Step one: Visit http://www.giganews.com/line_info.html and post up the Traceroute the page shows, if you wish. Be aware that your non-bogan public IP Address will show up. It might shown up as the final hop (bottom-most line of the trace) might contain a hop with your IP address in it. Either remove that line or show only the first two octets. What I'm looking for is a line that mentions "ERX" in it's name towards the end. If for some reason the trace does not complete (two lines full of Stars), keep the trace route intact.

For example this what I saw when I was using Verizon

news.giganews.com

traceroute to 71.242.*.* (71.242.*.*), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 gw1-g-vlan201.dca.giganews.com (216.196.98.4) 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms
2 ash-bb1-link.telia.net (213.248.70.241) 39 ms 7 ms 7 ms
3 TenGigE0-2-0-0.GW1.IAD8.ALTER.NET (63.125.125.41) 4 ms 4 ms GigabitEthernet2-0-0.GW8.IAD8.ALTER.NET (63.65.76.189) 4 ms
4 so-7-1-0-0.PHIL-CORE-RTR1.verizon-gni.net (130.81.20.137) 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms
5 P3-0-0.PHIL-DSL-RTR11.verizon-gni.net (130.81.13.170) 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms
6 static-71-242-*-*.phlapa.east.verizon.net (71.242.*.*) 32 ms 32 ms 33 ms

Step two: Can you provide the Transceiver Statistics from your modem?

When you look for the transceiver Statistics, this text gives to you an idea of what to look for:

Line Mode, Data Path:, transceiver Information Down Stream Path Up Stream Path, DSL Speed (Kbits/Sec), Margin (dB), Line Attenuation (dB), and Transmit Power (dBm).

If you tell what brand and model of DSL modem you have, someone will answer exaclty where to look.

kmgrayphd

_m_

You have an underlying misconception.

There is NO SUCH THING as High-Speed DSL. DSL is an ancient telephony-based data connection. Back when folks were routingley using dail-up modems, DSL was fast by comparison, starting at about 128kbps (about twice the speed of a high-end modem), by basically combining multiple telephone connections.

As telephony has been moved to digital, there have been some moderate improvements in the number of bits you can push through a phone line, but, overall, the physical limitations of the medium are such that even the fastest can only achieve 2 to 3 Mbps, depending upon the distance between the user and the telephone CO (the local switching center), with a maximum range of 5 to 6 miles. The faterther the distance, the slower the connection.

In contrast, even the SLOWEST cable-based connectivity starts at about 10 Mbps, which is three to 5 times faster. And, modern consumer-facing fiber-optic networks availabile to a growing number of locations are delivering upwards of 1 Gbps.

Translating those numbers into something more generally understandable, that means that the fastest fios speeds now available are about 16 thousand times faster than the best telephone modem, about 4 thousand times faster than the average DSL connection, and about 330 times faster than the fastest available DSL connection.

So, yes, to sum it up, in 1990, DSL was pretty high-speed. That was a long time ago.

bblack4jc

I am in Washington Co., MD also and in the same boat. The only choice I have were I am at is cable or Hughes Net. HN has data caps and can be sketchy when it rains because it is satelite. I REALLY do not want to go with cable as their technicians had horrible customer service and I actually had cable tv but due to some weird quirk I lost 3 channels, ones which I really like. When I visited them in person they refused to give those 3 channels back. I said, "Well I will be calling Directv and bring your modems back tomorrow." Anyhow, it is frustrating with internet because with Verizon, I do not want to upgrade to FIOS and have an outrageous internet bill when they cannot even provide decent service for what I already have. I may have to bite the bullet and go with Cable. Anyhow, my post her was a few weeks ago entitled "Actiontec Router - disconnecting and low speed" and like my post, I see that yours has a lock on it as well. Still no solution for me.

smith6612

The thing to keep in mind is that in the FiOS areas, Verizon isn't going to do much work to keep DSL going. There's a policy in place called "Fiber is the only Fix," where chronic DSL issues will be resolved by moving someone to FiOS. With that said, if your DSL is ever shut off because you move to the local Cable company, and should you try to sign up for DSL once again, you won't be able to get a DSL line. Only FiOS will be offered. You might be able to get DSL for a short while through a CLEC like DSLExtreme or MegaPath when this happens. At some point, Verizon will also be filing regulatory filings with your local municipality, and with the FCC notifying of copper shutdown. When copper shutdown occurs, FiOS will be the only choice. DSL will no longer be available from anyone.

FiOS is worth it especially if you want a quick connection. In my area, at least, FiOS is far more reliable than Cable Internet... and Cable Internet is hardly ever down. Perhaps for two hours every couple months for maintenance. Most I know have never seen a hiccup with FiOS.

On the Cable end of the spectrum, the key to a reliable connection there is to avoid the all-in-one cable modems, especially those with a Puma6 chipset in them. The other key is, make sure the plant in your area is in good shape, and don't split the incoming line more than once between the line and the modem. More than one split totally trashes the signal.

HughesNet should be an absolute last choice. Besides the data caps, the latency on Satellite is a killer for anything real time. Even for browsing. It can be acceptable once it "gets going" but there's just no comparison. LTE should even be a last resort, since those networks are not designed to be used for home Internet, and aren't marketed/treated appropriately as such by the carriers.

Momatude

You're fortunate you have the ability to transition TO Fios if you choose. In our area of the Lehigh Valley we do not have that option and only have DSL. FIOS has been "coming" for a decade- sign up for alerts and nada. It's not coming and they are not upgrading tech. They don't seem to care, either. DSL doesn't support new tech- something as simple as the Echo Plus ( Alexa) ...due to the WPA2-Personal not used by Echo and Verizon DSL isn't 2.4 mhz which is needed for anything like the Echo , Firestick, etc. ( this info took me TWO days tease out from the support crew AND they wanted me to pay for premium tech support to get it !!!!!) It's astounding in 2017. 3 kids and we can't watch the TV and be on the computers at the same time. Everyone has to turn off their phones, the TVs and only one person can be on their laptop at a time and one on the desktop to keep a steady connection. Forget Netflix if anyone else is home. Forget gaming. They alternate homework due to the snail speed and connectivity issues- even with a router change. How many times can should a kid come down to reset the router for one term paper? Each local cable company ( Service Electric/RCN has their own internet ( all faster) but it's super expensive to get what you need and still keep a phone service with a dedicated wired line for 911 services. Frustrating.