(This is a new question about a different Verizon DSL line from my previous posts about DSL vs cable.)
I'm working at another location now which has Verizon DSL. The speed of uploading files via FTP is 200-400Kbps -- slower than it should be, but fine for what we're doing here. However the download FTP speed varies from 15-35Kbps, way too slow for most work. Verizon DSL tech came out and checked -- the upload speed on the Verizon side of the box was 500K, but the download speed checked out at 1.5M. This location is 2-3 miles from the Verizon central office.
My question is - why is the download speed fast and upload slow? Could this be due to something on my end? modem, OS, internal building wiring? OS is Win2000.
DSL is normally faster down and slower up with any provider, cable is the same and even the old dialup was the same years ago. Some providers will offer a symmetric speed at an extra cost
uploading files via FTP is 200-400Kbps -- slower than it should be, but fin e for what we're doing here. However the download FTP speed varies from 1
5-35Kbps, way too slow for most work. Verizon DSL tech came out and checke d -- the upload speed on the Verizon side of the box was 500K, but the down load speed checked out at 1.5M. This location is 2-3 miles from the Verizo n central office.
his be due to something on my end? modem, OS, internal building wiring? OS is Win2000.
It's not clear that the download speed is slow. Apparently you are measuri ng it as slow, 35KB/sec, but you said Verizon measured it at 1.5MB/sec on thei r side of the "box". How and where are you measuring it? What did the V tec h say when you showed him your results and problem while he was there? Wha t's in between where you're measuring it and where the V tech measured it?
It's kind of hard to imagine having a V tech come out, having 35Kbit download speed, and the tech not acknowledging that something, somewhere is very wrong.....
speed of uploading files via FTP is 200-400Kbps -- slower than it should be, but fine for what we're doing here. However the download FTP speed varies from 15-35Kbps, way too slow for most work. Verizon DSL tech came out and checked -- the upload speed on the Verizon side of the box was 500K, but the download speed checked out at 1.5M. This location is
2-3 miles from the Verizon central office.
Could this be due to something on my end? modem, OS, internal building wiring? OS is Win2000.
Sorry, I had it backwards in the last paragraph. Should have been....
Why is the download speed 30Kbps and upload speed 200-400K? Could this be due to something on my end? modem, OS, internal building wiring? OS is Win2000.
was 500K, but the download speed checked out at 1.5M. This
First thing I'd do is borrow a more modern laptop/OS and check it again. Are you downloading from the same site that works fast from other locations? Does your modem have error statistics? Noise on the line could be causing a lot of retries. Take the modem and the laptop outside. Unplug Verizon from the junction box and hook your modem to their end to eliminate the building completely.
The type of phone line matters. Used to be that every phone got a direct line to the central office. When they ran out of lines, they started bridging two lines to make a third. DSL may not like those lines. Their tester may be more forgiving than your modem. Your modem might be busted.
I once had a phone that developed hum. Turned out to be a staple thru one of the conductors. Took over 30 years to develop a symptom.
Can't remember if I've mentioned it in this thread, but I had DSL speed issues that were denied by Verizon...up until I got my hands on somebody local who went to the central office and flipped a switch on THEIR modem.
speed of uploading files via FTP is 200-400Kbps -- slower than it should be, but fine for what we're doing here. However the download FTP speed varies from 15-35Kbps, way too slow for most work. Verizon DSL tech came out and checked -- the upload speed on the Verizon side of the box was 500K, but the download speed checked out at 1.5M. This location is
2-3 miles from the Verizon central office.
Could this be due to something on my end? modem, OS, internal building wiring? OS is Win2000.
the V tech say when you showed him your results and problem while he was there? What's
My upload speed was always slower than download until a few months ago. The only way I can check it is by monitoring file downloads, FTP transfers up and down, and
formatting link
All confirmed that the upload speed is faster than download -- 30kbps up and 200-400kpbs down. It's the opposite from what I would expect.
I know nothing about internet signals, but I do know low power, and am guessing that my PC/modem doesn't put out enough power to overcome the resistance in the line to the central office.
Verizon just sent me a new modem to try with no instructions - Actiontec Model GT784WNV -
formatting link
There may be a manual online, but my system times out before the website connects. (This is the same company who gave my non-working Verizon number to the Verizon technician to call instead of the cell phone number I gave, and when there was no answer, he canceled the appt.)
