What's with the 3Mbps limitation on DSL, and why does Verizon refuse to offer higher?
BeowulfSDR
Enthusiast - Level 2

Verizon's High-speed Internet website states they have two services offered above my 3Mbps plan. I've spoken to a few people at Verizon's customer service center (including a supervisor), and all are adamant on their stance that they cannot offer a higher service for my area (southwestern PA).

It was stated that the max speed is determined based on the distance from the central office. The thing is, the central office is located in my town, and I'm just under a mile away from it.

According to ADSL2+ specifications, the highest download speed advertised is 24Mbps. The modem I have currently claims it can reach an attainable rate of 17Mbps. All ADSL standards (aside from two oldest ones that are irrelevant since my current 3Mbps is higher than them and Verizon isn't using them) go above 3Mbps. The supervisor I spoke to had no idea what a ADSL2+ standard was, and was unable to tell me what standard Verizon is actually offering; but I could probably find out from the modem diagnostics page or something.

So with all that in-mind, Verizon offers DSL packages that are higher than my current tier (the highest being 7.1 to 15 Mbps), the max ADSL2+ speed being 24Mbps, and the max attainable rate for my modem is 17Mbps with me being less than a mile away from the central office. And even after all that, Verizon is intent on stating they don't offer higher speeds than 3Mbps, and are adamant in stating they cannot provide higher speeds than that.

I'm also on Verizon's Double-play bundle with DirecTV. The speed restriction is even more insulting considering you can't even use DirecTV's On-demand service without the internet speed crawling to a halt. And if the internet is being used prior-to using On-demand; On-demand becomes unusable.

So.. does anyone know what is up with this? I'm paying for "High Speed Internet Enhanced", and I'm getting speeds not even respectable of that (compared to today's standard), paying $44/month for it, and even though all technical aspects say they can bump the speeds up higher; they refuse to.

I can use public WiFi that offers faster speeds for free. I can connect to any xfinitywifi hotspot and get pretty close to double the speeds I'm paying for. Can even tether to my slow cell phone with barely-supported-in-my-area 3G and get better speeds. There's zero reason why a paid landline connection can't go faster than those...

I find the situation pretty ridiculous, and have even filed a FCC complaint about it.

reddit Discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/2u46yc/whats_with_the_3mbps_limitation_on_dsl_and_why/

Some quick modem statistics:

Mode: ADSL2+

Traffic Type: ATM
Status: Up

Link Power State: L0

Copper Loop(kft): 0.0


(Downstream/Upstream)

Line Coding(Trellis): On On

SNR Margin (0.1 dB): 239 195 (23dB 19dB)

Attenuation (0.1 dB): 280 145 (28dB 14dB)

Output Power (0.1 dBm): 61 122

Attainable Rate (Kbps): 17928 1251 (17.93Mbps/1.25Mbps)

Path 0

Rate (Kbps): 3360 863 (3.36Mbps/0.86Mbps)

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Re: What's with the 3Mbps limitation on DSL, and why does Verizon refuse to offer higher?
ehv1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Does Verizon sell Fios in your area?  They want their customers to upgrade to more profitable plans.

Re: What's with the 3Mbps limitation on DSL, and why does Verizon refuse to offer higher?
BeowulfSDR
Enthusiast - Level 2

@ehv wrote:

Does Verizon sell Fios in your area?  They want their customers to upgrade to more profitable plans.


Nope, no FIOS in my area, and considering the general area; there probably isn't any immediate plans (if at all) to offer it.

I live "somewhat" close to Pittsburgh, and from my understanding there's places there that don't even have FIOS yet.

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Re: What's with the 3Mbps limitation on DSL, and why does Verizon refuse to offer higher?
pjsutton
Contributor - Level 2

I agree, it's super frustrating.  I live in Eastern PA, and just got DSL through the BFRR program this past November.  I'm about 10,000 feet from the new remote terminal that was built.

I asked about a higher speed, and called into the Presidential Appeals dept., and got a tech support person to test my line.  He said it could easily handle a sync at the 10 Mbps speed, and set it there.  I stayed synced there for over two weeks until it went back to 3360.  But, speed tests still only showed nothing higher than 3 Mbps - which tells me that either my line had to be physically moved to another port on the DSLAM that was higher than 3 Mbps, or that because my plan wasn't set up that way from Billing that it wouldn't work.  I called him back and asked and he looked into it and said that engineering had told him nothing higher than 3 was available and that was that - EVEN THOUGH I WAS CLOSE ENOUGH!  I am not sure if it is a capacity issue or not, but it clearly is not a distance issue.

I have no other options available, and 3 Mbps is fine for most things, but you're right - it does NOT work well with Directv on demand.  Especially the "start over" options from the guide where it has to stream.  But, I have seen people report that they have 50 Mbps cable Internet and still have problems with the streaming. I think that's a problem with Directv's service as a whole; I can stream Netflix in HD just fine at 3 Mbps.

I really don't know what it is, but I'm fed up with the "no higher than 3 Mbps "just because" " policy.  I fear it won't change until either the current CEO of Verizon changes (who doesn't care about wireline at all), or, which is probably more likely, Verizon's wireline assets get spun off/bought by another company.  Even if it is Frontier or CenturyLink, who have their share of issues, they might be more willing to offer higher speeds because that is the only service they provide; they have no over priced wireless business to make gobs and gobs of money from.

That's what I hope will happen, especially for me because I'm in ex-GTE territory, and if it weren't for the DSL law in PA, Verizon could really care less about serving us.

Re: What's with the 3Mbps limitation on DSL, and why does Verizon refuse to offer higher?
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

It's possible that you are coming out of a remote terminal or remote DSLAM, rather than a full blown central office. Verizon seems to have an unspoken rule or habit of only provisioning 3Mbps and below to customers on the remotes. To augment that, it's been seen in some cases that they are running Fiber to the remotes, but only supply the equivalent of several T1 circuits rather than OC-3 Fiber or better.

To find out why the speeds are being limited, we would need to know what kind of DSLAM is in use, and how far you are from the nearest Verizon CO. The attenuation you have suggests you're one mile of wire length away from the source of DSL, which is either an RT or a CO. From that point, we would also need to find out what kind of connectiivty Verizon has running to your DSLAM.

If you're coming out of a CO instead, it's also been seen that Verizon has a habit of selling only 3Mbps out of congested COs or those with lesser connectivity running to the CO.

The thing you can do, is pressure Verizon into giving you at least 7Mbps. With those stats you should have no problems at all. It's going to take weeks of pushing to get the job done, but it is possible. I'd start off by calling Techincal Support, who would be able to assist with this. Emphasize to ignore the availability database - this is just a bunch of records controlled by what Verizon wants to input in.

Re: What's with the 3Mbps limitation on DSL, and why does Verizon refuse to offer higher?
TrustMe1
Newbie

I'm in maryland, no FIOS either. Why is it taking so long?

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