I'm a longtime Verizon DSL customer in Boston. Never have I had the problems I've been seeing the past month and especially the last few days.
There was a hardware issue in nearby Cambridge on 9/4 which knocked out service for the day, but I'm still seeing the intermittent drops and slowness. I ran a network speed test and saw results of 20K down, 200K up. 20 kilobytes on a line where I used to get 5MB.
Restarting the modem helps in some cases, not in others. I don't remember ever having to cycle equipment in my years as a customer.
Just came across this as the supposed reason:
September 4th, 2012:
A homeless man’s mattress fire under a bridge in Massachusetts was enough to create the biggest telecommunications disaster for Verizon since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The fire melted fiber and damaged copper cables that represented the backbone of Verizon’s landline network in the region, disrupting phone, cable, and broadband service for thousands of Verizon’s customers in northeastern Massachusetts in late August. Now that service has been restored, the damages from the outage and its ripple effects are still being calculated as questions are being raised about how the company handles its communications network.
They don't have landline redundancy in place.
It's not just Boston. I'm in central Texas and am hooked into the San Angelo offices and lately the connection just gives up the ghost several times an hour, usually for anywhere between 30 seconds and a couple minutes, before it reestablishes a connection (for a few minutes before the problem recurs). The worst thing is that I'm in a small town with no other realistic broadband options other than $atellite, so I'm kind of stuck...
In July 2012, I tried to drop my landline of almost 30 yrs. & just keep my DSL of less than 2 yrs.. Verizon cut off my phone & then announced that I could not have my DSL, because recently Verizon decided that I could not have one without the other. Sudden I had nothing. A few days Later, I was told tat I could keep my Internet service by itself & was assigned, a # to go with it, so I was back online. Then I decided that I wanted my landline back again & a tech came & took a few hrs. to set up my phone again. After he left, I realized that there was no connection upstairs or in the basement. I called to report the prob. & had another guy come a few days later. He corrected the prob. & disconnected my DSL. I called to report it & was told that there was no DSL in my area. For 2 wks. I had no Internet service. The rep suggested that maybe I didn't know & started making up stories of several possibilities to explain the situation. Then he told me that they would send a FIOS self install Router. He said that there was a signal coming from my house. What I think happened was when the new phone was installed, Verizon set up for Fios.
Since I had DSL & it was connected, I was clueless of what took place. They told me that I could not have DSL. The kit came, but I did not have any connection in my house to connect. Finally, I was scheduled Aug.6, 11-3pm to get my connection set up. Verizon was a no show. I called to complain & was rescheduled for the next day & was connected. Now I am fighting over the bill. I call & get assured what to expect on my billing. When the bill came, it was 4X the amt. I get left on hold for 2 hrs. several times. They look back in my records & find over & over what I say is true. Then they tell me that they will override my bill every mo. Well, it is still not what they promised. Verizon does not want their customers on DSL. They have lousy service & I am on the verge of giving up if this doesn't get fixed.
I'm still geting god-awful performance in Cambridge. Slow & intermittent. I have the lower DSL speed to begin with (can't upgrade anymore since I'm not going to add on the bogus phone line). DSL users just aren't worth the time and money for Verizon to get it right anymore, so I wouldn't expect it to get any better.
After reading more about the current situation at Verizon, it apperas FIOS users are probably next to get this kind of treatment. The endgame is Verizon will want us all on LTE Broadband stuff, which will be a whole different kind of racket.
The answer is to seek alternatives. Unfortunately, if you're in Cambridge, like me, you're screwed since Comcast is the only other provider in town, and they're equally as bad.
Here in philadelphia the speeds are fast..but then they just drop irraticly through the day. It's not stable at all. I'm happy with my speed (even though FIOS should be avaible in my area by now...seriously verizon cmon..i can def run it in my home)
I just want stability.
I live in Western Mass. and I have also experienced SLOW DSL. I still have my orginal Westell Model 6100 Modem. I called Verizon to see if I could get either a newer or reconditioned Modem. I asked if I could move up to 1.0 DSL and was told that I lived to far from the Central Office and they did not have Range Extenders to reach my residence. They told me that I would have to live with it until they got FIOS into my area. HAH!!!! I am a former Estimate Assigner with the Phone Company and having been in the Engineering Group, know that they do have both Range and Loop Extenders that could easily reach my house. FIOS will not be extended into my area for a very long time because of the expense of the FIOS Cable. You can take this to bed with you when they don't care about their former employees!
I'm in Western Mass as well, and suffer from intermittant connectivity, random speed drops and everything else mentioned in this thread. I have given up on Verizon actually being able to do anything, and look forward to the day I can switch to a different ISP. I'm sure comcrap is better, and that's not really a great endorsement 😞
My modem connects for 10 minutes, then drops the internet. The DSL light stays on, so I reset the modem. It powers up, goes through it's sequence, detects the DSL, then connects to the internet. 10 minutes later, it drops the internet....it's driving me nuts and I can't get VERIZON to do anything about it. Seriously considering going to Comcast....
So, I finally gave in and ended my DSL service with Verizon. I called up and cancelled, and they could've cared less. Any time I've dropped services on Comcast, they've fought to retain my business, Verizon had no interest in retaining my business.
Which confirms for me that they do not care about DSL going forward.
Here's hoping Comcast is better.
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