FiOS disconnecting in the afternoon
tyster
Newbie

For three days in row now - my FiOS connection has dropped or been very intermittent between 5-6:30pm Pacific.  I'm on the 10/2Mbps internet plan with phone service.

The first time it happened (Friday, two days ago) - I was out of town.  My wife called via cell phone to report internet\phone were offline.  It didn't go back online by itself.  When I returned home Saturday early afternoon - I checked the OMT (the box on the side of the house) and found the Fail light was red.

After fully disconnecting\reconnecting the power to the unit (both AC and battery back-up) - the OMT reconnected.  The phone service was fine at first, and then gave a busy signal after an hour, followed by working just fine.

However, at approx 5pm Pacific Saturday, the connection dropped again.  Once again I looked at the OMT to find the Fail light glowing red.  This time it took a few power reset attempts before the system came back online... only to be plagued with connectivity issues during the hours of 5-6:30pm.   Finally on Saturday evening, all appeared to be normal.  I called FiOS tech support once on Saturday... but during that brief moment, the OMT was working fine and internet\phone were online.  The technician had little input

More forward about 24 hours to Sunday, 4:51pm - talking on the phone when suddenly the line drops and a busy signal comes across.  I look at my Westell router and it shows Internet connection offline.  I look at the OMT outside - and it shows Fail.   I call FiOS support - and in the 5 minutes to get routed to a live voice, the system "fixes" itself and is back online.   The technician effectively shrugs his shoulders and says - "Well, it appears to be working".  He promises to place an "active monitoring" on the line...

5 minutes after hanging up with the FiOS tech - bam! - Internet\Phone are offline again, and OMT shows Fail light.  I call FiOS support one more time and the technician confirms the box is offline.... but offers little input beyond that.  He sees no record\entry about active monitoring, and indicates he has no clue what that might be.  He suggests that my house wiring might be bad or the circuit is having issues - frankly I find that answer very misleading since the FiOS OMT has battery backup, and the battery backup has given no audio\visual indication of power failure, nor have other units on the circuit shown any indication of power failure.  Plus - even if there were a power failure, phone service shouldn't be affected - that's the point of the battery backup (stated to provide up to 8 hours of phone service during a power failure)  In summary - my confidence level is diminishing on the tech support.

We've had a few hot spring days here in the Portland area (high 80's... which is relatively hot for late May in this area).  The OMT is on the North side of the house, which is usually in shade.  However, between 5:30-6pm - depending on the exact location of the sun, the OMT is bathed in full sunlight.  I suspected direct sun might be the issue - but have confirmed on both Saturday and Sunday that the failure occurred before direct sunlight on the box.

I shared this information with each technician I spoke to... and the last individual kept saying I needed to shade the box.  I assured him that it's not yet in direct sunlight and failing (the last call was ~5:10pm... direct sunlight expect to hit around 5:30 or 5:40pm).  After expressing my disappointment in the customer service, the technician responded unfavorably and suggested that I might be imposed fees if a house call were needed.

The problem hasn't been fixed... and I am betting the FiOS connection will drop again before sundown today... followed by more outages during the summer unless something changes. 

Any ideas out there?

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Re: FiOS disconnecting in the afternoon
prisaz
Legend
If the fail light continually comes on at the ONT, I would ask them to replace the ONT. It sounds like bad hardware, and bad hardware at the Verizon office would be dropping everyone on the fiber plant's OLT. Not just your connection.

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Re: FiOS disconnecting in the afternoon
tyster
Newbie

5:57pm - another FiOS outage.  Within the 10 minutes to get a support rep on the phone,the connection got reestablished.

There's slight cloud cover - so the OMT box is not in direct sunlight. 

On the phone with tech support agent that is actually quite helpful.... and she's been going the extra mile to contact network technician and investigate other issues.  Kudos to Briana at FiOS support - best rep out of the 4 I've dealt with in the last 24 hours.

Outages at 4:51pm, 5:06pm, and 5:57pm today.  (hopefully I'll get this post completed before the next outage Smiley Wink)

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Re: FiOS disconnecting in the afternoon
dslr595148
Community Leader
Community Leader
What is the brand and model of your router?
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Re: FiOS disconnecting in the afternoon
prisaz
Legend
If the fail light continually comes on at the ONT, I would ask them to replace the ONT. It sounds like bad hardware, and bad hardware at the Verizon office would be dropping everyone on the fiber plant's OLT. Not just your connection.
Re: FiOS disconnecting in the afternoon
tyster
Newbie

Yep - it was bad OMT hardware.  Repair tech came out yesterday and swapped the box in under 10 minutes.  No problems since then.

I asked him about the sun\heat - he chuckled with a reply that unless it's 160 degrees Fahrenheit... and by then, we'd have a lot of other problem...

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