Verizon DSL drops out intermittently: problems for 10 months

[goedken]

Subject: Verizon DSL drops out intermittently:  problems for 10 months

Hi all,

Just wondering if any one can help.  We had Verizon DSL on our home phone line for six years in Worcester MA.  The first five years we had little to problems.  The last 10 months we’ve have frequent (nearly every day drop out and period where the DSL line can’t connect for minutes to sometimes hours).

We’ve had seven different technicians visit us for a total of thirteen visits.  They’ve replaced the line coming into our house multiple times and isolated our home phone lines from the DSL feed but this hasn’t helped. Verizon tech support can’t seem to get back to me with a detailed plan of what they are going to do next and few representatives return my phone calls.

We’ve also tried at least five router and modems and it hadn’t helped.  They recently changed the DSL card(?) in the local office (~7000 ft away) and said they switched us to ADS2.

We’re still seeing internet drops and we’re at our wit’s end.

Any ideas?

 Here’s our transceiver stats from our Verzion 7500 DSL modem combo:

Transceiver Revision     A2pB020b3.d20h

Vendor ID Code          4D54

Line Mode                   ADSL_2plus

Data Path                     FAST

Transceiver Information            Down Stream Path       Up Stream Path

DSL Speed (Kbits/Sec)            3358                            863

Margin (dB)                             9.2                               7.0

Line Attenuation (dB)               44.0                             19.4

Transmit Power (dBm)21.0                             12.4

Thanks,

[dslr595148]

Did you try connecting the modem to the NID?

If you don't know what a NID is / what a NIC looks like, see the info at

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1317

[goedken]

Unfortunately I don't think I have the know-how to try conencting to NIC directly myself.

As an update, today I had several hours of very spotty connectivity and my transceiver stats show very poor (slow) speeds.  I should be getting 3 MBps download!

Transmit Power (dBm)            12.3     12.4

Line Mode       ADSL_2plus

Data Path         FAST

Transceiver Information                        Down   Up

DSL Speed (Kbits/Sec)                        184      559

Margin (dB)                                             10.1     5.9

Line Attenuation (dB)                           45.0     20.9

[smith6612]

Connecting to the NID is easy. In most newer NIDs, there is a test jack located inside of the Customer Access portion of it (all you need is a Flathead Screwdriver to open it). Connect your DSL modem to that test jack and start it up. You'll probably need a laptop and an extension cord for power handy, but that is all that is to it. If you have an older Style NID, if you are not comfortable with wiring up your own jack and disconnecting your home to rule out anything internal, then get Verizon out to replace your NID with a more modern one. It is free since that is their property.

You are having a noise problem, which would be causing your disconnect issues.

[goedken]

Thanks for the info that this is a noise issue.  I recently found out our neighbor in another house who's also on Verizon DSL hashad very similar problems to us.  

I think this rules out our home wiring as the problem and our NID.  I thik the line noise is from the F1 portion of the line.

Does that make sense?

- Eric

[smith6612]

I don't know what you mean by "F1" but since your neighbor is having the same problem, it would sound like trouble with the trunk line. Definitely something you and your neighbor should push to get fixed.

[blacknblue2]

Hate to tell you this but I have also been a VZ dsl customer, been with it for 4 years. At one time things were good but not anymore. If you are on copper....forget it, you'll not get much satisfaction. Right now I've had a connection about 10% of the time and getting a tech out is like pulling teeth. They were to come out today between 1 >5....just got a call saying tomorrow or Wednesday. I said no way. What they don't know is that Xfinity is coming on Friday to re-connect an old line that goes to my computer room. Yep, I am going to cable. I am tried of talking to India and going through all their lame troubleshooting crap, tired of unreliable service. Everyone I know on cable loves it and says it is reliable. The cable people will be here between 10:30 and 12:30 and normally they arrive at the early time. Verizon requests a minimum of a half day of waiting around. Cable will cost more but it is worth it to get rid of the frustration factor.

[bbwah]

try replacing the dsl modem. i had the same symptoms. it took verizon one month to tell me the dsl modem is bad.

[goedken]

My problem is definitely not the DSL modem. I've tried five different ones.

I think it's the copper phone lines in the street. I have one more repair tech coming, but if they can't fix it, I'm headed for cable modem service...

[goedken]

Well, we're getting pretty fed up.  Here's the letter that we are sending out for a Verizon Presidential Appeal...

To:

 Verizon, St. Petersburg, FL

Verizon Technical Team, Worcester, MA

The Department of Telecommunications and Cable, Consumer Division, Boston, MA

Better Business Bureau

Dear Sirs,

We are writing to lodge a formal complaint about our Verizon DSL service, and the extremely
poor treatment we have received while trying to resolve this (still unresolved) problem. We have had
intermittent internet outages for the last 12 months. This followed five years of normal DSL service at
the same address. Our problems worsened this spring; our internet is out a few minutes to several
hours a day, most days a week. Our next door neighbors have the same problem with their Verizon
DSL service, though they do not use the internet very often so are less affected than we are. We rely
on consistent internet service for our jobs.

We have had 13 technician visits to our home from a total of seven different technicians. On
multiple occasions, we have also been stood up for scheduled technician visits, including days in
which we took off work to be home. Two of these times in which we were stood up were not visits that
Verizon initiated, where we were told we needed to be home. Additionally, we have received
several “auto-calls” informing us that our problem is fixed and our work tickets have been closed. This
is extremely upsetting to us, as our problem has never been fixed as we have explained many times.
Several technicians have spoke confidently (and condescendingly) that their work would fix our
problem; these are generally the technicians we never saw again.

It is clear from our several calls each month to Verizon that persons and departments within
the company do not communicate with one another. Time and time again, we have been shuffled from
person to person, and now believe that no one wants to expend the effort to deal with our problems.
For example, multiple employees have failed to call us back when they said they would. We have
asked several times for a team of creative thinkers (with the authority to act) to brainstorm some sort
of solution and let us know what Verizon was doing to solve our problem. This has not happened. We
have made extensive notes about our service interruptions and our correspondence with Verizon over
the last several months; these are included in this packet. We also have multiple videos across several
months showing that DSL signal is not available.

We believe that a new line needs to be put in from the local hub to our house, a distance of
only a few blocks. (See notes on reverse of page.) At this point, we have no faith that Verizon is
willing to fix this problem and restore service to us. This is truly a shameful way to do business.
If Verizon is unwilling to restore our DSL service to acceptable levels, we would like Verizon to

Notes: This is what Verizon has told us they have done:
1. Isolated our phone line from DSL.
2. Replaced the line from our street to our home.
3. Switched the F2.
4. Put us on an A-DSL2 card at the local hub.

We have tried seven DSL modems and six routers without success. The problem is not within
our house; that is clear. We believe a new F1 line is needed. We were even told by a company
representative on the phone “well, DSL is on copper wire…” - basically from our view, an admission
that copper wire can go bad, and that this may be the cause of our problems. We have asked for a
new F1 line to be installed several times and been brushed off each time.