Slow internet in eastern pa
kjgces
Newbie

Give me a break, is Verizon ever going to step up and fix whatever it is that is messed up! I too share what many have Been experiencing, evening hours, slow or stopped internet speeds.  Been There done that, changed modem, changed house wiring to home run, had tecjh come out and do something(that did nothing but waste his time) and still the same old deal, speed drops to almost nothing.  reboot the moden, nonsense, reboot your blah, blah, nonsense.  I know I'm looking for something else and don't let Verizon tell you this is normal.  There was a day last year when this all started, Not sure when it was, but early in the year this slowing started.  Prior to that I didn't even know how to reset the modem because I NEVER once had to touch it for a long long time.    All PC's in the house worked fine, Not a single issue, then almost overnight we started having this slow issue and it just keeps getting work... Not that I don't like people in foreign countries but HOW is a person in INDIA or somewhere else cheap supposed to be able to fix this stuff from that distance, come on, all they cam do is report back what their little screen says is the "numbers".  I have yet to have a positive (yes, they absolutely fixed it ) experience, and it AIN"T their fault, they can't fix it from 10k miles away.  Verizon is just playing us and walking away with the cash.  I'll admit until a year ago I didn't even know what my down/up speeds were or SUPPOSED to be since it never once failed, now it is EVERY day!   Ok, Verizon, how about a REAL answer!  

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
97camaro
Enthusiast - Level 2

Not exactly eastern PA, but the same seems to be occurring in Central PA.  Here in Dillsburg, speeds drop religiously from 7:00 PM every evening to midnight, from 3.00 Mbps down to under 1Mbps down (on the 3Mbps plan). 

I begin wondering why I'm paying a premium for service that isn't being delivered.   It just started in January of 2011, and I believe Verizon is throttling download speeds to customers during peak periods, and cannot deliver on the bandwith they are selling. 

I've wasted countless hours on Inida support struggling through conversations, and even got a new modem shipped to me from Verizon, and nothing has helped.

I've already called other local ISPs to see what they can offer.   I loved Verizon DSL until this year when the speed issues became prevelant.

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
johnskii
Enthusiast - Level 2

Yes something is definitely wrong. My sister as well as I have Verizon High Speed DSL our speeds are no where near what they should be. Both of us have contacted Verizon Tech support India several times receiving the same excuses why the speeds are so slow. She lives several miles away so it is prevalent all over Verizon's service area. Verizon India Tech support told me it is my computer. Well the desktop is top of the line and only six months old. So I borrowed a new "souped" up notebook from work and did the speed tests. Same results! Another contributer here said he is going to check the speeds right at the access NDS box right outside his home. Everyone should be doing this then the Verizon excuses will run thin and they will have to do something about the OBVIOUS problems!

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
97camaro
Enthusiast - Level 2

Glad to hear others are having similar problems.  I too am getting tired of the 'excuses'.  I've tried everything you cited and still no clear answer from Verizon.  I've just run another test - .86Mbs down (Paying for 1.5 - 3Mbs) and upload of a pathetic .22 Mbs.

I'd believe it was a line issue, or some other explainable technical issue if this was the constant speed.  I ran a test this morning, and got 2.70Mbs down.  The slowing occurs consistently between 7:00 PM and 11:00 PM each and every night.   I believe their is either some throttling by Verizon, or some other bandwidth limitation that was emplaced.  This just started occurring noticeably in January of this...   and I don't recall a terms of service change...

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
timncat2
Enthusiast - Level 3

It does get a bit frustrating that my speed goes from 10Mbps - 15Mbps down to 1Mbps and lower every night but I think Verizon is working on the problem. As far as pushing us to FIOS, that is not in my area yet and won't be for a while. I will wait it out as I sure don't want to ever pay for comcast as they raise their prices too much and I got charged for a service call when it was due to the comcast router being bad. Verizon came out and checked my service and did not charge me when all this started. I am sure Verizon will get this fixed soon so instead of calling tech support, I will wait this one out. I am using my slow speed to enjoy the internet instead of being on hold for tech support due to everyone calling them. My thought is, Verizon is trying to fix a small problem before they have a big problem and we all have no internet. For now I am trusting Verizon and hope others do or you will be calling tech support every night and where does that get you? I am sure not going to ask billing for a refund as I pay a very low price now for a bundled package the best price for internet right now.

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
benjames
Newbie

You would be surprised how much more you pay for the same service from some countries like Iraq.

I have a 1.00 Mbps down and .33 Mbps upload connection that is stationary and pay about $30/month.

In northern Iraq you can get wireless internet connection.

I had one person run a test from in side his house and got 1.2Mbps down and .51 Mbps upload. 

And they pay less than $25/Month.

We in the US should be doing much better then countries that just started to taste democracy.

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
Gerard_Sr
Enthusiast - Level 3

Well guys and gals, that's the way it is. Ain't no changing it.

I'm at the fringe of the DSL area in Pennsylvania and on good days or nights I can get 2.88 down and 0.51 up.

I can remember when I never had a problem. Of course I had the darned slowest DSL that was available. Then my rebooting the modem problems started. I used to have a timer on my modem to power it off and back on at 3 AM. That worked for a while, but I upgraded to the supposed best available. And the problems continued. I filed a complaint with the FCC for Verizon allegedly doing a bait and switch thing.

I did find out they "provisioned" my new service to top out at 1.5. Well if I was paying for 3.3 why did they do that?

I caught them at it.

They changed my provisioning to the 3.3 and the best I can get because of distance is 2.88 and I was happy with that.

The part I'm not happy with now is the modem loosing lock in the day and re-locking at a lower speed or not at all. I have a few screen grabs of my download speed being that of dialup and less over the past few weeks!

