Must Read: Samsung Galaxy S4 review

Topic: Verizon

Embarking on a FiOS adventure Day 3

Summary: My FiOS adventure continues - day 3.

Dan Kusnetzky

By for Virtually Speaking |

I was persuaded to replace my Comcast service with Verizon FiOS and have been posting as the adventure unfolds (see Embarking on a FiOS adventure and Embarking on a FiOS adventure Day 2 if you're really bored and can't think of nothing better to do.)

At this point, everything is working.  HD television channels look really good.  I haven't seen any pixelated pictures even though the weather wasn't all that good (for here) over the last two days. The FiOS Internet service has been measured to perform over twice as fast as Comcast did, but still doesn't quite live up to what was promised.

Javier Castillo, one of Verizon's social media support people, has arranged for one of the local FiOS support people to come out and help me find out what is happening.  He, by the way, has been extremely friendly and quite professional.  I'll update this post if I learn what was happening.

1:30 PM ET Update

Javier Castillo called me to let me know that the service representative had picket up the trouble ticket and would call me before coming out.

2:15 PM ET Update

Doug, a Verizon service representative, called from a town about 25 miles South of my office. He said that he'd be here by 3 PM ET.

3 PM ET Update

Doug arrived within a few moments of the time he promised. He came right in and plugged a laptop into the router. I demonstrated speedtest.net and testmy.net performance of 25+ Mbps download and 12+ Mbps figures.

Doug visited speedtest.verizon.com and demonstrated to me that their own internal test site showed 30.214 Mbps download speed and 36.984 upload speeds. When I visited that site from my own production systems, I saw the same results. I commented that this was a somewhat artificial test. It was totally within the Verizon environment and wasn't a real world test.

Just to rule out one other factor, Doug visited speedtest.net and testmy.net and ran the tests. He saw similar test results to those I got when visiting those sites.

Doug suggested that I visit speakeasy.net and try the performance test there. The test results were 31.03 Mbps down and 28.14 Mbps up.

That was a real world, off of Verizon's own internal network. It demonstrated that my issue wasn't with my systems, the network configuration or Verizon's service. It was the three test sites I chose for testing.

To quote several famous detective characters, "The case is closed."

I'd like to thank Verizon for helping me resolve this issue. To a person, they were pleasant, friendly and helpful.

Topic: Verizon

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

10 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • What Does Weather Have To Do With It?

    You're on fiber, weather conditions shouldn't have anything to do with the signal going to your TV or your Internet....you'd only have issues if you were on a satellite connection or maybe coax (connections expanding and contracting due to heat or cold or moisture due to cuts in the plenum).
    cyberslammer2
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Embarking on a FiOS adventure Day 3

      @cyberslammer2 that was one of the points I was making. I'd see problems (pixelation on television channels and slower Internet connections) when working with Comcast.

      Dan K
      dkusnetzky
      Reply Vote

      • I dumped Comcast as soon as U-Verse was available...

        I dumped Comcast as soon as U-Verse was available, I think you're in for a treat with fiber internet. U-Verse TV, on the other hand, was absolutely atrocious. If you want TV, go with someone else. However, as far as internet, U-Verse is pretty damn sweet.

        I bought the 18Mbit/1.5Mbit line. I get 17.85 Mbit down and 1.45 Mbit up. [i]Always[/i]. 24/7. I get under 10 ms ping, as well.

        This is versus Comcast where I had a 3000 ms ping (yes, a full 3 seconds, and they claimed there was nothing wrong, and that latency was not a "problem" they fixed), and the connection would slower than dialup after 6PM.

        Starting at 3PM until 2AM, Comcast internet was nearly unusable. Before everyone starts jumping about how great their Comcast is, keep in mind I live in a very large apartment complex, in an area in San Jose "Silicon Valley" that only just got 768k DSL in 2006.

        [i]Everyone[/i] used Comcast, and it was completely crap.
        olePigeon
        Reply Vote

      • I forgot to mention about the rain and other oddities with Comcast...

        I forgot to mention about the rain and other oddities with Comcast: When it rained, the image had static on all channels and the internet would stop working (blinking red light.)

