Brand New Installation, Speeds are constantly flakey
KilrBe3
Newbie

Hello all, Brand new to Fios, after switching from a COX account. 

Today was my installation, and the nerd I am, I observed everything, and frequently asked questions and just to talk and learn some more knowledge. Both techs were glad to answer anything, and shared some of their wisdom with me and me being new to Fios.

Well, I made a mistake. I went upstairs for a bit to take care of the pets, and came back, and they had already hooked the Router up, with COAX. Not ethernet.  At the time, I thought absolutely nothing about it. Even with my friend warning me beforehand, to make sure they install Ethernet to it from the ONT.

While they were there, I did a speedtest in front of them. (To be honest, I was shocked they didn't even check their own work...) once i did, I only had  (2) down and (7) up. Problem was my wireless router got hooked up to theirs and somehow dragged the speeds down. Once we unhooked, we were at 35 down, 35 up. Once they saw that, they grabbed their gear and left and I said thank you. 

Not 15mins later after I grabbed some food (that install is 3hrs and is crazy long). Fired up another speed test, and was shocked too see 35/35 again. (I ordered 75 / 35). I became irrate and very angry at myself for not checking it earlier, and more mad that even the techs didn't catch it. 

30mins later I retry, 61 down 33 up. Ok, But still not 75. 

I go and try my Wireless PC upstairs and the mac book. 

PC: 37 down, 26.4 up.

Mac 19 down, 9.6 up

Now I'm just mad at this point. Even when I had COX, the speed on wireless only went down 10Mbps with a Wireless connection. I hop on Skype and call my IT Help Desk friend and he aswell has Fios. For the next 3 hrs we troubleshoot whats wrong, and why the speeds are not matching and most importantly, they are not even close to the same. 

Sometimes I would get 0.79 down, and 0.98 up. This point, I was ready to break my screen in half. 

Only thing I changed was the Channel number from 1 to 9 (As I used inSSIDer to see my houses around me and see what channel they were running,  Three (Channel 4) Three (channel 6) 4 (Channel 11) 1 (channel 1) and a few 2-4. 

Choose 9 it was a good middle point. That's when I couldn't even get a 1Mbps down or Up... 

Changed to channel 11, even worse. Changed back to channel 1, still bad.

Only thing that fixed it was a "Reset" on the box. 

Once I did that, i was back to 67 down, 19 up. Still not the 35 up i was getting earlier. 

Than I tried my Wireless Router I had before they installed theirs and piggy backed it. Speeds went right back down to 2 down 6 up. 

That's where my message comes to a end. I am at a lost for words. I can't pinpoint what the heck is wrong, whats not, or anything at this point. My best guess is the Wireless Strength on that Wireless Router they gave me, is just complete garbage. But than when i go to piggyback with my own, its even worse (and yes I turned the Wireless off on the Verizon one, exactly how my friend and I set his up) So I cannot pin point why I am having such horrible speeds and most importantly, not even close to the avg speeds.

I was going to head to microcenter and get a nice ASUS N Dual band that we got for my buddy which works flawless with his internet and Verizon equipment. 

I do fully understand, that direct Wire into the PC to Router is best speeds, But the wireless, should NOT drop off 38Mbps for just running off Wireless. That doesn't even add up, nor compare to the better results I was getting with COX. 

At this point my head is spinning so much in confusion, and I'm stumbed. The last thing I wanted to do tonight was talk to Tech Support and get told the usual blah blah crap.. SO I just gonna hold that off till tomorrow or some replies from here. 

Am I doing something wrong?

Did they do something wrong?

NOTE: Washington, DC area. 

I have used the Optimizer.

The Wireless PC is running a N PCE card.

No other PC's connected.

Thanks for reading this very long message. But I'm at a true lost for words, and my friend is too, and feels very bad for me at this point. As he was the one that finally got me to switch over. 

Thank you for your time.

