unreliable 5G home internet

[kberg]

I was so very excited to try out verizon's 5G Home Internet , since they installed a 5g cell right i
front of my house, couldn't get more point to point than less than 30ft.

After a few more months of waiting for service at our address to be available, I finally was able to
order the service for a 30 day trial.

Initial testing showed amazing speeds, realized the equipment was using 2.5 port and a 10Gbps port,
immediately invested hundreds of dollars in a 4x2.5gbps port router to take advantage of the 2+Gbps
I was getting from verizon's speed test.
First few days worked ok as I assume I was causing things to break as I was messing with the router.
I was extremely amazed and happy by Steam game update downloading at over 1Gbps.

Until I noticed all my vpns were getting disconnected overnight right around 1-3am.
As I looked at the logs on my router, I noticed their dhcp server was providing a 2m lease time! I can understand that maybe for mobile phone service it might make sense as phone move from cell to cell and you might want to recycle the used ip addresses
But that means the dhcp client attempts to renew the ip every 60s. Imagine what happens when their lv65 decides to reboot for unknown reason and takes 2+minutes, boom new ip address gets delegated and all your streaming service gets disconnected, your vpn gets disconnected, no matter how much buffering happened, you have to tell your tv to reconnect after an annoying popup.
Or try playing an online video game when you loose connections for 2m and then get disconnected instead of just seamlessly going back in if you are lucky.
I did try to use the provided CR1000A router and still experienced the same issue, I just had better luck getting ipv6 working with my openwrt router.

Then now lets talk about ipv6, again I can understand only providing a phone a /64, since that the smallest block you can delegate to a ipv6 customer, except their router automatically broadcasts 3 different wifi networks, which means requiring 3 different /64 network blocks. This can only work when providing at least a dhcp-pd of /60 ( 16 /64 ) . Try googling CR1000A and ipv6, it doesn't work, since you can't subnet a /64 into 3 different ipv6 blocks.  I was only able to get ipv6 working from using ipv6 masquerading from my openwrt router.( which means only 1 /128 usable ipv6 address )
For the record, Spectrum did provide me with a /60 dhcp-pd and not just turn of my ipv6 connection when my dhcp client made the request.
( Btw you might want to teach your tech support about what ipv6 is, everyone tech I talked to said: "ipv what ?" )

So Verizon, can you treat your 5G Home internet as what it is and not just an unreliable internet 5G
hotspot ?

An extremely disappointed customer.

P.S:  as I type this @ 3:37am PST on Tue Aug 22, the lv65 reboot, yet again, a new ip address is
provided and all connectivity is interrupted.
I even lost my authentication token to community.verizon.com, as I was typing this message in the browser.

