Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
kalmarine
Enthusiast - Level 1

I upgraded my internet speed from 10/2 mbps to 50/25 mpbs a few hours ago, and have gotten confirmation that it has taken effect, but have found only a slight increase in my actual internet speed, from 13/4 mbps to 17/18 mbps over a wireless connection. I believe my router is the bottleneck, as it is an old Actiontech Rev D, and based on this post in the verizon forums last year, http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/FiOS-Quantum-speed-not-living-up-to-expectations/td-p/465..., I need a version newer than that.

Can I please be sent a newer router so that I can take advantage of my new internet speed?

Thanks for the help.

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Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
somegirl
Champion - Level 3

This is a peer-to-peer support forum. If you want to get a message to Verizon, you should contact them directly via one of the options on their Contact Us page.

That said, are you getting the new speed with a wired connection, at least? I would check that before jumping to blame the router.

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Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
tns2
Community Leader
Community Leader

Don't count on them to send you a newer router for free.  Do you know what one you currently have.  I mention that because if you have a version F, G or I you should be able to improve on your result to nearly 50/25.  Even on older versions some improvement may be possible.

Personally I use my own NETGEAR router for wireless access.  Even the Verizon version I router is only single band.

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Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Just get a good wireless router and set it up as a bridge, or an access point. In both cases you just need to hang the router or access point off of your ActionTec using a wired connection. The Rev. D can handle up to roughly 93Mbps in both directions, but not wirelessly.

The Rev. D is to the point where Verizon should be able to supply you with a new router at no cost. That is an older Gen. 1 router, that does make a nice DD-WRT platform 🙂

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Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
Irishscribe
Newbie

I just dealt with a similar issue today.  Prior to a TV service package change yesterday, I was on the 25/15 plan and was regularly in the 22/15 range.  But they told me that I had to choose either 15/5 or 50/25 because the 25/15 plan was no longer available.  I explained that I could not understand why I would upgrade to 50 mbps since I knew with a certainty that FIOS cannot provide anywhere near 50 mbps throughput via modem in my area.  The best I had ever heard of was around 25.  

The Verizon reps I talked to assured me that I would get far better WIFI speeds under the 50 mbps plan despite my telling them that simply would not be the case.  But I upgraded to 50 anyway because I can't downgrade to 15/5.  Of course, when I did the speed test using the Verizon speed test page, my speed had actually degraded under the new plan.  Instead of downloads consistently in the 20-22 range, I was gettng 17-19, even after running the Optimizer program.  So I got on the horn with Verizon and explained that I felt mislead--that there simply was no way to get even close to 50 mbps over wifi, but that I would be happy if it would just beat the old plan that I was on.  After resetting the server and much testing from their end, the best speed they could achieve was 20/21.

Then came the kicker:  the rep said he could get me better speeds by updating my Gen2 modem.  I said great, only to hear that the rep just discovered that he couldn't update the router online--they'd have to send me one.  AT A COST TO ME OF $105.00.  I was incredulous and told them that there was no way this bait and switch could be happening.  I was very upfront with the sales reps explaining that I was hugely skeptical of Verizon's 50 mbps residential speed clams, yet I was assured that I would get MUCH better wifi speed under the 50 mbps plan than under the 25 plan.  And now the tech reps wanted me to pay them to upgrade a modem and they still could not guarantee me that I would get any better speeds than I got under my 25 mbps plan that they eliminated.

So, a supervisor finally came on and agreed to send me the Gen3 Actiontec router for free, but my understanding from reading up on this new router is that it is unlikely to significantly improve speeds over those that I had received under the old plan.  What a mess.  I feel like I'm getting scammed.  I really wonder if that's true or not.

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Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
Smoothy1961
Enthusiast - Level 2

Don't worry, as soon as you do someones going to decide you are using too mach bandwidth and tell you to stop using a service you are paying for or they ill shut it off.

I've been with FIOS practically since the beginning....always loved it...and talked a lot of people into getting it, ....now I upgrated mine to the 50/25 service a few months back and I get a nastygram treatening me to stop using it like I have for years or they will shut it off alltogether....exactly why did I pay more to upgrade the service then?

Claiming  excessive use.....when I host NOTHING......I don't even access my stuff outside the home. 

And of course NOBODY anywhere even hints at what they consider EXCESSIVE use.  Trust me I spent the entire evening looking.

I don't even have kids.....what if someone had two or more teenagers...and any streaming service?

A shame.....because I actually do really like the service but I have to consider a competitor I acutually left to come to this one because of arbitrary unpublished numbers someone apparently pulled out of their butt.  That are secret because not even in the threat letter the arbitrary number isn't mentioned....just that "extreme usage"  which must stop....

Exactly how much is anyone allowed anyway? an hour a day?

Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Smoothy, you may wish to post about this over DSLReports, anonymously if you wish. The folks there would love to know about your warning.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzfiber

Click "New Topic" at the top of the page, fill out an anonymous name, and do the rest.

Also, give a tip to Phil over at http://www.stopthecap.com/ to start getting some fires set. 🙂

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Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@Irishscribe wrote:

 

Then came the kicker:  the rep said he could get me better speeds by updating my Gen2 modem.  I said great, only to hear that the rep just discovered that he couldn't update the router online--they'd have to send me one.  AT A COST TO ME OF $105.00.  I was incredulous and told them that there was no way this bait and switch could be happening.  I was very upfront with the sales reps explaining that I was hugely skeptical of Verizon's 50 mbps residential speed clams, yet I was assured that I would get MUCH better wifi speed under the 50 mbps plan than under the 25 plan.  And now the tech reps wanted me to pay them to upgrade a modem and they still could not guarantee me that I would get any better speeds than I got under my 25 mbps plan that they eliminated.

So, a supervisor finally came on and agreed to send me the Gen3 Actiontec router for free, but my understanding from reading up on this new router is that it is unlikely to significantly improve speeds over those that I had received under the old plan.  What a mess.  I feel like I'm getting scammed.  I really wonder if that's true or not.


Have no idea what modem you are talking about or what gen2 and gen3 mean but assume you might be talking about a router and that the gen refers to some version.

The real issue you have is that you are connecting by wireless and the older routers only supported wireless g which specifies a max of 54 Mbps which meant that on a good day with good signal you might get around 25 Mbps,  The newer routers support wireless n whi can provide up to 150 Mbps which means that with a good signal you shoule be able to reach the max of your package.

However Verizon doesn't really support wireless.  They will provide you a router that is sufficient to support a wired connection that can manage you package max bandwidth.  If your package was one of the quantum packages over 100 Mbps they would provide you with a newer version router that also would have a wireless n capability.

Other issues are that typically the wireless capability of the Verizon routers is somewhat problematic and the price to purchase an upgrade from Verizon is as you've discovered outrageous.

You can get a perfectly fine Access point or router for less than $30 and it typically will have a far better signal.  I think the cheapest one I have is a Tenda that I paid $12 for on Merit line and I've never had any issues with it. 

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Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@Smoothy1961 wrote:

Don't worry, as soon as you do someones going to decide you are using too mach bandwidth and tell you to stop using a service you are paying for or they ill shut it off.

I've been with FIOS practically since the beginning....always loved it...and talked a lot of people into getting it, ....now I upgrated mine to the 50/25 service a few months back and I get a nastygram treatening me to stop using it like I have for years or they will shut it off alltogether....exactly why did I pay more to upgrade the service then?

Claiming  excessive use.....when I host NOTHING......I don't even access my stuff outside the home. 

And of course NOBODY anywhere even hints at what they consider EXCESSIVE use.  Trust me I spent the entire evening looking.

I don't even have kids.....what if someone had two or more teenagers...and any streaming service?

A shame.....because I actually do really like the service but I have to consider a competitor I acutually left to come to this one because of arbitrary unpublished numbers someone apparently pulled out of their butt.  That are secret because not even in the threat letter the arbitrary number isn't mentioned....just that "extreme usage"  which must stop....

Exactly how much is anyone allowed anyway? an hour a day?


You may want to check your router security to see if somebody has piggybacked onto your router and is pushing a lot of data through it.

They must have given you some figures if they are claiming excessive use, how bad was it.? and was it outbound or inbound traffic?

Re: Unable to take advantage of new 50/25 FIOS Quantum speed with current router.
Smoothy1961
Enthusiast - Level 2

I spent over an hour on the phone with someone....and they couldn't explain it... Apparently I was the first person to call for the batch of notices that went out...

The method he thinks they were using to track usage ammounts woudl actually be including my in house network they way I have things configured.....I did upgrade to the latest greatest router (at my own expense) when I upgraded and that changed from a router with 100bT Lan ports to a 1000bT...which matches my home network.   so that would suddenly see the traffic I move in house (I have my entire video collection on servers and stream them to my large screeen tvs. And I watch a LOT of them.

THat would explain why they never noticed before because Imove a lto more data a lot faster....I'm sceptical thats actually how they do it....and he wasn't sure anyway how their pull the stats.  

I know more about most of this stuff them most IT guys I have met...and I'm not an IT guy.

I am leaning towards someone tunneling into my network somehow.....would explain some problems I've had on and off that I can't find a cause or cure for.    I know nobody is into the WiFi it is secured and the couple devices on it I know.   Unless someone is actually going through them somehow.

Still looking for tools to identify anything that shoudln't be here.....Symantec didn't....AVG didn't either  though that did find some minor stuff Symantec missed.

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