High Speed Internet (DSL) and Dial-Up

[#1]

I was so happy, Verizon tech called and said he made a change at one of the boxes a mile up our road and to see what happens. I went a whole 3 days without having an issue. Then I went 4 days and now we are back to the same old thing between 10 and 10:30 for the last four days it goes off.  Seems as though everyone that has this Westall router/modem is having a problem.  Has Verizon thought about investigating whether these are an inferior product.  I don't understand.  With all the complaints Verizon is receiving about the same issues all over the state and it appears that it is only the people with that stupid brand, why wouldn't they give out a better router/modem.  I am checking with other friends of mine that went out and purchased a router instead of using the verizon units to see what they actually use.  None of them have any problems with their service dropping.  This has got to be the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced and now of course I can't reach the Supervisor (won't return my calls) and I can't reach the service technician who came and made the fix to let him know it didn't help.  I refuse to call technical support anymore because they just pass me from one person to another and make me check the same crap over and over again.  Cable is starting to look better and better.  Might be slow but it sure beats this.

[#2]

Cable is slow? That's a first as unless a company has all homes running torrents and still use DOCSIS 1.0 from the late 90s or run QSPK over QAM, it is bound to be faster, especially if they channel bond on a D2 or D3 modem.At this point if you really believe it is the modem not working well with the equipment in your area, certainly try picking up a cheap modem online to see if that helps the issue any at this point. Guess it doesn't hurt at this point.

[#3]

Called Verizon again yesterday and will be calling again today.  Found out from our town office that the cable company is upgrading all the lines and services in our area by the end of the year so we will be getting much better service than we previously received. It was part of their agreement to be a provider in our area.  Wish Verizon would take a lesson from them and update the faulty equipment in the areas with the major complaints.  The Township Clerk has been getting calls from all the neighbors in my area having the same problem complaining about Verizon.  It is going to be brought up at the next Board meeting. Don't know if there is anything they can do but they have been getting so many phone calls they said they are going to have to look into it.

[#4]

Well...

Considering a Township should have the ability to regulate Verizon as a Telephone company and not an Internet Service Provider, they may or may not be able to do anything since DSL is unregulated. But, considering they have the ability to slap Verizon for poor service for Telephone (which DSL runs along with on the same network), they can most certainly find some sort of way to either slap them or to leave the town to another provider who will fix the gear up. They won't have any luck mandating FiOS to show up though. Either way, let me know if anything interesting goes down between Verizon and the town.

[#5]

I will let you know.  I am going to push the issue too because I was on the phone for 45 minutes again last night with tech support when my service went down so they could check the line.  We reset the modem/router and while tech support was on hold with the "network team" I lost service again so after 15 minutes on hold when he got back on the line I told him it was out again.  The tech guy couldn't believe it.  Of course he felt bad but who cares fix the problem.  Then Network Team has the nerve to tell me that they want to "Lower" my plan to a lesser speed because of how far I am away from the hub and that should solve the problem.  Are you kidding me, I'm not a technician but I'm thinking that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.  Apparently since they can't see the notes from all the different departments (which in itself is sad since they are a communications company) they don't realize that I was on a slower speed before which was causing problems and they changed the speed setting to solve that problem.  My neighbor has successfully gone a week without any interruption to her service because someone did some sort of fix for her.  She is going to try to reach someone to see if they can make the same fix for me.  Stay tuned.

[#6]

Will do.

The speed decrease method is something that is constantly done to try and fix problems. For 90% of the problems I've seen around here ,a speed decrease is not the solution. It's just a presumed fix. It's really getting old and makes me upset when I see perfectly fine speeds taken away. Not to mention, doing so also leaves a bad impression on the product Verizon provides. Think about it this way. At work if someone reports having packet loss on their Network Port, I can't simply say I'm going to turn down their network port speed from 1Gbps or 100Mbps to 10Mbps Half Duplex. They will be upset that the Internet is no longer as fast as it used to be, their network resources will operate much slower, and remote desktop will absolutely suck for us on our end. With packet loss issues, do you know what we look at? We look at subnetting, we rule out every piece of equipment at their desk, and we have them try other ports in the office to see if they give the same results. If something's broken, we fix it or replace it. But we do not turn down port speeds. While the Internet and last mile networks are obviously more complex than Enterprise Networks, I also work at a Datacenter so I understand what the deal is. If any link gets more than 0% packet loss or loses any bit of speed, we know about it. 1% packet loss results in a 50% decrease in speed and 80% decrease in performance and reliability which is why we can't do silly fixes to fix problems.

[#7]

I told you a week ago that I would try using a Netgear router instead and I would get back to you with an answer.  Last Saturday I installed my Netgear router and I have not had a problem since.  I HEREBY DECLARE THIS ISSUED RESOLVED!  At least in my case.  Hopefully my suggestion will work for you as well.  Here is what I did.  I solved my connection problem by using the Verizon modem as a modem solely and then hooking up a Netgear dual-band gigabit router to it and using that as my router.  This has fixed my connection problems.  You must continue to use the Verizon modem but hook up the other router to it and use that as your router, and make sure to plug all of your devices into the new router.  That has completely fixed my problem and now gives me even better wi-fi reception in my home as well.  Problem fixed all on my own.  Verizon tech support is horrible and Verizon itself is the worst company I have dealt with that is still in business.  The last time I had this much trouble with a company was with Circuit City.  They eventually went out of business.  Verizon is a terrible company.  

[#8]

I believe that this problem is caused by the modems that Verizon is using.  They are terrible.  I think they are over-heating occasionally, causing them to drop connection.  This might explain why you have the problem every night.  My guess is that you are giving the modem a workout every day after you get home from work, then it drops because it overheats.  Just a guess though.  Anyway, I think I definitely determined the cause of the problem  being that their modems are crap.  Don't even try to use it as a router.  You must use it as a modem, but install a seperate dual-band gigabit router and use that as a router, plugging all of your devices into that new router.

[#9]

UPDATE:  The last time our signal dropped out was a week ago Saturday at 3:13PM.  On Tuesday I received a new Actiontec router/modem from Verizon and have had no problem at all with our signal.  We three neighbors have concluded that the Westall modems are flawed.  I have come to find out that Verizon no longer issues Westells as well, so apparently there is something definitely wrong with them.  I received a "check in" phone call from my contact in the EA department and she feels that what ever changes were made to our connection has fixed the problem.  I have asked her to check back again in a week and also requested that she send out a new modem/router to my neighbor who is still experiencing the drop off of signal, which she graciously did.  Granted we may be far enough from the RT and with a faulty  modem (Westell) not being able to resync with the signal that this entire issue could have been averted with a simple switch of modem manufacturers.  My other neighbor had received her Actiontec prior to us and has had no problem as well. Here's hoping neighbor #3 will be successful too.!!

 None of us should have been doing this trouble shooting for Verizon nor should have had to deal with the Unprofessional first and second line techs that we normal everyday simple people have come to realize know more about their system and works than they do.

[#10]

Glad to hear the problem was resolved! Interesting that the Westells are giving you guys issues like that and an ActionTec fixed it. I wonder if there's a bad batch of firmware going around causing those units to not operate correctly. Either way, awesome resolution