So, without instructions, I just connected it the same as the working modem, powered it up and confirmed that these indicators light up: power, DSL, wireless and ethernet-1 (to PC). However PC does not connect to internet. I'm not about to spend another 20 minutes on hold waiting for some moron at Verizon India to repeat "and how are we doing today" and "I do apologize for your frustration" 50 times. Poor saps -- they say these folks make $1 a day -- which is more than Verizon managers are worth.
Now I put the old modem back and it's up and running right away again - slowly but at least I'm back online.
speed of uploading files via FTP is 200-400Kbps -- slower than it should be, but fine for what we're doing here. However the download FTP speed varies from 15-35Kbps, way too slow for most work. Verizon DSL tech came out and checked -- the upload speed on the Verizon side of the box was 500K, but the download speed checked out at 1.5M. This location is
2-3 miles from the Verizon central office.
Could this be due to something on my end? modem, OS, internal building wiring? OS is Win2000.
the V tech say when you showed him your results and problem while he was there? What's
My upload speed was always slower than download until a few months ago. The only way I can check it is by monitoring file downloads, FTP transfers up and down, and
formatting link
All confirmed that the upload speed is faster than download -- 30kbps up and 200-400kpbs down. It's the opposite from what I would expect.
I know nothing about internet signals, but I do know low power, and am guessing that my PC/modem doesn't put out enough power to overcome the resistance in the line to the central office.
Verizon just sent me a new modem to try with no instructions - Actiontec Model GT784WNV -
formatting link
There may be a manual online, but my system times out before the website connects. (This is the same company who gave my non-working Verizon number to the Verizon technician to call instead of the cell phone number I gave, and when there was no answer, he canceled the appt.)
So, without instructions, I just connected it the same as the working modem, powered it up and confirmed that these indicators light up: power, DSL, wireless and ethernet-1 (to PC). However PC does not connect to internet. I'm not about to spend another 20 minutes on hold waiting for some moron at Verizon India to repeat "and how are we doing today" and "I do apologize for your frustration" 50 times. Poor saps -- they say these folks make $1 a day -- which is more than Verizon managers are worth.
Now I put the old modem back and it's up and running right away again - slowly but at least I'm back online.
It's been 8 years since I did this, but back in the day, when you setup the service, they sent you a paper that had your login name and default password. I could alias the username/password, but the defaults always worked.
You have to login to the modem and setup your account parameters. There's the account number, password, domain, DNS, protocol, a lot of stuff, all written on that paper. You may also be able to find a tutorial on the verizon site. If you can't get to the verizon site, go next door to a working system to download it.
There may be yet another password required to login to your slow modem configuration user interface using your browser. With any luck, you can read the correct parameters out of your existing slow modem. If you don't have the password for your slow modem, you can reset the modem, but that will lose the DSL setup parameters you seek and it will stop working too. I don't recommend that.
Of course, misconfiguration of the slow modem may be the reason it's slow. Best to get the parameters from Verizon.
It seems the last line is the solution. All the rest hardly seems preferable to just waiting on hold for 20 mins with Verizon tech support. Especially when you're already having a major problem that you're trying to solve.
On the other hand these service companies continue to amaze me. They could send out a new modem with printed instructions. After all, if you need a modem, there is a good chance you can't access one that's online. So, for lack of a sheet of paper, how much time is wasted by *both* parties? Now you have a PO'd customer calling customer support, which costs Verizon money.
I have my own Cablevision story. About 13 years ago, when they were first rolling out cable internet here, I was one of the first customers on my street. At the time, they had a choice of either a brand new modem for like $150 or a refurbished one for ~$80. I chose the refurbished one. So, I try to get the thing going, and it won't work. They sent a tech out, a cable TV tech who knew zilch about internet. He measures the signal strength at the house and declares that the cable from the street to the house is bad. I pointed out that I had excellent TV service on all channels, but he says it's bad and that's the problem. So, they send a 3 man crew with a cable pulling tractor, and run probably 200 feet of cable through woods, around all kinds of obstacles, under a sidewalk, etc. A whole morning of work. Internet still doesn't work.
