DSL slow during primetime, Verizon server overloaded?

[socalbob]

I'm on the 3Mbs/767Kbs plan using DHCP logon.  My DSL is very slow during evening hours.  Around 8PM, it's usually in the 800Kbs range.  It get better at later hour but I usually don't hit the full 3Mbs download speed until well pass 11PM.  In other hours, my speed is the full 3Mbs so it's not a computer setup issue.  This really sucks because I usually only use the computer in the evening, right when my service is slow.  I know this problem is common for cable modem user but why is it happening to DSL service?  Is it because Verizon overloaded their server?  What can they do for me if I call and complain?

[socalbob]

Okay, did some hreading and found a on going issue with G4-0-0-2262.LSANCA-LCR-12.verizon-gni.net router.  Sounds like enough people are complaining about it over at the Fios forum already.  I guess I'll just wait and see if they can fix it. 

The bright side of this is I can ignor all the Fios upgrade flyers now.

[spacedebris]

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@socalbob wrote:

Okay, did some hreading and found a on going issue with G4-0-0-2262.LSANCA-LCR-12.verizon-gni.net router.  Sounds like enough people are complaining about it over at the Fios forum already.  I guess I'll just wait and see if they can fix it. 

The bright side of this is I can ignor all the Fios upgrade flyers now.

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The problem with G4-0-0-2262.LSANCA-LCR-12.verizon-gni.net was resolved already. They are just monitoring it at the moment. Unlike Fios, DSL is a shared bandwidth and will slow down during peak hours. Shared bandwidth means that they have X amount of bandwidth available to a certain area. That bandwidth is usually shared by 30-60 customers in that area. So for example. Lets say the DSL has 30Mbs bandwidth to your neighborhood and lets say that there are 30 customers in your area. If all 30 are on at the same time, each person will only be getting 1Mbs. By the same thought, if there were 60 customers and all of them were online, you would only get .5 Mbs each. DSL is one of those programs that are "up to" speeds. So if you pay for 3Mbs your speed is capped at 3Mbs so you cant get more than that. But that does not mean that you will see 3Mbs it just means you could get 3Mbs if all the conditions are perfect.

Now if you think you may be having network problem causing your slowdown. Run a tracert and see what it looks like.

from the command prompt type

tracert  www.google.com

Then post the results here. That would give an idication as to whether you are getting a slow down because of too many people online at the same time, or a slowdown due to a problem with a Verizon router somewhere.

[socalbob]

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...DSL is a shared bandwidth and will slow down during peak hours...

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What you describe is cable modem service.  Their coax facility is share by all subscribers within a neighborhood.  When everyone jump online, they max out the coaxial cable bandwidth and everyone slow to a crowl.  DSL is dedicated service.  DSL line wire directly into a dslam in verizon CO.  The only thing I'm sharing with my neighbor is the capacity of Verizon's network.  By that token, Fios is a shared bandwidth service too because subscriber ultimately compete for router's bandwidth.

I finally contacted Verizon this evening.  Live chat session ended with the rep suggest I ditch my inline filter and plug modem directly into the wall.  Voice tech support say they will look into moving me to another backbone but have to do something in the next 24hr first.  Sounds like they will dispatch it into the central office tomorrow.  Sounds promising, I hope they can resolve this issue.

[maxpowers87]

I've been experiencing the same problems for a few months now. It seems Verizon has now pushed well beyond capacity here in Oregon. At first it was a twinge of slowdown, but now bandwidth is hit pretty hard during peak hours and I'm crawling at around 300-800k in the evenings. The tech arrived this afternoon and all appeared normal, of course. The ticket is still open and hopefully the CO can switch me to a less crowded server. Although this may not help, it looks to me that Verizon is not properly maintaining its DSL service. I am interested to know how it has worked out for you down in California. As for me, I'll keep you posted.

[PaulW1]

Another Oregonian (and Silverton resident) having same issues here at evenings and Weekends.  It was fine until a couple months ago.  On the 5mbs plan, everything's great during the day, but drops to near dial-up speed at evenings.  Tech suggested it was due to my distance from the office (around 10,000'), and that lowering my plan to the 3mbs will help.  We shall see, but I'm not holding my breath.   Maxpowers, you hear of any other Silverton residents having the same issues?

[sixstringbaker]

@socalbob:

Any luck yet? We're in Covina, same issues: normal days, slow evenings. We have a 7Mb plan and have been seeing 1-1.5Mb most evenings for at least a month. Verizon, are you listening/reading?

