Hey, I live in New York and lately its been pretty cold and windy over here and my dsl speed isn't too slow but it has been a little slower, could this be because of the weather conditions ? Please let me know or if you have any suggestions, i'd be happy to hear them and any advice would be nice, thanks.
I dont think it should if no probs in line... I had to have a tech (after several slow downs and such) come out and see for him self. He went to the Verizon box across the street and found a bad phone splice (had water damage) and fixed it speed seemed to improve after that.
In theory the answer is no. In practice, the answer is sometimes.
The first question however is to make sure what you are seeing is real. The best way to do that is to look at the transceiver numbers in the log in good weather and in bad weather, and see if there really is a difference in the uplink and downlink speeds. The speeds reported by the transceiver numbers are either the provisioning limits set by Verizon, or the highest rate that could be successfully negotiated between your modem/router and the central office equipment. IF there is a significant loss in data rate, or change in loss/margins on the link in bad weather, then it is likely that your performance loss is indeed weather related. You can view the transceiver numbers from the log by logging into your router (http://198.162.1.1)
The performance of the DSL link between your premises and the Central office is very sensitive to the electrical characteristics of the copper pair that connect you. Over time insulation cracks, plasticizers migrate, and dielectric constants change, particularly in wet weather. My own experience was that bad weather would cut about 500kbps out of my downlink speed. To be blunt, unless you can convince Verizon to replace the copper pair that connects you to central office, there isn't anything you can do about it as a DSL customer. DSL is not a tariffed service, so Verizon doesn't even have a legal obligation to offer it, let along promise any level of performance.
My other weather related problem was that if I could hear thunder, my DSL service was down. The copper pair that connects me to the Central Office is probably 50+ years old (I don't have a NIB, I have a porcelain connecting block in the basement).
I moved to FiOS when it became available a year ago. FiOS doesn't care about weather or thunder. I am unable to measure a difference in the uplink or downlink speeds in good weather versus bad weather.
So the short answers are: Yes, the weather can impact DSL performance. No there isn't much you can do about it, nor will Verizon do anything about it, and about the only real 'fix' is to migrate to FiOS if it is available.
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