Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed
jonesce11
Enthusiast - Level 1

Experiencing the same thing outside of DC. The download speeds are just awful and the WIFI router has been cutting out every hour or two for a week now. Plugging directly in with an Ethernet still works but the only option with the WIFI is to reset the box every few hours or plug in a separate WIFI. Sadly, Verizon's speed checker still shows 25/25 DL/UL speeds while every other speed check on the internet is showing between 2 and 4 MB/s.  Downloads on ITunes are running about .2 MB per second so Verizon has a big problem here.

Re: ROCKLAND COUNTY NY Sudden slowdown in connection speed
SteveRacer66
Enthusiast - Level 2

Spent time on phone with tech...  escalated to the "network" techs.

RSB is right.   Various tracert tests indicate problem is somewhere around

google-gw.customer.alter.net 

which I believe is a Verizon peering point.   Maybe they didn't pay thier bill.  Routes that don't have this hop seem to run fine.

Re: ROCKLAND COUNTY NY Sudden slowdown in connection speed
mrfreshy
Enthusiast - Level 1

I am in the DC area, and for the past few days, I have also had a similar issue.

I have the 150/65 plan, and it has tested solid every time I have checked it since I have had it.

I noticed a few days ago when I started work (I work at home), that things were slow.

I started testing at less than 10 down, but up is fine.

I called in, and spoke to a tech, and the issue seemed to resolve itself.

Later, it started happening again.

It is very sporadic. I can test several in a row, and they are perfect, and then a bunch in a row will be terrible.

I depend on high speed for work, and this is driving me nuts. I guess I am glad to know that it isn't just me.

Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed
raffim
Enthusiast - Level 2

I've been seeing the same problem for about a week. I'm in West Nyack, Rockland County. My brother has the same plan as me (35Mbps) but he is in New City and seems to be fine. 

My experience is pretty much all the parts described by everyone else who has posted here. I have been on the phone with technicians for days who have come to the house and replaced every piece of equipment and every inch of wire. Nothing helps. They moved me from the coax to the ethernet from the ONT to the router. At one point I had my laptop plugged directly into the ethernet on the ONT bypassing the router all together. Still had the same problem. The technician just shrugged and had no answers and left.

As of this morning I was livid. An **bleep** can see this was a network problem and not an issue in my equipment but they insisted on sending a tech out again. I lost it. Started tweeting up a storm and caught someones attention over there. He allowed me to send him the following info. The tech's name is Tony and he sounds like he has a genuine interest in finding the real problem and not blaming my equipment and treating me like an **bleep** who knows nothing so he can close a ticket quickly.

Hopefully they will find and fix this soon. Really sucks.

---------MESSAGE TO VERIZON BELOW------------

First, thanks for trying to help. To be honest I am livid about the situation so far, but at least hopeful to have what seems to be the right kind of attention now.
 
In general the quality of my connection when downloading is poor. This is a tough issue to describe because it is spotty and somewhat intermittent and does not appear in simple tests but is clearly present during the course of normal use. Because of this, my claims about poor quality connection/speed have been easily dismissed by a long line of phone techs. I couldnt blame the first few, but after going along with all the standard procedures thus far and getting no where, I am irritated when I continue to be told that nothing is wrong. Here is a heap of indicators that there is an issue somewhere. Taken alone, I understand that each of these things can be explained away easily, but these are not isolated incidents. They are on going all day and they have turned my experience using FIOS for internet access into a nightmare.
 
Note: My brother lives two towns away (about 15 min drive) from me. He has the same FIOS service that I do. I have asked him to run the same tests from his house as a control. Please keep that in mind as you read on. I am not an **bleep**. I am well aware of the concepts of server load, network latency, etc. I do not expect a full 35Mbps on every single download I do, or even close. However, when I'm getting 3Mpbs or less from 90% of  sources, there is something wrong.
 
Second note: Before these problems started about 2 weeks ago, everything was perfect and my connection was solid and blazing fast.
 
1. General download speed is poor. I have been trying to download a 200MB file from my company box.com account for days. It takes hours to come down and the connection often stalls completely. My brother downloads the exact same file without a problem. 
 
2. Downloading a 2 minute trailer on an Apple TV takes 15 - 20 min. Not the case at my brothers house. Also, it does not matter what movie I choose or what time of day or night I try it. Same result.
 
3. I connect to a Ventrilo server all day for work as I have done for the last 5 years. Since the problems began I have noticed that the "ping" to the server goes up and down like a steady wave form, going from about 15 which has always been the case to 750 and back down and back up, etc. The host name is xxxxx.typefrag.com. I believe its in Wash DC area if you need that to try to track packets. Works perfectly at my brothers house like it did for me before two weeks ago when all of these problems started.
 