Tue Aug 22 03:36:53 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (2194): udhcpc: lease of 72.104.1xx.xxx obtained from 10.0.0.1, lease time 120
Tue Aug 22 03:37:14 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'eth0' link is down
Tue Aug 22 03:37:14 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' has link connectivity loss
Tue Aug 22 03:37:14 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan6' has link connectivity loss
Tue Aug 22 03:37:14 2023 kern.info kernel: [49298.474620] igc 0000:01:00.0 eth0: NIC Link is Down
Tue Aug 22 03:37:14 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (2194): udhcpc: received SIGTERM
Tue Aug 22 03:37:14 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' is now down
Tue Aug 22 03:38:49 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'eth0' link is up
Tue Aug 22 03:38:49 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' has link connectivity
Tue Aug 22 03:38:49 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' is setting up now
Tue Aug 22 03:38:49 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan6' has link connectivity
Tue Aug 22 03:38:49 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan6' is setting up now
Tue Aug 22 03:38:49 2023 kern.info kernel: [49393.962664] igc 0000:01:00.0 eth0: NIC Link is Up 2500
Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX
Tue Aug 22 03:38:55 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (9666): udhcpc: lease of 10.0.0.10 obtained from
10.0.0.1, lease time 60
Tue Aug 22 03:38:55 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' is now up
Tue Aug 22 03:39:25 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (9666): udhcpc: sending renew to server 10.0.0.1
Tue Aug 22 03:39:26 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'eth0' link is down
Tue Aug 22 03:39:26 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' has link connectivity loss
Tue Aug 22 03:39:26 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan6' has link connectivity loss
Tue Aug 22 03:39:26 2023 kern.info kernel: [49430.321482] igc 0000:01:00.0 eth0: NIC Link is Down
Tue Aug 22 03:39:26 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (9666): udhcpc: received SIGTERM
Tue Aug 22 03:39:26 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' is now down
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Network device 'eth0' link is up
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' has link connectivity
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan' is setting up now
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan6' has link connectivity
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 daemon.notice netifd: Interface 'wan6' is setting up now
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 kern.info kernel: [49434.611708] igc 0000:01:00.0 eth0: NIC Link is Up 2500
Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (10485): udhcpc: started, v1.36.1
Tue Aug 22 03:39:30 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (10485): udhcpc: broadcasting discover
Tue Aug 22 03:39:33 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (10485): udhcpc: broadcasting discover
Tue Aug 22 03:39:35 2023 daemon.notice netifd: wan (10485): udhcpc: broadcasting select for 75.223.1
xx.xxx, server 10.0.0.1

[kberg]

I guess the experience could only get worse, my last small complaints about simple basic network requirements went to total deaf ears, and it's fine, I worked around them.
The 5g/cell site in front of my house went out over a  week ago. after 2 days of barely able to use my internet, calling tech support and finally getting a tech to finally shows up, they don't even bother to come into the house as they detect that they can't get a signal,  literally standing 3 feet from the 5g antenna.
They get someone to "reboot" it, nice, internet is back to full speed. I understand tech sometimes hiccups and a good old off/on helps. I go to sleep happy I'll be able to work tomorrow, trusting they fixed the issue.
Wake up thursday to the internet not working again, latency in the 400ms, I can't even type on a ssh terminal, which is designed for slow speed.. Make it thru the phone call having to go thru the 15 minutes of a robot testing my line after already doing that on the verizon troubleshooting web page, since the call back page option doesn't work.
I finally talk to a human, they ask me if this is a new problem. I tell them a tech was over yesterday and the they forward to be eric in tier 2, he finds the NRB000011405922 tickets, tell me no problem I'll forward to the network engineers and they'll have it fixed between 2 to 24 hours. I wait nothing gets better.
Friday I  struggle with the broken verizon support webpage , waste hours until I finally get to a tech.
After 1.5 hour of the phone with him, resetting, rebooting, factory resetting,  he said, I have to send a tech to your house, deferring to monday, since that's the only appointment available.
I buy some t-mobile 4G hotspot service to get usable internet service for the weekend.
Monday comes, the new tech shows up, doesn't even contact me, I happen to randomly see him on the street, ask him what's going on, "hu thing needs to be rebooted, no signal, I'll get back to you"
He come back and lets me know things should be working again, sure enough it is for now.
I go to dinner, come back home ready to get back to work since I'm basically a week behind, and we are back to slow sleep ( barely LTE ). It's past 9pm, so tech support is unavailable after putting me thru 15 minutes of going thru that dumb robot testing my line again, granted this time  it detected a problem with my line, but couldn't fix it and failed to forward me to a human to help.

Unimpressed.

I'm trying verizon, the antenna is right in front of my house, best case scenario for service and you can't even get that working.

[vzw_customer_support]

We're sorry to hear that you're having problems with your 5G Home Internet. The last thing we want is for you to keep having problems that impact your work and leisure time. We're going to send you a Private Note so we can help.

~Jesse

[kberg]

After my last message, I was contacted by a verizon network technician saying they noticed a hardware issue with the tower in front of my house, and told me they were planning on getting it fixed by Oct 28th, heard last on the 26th saying they were on track for the 28th fix on the tower.
It is now the 8th of Nov and I haven't heard if they were able to accomplish the hardware replacement.

