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4G not that fast / slow service in New York City

I work in mid-town Manhattan but live at the Jersey Shore. My download/upload speeds are great at home. I get between 23 - 26 Mbps downloads and 10 - 14 Mbps uploads using Speedtest.net app.

However in mid-town, I get anywhere from 2 - 7 Mbps downloads and 9 - 16 Mbps uploads. I find this very strange. NYC should have better speeds than where I live.

Have others also experience low 4G speeds in Manhattan? I tested this in multiple areas to ensure no dead zones but those are the speeds that I am getting around 42nd Street East and West side.

I have a Galaxy S3.

I assume it is not my phone because I get great speeds at home.

Comments

4ktvs

They are likely getting slowed down due to a lot of users in that area.

I used to get 20+ up and down load when I first got it and worked right, but now get 10 or so down and 5 up.

MKarias

That makes sense. I think I will stop by tomorrow at the VZW in mid-town and test a couple of their 4G phones. I want to see if it is indeed my phone or the service.

Hope it is not too back with all the iPhone junkies buying their new iPhone 5. :smileyhappy:

4ktvs

The network is so going to messed over for week's. The ipad HD/3 and before that Dec 25 messed up the 4g network.

Good luck to us both tomorow. :smileyhappy:

Richbello

I am on 47th and 5th ave NY, NY and I get almost no 4G service (it comes and goes, drops and is unusable) between the hours of 8am and 8PM.I have a DROID Charge and tried everything. My 4G service works fine in Staten Island. I was getting great 4G service in NY about 6 months ago and then it was intermittent and now it is unusable. I used to walk down to Park ave. to get 4g service and now it seems that area is also not good.

I am surprised more people are not complaining and that this issue is not on the front pages of business and tech papers and mags. Verizon did tell me that their 4G service is working but is congested in my area. Also they said that I am not paying for guaranteed 4G service. Irrelevent to me. Verizon is marketing the hell out of 4G service and it DOES NOT WORK IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, one of the most premier and expensive places in the world.

One would have to believe that Verizon is aware of the problem is working on it. They are pushing the IPhone 5 which I expect will further deepen the problem. Actually I do not think it could get any worse. I am with Verizon Wireless over 20 years and would hate to switch but Verizon is not being straight with their customers about this issue and that is wrong.

Keitarou

I am on Wall street and get barely any 3G or 4G service near the stock exchange. My speeds range from 0.01 to 0.32 download when on 3G and 1.7 to 5 when on 4G, if i can get a 4G signal. Verizon sucks in Manhattan. Their only solution is a network extender and that's useless to me since it's not my home. Why not provide all the companies in the are with a network extender and offer better service then say "it's the buildings". After 10+ years with Verizon and it's time to leave for other carriers with better coverage in this area. I've complained and wrote e-mails and letters and all they can say is we don't guarantee service indoors or area with lots of large buildings. -_-+

macher50267

How's it been in NYC? Any changes for the better?

unknown

I'm sure once Verizon rolls out 1700/2100 MHz LTE next year and people have devices that can use that frequency things will improve greatly.

milan03

NYC is such a large and densely populated area even when only talking about Manhattan. Certain areas of Manhattan like Upper West Side or East Village still offers solid performance, but Times Square, Midtown and Wall Street areas during the peak hours is already struggling.

We need AWS spectrum deployed asap, even it's as a separate Release 8 channel. Not sure what's the path to LTE-Advanced since all Verizon towers are Release 8, but we could also use small cells, and HetNet once they become available. This is clearly a capacity issue we're dealing in NYC after the iPhone 5 launch.

tcarlisle

No, 4G LTE service in Manhattan has been horrible since I signed on to VZW over two years ago, and has gone even further downhill since. I have pressed VZW hard on this, and their position is that there is something wrong with my computer. They want to have me go through their 1st level support process of emptying my internet explorer cache files..... never mind I have been an IT professional for over two decades and know the difference between a browser problem and a connectivity problem, and also because I am smart enough to try the USB stick in more than one computer. Back then there were no 4G LTE devices except the USB stick I bought. Now, of course there are plenty, and I can tell you that a brand new 4G LTE Android device bought from the Verizon store last week also has little to no success getting a reliable connection in NYC -- not just 4G but at all. The reason is because 3G fallback still does not work.

