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Verizon downsizing equipment yet paying for high-speed Internet
By BriaBoston on Sun, 12/13/2015 - 1:31pm
For over a week, we have had on/off or maddeningly slow internet service. Our internet provider is Verizon. After spending the requisite hour on the phone with Verizon customer service last Thursday, an appointment was set up for 8-11 am this past Friday. The repair reps did not show during that time period, but around 1:30 pm I got a call, stating that our purchased, 'High Speed Internet Enhanced' was too fast for the capability we could ACTUALLY get because of our distance from the Roslindale Verizon substation (we are just off of South Street) therefore, they needed to downgrade the equipment that our service used to be able to handle the slower speed - somewhere around 6-7 Mbps. I did hear that correctly as they said they had to cut our service for a couple of hours while doing this. I asked about a refund for the high speed service we had been paying for and was told I had to contact billing.
We had upgraded to this 'high speed' service last February, and not a single Verizon rep I spoke with said, "Wait a minute. As I review your service capability, you are not able to receive this type of service." Never-mind that we can barely receive snail service at this point. But we have been paying for high speed service since last February.
When I contacted Verizon billing this morning, the discussion turned surreal. The rep refused to answer the question directly and kept talking around it. She told me to call back and talk with the Verizon technicians to verify this, though they had just verified this on Friday, and this after an hour on the phone with her. I finally hung up when she put me on hold to get a supervisor, and it was clear I was never going to get to speak to that supervisor in my lifetime.
Are others in Rozzie or Boston experiencing similar Verizon issues? Also check and beware what you are paying for and not receiving.
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Comments
DSL, I assume?
Our experience with them was actually good, but this was back in the 1.5Mbps days and their tech actually installed some new wiring in our house when it turned out our connectivity problems were due not to their lines but to the creaky 1930s-era wiring in our house.
In any case, Roslindale seems to be one of the few neighborhoods that actually has decent availability from RCN, so you might want to check with them - you'll probably get faster speeds at not much higher prices (maybe even the same price).
Disclaimer: We've been RCN customers for a couple years now and are happy with the service.
ive never had rcn
but customer satisfaction seems almost universally great from everybody i've talked to
From Watertown, thumbs up on RCN
... the only issue we've had with RCN is (years ago) an oversubscribed neighborhood; when they added more servers our speed stabilized. If something goes out, you call it in; if you're not the first caller, they record a "outage reported in area" message and add it to the on-hold messages. And the few times I've had a tech scheduled to visit, they show up in the window or dispatch called and said, "will be 30 minutes late, due to previous call running over".
Verizon for POTS, otoh, has be degrading steadily over the last dozen years. I'm about an inch from dropping them and adding the landline to my RCN bundle.
Another RCN customer
They are pleasanter to deal with and I'm paying a lot less than I was for Verizon. Not perfect, but a lot better.
landline
if you dont have a home security system or need a physical fax machine i would strongly consider getting magic jack
hell, if you dont use the landline much but still want the number for whatever reason, there are yearly prepaid cellphone options that are even cheaper than magic jack
We have RCN in Hyde Park. We
We have RCN in Hyde Park. We haven't needed customer support very much, but the level of service seems decent.
Too far?
The fiber optic transmission rates are 625 mbps down, 125 up. That's used to satisfy neighborhood demand for TV channels being watched, on-demand channels being watched, Internet, phone, and whatever else. Shouldn't be a matter of distance, but how many customers are hanging off a distribution node.
If you have DSL on the other hand, those kind of rates and distance limitations sound about right over copper lines.
We have fiber optic--oops, we don't; the blindingly obvious
Correct. No one in Boston has FIOS. But, I simply wasn't equating our poor quality of service to DSL. (When we moved into our home in Rozzie, we updated all the wiring.) We were told several times that it was a matter of distance. A year ago, we had a similar problem, but they were able to maintain the speed, but it now appears that they have given up. Glad to learn RCN has a solid rep in this neighborhood - we are ready and willing to give up our 10 year partnership with Verizon.
rather ironically
i was accused of being an apologist for utility companies here last night, but you shouldnt ever consider doing business with a company like that a partnership, and should actively get the best deal/benefit/service you can.
tenure with these companies means zilch to them. i've been in telecom for a long time, how long you've been a customer is irrelevant for 99% anything you'd try to do.
