Slow 5G home. No resolution so new approach.

[pjb76691]

I first subscribed to Verizon 5G Home Internet when I was offered a six-month free trial, and I really liked it. A month after the free trial ended and after returning my equipment, I decided to call them and sign up as a paying customer. Everything was great for about 11 months. However, in December 2023, the problems began—mainly, my internet speeds dropped from 150 to 200 Mbps down to 5 Mbps, and no higher than 20 Mbps.

It’s now May, and except for a brief period of a few weeks in February 2024 where I thought the problem was fixed because it appeared to be fixed, the extremely slow performance is back.

Since December, I have dealt with eight different call-center reps and have been transferred to four different tier 2 reps, which I’m told is as high as you can go in Verizon. Everyone was remarkably polite and sympathetic, expressing a desire to help. Let me be clear—none of them solved the problem, and I’m at my wits' end. I have tried four different gateways. I have moved the gateways to multiple locations in my house, despite the fact that for 11 months, I had fantastic service where the gateway was located. Before you ask, nothing has changed in the neighborhood. I live in a rural area; if somebody had thrown up an office complex or a tower, I would have seen it. Nothing has changed electronically in my house. There are no new devices that could cause interference, and nothing has changed with the location of my existing electronic devices.

Twice, as recently as yesterday, in response to the tier 2 reps' concerns that something in my house was causing interference, I have taken the gateway outside, on an extension cord, in the open and on the side of the house that the representative said was best, and the result is the same. The service is terrible—an average of 10 Mbps and often slower.

The Verizon speed test app cannot be trusted. It consistently gives higher download speeds than are actually possible. For example, yesterday it told me I had 277 Mbps download. This is at best a mistake and at worst purposely misleading in order to cover up a problem that Verizon aware of but is unwilling to acknowledge. When I run the same speed test on six different speed test sites, including Fast, the results are more in line with the actual performance I’m getting. This issue does not occur just at busy times of the day. I have consistently been getting well below 20 Mbps download speeds for the last 36 hours, regardless of the time of day that I log on. It’s not a hardware issue, it’s not a home issue, it’s not a location issue, and it’s not an issue with another device in or around my house—it’s a Verizon issue. Verizon has temporarily solved it, but just when I think it’s fixed and stop running speed tests all the time, it comes back.

One of the support reps I was dealing with asked me if I had considered going with a different internet service, and I replied that I had thought about that, but in January, I allowed myself to be upgraded to their fastest 5G program because it would “most definitely fix the problem.” plus they offered a $200 gift card and an Xbox Series X. I’m obligated to keep the higher-priced program through the end of July. I’ve already spent the $200 gift card and used the Xbox—or I should say attempted to use it because the terrible internet connection prevents me from downloading new games or system updates without it taking hours and sometimes longer. I asked if they would just cancel the service since they’ve been unable to supply even broadband internet consistently since December, and they told me I would have to return the $200 gift card that I’ve already spent and the Xbox Series X, which amounts to me having to pay them even more money than I’ve already been paying them for a service that Verizon is not delivering.

Unlike other internet service providers in my area (I've called and asked), i.e., Cox and AT&T, Verizon will not actually send a technician out to my property to meet with me and see the issue. I’ve asked, but they refuse. They say it’s not possible, but what they’re doing is actually refusing to do something that their competitors will do. The best communication I get from the field tech reps is a text asking me if the problem is resolved and only accepting a yes or no answer.

I worked for Sony for 20 years, and there we had a program that allowed customers who had spent just a fraction of the time that I’ve spent on the phone with Verizon to be connected to the office of the president for extreme problems. Verizon apparently has no such program, so what am I supposed to do? Should I just randomly call executives' offices and complain? They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Do I contact my state’s attorney general? Do I contact the FCC? I don’t want to do any of these things. I want to be able to work with Verizon and have them solve this issue.

Several of the reps have already leaked information they shouldn’t have to me by accident. For example, the fact that my download speeds are slower than my upload speeds—in fact, upload has never been affected and is just as fast as it has always been—indicates that there’s throttling. Obe time, the field technician made a note that the reason for the slowdown as network congestion, and the response to network congestion is throttling. But other than that one time that a rep accidentally acknowledged what was going on, none of the other reps that I’ve talked with are willing to accept this as a possibility. I understand throttling, but what I don’t understand is throttling to the point where the internet is useless. I can’t even stream a high-definition movie; it’s unwatchable, so forget about 4K. I can’t game on the system that they sent me, that I paid for through higher monthly costs, because the internet connection is so bad. Despite them being incredibly polite and kind and sympathetic and expressing a desire to fix the problem, they have not been able to, and that’s a problem. I’ve spent so much time on the phone talking with Verizon that they should pay me a salary or at least an hourly wage. Also I can’t get the hold music out of my head. I’ve made up words to it I’ve heard it so much.