This issue has always revolved around the issue of reverting back to 3G, and still that is the underlying issue. If you can get to the hardware settings and change your device to only do 3G in Manhattan, you will get OK service. 3G of course, but you can at least use it. If you let that device auto detect, it will spend most of its time with all green status and saying you are connected but you can't go anywhere.

Of course Verizon doesn't give you an easy way to change these settings, which would be fine if I didn't need to in order to get service to work.

Now a few years have gone by, and I have learned to adapt my life around this problem. I now use a Cradlepoint PHS300 device. This is a device that you plug your USB wireless stick into it, and it turns it into a wifi hotspot. Now I can connect any device to it, and I don't have to fool around with the VZAccess software (which is crap), and also the cradlepoint gives me somewhat of an easy way to change my settings when I need to. The device has to reboot, but it is do-able.

So my routine is pretty much every day I have to configure for 3G only in NYC, and then change that when I get out of NYC.

Here is my advice to Verizon -- if you are selling a service and want to be profitable, and you can only pick ONE place on the planet where you can invest to make that service reliable..... that ONE place has to be Manhattan, and especially lower Manhattan in the financial district.

User population and density isn't the problem.... lack of deployed capacity to support the population is the problem. That problem is compounded when devices aren't sensing that and reverting back to 3G.

unknown

tcarlisle wrote:
Here is my advice to Verizon -- if you are selling a service and want to be profitable, and you can only pick ONE place on the planet where you can invest to make that service reliable..... that ONE place has to be Manhattan, and especially lower Manhattan in the financial district.

Well don't you think you're special? Guess what Verizon DOESN'T have to pick one place to have service and that's the point. You'll get your improvements shortly. You have MILLIONS of people in a small area and you winder why there is issues?

milan03

Excuse me? Is that how you'd respond to paying customers? Good thing you're not in charge of Verizon's PR...

unknown

I'm just a Verizon customer myself. So I'm not sure what your point is. I would certainly hope you pay your bill.

mc_365

I work in the same Rockefller Center area and noticed in April 2012 it slowed down to the point I get frequent "Connection Lost" messages. I called VZW more than a few times and they asked "Do you work in a building made of brick, steel, or glass" they explained that the signal has difficulty penetrating these materials. My response was what buildings in NYC are not made of one of those 3 materials? And why did this suddenly start to happen? Now I hardly get dial up speeds while at work during peak hours. Being force to have a data plan but cant use it!

Verizon_Support

mc_365, it's our goal to keep you connected! We're sad to hear that you're staying connected to data on your device. Wireless service can be tricky indoors since the building structure can blocks the signal. As a result, when you're not getting good reception at your home, its due to these limitations that are sometimes referred to as “dead zones,” “coverage holes,” “dead spots” or “obstructed areas.” Which device do you have? Have you tried powered your device off/on to soft reset it? Meanwhile, let's take a closer look at the coverage area http://vz.to/13N0B6O

LasinaH_VZW

VZW Support

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

unknown

Have you read the whole thread? Or how about this one? https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/801799
This isn't just mc_365, nor is it just one device, nor is it just indoors. This is a perfect example of what I highlighted here >> https://community.verizonwireless.com/message/993787#993787 on Sept 4.

mc_365

Sorry for the late response but my data doesn't work well during the day when I'm at work so I didn't see the email from you. I had a Rezound from the day it launched in November 2011 and it worked great in midtown for the first 6 months then in April 2012 the service started declining. I now have a DNA and I basically have intermittent slow service during 9 to 5. But I work long hours so I see the service starts to pick up around 4pm then it gets consistent around 6pm.

So basically I'm paying for terrible service because VZW, is extorting me with threats of early termination charges, and negative credit report claims.

thefloyd

Precisely. Millions of PAYING customers in a densely populated area. Millions of dollars rolling in, from business customers, standard retail customers, and pre-paid customers.

Are you saying that it's acceptable to collect the millions of dollars they're getting from all of those people in exchange for lackluster - or in this case, just plain useless service? If so, let send you my address so you can start sending me monthly checks in exchange for nothing.

The amount of money the people in NYC are paying Verizon is enormous. If they can't fix the service, or at least respond with a real and detailed timeline for the fixes they should be refunding people for service they aren't getting. Plain and simple.

Verizon_Support

We want you to enjoy the best network performance thefloyd! What specific difficulties are you having? What make and model device? Are you experiencing challenges in more than one area? Is this limited to data?

JonathanK_VZW

VZW Support

Follow Us on Twitter@VZWSupport

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