[socalbob]

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@sixstringbaker wrote:

@socalbob:

Any luck yet? We're in Covina, same issues: normal days, slow evenings. We have a 7Mb plan and have been seeing 1-1.5Mb most evenings for at least a month. Verizon, are you listening/reading?

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No luck.  The tech support only offered to do a 24hr line test for me, at the end of which I got a voicemail saying my issue has been resolved.  I think if I call back and escalate the matter they will offer me a tech dispatch.  I really don't have time to stay home during weekday to give their tech access.  Maybe I'll go after them again after the holiday.

From reading Busyman's experience, at least I know now it can be done...  When I have a few hours to kill, I'll call up Verizon tech support again.  Everyone I reach has been very polite but they are all reading from the same script.

[dsl1810]

 Are you still having the problems? im at 7.1 also and when it hits about 7pm it goes down to 1mbps, all thoughout the day its constent at 6.73mbps..they told me tonite that there is a short in the line which needs to be replaced, and i would have to go back down to the 5mbps, saying my line cant handle the speed, which i dont believe, since its fine for most hrs of the day.

[andyyy]

Well, luckily I know a CO tech and he was able to contact the other CO techs in Beaverton but unfortunately they said they have resolved all issues and are running at full capacity (not meaning overloaded but that all customers in the area should be running at their rated speeds).  So I was down to trying to figure this out on my own since numerous calls to tech support always results in the same sort of nonsense.

Since both my computers have the problem I knew it was most likely nothing to do with them.  So that left my router, my DSL modem (I have the Westell 5100 from Verizon) and the line or DSL equipment on the outside box.  I had rebooted my modem probably 20+ times since the problem so obviously that wouldn't help.  But I had never actually "reset" the modem by either resetting the defaults via the web interface or by using the recessed reset button on the back of the modem.  I decided to give this a shot.

Currently my modem is setup as a bridge so that it simply allows the DHCP settings to propogate to my router which I have set to clone the MAC address of my modem because I know my router will do a far superior job when compared to the cheap Westell modem Verizon gives you (my router is a gigabit wireless N series router).  So I backed up my current modem settings and then reset to the default settings.  Then I simply re-setup my modem the way it was before.  And what do you know, voila!  It worked perfect.  I now have my full speeds all day and all night.  So it definitely was some problem with Verizon's Westell modem as I never changed a single setting on my router (didn't even reboot it).

So while I do admitt being wrong in that I thought it must be something on the Verizon network, I still have no clue as to why not one of the umpteen Verizon reps I spoke with made the suggestion to actually reset the modem (as opposed to rebooting the modem which they all make you do every time no matter how many times you have done it previously).  What a waste of my time for something that could have been solved long ago.  I would think that support documentation would have this as something to try, but whatever.  I'm just as upset at myself for not trying this earlier (being a software engineer myself) but for the non-technical person how much longer would this have gone on for?

Anyway, for anybody else seeing this same behavior you probably don't even have to worry about the settings if you're just using Verizon as your modem and router (or letting Verizon's modem grab the DHCP settings).  If that's the case, simply turn the modem off and press and hold the recessed reset button on the back of the modem for a little while (I would wait 15 - 30 seconds to be safe) and then power it back up and see if you're all fixed like I was.  Remember that your username and password for the web interface will reset to the default so you will want to change it.  I believe it's...

Username: "admin"

Password: "pass" or "password"

Anyway, hope this solves other people's problem and for now my class action lawsuit will be put on hold.  😉

[dsl1810]

Well after 2 techs coming to my house, about a dozen of tech support calls,3rd tier supervisor help, I got to speak with someone in the maintenance dept, she bumped me back up to the 7.1 Mbps, and put me on a different circuit with alot less customers, and sure enough last nite i was at full speed all thoughout the night.

[BusymanZ]

I have exactly the same problems.  During the day, I have nearly 3 Mbps speed, but in the evenings, I drop to below 500k download.  Anyone know what the solution is?  A real problem.

[BusymanZ]

After about an hour on the telephone with Verizon High Speed Internet Support last week, I was escalated to a supervisor that tested my line.  I explained that it was only happening in the evenings after about 4pm or so.  She understood and decide to send out a tech to my home in Alta Loma, CA to test my wiring.  I knew there were no issues with my home wiring, DSL modem or computers.  

The tech was very pleasant and confirmed I had 3mb download and 768k upload speed at the time of his testing.  He stated that my line could reach 5.8 mb download maximum.  He did his Verizon Speed Test and Ping Test to test the quality of the line.  He contacted Support and spoke to a technician to test my line again.  The tech came back and said my DSL line was "reaching capacity" and the support tech on the telephone changed me to a new circuit.   I have a new IP address.  I rebooted my modem and router and the service tech ran speed and ping tests.  All went very fine.