4. When streaming music from Pandora the music pauses for 5 seconds on a somewhat regular interval that coincides with the rise in ping values on the Ventrilo connection. 
 
5. Seeing that my connection was going bad I turned to some speed tests. http://www.speedtest.net has a download test that runs for about 30 sec. In the best cases, the connection starts off strong at 35 Mbps and then around 15 - 20 sec in it stalls out and the speed drops dramatically to less than 1Mbps. The test takes the avg and gives me download speed ratings of around 3Mbps or less. Some servers are slightly faster and a lot of them are much worse. The strangest part is that the upload speed is always exactly what it should be! 20Mbps or more! Now I realize the disdain that verizon has for these speed tests but understand that I am not some fool who is arguing with you about why I am not getting exactly 35 Mbps to every Joe Blows server on earth every single time I connect. I'm well aware of how IP works and network topology.  I'm using these tests as a tool to confirm that something is definitely wrong. Less than 3Mbps in the best cases to a wide range of servers is a sign that something is not right. Not to mention that upload speed is consistently high! I tried the speakeasy speed tests and the results are consistent. At my brothers house the results range from 15Mbps to the crappy servers all the way up to 35Mbps. 
 
6. Verizon techs who came to the house and spoke to me by phone all shot me down for using the non-verizon speed tests. So I ran the Verizon speed test and everything showed up peachy of course. The techs shot me down on everything else after that ... al because this ridiculously unrealistic test said everything is OK. Lets look at this realistically. The test pulls data for 10 seconds. That is not long enough for the problem to manifest. Its only on the big downloads that go past 20 sec or the persistent connections that you start to see the problem. Second, the test never crosses more than a few hops while traveling on the mostly local Verizon portion of the network. So I guess the advertised speed of 35Mbps is only for connections to my neighbors house and Im supposed to be ok with less than 3Mbps to over 90% of the rest of the internet? That is absurd. 
 
So I ran the precious Verizon speed test to some other locals. I found that to the following locations my download comes up as less than 1Mbps!!
 
Ohio
Maryland
Kentucky
Florida
Delaware
California
 
My upload speed is always 30Mbps or better. That is consistent to what I am seeing with the other tests.  Every other state on the verizon test gives me a perfect score. From my brothers house, ALL states come up as a perfect score. I have continued to test these all day. There is no change yet.
 
7. Its not my computer. I have 4. They all perform exactly the same. I took my laptop to my brothers house and achieved perfect scores. Came back home and everything sucks again.
 
8. Its not wired vs wireless. I have some wireless and some wired computers. Its the same on both. When the last tech was here I had my laptop in the garage plugged directly into the wall unit there. No router to blame. Nothing. Same crappy results. That wall unit had just been replaced the week before. Have we exhausted the silly protocol steps? Can we start treating this like a real problem and solve it now?
 
 
and this ... http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Sudden-slowdown-in-connection-speed/td-p/480423 . I'm in Rockland County too, but so is my brother and he is fine.
 
 
10. Here is part of a traceroute to pandora.com. Note the crappy response at hop 4
traceroute to pandora.com (208.85.40.50), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  wireless_broadband_router.home (192.168.1.1)  0.566 ms  0.485 ms  0.382 ms
 2  l100.nycmny-vfttp-165.verizon-gni.net (96.239.54.1)  3.665 ms  4.704 ms  4.774 ms
 3  * g0-11-3-7.nycmny-lcr-22.verizon-gni.net (130.81.139.60)  4.410 ms  4.295 ms
 4  * so-3-1-0-0.ny5030-bb-rtr1.verizon-gni.net (130.81.151.234)  141.793 ms  49.331 ms
 5  0.ae5.br3.nyc4.alter.net (152.63.16.9)  44.700 ms  44.767 ms  42.296 ms
 
The traceroute "sticks" around hops 2,3, and 4, but it is intermittent. Not easy to pin down.
 
Well I sure hope that is enough for you to go on and you can find and fix the issue quickly.
 
Thanks for your help.
 
----------------END MESSAGE---------------------
Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed - Update from Verizon
raffim
Enthusiast - Level 2

Verizon is sending a tech with a laptop to my house to plug into the ONT and coordinate with a network engineer while he is jacked in for realtime network testing.

Hopefully that will yield something other than excuses.

Good luck to all.

Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed
MOFD
Enthusiast - Level 2

Same for me - I'm in Montgomery County, Maryland.  For the last week or two, Hulu streams have been almost unwatchable.  I've run the Fios speed test, and in the evenings am seeing download speeds consistently below 1Mbps (I have the 20/5 plan).  Mornings are a different story - always close to 25Mbps downloads.

Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed
SteveRacer66
Enthusiast - Level 2

VERIZON TICKET {edited for privacy}HAS BEEN CREATED & WILL BE RESOLVED ON 9/20 BY 8:33PM.  PLEASE GO TO fioshelp.verizon.com FOR STATUS . . .

Smiley Happy

   "These are not the Droids you are looking for.  Move on."

Sorry, I'm betting the under.  However, the potential good news is that if they DO fix it, they will be fixing a systemic problem, not just my NIC ...  so in theory all my fellow Rocklanders will be fixed by 8:33 this evening as well. 

Cross your ....    uhhhhh...   fingers?

Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed
coronasrgood
Enthusiast - Level 2

Just wanted to get back to you guys about my issue and how it was resolved. Installation was about a month ago. I have the 150/65 plan. The installers used MOCA instead of Ethernet from the ONT. For the first couple of weeks my internet was fine. After the third week, the download speeds collapsed. The upload speeds were perfect. We replaced the router, reset the ONT, etc, nothing worked. Today the tech came and changed it from MOCA to ethernet and the internet speeds are 100% again. I was shocked this actually worked because the speeds were great the first three weeks. FYI, I also thought is was the alter.net server and it was not. I am pulling 155 down and 72 up on wireless after they changed it out. Hope this helps.

 

Regards.

Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed
ElizabethS
Moderator Emeritus

Thank you coronasrgood. It's great when people come back with solutions, because other members can benefit from your experience.

Re: Sudden slowdown in connection speed
SteveRacer66
Enthusiast - Level 2

I'm glad coronasrgood.problems seemed to be fixed.

In my case, I need to make it clear that I'm seeing these issues on traceroutes and speedtests performed at ONT ethernet port using 6' premolded RJ45 Cat6 over PPPOE using laptop with Windows XT pro, 2Ghz processor, 1G memory

 
DOWNLOAD speeds vary from 16Mbps to as low as 100Kbps, often spiking and surging.  UPLOAD speeds are always as advertised.  speedtest.verizon.net always yields 20-26Mbps DOWNLOAD and 4.8-5.0Mbps UPLOAD.
 
Pathways that do not have NYC4.ALTER.NET seem to run faster than those that do.   But results are not consistent.  All computers in home network affected equally.  Testing on CO side of NIC (ONT) duplicates problem.
 
Any kind of video or streaming content is almost unwatchable, with constant buffering.  Some websites hang and timeout, but not consistently.  Overall browsing performance is sluggish and jerky.
 
Here's some detail if anyone is interested . . .
 
Traceroutes output direct from ONT performed 9/20/2012  9:30pm EST approx:
 
 Tracing route to youtube-ui.l.google.com [74.125.226.229]
 over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
  1    11 ms    15 ms    15 ms  10.32.63.172
 
  2    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  G0-11-3-7.NYCMNY-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net [130.81.139.60]
 
  3    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  so-5-0-0-0.NY5030-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.22.18]
 
  4    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  0.xe-6-1-1.XT1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.10.57]
 
  5    62 ms    46 ms    62 ms  TenGigE0-6-4-0.GW8.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.21.121]
 
  6    31 ms    15 ms    15 ms  google-gw.customer.alter.net [152.179.72.62]
 
  7    62 ms    62 ms    62 ms  72.14.238.232
 
  8    62 ms    62 ms    62 ms  72.14.239.252
 
  9    46 ms    15 ms    46 ms  lga15s29-in-f5.1e100.net [74.125.226.229]
  
Trace complete.
 
Tracing route to youtube-ui.l.google.com [74.125.226.198] (REPEATED IMMEDIATELY)
 over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
   1    10 ms    15 ms    15 ms  10.32.63.172
 
  2    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  G0-11-3-7.NYCMNY-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net [130.81.137.54]
 
  3    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  130.81.151.228
 
  4     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 
  5    15 ms    46 ms    15 ms  TenGigE0-5-1-0.GW8.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.21.73]
 
  6    15 ms    15 ms    31 ms  google-gw.customer.alter.net [152.179.72.62]
 
  7    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  209.85.255.68
 
  8    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  72.14.239.250
 
  9    15 ms    15 ms    46 ms  lga15s28-in-f6.1e100.net [74.125.226.198]
  
Trace complete.
 
