Sudden slowdown in connection speed

[jay_simon]

yeah...still terrible at night. fine in the mornings.

[drago757]

Still terrible here in Bowie MD!

[Sadge]

I'm still having the issue here in Charles County, MD (25/15 service):

[jackstraw532]

Join the club I live in Voorhees, NJ. I have an iMac and get the spinning rainbow ball everywhere on the net the last several days.

Doing a speedtest doesn't indentify the problem. It's all at Verizon's end. I am locked into a contract but this is totally unacceptable. This is so bad you would think FIOS is going back to dial-up. I have triple play with the Ultimate TV package and 35/35 internet. My bill is about $185 a month. Considering FIOS is done with build out they should spend their time getting this resolved. Verizon keeps running this TV commercial with a James Earl Jones telling me how fast FIOS. It's laughable. If I wasn't having worst problems with Comcast I would cancel and switch back. I am stuck with FIOS. It's inexcusable that they constantly have this problems with these slowdowns.

[Caldwell3]

Same thing here in Dallas. Netalyzr estimates my uplink as having 7200 msec of buffering and my downlink as having 1200... Gaming and streaming are impossible, Pandora skips, youtube videos won't buffer (on any quality), and simple web browsing is beyond frustrating. The 3g on my phone is FAR better than my home service and it's Sprint for crying out loud.

Customer support is about to know me by name. This is a waste of money and I think that, if the problem is not QUICKLY resolved, we should be comped for the downtimes we are experiencing. 200$ a month to sit and watch the proverbial e-grass grow is ridiculous.

[prisaz]

4G LTE using FiOS pipes? Could be? I would not be surprised.

[smith6612]

Doubt it. The LTE network has an expectancy for reliability and uptime. As such, it would be using a business grade connection such as Metro Ethernet. Out here in FiOS areas where Verizon has plenty of existing fiber, they rely on their own fiber that isn't attached to the FiOS network. Short of that if the tower is not covered by Verizon's own fiber circuits, the Fiber connections are either obtained from the Cable Company or from another Telephone company that may  have Fiber nearby, at least until Verizon can run their own. The cell towers where I am are starting to get LTE, however the connectivity to them before LTE were T1s. The fiber is either being ran to the towers or the Cable company is getting them hooked up because they have fiber in the weirdest of places. The Telco fiber is usually for CO Trunks or for connectivity to pair gain/DSLAM remotes, or special order circuits for business/government organizations.

Also, the cell carriers have their own networks that should be independent from Verizon Wireline. Verizon Wireless, though it uses the alter.net backbone runs their own network. Sprint also has their own network. They lease circuits from POPs to the backbone to supply connectivity to their towers.

[prisaz]

Just wondering since there has been a big push for 4G LTE bandwidth lately. I believe that some of the FiOS is running over or with business grade networks from C/O to edge routers. So it would not surprise me if since the Quantum Launch that perhaps they are taxing each other. My speeds seem to be back to normal 99% of the time. It is only when going out to other networks. I have 35Mbps upload speed that tests out at 39Mbps on Verizon. My friend has 20+Mbps download on Comcast, and max I can send to him is 7Mbps.

All I can say is I really wish these providers would play fair like they should. Network neutrality! It seems if I have 39Mbps, and he has 20Mbps, he should be able to receive files from me at 20Mbps. I would say that Comcast is doing this intentionally! Someone is!!!!!!!!!!!

[klownicle]

Ill chime in here.  That right about the time everyone mentions I started to expierence slower speeds.  Nothing near as drastic but I'm no longer able to max out my connection anywhere other than the fios300 site.  Ive had fios throughout the years and really I can't rememeber I time when I had slow speeds let alone a connection down.

I run 75/35 and usualy I was able to get about 85mbit down without a hitch constant.  Now recently, I can barely do 60mbit constant its all over the place.  My normal non fios300 sites don't max out anymore, only hit about 30-50mbit. 

I had thought maybe it was just my usenet provider astraweb but it seems on trying supernews/usenetserver/newshosting for trials there all much worse in the 30mbit range.  So astraweb actually turned out the best.  Most tracert's are giving me 90ms latency which I suppose is avg.  On the verizon network its all sub 20ms but once off it jumps up.

I know calling verizon won't do anything for me considering the fios300 site maxes out.  Its a routing issue and unless its fixed soon, I misewell just downgrade my connection as I'm not getting what I'm paying for anywhere.

Btw, I'm located in Sarasota, FL.  Everywhere I read, I see people with issues that started Mid-September.  I can't believe that something isn't up or hasn't changed for the worse.

[smith6612]

Here's the thing with Comcast though. What sort of route are you getting between him and you? Have him run a traceroute to you, and run a traceroute to him. The reason I ask is, Comcast is one of those providers who is well known to run some of their transit providers, specifically TATA to saturation. I believe it's been proven many times, especially with downstream speeds from a FiOS connection to another provider that the networks and peering agreements weren't intended for the higher traffic. It is something that does need to fixed, and unless Comcast is using Verizon as a transit provider for whatever reason, they most likely peer with them just to allow interconnectivity, rather than to ensure they get solid speeds.

For the backhaul, I wouldn't doubt that they are sharing the same trunks. But as with any residential grade service, they are going to prioritize certain traffic types due to the fact that residential services are lesser paid for each payment period. Transit, provider and enterprise/business connectivity is obviously going to have priority if it's a business grade circuit. So, I suppose it's not really net neutrality but fundamental connectivity designs. Wide Area Network and Internet traffic is far more expensive, but of course for Verizon, they do have the cash and capacity to ensure their backbone works fine and is up to capacity.