I want this problem fixed, so I’m going to post this to the Verizon forum first. Then I’m going to wait a day and post it to Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn directly to the executive profiles on LinkedIn. Then I’m going to start reaching out to the Verizon executive offices and seeing if I can get somebody higher up to do something. I will continue to be polite. I will continue to be patient. I will continue to try and be sympathetic, but I will not stop trying to get this fixed. One thing that working at Sony for 20 years taught me is that there’s always somebody else to talk to, and eventually, I’ll get to a person who either understands or just wants me to go away and fixes the problem. If this does not work, well I have a lot of corporate connections outside of Verizon and maybe one of them know someone on the Verizon executive team that will help.

I’m not going into detail regarding everything that I have tried to get the situation resolved with Verizon. If you’re a Verizon rep and you believe that you can help me out, I would ask you to look at the detailed notes in my customer service file once you reach out to me and before you try doing anything. I have done the troubleshooting so many times that I think I know it better than the Verizon reps I talk with.

I depend on my internet service for more than just entertainment. I have three disabled individuals in this house, and the internet is not only a lifeline—it is tied to our lives as there are medical devices in the house that are connected to the internet and rely on that connection.

I think it was Albert Einstien who said that the definition of insanity of doing the same thing over and over again but expecting an different result. I’ve been stuck in a Groundhog day customer service loop with very kind and polite ineffective individuals and I’m tired of it so starting today I’m changing the rules of engagement. At the end of each attempt to get this resolved I will report back on each of my attempts and any results both positive or negative in an effort to help any of you experiencing this problem. I know there are so many of you having the exact same issue because I can see the forum posts.

I hope this works.

[pjb76691]

It's 8 a.m. Pacific time and I just ran a speed test. I need to make a correction to my post. Above I indicated that it had been 36 hours that I have had speeds no faster than 20 Mbps and most of the time around 5 Mbps. It was actually over 72 hours since I had reached out to Verizon and began the process all over again with no change in speed. This call takes the number of Verizon reps I spoke with to 9 or 10. I've talked to so many people I may actually be undercounting, as I didn't start taking detailed notes until sometime in January. I noticed my problem around Christmas and according to Verizon it had actually been noticed by their system 30 days prior. Ok here's my update.

I spent the majority of Friday on the phone with Verizon. I'm not going to give the representatives names. The first rep, as always was very polite. He did everything I have already done multiple times and even called me back when the call dropped, something not every rep I've dealt with has done. Rep #1 was unable to solve the issue and transferred me to a Tech support person, Rep #2. Rep #2 was on the phone with me for about 5 minutes and started the diagnosis process over again and at that point the call dropped. I waited for a call back but he never called so I called back and got Rep #3. Rep #3 was polite, sympathethic and thanked me for my patience and attitude. I guess a lot of people are rude to the reps. After another hour or so of trouble shooting that I've done over and over including taking the gateway outside Rep#3 put in another field support ticket. For the rest of the weekend my speeds remained at 20 Mbps and mostly way less. As of midnight my speeds were still the same.

It's now Monday at 8AM and my speedtest from FAST show 80 Mbps download. I've run it twice with the same result. To be clear this is still below Verizons own accepted bottom speed for my service package but I'll tale it. 

Both Rep#1 and Rep#2 committed to calling me today. Rep#1 offered, I didn't ask, to call around noon my time. Rep#3 also said she would call today. Maybe they will and maybe they won't. My experience with the call center reps meeting their commitments to call me back is about 50/50.

I have not received a response to my forum post. If I don't get an acknowledgement of the post by tomorrow, Tuesday, I will move onto Verizons Facebook webpage. Verizon will have 24 hours to acknowledge the post then i will move onto Twitter, then Linked In.

I will post updates here in this forum unless Verizon takes them down.

[vzw_customer_support]

I can certainly understand your frustration with the ongoing issues with your 5G Home Internet service and speeds, and I too would be seeking a resolution if I were having the same experience. I appreciate your feedback about the contacts you've had with us in the past regarding this, and I am here to help. You mentioned that the 3rd rep that helped you put in a service ticket. Typically these have a 3-5 day turnaround period, and are used when all troubleshooting is exhausted for our network team to investigate. We likely would not have any additional details to provide until that ticket has been completed. 