They claim it's line noise, it very well could be.

Then again it could be them overselling what overall bandwidth they have and prioritizing it for the big-dog type customers.

My personal answer will be switching to Comcast in a month or so.

Not only my Internet, but Ma-Bell’s daughter, Verizon, will loose a 40-year telephone customer.

What can you do?

Contact the FCC for what good it will do. They have an on-line form. You may get some personal satisfaction and maybe better speed for a while, but it will return to the mess you have now like mine did.

Finally, you can take your money to a different provider or different medium.

Good luck.

Cordially,

Gerry

EDIT: For what it's worth... This morning 10-10-2011 my Verizon internet did the "slide thing" again. It barely started out at over 2 meg and slid down to 356.2kb/s. I had to reboot and it's still not at my peak, but better.

I'll post screen-grabs and Verizon speed test results at   ourpage.com/verizon (direct link omitted as they won't let me post it!)  If my internet is working that is.....  Smiley Sad

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
OrbitStorm
Newbie

I can vouch for the slow connection speeds in Central, PA - in and around Juniata/Mifflin counties. Currently, I'm subscribed to a 1.5-3Mbps DSL line, yet barely pull 600Kbps on a daily basis, regardless of the time of day.

I've had my line tested dozens of times, and even a few times by third-party technicians, to no avail. I currently have the latest Westell modem/router combo model, and it certainly isn't the fault of the equipment.

I've given up hope on customer support, as technical assistance is provided by some third-world call center, with barely an understanding of their own language, let alone mine. Most times, the information I receive is vague, irrelevant, and typically some copy/paste narcisstic **bleep**. I am afforded the same rhetoric each time I call, and somehow, the "problem" is always "my" fault. They demand modem/router reboots; scanning for spyware, malware, viruses, etc; and when all else fails, they demand permission to utilize Radmin (Remote Administration), for purposes unknown - aside from logging into my router and hovering the mouse pointer over various sections, and then copy/pasting some more garbage, and proceeding with the hovering.

Simply put, Verizon has gone from a Top-5 provider, to the bottom of some stank, putrid barrel. When Earthlink rivals Verizon's service, that should warrant a few red flags. I wouldn't mind upgrading, to avoid the apparent bandwidth cap, but despite only living 2 miles from a local office, somehow the maximum speed in "these here hillbilly parts" is a dismal 3Mb - again, despite living less than 2 miles from a local office, outside of a rather large town, with nearly 15-20k residents.

I think it's time for a switch to Comcast, or maybe it's time for Verizon to follow suit with Sprint, aka Embarq, aka Century Link - and allow themselves to be bought out by a better company, with superior quality and policies.

And just for the record, it shouldn't take upwards of 12 hours to download a 2-3Gb file. I'm an avid gamer, and sadly, just the most basic updates from Xbox Live take hours. Verizon, by far, has the worst service available to central PA.

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

You seem to be confusing us between Bits and Bytes. By "356.2kb/s" I am assuming you are saying 356.2KB/s which is pretty darn close to where the 3Mbps package runs at with all overhead accounted for. Now if it's in Kilobits rather than KiloBytes, I would have to say provide the Transceiver Statistics from the modem as a start to see what the heck is going on.

Also, the FCC cannot do a whole lot when it comes down to DSL. They set a standard as to how it should work, and Verizon follows through on it. How the reliability of it is by nature of any computerized tech is uncontrollable, and is in escense, best effort. When it comes down to how Verizon maintains their network, that is another story which the FCC could perhaps get some leverage on, but you're more likely to get some weight by complaining to some other governmental sectors, such as the BBB or your local government. That is considered a last resort unfortunately.

About the 3Mbps speed... If you cannot get more than 3Mbps you might be on a remote or a CO that has been neglected for upgrades when the 7Mbps tier came out how many years ago? Just saying if the problem is in fact not distance/quality/backbone related.

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Re: Slow internet in eastern pa
Gerard_Sr
Enthusiast - Level 3

Smith, the FCC did raise awareness in my case last year when normal channels didn't work. It was brought to the attention of Verizon's "Presidential Appeals" department. Which got things done.

The route I took with them is the bait and switch thing. As I had signed up for the higest speed in my area and it was falling far short. Later on I found out it was not provisioned for what I had signed up for, but less.

But you are correct Smith ! The FCC realy has nothing to do with DSL but with a package deal with my "telephone" line, I sort of pushed the issue.

Interestingly enough, I got to that "Presidential Appeals" level yesterday when I made a phone call to the business office and when I inquired about porting my telephone number to another carrier and got an cnooty answer that the other carrier initiates it. I asked the person on the other end if she wondered why. Her response was what do you expect me to say. So I hung up in disgust.

In the phone book there was a listing if someone had "supervisor" trouble, so I called it and explained the attitude of who took my call and went on to explain the reason I wanted to move was based on continuing internet troubles and calling India do nothing what-so-ever. She escalated it to "Presidential Appeals" and I got a call from a lady in that department.

I went over the history with her and she admitted to see it in the account notes and assured me it would be fixed ASAP.

Last night at 6 PM local the Internet went down and I could not get a PPP connection and consequently no IP address. This morning about 10 AM local it returned, better than ever!

Several times in the day my speed actually went above 3 Mbps! and my upload is 0.67 Mbps! ( as tested with http://www.speedtest.net ) and my Ping was reduced from a 57 ms to 21 ms. My results were NEVER that good.

Squeaky wheel?

Unfortunately this grease thing is getting old. I hope they do learn something from it.

For now I am a "happy camper".  Smiley Happy