FiOS Internet

[#1]

Quick and easy solution for slow wireless connection.

My hardwired PC connection was working fine over FIOS, but my wireless connection through my Macbook Pro was soooo slowwww, although the machine itself was fine. Pages would take forever to appear, then finally sort of pop up. Didn't really seem to be a Mac problem, just a connection problem.

After searching forever to find a fix, I found a quick & easy solution that works at least for now: change your DNS address. 

I'm not a techie so I don't know ALL of the implications of doing this, but in desperation, it has worked for me and I think at no risk to your network or machine. Changing my DNS address has made my connection blazing fast and relieved many weeks of frustration. 

HOW: I can only share how to change on a Mac. (Please chime in if you can give directions for PC. ) Just go to this Apple support page, which will outline exactly how to do it. I used 4.2.2.2, I think you can also use 4.2.2.1 as the DNS address. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2002

Other resources I've found follow:

(specific to FIOS):  http://www.stationstops.com/2008/04/16/high-speed-internet-3-tips-to-optimize-your-verizon-fios-broa...

(Specific for Mac): http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=358919

Maybe this is a commonly-known fix but it wasn't for me, so hopefully it will help some of the other less-than-technical people out there. Good luck! 

[#2]

Hey Laurenica in order to change the DNS address on a Windows PC you would go to the Network Connections then right click on it and left click Properties, then when the Properties windows open scroll the TCP/IP and left click on it there you would be able to change the DNS address for your PC.

[#3]

Better to change it on the router then the new address will automatically be handed out to ALL connected machines.

[#4]

Actually this is a common problem with Mac OSX (http://rubyisbeautiful.com/2008/2/8/osx-dns-fix-update) and how it does DNS lookups and pertains to routers that provide the internal gateway (i.e. 192.168.1.1) as the DNS address which is what the ActionTec does by default.

You can change that at the router level to either push out Verizon's dns that the router then uses or any other open dns server.  I had to do this a long time ago for some of the OS X boxes on my network.