You have FIOS?
Hold on there. Are you saying you have FIOS fibre optic in Roslindale? It is well established that FIOS is nowhere in Boston though there nay be a few exceptions bordering other communities such as Brookline or Quincy where it is available and was possible to be strung.
6-7 MB DSL service is all but unheard of in these parts and only for certain commercial people.
I have a 3 MB apportioned DSL copper line and test it periodically with an HTML5 tester (www.speedof.me) that cuts any processor overheads and I show a strong signal all the time. Other tester give me about 2.85 MB or so but there is processor overhead. That was not always the case and Mumbai (where the tech people are) downgraded my speed once so the signal-to-noise ratio was better. I blew my top. They finally sent a tech and he went on a mission and re-terminated all fo the tie-points from my house back to the central switch up next to Lorad & Ladys on Belgrade Ave. It's been fine ever since.
RCN is not in every Roslindale neighborhood by the way. There are some geographical limits.
My bill just recently went up
My bill just recently went up $10 without explanation. Same speed, too. It takes about an hour just to talk with someone. About 6 years ago I was in a plan for $22. At that time they decided to remove me from that plan on their own, and ever since then the bill has been significantly increasing. Six years later I'm now paying $49/month with the same speed.
Increasing bill
I'm not sure who your provider is (RCN, Xfinity, Verizon, Direct TV,...?), however, both RCN and Xfinity have a habit of printing flyers with deals for Internet, phone, and cable bundles at an exciting and low price. The price is typically displayed in a very large font on the flyer. So you might think you're getting a great bundle at a reasonable monthly price. Unfortunately, almost all the good-deal bundles I've seen come with fine print. And the fine print is typically that the price per month is good for the first year only; for each subsequent year, thereafter, the price goes up by around $10 per month.
You'll notice too that the big flashy price is good for new customers only.
The net effect is that to get your best deal (my only realistic options are RCN and Xfinity), you need to be prepared to switch providers annually and possibly to play one provider's deal off another provider in negotiating your bundle. I don't know why the providers do this... It seems to me like it's cheaper to keep us happy at a particular price point for multiple years if possible rather than paying to send a contracted installation person out to the same location every other year. I've asked support reps. about this and the standard answer is that they constantly renegotiate prices with the content providers and that this impacts the bundle prices - I have trouble believing that because the prices basically are the same year after year and the only way to beat the incremental $10/month add on each year after the first year is to keep switching providers and make yourself a first year customer with the providers. It's a pain, but it should save you ~$120/year.
Must be <2.5 miles from central switching office
If this is DSL, I was told that you had to be less than 2.5 miles away from the central switching office to get optimal DSL speeds.
Beyond this limitation - if they will actually install the service at such a location, it will be quite slow. My neighbor had DSL from Verizon, but is 2.7 miles from the switching office, yet they installed it anyway. The speeds were so slow, he eventually switched to Comcast.
comcast business may be an (expensive) option
I'm in Rozzie near the village and I long ago separated "internet" from "tv" - explicitly by signing up for a comast business internet circuit. Internet is critical to us as I can't earn a living from a home office without it so I pay the extra $$ and deduct what I can as a business/operating expense
The overwhelming advantage of a business circuit is you actually get an contractual service level agreement (ie "SLA") , a human will answer the phone 24x7 with minimal hold time and they will actually roll a truck to your front door within an hour if there is an issue. Contrast that to "residential internet" where there is no SLA and the fine print basically promises "best effort" when reacting to an outage.
The extra $$ is worth it alone for the SLA but the other benefits are nice. I get static IPs and a much relaxed acceptable use policy that lets me run servers at home, including a tor exit node (hello NSA and FBI !!) which would get me kicked off a residential circuit. I think it helps also that comast seems to operate some sort of head-end/technical-facility up the hill on Washington street near the burger king and dominos.
I tend to harp on this a a lot; if internet is essential for you at home consider upgrading to a business circuit. The speeds may not be as fast as the residential loss-leader promotions but you get what you pay for, there is an actual SLA and they will actually break a sweat to fix things if your connection is down or misbehaving.