-Nick

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Re: Brand New Installation, Speeds are constantly flakey
i_ate_the_tacos
Enthusiast - Level 2

Coax is normally used in a residential install, it will have no adverse effect on data speeds, You cannot check speed with a wireless connection, hardwire 1 computer to the router and run the speedtest at www.verizon.net/speedtest

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Re: Brand New Installation, Speeds are constantly flakey
KilrBe3
Newbie

I think you may have missed what I said, I have tested it via hardwire, with one PC hooked up and no wireless PC's on (meaning they got no signal) and I still could not reach 75 down 35 up. Best I could get was 67 down, and like 24-26 up. I also disagree with the COAX and Ethernet having no adverse effect, when I have read other post on this forum, saying that has solved some peoples issues. By having them come back out, Rewire the ONT and re-feed a Ethernet from the ONT to inside the house directly. Not saying your wrong, don't get the wrong impression. But I slightly disagree, as I've read the proof myself.

I tested with three different sites;

speakeasy.net

speedtest.net

Verizon's. (link you gave)

Matter of fact, the Verizon one showed the worst sped of them all. 

I choose DC server for Speakeasy, and Ashburn, VA for Speedtest.net (Both within 20miles of each other).

But I will go run the test again and see.

EDIT: I ran the test again, and got 0.79 down, 0.92 up.

Second test, 83 down, 36 up.

With the Verizon site, but any other speed test service on that same PC (hardwire direct to Router) I never EVER EVER saw those speeds. I'm sorry, But I'm calling that Verizon site bogus or rigged. I would feel better or retract my statement if I knew where it was testing it too in Mid-Atlantic Virginia, but It does not tell you anything else past that. 

At this point, I will sleep on it, and if tomorrow I net same results or same constant flakey results, I will ask for a tech to come back out and hopefully he will check his work and verify it's all up to speed before he leaves. 

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Re: Brand New Installation, Speeds are constantly flakey
MDRyan
Enthusiast - Level 3

I'm in the same  general area and just recently notcied speeds totally dropping out I have 75/35 and did a live chat (he reboted my outside box) and that caused the speedtests (same ones you went to) to jump back to normal (before I was going from 2-30, pings from 10-144), but 10 minutes after logging on Netflix the quality dropped from instant HD to 1 bar barley playing quality... I ran the speed test again 2mbps 25 upload... Called Verzion this time and basically went through the same process again. He reset the outside box speeds jumped to 72/29 (usually I'm at or above paid speeds) I said ok if it works no bigge 🙂 same thing only 3 minutes later back down to 19 and just constant drop off.

I'm guessing its something on verizons end in the area (would love if a rep could find out if something is going on in the Maryland area)

Oh and I'm well aware of reseting routers, I've been doing that since 2002 when I had cable and thats all the techs knew what to tell you 😉 

Verizons been awsome only had a handful of times I've not had it work since 2007 so if they're just having line issues for a day or even a week I'm cool. I'd just like to eventually get what I'm paying for 🙂 

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Re: Brand New Installation, Speeds are constantly flakey
MDRyan
Enthusiast - Level 3

Oh and be happy the verizon speed test worked for you I couldn't get it to work at all (and before anyone says you need to update java) On both windows and macs I'm current on java 😉

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Re: Brand New Installation, Speeds are constantly flakey
MDRyan
Enthusiast - Level 3

speaking of which while I created this account I was getting 2mbps lol just did speed test http://www.speedtest.net/result/2194811307.png something is deff going on in the area

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Re: Brand New Installation, Speeds are constantly flakey
ericb2
Enthusiast - Level 2

I saw something similar:  speeds were up and down, sometimes as low as 1 Mbps download, which lowered Netflix/Roku  streaming to level-2 quality.  After about an hr in chat with Verizon tech support, they did something on their end which is now giving me consistent 10-16 Mbps downloads (on a 25/25 service).    No basic difference betw wired and wireless.   The techie didn't say what she did....     (Anyway, I just ordered the upgrade to 50/25.) 

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