I can take a look at the status of that ticket, but will need account access to do that, so please be on the lookout for a private message from us.

-Joseph

[pjb76691]

Update 3. I just finished a chat call with Joseph. He was very polite and concerned about my situation, but like all the other reps, he does not know why the slowdown is happening at the current level. He, or apparently someone, will contact me tomorrow via chat to see if the problem has been resolved. Suddenly, at the end of the chat, Joseph was gone, and suddenly, I was dealing with Maria, then Deb, then Joe. Three completely different agents. No transfer. No escalation. One second i was talking to Joseph and in the middle of a reply he's gone and three new people in about a minute rotate in? Very off putting and frankly odd. Where Joseph was trying to find a solution ultimately the last rep Joe just offered some kinda empty platitudes and appeared to want to end the call.

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[pjb76691]

Verizon took down the copy of the text chain that I posted, so you will have to take my word for it. Oddly, they also removed my last observation, where I said applying tone or intent to text can be hard, so maybe I'm misreading. But now I don't think I was misreading anything; I was just being dismissed.

I have a few hours to think about this ongoing issue and what it comes down to is Verizon just seems to be worried about the exact moment that the problem ends classifying it as "closed and fixed" when they have not actually found the cause of the problem and are completly ok with their people and customers constantly starting the same troubleshooting process over and over again knowing full well that it's not going to solve anything. Lets see what happens tomorrow but I suspect I'll be visiting Facebook on Wednesday and tyring  to find someone who will actually do something about the problem. Joesph - Rep #11 seems sincere in his desire to help but then again so did all the other very nice, polite, sympathetic, but ultimately ineffective reps i dealt with prior.  Do any of these previous reps know that my problem continues to come back? Do any of them care? Does the rep who sold me on an upgrade sure that it would fix the problem know that it didn't and is she or her supervisor or any executive at Verizon willing to do something about this? So far I don't think so. Does Hans Vestberg president of Verizon communications care? I worked at Sony for 20 years and I can tell you every president of the company during my time cared about stuff like this. They didn't care by getting involved in every situation and solving individual customers problems. They cared by putting a dedicated team in place to handle problems like this so they did not damage the company. I think that the way a call center or service team handles problems is a direct reflection of the attitude of the person in charge. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask @HansVestberg and maybe someone in his office will respond. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

[SynthpopAddict]

I saw your post in another thread and responded there.  Wondering if the internet cubes are being deprioritized to cell phone traffic on the towers.  It used to be stated clearly in the fine print for the various service plans that this is the case, but now it's murky.  In any case, the internet cubes run off the cell phone towers and with more and more devices hooking up to cell phone towers all the time, unless more towers are built, problems with slow data and weaker cellular signal are going to keep happening and become more common.  A wired internet service for home use (either cable or fiber) will be much more consistent in data speeds.

I am satisfied with the level of service I get on my phone from Verizon, but refuse to give up my 24 years and counting subscription to my cable ISP for my home PC because I use the daylights out of it, and love that I always have 370Mbps down no matter what and have had less than 10 service outages in 17 years at my current address.

P.S. - 5G radio waves have a limited distance which they can travel.  The really fast high-band 5G only travels ~1500 feet before fading out.  Mid-band 5G can go about 2 miles before vanishing, but data speeds will be a little slower.  The older LTE technology can theoretically travel 45 miles before fading out, but LTE generally has slower data speeds, although "regular" (low-band) 5G will give you about the same speeds as LTE.  Low-band 5G I want to say has a range of 5 or so miles.  Maybe you're in a gap area where the really good 5G isn't quite making it out to your house?

[pjb76691]

Hi, SynthpopAddict. One of the reasons I switched to Verizon is the unlimited data. I would be more than happy with a consistent 50 Mbps-a-second download. There are only two other providers in my area, Cox and U-Verse, and they both have ridiculously low data caps and poor service. I was a COX customer for nine years, and suddenly, they just started failing while increasing their prices. I would be happy to leave Verizon. I don't want to have to pay for the privilege of leaving since I'm already paying way too much money each month for the overall poor network speeds I have been getting since December 2023.  I worked for Sony for 20 years so 'm very clear on the way mobile data works although your explanation was excellent.