Verizon
This same thing happened to me a few years ago. I did get a 'refund' after a long long time on the phone with 2 weeks of complaining. I live in Mission Hill but the 'sub-station' or 'switching station' as they called it, is in Brookline. After constantly getting cut off from the internet they figured out I was "too far away from the switching station" to get anything more than 1-3 megs of speed, and that's what I'm living with! My only other choice is Comcast, and I hate them and don't trust them. As the saying goes, 'stay with the devil you know'. It sucks we don't have other choices.
Same experience in Roslindale
We had the same problem in Roslindale and got a credit after many hours arguing on the phone with Verizon playing the "talk to technical support" "no, you have to talk to customer support" game. Would love to try RCN but they're not on our block. No way we're going to Comcast.
Crapcast
Is tolerable as long as you're paying their $20 or $30/month into rate. At their regular $70, they're a complete ripoff.
Sprint
How's Sprint coverage in your area? If it's decent, just get their cheap unlimited plan, root your phone, unlock the hotspot app and tether away. You'll get 20+mbps if you're close to their tower - sure beats paying $40/month for crappy slow DSL on top of your already expensive cell phone bill.
Ditto T-Mobile
That's exactly what I did.
I have had issues with
I have had issues with staying connected and internet speed ever since I got Verizon. I am wondering, where exactly is the substation in Roslindale? Maybe that is my issue. Thanks for all the comments, they are helpful. And it is "nice" to know I am not alone in my frustration!
This is helpful
Thanks to everyone who has commented. I dont know where the substation is located. Do othersout there know?
Verizon substation
At the Belgrade, just past the end of Beech St.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.286134,-71.1493472,3a,75y,214.42h,83.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCxRRg8eMQsj2zkbakFYAHw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Where's the CO?
CO = Central Office or where the connections are.
For most of Roslindale it's the building located on Belgrade Ave by Lord & Ladys hairdressers next to the RR bridge. That is the newer building. A much older one used to live on Beech Street decades ago before it was moved there sometime in the 60s I believe.
However there are some parts of Rossie that pull their lines from JP.
Sprint's signal in the
Sprint's signal in the southern part of town seems to have some depth problems - my phone gets full LTE on the street but as soon as I go inside it drops down pretty significantly, and the back of the house gets nothing.
I changed from Verizon to Comcast 5 years ago due to
Verizon's being way too slow. Since I've had comcast, I've had relatively few problems, compared to Verizon. I also have cable, which is nice, and I've consolidated my cable TV, my landline phoneline and my internet into one monthly bill, which makes things way easier.
VZ was a fail for us as RCN stepped up
The previous owner of our house three years ago had DSL. I figured signing up for DSL service (with DirectTV) with VZ would be a no brainer. VZ had weeks to pretest and prep. The previous owner was late in terminating service with VZ, so it wasn't a switch similar to electric or gas service, the cable path was still in use I guess. They should have tested a new path to be ready for their service commitment date on our move in day. (VZ didn't) We are pretty close to the VZ office, so distance is not a concern. After the VZ tech could not connect us on our move in date, and pushed out the date that they might get it working, we went in another direction. I called RCN late on a Saturday morning and was connected with a new wire from the pole, phone service and a router all within four hours. We later added TV as rain fade on DirectTV was annoying. Except for a couple of DNS outages and a local extended power failure we have been very happy with RCN.
RCN
We used Verizon DSL (also in Roslindale) for years -- and it kept getting slower. We finally switched to RCN and (internet) life has been much more smooth -- but we did ditch the wireless router RCN provided for something more powerful (and expensive) -- as its router just wasn't powerful enough to reach through our whole house.
Same Here
I had exactly the same problem with Verizon. They sold me a package with a higher internet speed and then my internet constantly failed and they had to downgrade me back to the slower service. Eventually that became to slow and unreliable, so I dropped Verizon (DSl and Landline) for Comcast. Not crazy about Comcast customer service or their prices, but the internet service has been fast and reliable.
comcast is unlikely to receive another dollar from me
last time i had them was in 2009 if i recall. moved into my new apartment, had them set it up, which went fine. frequently the internet would just shit itself and on demand would stop working. they sent out a technician who found nothing wrong and it was ok for a month or so. then it got really bad to where on demand just flat out didn't work, internet was down more than up, and a few other issues.