But I know the service hasn't been fixed, everytime the latency is more than 10ms on the following graphs, I get very bad internet service, slow download speed ( < 100Mb/s ), with high latency or even numerous packet drops, making it very hard to do any work.

I'm trying to be patient, but this is getting harder to work with.

Last week's ping stats to one of your gateways:

Over the last month:

[vzw_customer_support]

Hello, kberg, thanks for reaching out in reference to your 5G Home Internet. So we can best assist, we will be reaching out via Private Note.

-Lauren

[kberg]

 This past month has been better, just slight latency spikes and pack drops here and there.

[Dialupisfaster]

Wow, do I need to go through all of your trials and tribulations just to receive mediocre 5g internet?  My 5g home internet drops about 3 -4 times a day and slow up/down  speeds. It's very frustrating. I would understand if I lived in the middle of nowhere , but I live in the heart of Los Angeles.....

[vzw_customer_support]

Hello Dialupisfaster, we're sorry to learn you're having issues with your service. We want to help as much as we can. When did this start? Where are you currently located? When did this start?

~Ivone

[kberg]

Well, it has apparently been over a year since I switched to Verizon 5G Internet, I gave it my best, I was patient.
Things got slightly better then worst, and then I apparenlty got used to unreliable internet connectivity, a sad statement.
Weekly reboots of the lv65, constant new ip addresses causing work vpn disconnects, a joke of ipv6 provitioning, geoip localization thinking my internet was in Chicago when i live in L.A.
Network issues with connecting to the next 5G node, with speeds dropping to 500mb/s and latency spiking from 10ms to 100ms when under load.
This morning I  got 2 lv65 reboot in a few minutes ( 10:59am and 11:09am), new ip addresses each time, disconnecting me in the process, as I attempted to get into meetings, causing me to be late and missing important business, it was the last straw.

I will not be missing having to switch back to papeless billing every month, yes I called and they promissed me they fixed the problem, just to get an other paper statement saying i decided to switch to paperless billing, then get an email saying i wanted paper statements. Rinse repeat for a year.

I hoped for a small improvement over a  year, it hasn't been the case, it has been a very disappointing experience for an antenna right in front of my house.

I will  be canceling the service after this post, I will go pay more for a slower reliable cable service, and just accept the cost of the equipment I bought to handle the 2.5Gb/s connection I thought I was getting ( new 2.5Gbs router, MikroTik CRS3[phone number removed per the Verizon Terms of Service]G+2S+in, SFP transceivers )
But then again there's docsis 3.1 modems with 2.5Gbps ports now ... all might not be lost.
(addendum : turns out I'm now getting 1.5Gb/s  download from spectrum's 1G offer.... modem has 2.5Gb/s connectivity, IPV6 works flawlessly with a lovely /56 block, so lan/guest/iot network each can have their own proper /64, no ugly nat6 required ) 
Good riddance Verizon, I won't be missing your unreliable illusion of a fast connection.

[vzw_customer_support]

Oh, no! We are stunned to see you in this Home Internet dilemma. Our goal is to offer the support you need.

If you encounter any tech issues in the future, do not hesitate to use our Troubleshooting Assistant for further support. https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/troubleshooting/

We sent you a Private Message. Please review at your earliest convenience.

~Gilbert

[skeeter87]

Stunned? Yeah right. I’m stunned how terrible your service is and I just got it myself… the 5G Home PLUS but I only get 20mbps download speed if that regularly and my phone is about 300-800 in the same place regularly. I don’t support your terrible service and I’m going to learn from these other guys and CANCE after having it for 2 weeks cuz it BLOWS! DON’T BUY VERIZON 5G POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS!

[vzw_customer_support]

We don't want to lose you, and we're so sorry to read about the slow speeds you've experienced using 5G Home service. We now staying connected is a must, and we'd love to take a closer look into this, and find out what's going on. Let us help we'll be sending a Private Message.

-Deb