Over the last year, between the hours of 6-11pm, my 15/5 connection has dropped to roughly 1.5/5. Sometimes it goes as low as 0.1/5. I have spent 40+ hours troubleshooting, gone through three technicians and Verizon has been unable to do anything. I have done research and found that I am far from alone with the problem.
The problem originates in the Verizon Central Office at the OLT and Verizon will do everything in their power to NOT resolve the issue. The OLT has much more expensive hardware that effects many customers (I think a pom card supports 32 customers) and Verizon hates changing it so they will give the run-around as much as possible. Frankly its just dishonest. Here is a thread very similar to mine with some people that actually got Verizon to do something (I haven't been able to yet): http://www.highdefforum.com/verizon-fios/137701-drastic-internet-slowdowns.html
Problem:
Download speed drops incredibly low during times of day of high user activities (weeknights during 6-11pm in particular and weekends off and on). During non-peak hours the speeds are at the rated 15/5 speed. Verizon customer service unable to communicate to the router (multiple routers tested see below - this is also mentioned in the highdefforum conversation linked above).
Here is my specific troubleshooting for your comparison:
- Is it computer specific? No, tested on multiple computers with different operating systems. Same result on each.
- Is it due to wireless connections? No, tested on hardwire and wireless. Have disabled wireless when testing on hardwire so there is only the single device on the router.
- Is it due to a faulty router/modem? No, tested with multiple routers. Had Verizon release/renew each time I switched it out. Identical problems during the high usage hours of the day.
- Is it due to co-ax wiring? No, tested on multiple lines. Direct runs.
- Is it due to the ONT (the box on your house)? No, technician changed out the ONT
Given that it is time of day specific, it makes sense that the problem is on the PON at the OLT. It is one of the pieces of hardware where time of day loads would actually affect it's performance.
After 40+ hours on the phone with customer service and 3 technicians (one of which didn't show up) over this past year, I don't know what else to do. The problem has been identified (no thanks to Verizon) but they are unable to fix it because it costs them money. Feel free to post if you have a similar problem. If someone at Verizon reads this and is actually willing to fix this, I would greatly welcome it.
