DSL service in Scranton (houses, cinema, live in)

[The-Electric-City]

I have a question for anyone on this forum that subscribes to Verizon High Speed Internet. Is your service reliable? I am asking this because I am becoming very frustrated with my service right now. I have been sitting on my computer for about three hours trying to accomplish simple tasks and I actually have only been connected to the internet for about 30 minutes.

Verizon claims its high speed internet service is reliable but that is just not the case, at least in my house. I have heard that bad wiring in the building or house can cause an unreliable connection so it makes me wonder if I have bad wiring. I am posting this to ask you if you experience similar problems with your Verizon high speed internet.

I refuse to call tech support after my last experience. I had to wait on hold forever and when I finally got an agent, who by the way I could barely understand, I was told that I should consider hooking my internet modem to a phone jack upstairs and get this, run a wire to my computer downstairs, simply because he couldn't find anything wrong with my connection and figured it must be a bad jack downstairs. I explained how I could hook a phone right up to that jack and it would work, but no, he insisted the jack must be bad.

[sues1]

Everytime we have a thunderstorm mine goes out.

[Mr Yuk]

Just get cable internet...I have Comcast and have had no problems with it.

[PITTSTON2SARASOTA]

Originally Posted by go phillies

Just get cable internet...I have Comcast and have had no problems with it.

I have Comcast too; but though it is fast; in Florida it is unreliable.

[NYRangers 2008]

I have Verizon DSL and it is horrible. Like sues said, everytime it rains it goes out. I used to have Comcast cable with internet, but I got so fe up with them. I switched to DirecTV and the service is just as a bad. To anyone I would say, try and stay away from Verizon DSL and the customer service is bad too.

[gherrm]

Had Comcast and Verizon DSL hooked up at the same time could not see the difference. Why two well had Comcast Internet and TV with HBO and Cinemax 107.00 a mo. dropped HBO and Cinemax bill went to 96.00 both are 15.00 services called them and they said we raise Your Internet price. Well got Verizon to try and never looked back had no trouble in five years. And I don't have Comcast TV no more either their price stinks.

[blip]

Originally Posted by The-Electric-City

I have a question for anyone on this forum that subscribes to Verizon High Speed Internet. Is your service reliable? I am asking this because I am becoming very frustrated with my service right now. I have been sitting on my computer for about three hours trying to accomplish simple tasks and I actually have only been connected to the internet for about 30 minutes.

Verizon claims its high speed internet service is reliable but that is just not the case, at least in my house. I have heard that bad wiring in the building or house can cause an unreliable connection so it makes me wonder if I have bad wiring. I am posting this to ask you if you experience similar problems with your Verizon high speed internet.

I refuse to call tech support after my last experience. I had to wait on hold forever and when I finally got an agent, who by the way I could barely understand, I was told that I should consider hooking my internet modem to a phone jack upstairs and get this, run a wire to my computer downstairs, simply because he couldn't find anything wrong with my connection and figured it must be a bad jack downstairs. I explained how I could hook a phone right up to that jack and it would work, but no, he insisted the jack must be bad.

Just switched last week from Comcast to Verizon. (Comcast absurdly expensive, $62/m + they nickel and dime you for another $4/m for the $20 cable modem.)

My service got spotty to dead from 9pm on last night, after the heavy rain. Verizon DSL in NYC was really reliable for me (an occasional power cycle on the router fixed any issues, once every other month or so.)

Guessing the issues here are mostly wiring between the box and the houses. Couldn't tell how old the wire to my house was, but it wasn't new. Wish I had clipped it before I made the switch.

I'm going to keep a log of issues, and see if this happens often with heavy rain. One thing you could do is take your garden shears and visibly distress the wiring outside. Then call them and insist they send someone out to replace it. (Just make sure you're not distressing a power line.)

[blip]

My service got spotty again today after a bit of rain. Called them, and spoke to a reasonably helpful guy with a strong E. Europe accent. He saw the intermittent connectedness on my line over the past 8 hours. They're doing another test over the next 24h, and will call me back. (Unfortunately, I have to hope it rains some more..) If they think it's a line problem--which I'm 99% sure it is--they'll then schedule someone to come out to fix the line.

So, takes 20 minutes, but I'd suggest you call them again to get it sorted out.. Just be persistent!

[Trucker7]

I live in South Side and have a pretty reliable DSL connection at 3.0 Mbps, other than brief interruptions (<20 seconds) when lightning strikes nearby. DSL signal depends a lot on how far are you from the phone company central station. In Scranton, that will be downtown. When I lived in NJ, I was 3.5 miles away, and service was spotty, even at 768K. 3 Mbps wasn't even available there. One thing that helped me a lot in NJ, was running a dedicated DSL line from the phone box outside the house to my computer room. Make sure it is a Cat 5e line (noise-canceling, twisted pair) and not a Cat 2 (regular phone) line. Verizon can then provide you with a DSL filter that gets installed in the box outside and filters the entire wiring of your house, except for the newly installed DSL wire.

Also, if you don't like the answers from the customer rep., which is probably an Indian guy half-way across the globe, take a deeeeeep breath and politely ask for a supervisor. I have dealt with Verizon customer service and felt like reaching across the telephone line and choking the guy at the other end.

[Trucker7]

I've also heard from a Verizon employee, that Verizon will be reluctant to fix a DSL issue if it involves making major upgrades to their copper telephone lines. The reason is that they are rolling out the FIOS fiber optic service which will make those copper wires obsolete.