        Also forgot to mention that there was so much cross-interference on the line that when I changed channels, the internet portion would reset. I found this out when my friend was over and trying to download a patch for World of Warcraft along with my brother. Every now and then they both yelled and complained after their download stopped and they had to restart it again.

        I noticed the yells of frustration coincided with me changing the channel.


        All of these problems would seem self evident, obviously Comcast had a hardware issue somewhere. I normally wouldn't hold a grudge against a company had they just come out and fixed the problem. Stuff happens, things get broken, whatever. The reason I hold such a grudge against Comcast is that while all this crap is going on, [i]they're telling me it's all my fault and that I must be doing something wrong.[/i]

        After I had moved to U-Verse the instant it was available, Comcast sent out two technicians to my house. They told me that the central node for our complex had been damaged and was the reason for all my problems, then asked if I wanted to stay with Comcast.

        Yeah, no $#!%. Pointed to my No Soliciting sign and shut the door.

        Comcast (now called Xfinity, probably because of all the complaints) is probably one of the worst companies on the planet.
        olePigeon
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Embarking on a FiOS adventure Day 3

        @OlePigeon<br><br>Never had the misfortune of paying for Comcast but have used it and seen friends use it. I chose to go with Uverse, especially considering there are no contracts.<br><br>You are right. The net service is great. Very close to max advertised speeds. The tv service sucks, BAD.<br><br>Additionally, if you have the TV and internet service, and you try to play an online game with a PS3, I discovered that you must set the TV's IP address as the DMZ server (forget the exact name). Or else, as soon as you start a multiplayer game you get booted off the network. This was happening with Metal Gear Online, anyway. I wasted a bunch of time trying to solve it, then wasted a whole bunch more talking to tech support, then tried the method that worked.
        midenginedrift
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Embarking on a FiOS adventure Day 3

      @cyberslammer2 Actually line amplifiers also require work when transitioning from warm to cold weather.
      mrlinux
      Reply Vote

  • comcast weather cause issue

    "Low can't jump high can't swim" I am talking about RF signal, if it is rain badly and you can't get online it is damage cable in your house (outlet cable, jumper cable or drop cable), water get it the cable and HIGH Freq CAN'T SWIM, cable modem use high freq for downstream and low Freq for upstream. If you have loose connector, low freq can't send out (upstream). just make sure you cable is not crack jack, dog chew, old RG59 cable, no loose cable allow. if still not work call comcast have a tech come and repair it, make sure you request in-house tech. One more thing, when doing test, no customer equ allow, no wireless connection allow (customer's router must remove before test, comcast don't care it is new or old, $1 router or $500 router). about speed test: speedtest.net for comcast portland OR market about 22.43Mb/s down and 8.06Mb up, ping 17ms. I think we are happy with that result when most people signup for only 12Mb down.
    comcast101
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Embarking on a FiOS adventure Day 3

      @comcast101

      What a load of crap... Comcrap!
      When you are on a shared network, you are only as fast as how many of your neighbors are online or watching OnDemand. One other point about Comcrap and the 'Network Shaping' software they have pioneered (SandScrit or SandStone I believe it is called) has reportedly been set to give priority access to any ping test site.

      Welcome to the world of Comcrap and their business model without 'Net Neutrality' on their closed, proprietary network.
      NavyStore
      Reply Vote

  • uVerse and fiber

    When they sold me on uVerse I liked the idea of getting fiber. Come installation of the modem (few years back) I'm asking the tech when the fiber will be installed in my house. Well, turns out they had fiber up to a mile from my home. From there it's just the two copper wires (as the tech told me). Despite that, I am happy with uVerse. Never let me down. With the old cable I had trouble sometimes when it had rained.
    TxM2xTx
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Embarking on a FiOS adventure Day 3

    Where does Idaho rank? We have been living in Montana for the past 5 years and I am not supri<a href=http://www.hipersexshop.com.br>sexy shop</a>to find it #3 on the "worst" list. Considering a<a href=http://www.hipersexshop.com.br>sexshop</a>move to Idaho to escapthe high cost of living a low income in MT. There may not be a sales tax here but they get you if you own property!
    vaifazecoco
    Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close