Tonight, I have full 2.95 mb download and 740k upload as advertised at matches my daytime internet speeds.  Much happier now.   I tested several times during the evening, approximately each hour and I had good speed.

Verizon Tech used:  http://www.speedtest.net/  to test my line and Verizon Ping Test.

This may have solved my current issues or at least until my current circuit "reaches capacity".

I hope everyone has a similar resolution!

[MSnitz]

I wonder if some of the complaints about slow DSL service is due to the use of Verizon's speed test.  For example, the last few nights, Verizon's speed test indicates a download speed of 441Kbps, 335Kbps and 196Kbps (my DSL service is supposed to be 768Kbps).  At the same time, a speed test using PitStop and several other sites indicate speed tests of 738Kbps, 739Kbps and 740Kbps.  So, maybe the problem lies in Verizon's speed test itself.  I realize there are many factors that determine bandwidth, but these differences don't seem reasonable.

[socalbob]

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@MSnitz wrote:

I wonder if some of the complaints about slow DSL service is due to the use of Verizon's speed test.  For example, the last few nights, Verizon's speed test indicates a download speed of 441Kbps, 335Kbps and 196Kbps (my DSL service is supposed to be 768Kbps).  At the same time, a speed test using PitStop and several other sites indicate speed tests of 738Kbps, 739Kbps and 740Kbps.  So, maybe the problem lies in Verizon's speed test itself.  I realize there are many factors that determine bandwidth, but these differences don't seem reasonable.

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I don't know about the Verizon's speed test.  I usually use 2wire.com or dslreports.com for my speedtest.  dslreports.com in fact have multiple servers so you can pick the closest one.  Their forum use to be very helpful, too bad it look to be defunct for a while now.  I also use the less scientific method of counting how many pauses I have while watching a youtube clip 

[andyyy]

I am also in Silverton, OR and am experiencing absolutely pathetic DSL speeds.  I am paying for the higher 7Mbps download plan but ALL DAY LONG I am getting less than 1/10th of that speed (typically around 320kbps).  I am going to be asking for a refund because this is so ridiculous.  And when you call tech support, it's the same dang thing every time (like someone else said, reading from the same old script).

This just started happening 3 weeks ago and has been with both computers and even at time I have lost connectivity altogether for a couple hours.  I had confirmed there was a problem in Silverton by a CO tech that had been solved, but now there is supposedly a problem with Beaverton - but it doesn't appear to be getting addressed.

I don't necessarily buy the overcrowded server/router excuse (at least not without something else going on) and here is why...

My speeds are always low during the day but they are pretty much constant.  It's not like I have spikes throughout the day like you would expect if too many people were getting on and off at different times.  It stays right around 300kbps the WHOLE DAY LONG.  Then it starts to slowly increase from about 11:30pm to 1:00am.  At around 1:00am I have my whole 7Mbps speed back again and everything works great, until morning.  Again, if it was due to too many people getting on and off are you seriously suggesting that everyone just happens to get off at the same time every single day?  I find that highly unlikely.  And are you also saying that everyone is constantly on their computer using their bandwidth all day long every single day?  Again, highly unlikely.  Lastly, like the previous person said, DSL is a dedicated bandwidth, not shared like cable, so it shouldn't matter who's on when.  Which means they could only max out the bandwidth of the router as a total amount and would mean my speeds would be slow all the time.

So I'm not sure what's going on, but they're definitley doing something **bleep** and they need to fix it as I'm paying much more for the higher speeds and getting less than their lowest speed plan.  I'm about ready to see if any lawyer wants to take up a class action suit against these guys.

Anyway, maybe I'll give them another call only to waste more of my time.  Please keep us updated if anyone else finds out more info.

Thanks,

[Jormungandr]

Is the qualitry of DSL dependent on the size of the community? I'm in LA County and I have consistent high speed all day. Previously, I had the modem connected to a router, but was never able to successfully configure the two of them. Also, my DSl would drop around 6 PM and later it on it would drop at 3PM. It would be ok after 12 midnight. After removing the router and deciding to swap out ethernet cables when a soecific omputer needed to go online, everything is ok. I can download my cousin's 3 hour wedding video, listen to Rhapsody and use Firefox and YouTube, which is obviously slower,  all at the same time. I would think with the large population that the server would be overloaded as well. That's why I thought I was being kicked off at 6 PM, people coming home. Now, I don't know why.