Verizon DSL Outage/Connectivity Issues in Eldersburg, MD

[ahodge2]

On Monday, 8/19, sometime early in the evening, a thunderstorm passed through my area (Eldersburg, MD) and my DSL internet has been working intermittently or not at all ever since. It stays on for 1-10 minutes and then loses all speed and goes offline for the same amount of time or LONGER. It's now been totally offline since yesterday (Thursday) around 5:00 PM. When it is online, the DSL light on the 7500 router is solid green and the Internet light flickers. When it goes offline, the Internet light is dark and the DSL light blinks slowly. The problem is not unique to my computer. Nothing can connect. Further, I made no changes to any configuration (filters, etc). One minute I'm surfing. The next minute the **bleep** begins. I have reset the router and followed the other troubleshooting steps, MULTIPLE TIMES, it makes NO difference, so don't even give me that. It is without a doubt a router or line issue, nothing on my end.

My only hope at this point--is this possibly the result of a known outage? Preferably one you're in the process of correcting already? I really would rather not sit on the phone with Bangalore and I'm afraid to even make a service request as I'm sure no one will be out here for a week. (Not to mention it's been rather difficult to make a request without internet connectivity.) I am very frustrated at this point as I hoped it would resolve itself, but instead has gotten worse.

Internet access is critical for my work and at this point I've already been FINANCIALLY impacted by this. I have never had a problem like this before but I'm quickly becoming inclined to look at the competition. Fortunately, Verizon isn't a monopoly in my area! I know many a Comcast customer and they've never had issues like this...

Any PROMPT assistance would be nice at this point.  Getting the service I'm paying for without hassle would be even nicer, but hey.

[somegirl]

This is a peer-to-peer support forum. If you want to get a message to Verizon, you should contact them directly via one of the options on their Contact Us page.

That said, maybe some other customers in your area can give some feedback about whether their service is having issues or not. (I'm not even close to you, sorry.)

[ahodge2]

As I said I'm mainly trying to find out if there is a known outage in the area. That's my last hope for this NOT being a major inconvenience and time/money sink for me.

[ahodge2]

FYI, I just finished my hour long tech support experience. Once I got through to a local "central office technician", he acted like he knew exactly what the problem was and that call took about 2 minutes. He said there's some issue with old/malfunctioning hardware at a local service station where all the lines originate. He assured me he'd be replacing the hardware or moving me over to new hardware, and that this would resolve my issues, by COB today... if that is the case I'll be pleasantly surprised--and kicking myself for not calling Bangalore sooner. 😛

[ahodge2]

Knew it was too good to be true. I don't know if the tech actually did anything since I never received the follow up call I was promised--but I've seen little to no improvement. Still offline at least as often as it's online. Guess it'll be round two with Bangalore tomorrow. Go figure.

[Kyri]

Just so you know, I had the exact same experience since Monday night. I am in Sykesville. I was ASSURED that nobody else had reported such a problem. First I was told (on Tues morn) that it was averizon network problem, Tues afternoon I was told it was fixed, Tues Eve I called to tell them it indeed was *not* fixed. Then they blamed it on my router, sent me a new one...guess what? Still didn't work. Finally after another hour on hold and being put up the chain of command in tech support, was told I had a line problem and it would be fixed by this morning. Now, I find out there is a widespread outage affecting the whole area. There is a recording about the outage when you call the main number. I only wish I hadn't wasted at least 3 hours of my life wit tech support, and set up a new router, for a problem Verizon shouls have known about and taken responsibility for in the first place.

[ahodge2]

Too lazy to call that number again myself, I'll take your word for it. There was no message when I called yesterday, just something about McAfee, which I don't use. However... I've actually been online since early this morning without any problems. I'm not holding my breath, of course, but maybe they really did do something this morning.