In the end it comes down to what I want from Verizon. 1. Reliable internet but since they can't provide me reliable internet I would like to be credited the difference for the higher price program I was told would fix my issue but did not. All they have to do is be willing to credit me for the service they have taken money for but not delivered. This should cover my monthly costs until the end of July when my promo ends and I will go away.  That's it. That's all it will take to get me to go away. i thnk that 's more than reasonable but i don't think that's going to happen so I will have to continue with my new approach.

[SynthpopAddict]

You mentioned that you haven't changed anything in your home, but are you perchance hooking up your device(s) through a VPN these days?  I tried digging around in these forums for the thread(s) where people were saying using a VPN was making their data speeds crawl, but couldn't find them.  Want to say there's some kind of ports you have to open or otherwise whitelist something to get the data to run faster.

U-Verse has changed names and been restructured.  Have the website up on another tab as I write this post, and the data cap for fixed wireless service is 350 gigs, which is quite a bit unless you have several different devices in your home constantly online, or you and your family are work from home/constantly streaming TV, music, or playing games?  There is an unlimited service plan available, but that's probably for the fully wired service.

[pjb76691]

No VPN and I have not added any devices prior to the problems starting in Dec 2023. Regarding usage, I have several disabled people in the house, and there is a lot of streaming going on, which caused us to blow through the COX data cap, which is actually larger than the U-verse cap. I've tried to get the family to be more efficient by doing things like downloading content before watching, but I don't really know that they understand why, and I'm not able to fully monitor the way they watch stuff. 🙂

[SynthpopAddict]

Ah, that makes sense.  🙂

I suspect it's just that Verizon doesn't have the biggest 5G network and now they're lagging with trying to keep up.  There are quite a few discussions about how many of us haven't been able to get 5G on our phones even.

If you do an internet search for providers in your ZIP code, no other ISPs come up except Verizon, COX, and Blue Logo Place?  In rural areas, unfortunately you are often limited to satellite internet or fixed wireless services, but I'm surprised the Pink Logo Place with their big pink map doesn't include you, or maybe Starlink?

[pjb76691]

The Pink Place has service, but it's unavailable in my neighborhood. I would never give Elon Musk a penny of my money, and the service is too much of an investment up front. If this is not fixed I will likley be forced back to COX . I hope they fix it. Like I said I would take a reliable 50 mbps down.

[SynthpopAddict]

No fixed wireless service can guarantee data speeds because it all depends on how much traffic is on the towers.  From your earlier posts of running out of data with COX and having lots of streaming going on at the same time in your home, this is a combination of your internet cube being unable to handle all the bandwidth you need and traffic on the cell phone towers.  Your data usage is probably in the terabytes range each month which really requires a fiber optic internet connection to handle.  It's too bad Google Fiber isn't out in your neighborhood, because I'd say you'd be a great candidate for the 5 gig or 8 gig service plan.  I don't think Verizon will let you add another internet cube to your account because someone else asked about that in another thread and couldn't get one.  So short of having multiple ISPs to split up the internet usage among your family members so that no one internet gateway or router is being "used up"...the only other thing I can think of is to have your family members download their movies, etc. instead of streaming them.

[pjb76691]

UPDATE #4

Today is June 11. And now it's started all over again. At about 4:30 West Coast time, I was editing a website in WordPress when suddenly, the site stopped responding to my actions. I was loading a 1280 x 720 WebP file, which was a tiny file. At first, I thought it was WordPress, so I logged out and logged back in, and it would not load. 

Just so you all know it appeared that Verizon had fixed the previous  issue. Internet worked  for about two weeks but just as I relax it fails right when I needed it. As usual the Verizon speed test says everything is just fine but every other speedtest website says I'm gettting anywhere from 5 mbps (Ookla)  down to 20 mbps down (Fast) but based on how slow websites are loading and pages updating I would say I'm not even getting 5 mbps down. This is so frustrating. Oh and just like all the other times a "field tech" was dispatched they didn't communicate with me,. They never report what they actually checked for in the field or what they did in the field that fixed the issue. Now I have to start the whole process over for a fifth time! Just like last time I'm going to give them 24 hours to reach out and then I start my way up the corporate chain until I get someone to figure out what's going on. I spent 20 years at Sony so one of our current  executive team has to know someone pretty high up at Verizon so maybe I'll start pulling at that thread. Verizon has been the absolutely least reliable internet service I have ever had which includes my very first dial up internet service when I lived in New Orleans.

The problem, other than the continually failing service is really the lack of communication about what they are doing to diagnose and solve the issue so the next time it happens I don't have to start over at square one.