Tracing route to www.ebay.com [66.135.210.61]
 over a maximum of 30 hops:
  
  1    10 ms    15 ms    15 ms  10.32.63.172
 
  2    15 ms    14 ms    15 ms  G0-11-3-7.NYCMNY-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net [130.81.139.60]
 
  3    14 ms    15 ms    15 ms  ae0-0.NY5030-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.209.118]
 
  4    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  0.xe-10-1-0.BR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.18.225]
 
  5    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  63-235-40-53.dia.static.qwest.net [63.235.40.53]
 
  6   171 ms    77 ms    77 ms  dvr-edge-13.inet.qwest.net [67.14.24.89]
 
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 
  8     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 
 10     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 
 11     *        *    
 
Tracing route to msnbc.com [65.55.251.214]
 over a maximum of 30 hops:
  
  1    11 ms    15 ms    15 ms  10.32.63.172
 
  2    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  G0-11-3-7.NYCMNY-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net [130.81.137.54]
 
  3    78 ms    46 ms    15 ms  so-11-0-0-0.NY325-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.151.222]
 
  4    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  0.so-0-0-0.XT1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.1.41]
 
  5    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  TenGigE0-6-0-0.GW8.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.22.41]
 
  6   265 ms   218 ms   218 ms  microsoft-gw.customer.alter.net [65.206.120.34]
 
  7    46 ms    62 ms    46 ms  ge-1-2-0-0.nyc-64cb-1a.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.47.210]
 
  8    93 ms    77 ms    15 ms  207.46.34.21
 
  9    93 ms    93 ms    93 ms  ten6-4.blu-76c-1a.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.46.121]
 
 10    93 ms    93 ms     *     ten9-2.blu-76c-1b.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.47.157]
 
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 
 12     *    
  
Tracing route to www.speakeasy.net [69.17.117.156]
 over a maximum of 30 hops:
  
  1    10 ms    15 ms    15 ms  10.32.63.172
 
  2    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  G0-11-3-7.NYCMNY-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net [130.81.137.54]
 
  3    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  so-11-0-0-0.NY325-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.151.222]
 
  4    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  0.so-0-0-0.XT1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.1.41]
 
  5    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  0.ae3.BR2.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.3.110]
 
  6    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  te-7-3-0.edge2.NewYork2.level3.net [4.68.111.137]
 
  7    62 ms    46 ms    46 ms  vlan51.ebr1.NewYork2.Level3.net [4.69.138.222]
 
  8   202 ms   202 ms   202 ms  ae-3-3.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.89]
 
  9    62 ms    62 ms    46 ms  ae-82-82.csw3.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.154]
 
 10    31 ms    31 ms    31 ms  ae-32-80.car2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.149.132]
 
 11    46 ms    46 ms    46 ms  ge1-1.bbsr1.iad.megapath.net [166.90.148.2]
 
 12   109 ms   109 ms   109 ms  66.80.131.46
 
 13   109 ms   109 ms   156 ms  ge-3-0-0-0.c01.ash.bb.megapath.net [155.229.123.245]
 
 14    62 ms    62 ms    62 ms  ae8-0.asbnvacz-mxc2.bb.megapath.net [155.229.101.149]
 
 15   124 ms   124 ms   124 ms  ae2-0.chcgilgb-mxc2.bb.megapath.net [155.229.101.169]
 
 16   109 ms   108 ms   109 ms  ae1-0.sttlwawb-mxc2.bb.megapath.net [155.229.101.113]
 
 17   109 ms   109 ms   109 ms  ge-1-3-0-5.c00.sna.bb.megapath.net [155.229.120.130]
 
 18   109 ms   109 ms   109 ms  fe0-0.a20.stl.bb.megapath.net [155.229.101.153]
 
 19   124 ms    93 ms    93 ms  ve191.ge0-1-0.core1.lax.megapath.net [66.80.133.18]
 
 20    93 ms    93 ms    93 ms  152.ge-1-3-0.sr2.sea5.speakeasy.net [69.17.82.54]
 
 21    93 ms    93 ms    93 ms  www.speakeasy.net [69.17.117.156]
  
Trace complete.
 
Tracing route to e2546.g.akamaiedge.net [184.50.250.120]   (www.verizon.com)
 over a maximum of 30 hops:
  
  1    11 ms    15 ms    15 ms  10.32.63.172
 
  2    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  G0-11-3-7.NYCMNY-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net [130.81.137.54]
 
  3    31 ms    46 ms    15 ms  so-11-0-0-0.NY325-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.151.222]
 
  4    15 ms   140 ms    30 ms  0.xe-7-0-2.XT1.NYC9.ALTER.NET [152.63.2.73]
 
  5    15 ms    15 ms    13 ms  0.xe-2-1-3.XT1.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.3.6]
 
  6    15 ms    46 ms    46 ms  TenGigE0-4-1-0.GW8.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.21.69]
 
  7    15 ms    62 ms    62 ms  a184-50-250-120.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [184.50.250.120]
  
Trace complete.