i called them and explained that the same issues we had been having were now back- and worse. they assumed it was some sort of operator error on our part. i'm not immune to mistake but at that particular time i was working in IT professionally and was pretty confident it wasn't me, plus the fact that the on demand and internet were clearly 100% not working at the same time, together, every time.
they refused to send out a technician to check it out because on their end everything came up clear, so i stopped paying the bill. after 2-3 months they finally said they'd send out a technician but that if there was nothing wrong found with my setup that i would be responsible for the cost of the service call.
there ended up being a massive wiring screwup (if i remember, the tech basically said the apartment had basically a redundant connection so i was basically hooked up twice?? i dont know much about how cable works so who knows) and he fixed it in an hour. by that point it had been roughly 8 months of horrible or zero service, the entirety of which was refunded to me. i am going to assume that whatever wiring fuckup was there was pretty bad and i'm lucky they didn't burn me down in my sleep with their incompetence.
despite the refund, that entire experience has ensured that if i have a choice i will never use another comcast service again. it pained me to have to watch NBC for the pats game last night. (not really but, screw comcast)
sucks you're getting the same shitty rates and customer service, but at least you're getting reliability.
Really
First of all there is no AC on the cable lines so there was no chance of a fire happening. 2nd of all it's not Comcast fault that you have shitty wiring in your house. This is the problem with people they think because they can use a computer that makes them tech savvy Stop talking about things you don't know about.
comcast
flat out admitted that it was their fault because the wiring issue was an issue they caused, hence them refunding me 8 months worth of service.
as far as the wiring setting my house on fire, that was what we call "a joke"
i also am pretty sure i flat out admitted i don't know much about cable
thanks for your autistic outburst tho
Verizon Internet Service
I live in South Boston and signed up for some kind of Verizon high speed internet about five years ago. It was good for a very short time. I called and the tech checked my download/upload speeds and was told it was OK. I called again and was sent a new router. When that didn't solve the slow response time, I called this year again and was finally told that Verizon couldn't provide the speed for which I initially signed up. They lowered my bill, but I never got any credit for the previous 4 years of lousy service. I live 4 blocks from what I believe is the switching station on East Fourth Street.
Same here in JP!
I got the same round-around from Verizon for years about the exact same situation. Paying for high-speed dsl and receiving unacceptable slow internet service. My kids complained vociferously and threatened not to visit me anymore. 'Spent wasted hours on the phone, had various technicians come in and fiddle around with the equipment, etc. One day a technician finally told me that I would never have fast service from them because of the distance of my location from the signal.
I got rid of them and never recouped my losses. I think this practice is not only unethical business practice but probably illegal as well.
verizon's lawyers
are really good and for residential service agreements they're within the parameters of the contract you signed.
also i hope you were kidding about the kids not visiting you anymore because that is genuinely sad if true
They were kidding (I hope)!
n/t
lol, good
lol, good
A few years ago, signed up at
A few years ago, signed up at one of Verizon's sales locations for upgrade to Fios. They checked the service map, made a date/time, etc...
Come the day, nobody shows up in the morning service window. Blow the afternoon on phone tag, finally get somebody from engineering (where no appointment had ever been recorded) who was able to quickly determine that my property was not able to be connected (which should have been evident to the sales people back on square one).
For some reason customer service wasn't sympathetic to my request for compensation at my hourly rate for all the time I took off work that day.
it should have been evident
but if it makes you feel any better, it was most likely a failing of the tools the sales people had rather than anything untoward
Sooo Long Verizon - Welcome RCN!!
As a result of the responses here, I have called RCN and made an appointment to turn off the Verizon spigot later this week. It really does help to learn that others have faced a similar situation. Now, maybe, I can read the Universal Hub without ....waiting...and waiting...and waiting for it to come up!
Switch complete - Why didn't I do this 2 years ago!
Why didn't I do this 2 years ago!!!!? Switch was faultless and easy. Service great. Internet FAST. WiFi connections easy. Used our own modem rather than renting RCN modem. Why would anybody in Boston stay with Verizon if they have RCN available - the question I now ask. Inertia and with the hassle of electronic gear, didn't want to take the time to do the changeover. It can't get easier than this. Do it if you are unhappy with Verizon. I don't think you will regret it.