Cablevision sends out another tech, again, with no internet experience. He probes and probes, says he can't find anything wrong. Finally they sent a tech that had a notebook PC. He connected the PC at the street, it worked. He connected it at my office, it worked. Conclusion, it was a bad modem. I still had to go over to the CV offices to swap it. Then it worked.
There are plenty of lessons here, that you think a company would learn. First is, they need to get refurbished modems properly tested. The second is, try the simple things first. I had suggested it could be the modem, early on, but it fell on deaf ears. Third, send the right tech the first time. Instead, their incompetent practices cost them a lot of money. But that just gets passed on to their customers in the end too, shafting them again.
I know Vzn is trying to get out of the wired line business. When I had Vzn 6 years ago, I had almost the identical speed problem. After calling (non) tech support in India, I was told that I would have to plug the modem's power transformer (wallwart) directly into a wall outlet and not into a power strip ... totally ludicrous! And there was other nonsense like that too. It turns out that Vzn was selling off the wired stuff and didn't want to put any money into it. My telephone line was connected to a remote switch unit which had batteries that would only last seconds during a power failure and Vzn wouldn't even change them. We had a freak power failure and our land line was down for a whole day until Vzn decided to get their act together and bring in a portable generator. After Frontier bought in, they had to add a huge amount of bandwidth and the speed finally came up ... new batteries too! I still have to use Vzn for cell, because, in my area, if you don't use Vzn, you have pretty bad cell service. I'd drop them in an instant (for cell) if I could!
My verizon experience was that you can't find anybody local. I found a local big building with a Verizon sign and banged on the unmarked door till someone opened it. They gave me the phone number of the district manager. She was extremely helpful and facilitated the solution.
When I needed Comcast info, I found a Comcast truck on a call and asked the installer.
Bob, answering the phone in India has zero empathy for your situation. You need a modem, instructions for it and the data to put in it to hook it to your account. You don't know enough to ask for it. Bob has an icon that says, send him a modem, but there's likely nowhere to enter that you also need data, even if he knew absolutely EVERYBODY is gonna need that account info. And it would likely come from a different department.
On the surface, it's tempting to think that I could walk in the door and fix all that crap in an instant. Deep down, I realize that it's folly. Customer service sucks almost everywhere. I can't fix it. The things that need to change most are out of your control half way around the world. If the CFO thought it would increase profits, it'd be fixed in a heartbeat. Customers don't have viable alternatives in many cases, even if they could get out of the contract.
Hi, You can run speed test by going to speed test.net Ookla you can run it against any server you want. I regularly run it to make sure there is no change in speed. Distributing band width between users and assigning priority is done by adaptive QOS in my network router(at present Netgear R7500)
working modem, powered it up and confirmed that these indicators light up: power, DSL, wireless and ethernet-1 (to PC). However PC does not connect to internet. I'm not about to spend another 20 minutes on hold waiting for some moron at Verizon India to repeat "and how are we doing today" and "I do apologize for your frustration" 50 times. Poor saps -- they say these folks make $1 a day -- which is more than Verizon managers are worth.
formatting link
f
to http://192.168.0.1 and follow the fusking directions.
Sheeeeeesh! :-)
Thanks for the PDF instructions, CP. All OK until I tried to connect to http://192.168.0.1, then it times out and fails. Tried both Firefox and IE. Reconnected old modem and verified that it still connects to websites. For curiosity, I tried to connect to http://192.168.0.1 with the old modem and it also would not connect.
If any other poor sap gets one of these modems, the PDF is actually pretty good, but it's way longer than it needs to be, so below are the steps....
Copied from ActionTec instructions PDF:
Tech support: 888-436-0657
Connect modem to 110VAC power. Turn on modem power switch. Be sure green power light comes on. DSL light may blink. Be sure computer is powered on. Plug in yellow DSL cable between any yellow modem port and computer ethernet port. Be sure one of the 4 modem ethernet lights is green. May take a few minutes. If no, check yellow cable connections. Connect gray or black phone cable to modem phone port and phone wall jack. Be sure all other devices on this line have phone filters installed. Be sure power and DSL lights are solid green. May take up to 30 seconds. If DSL light continues to blink, verify with Verizon that DSL service is activated. For AT&T skip to (B) below.
(A) For All other Service Providers Open browser ? may get error message which is normal. Go to http://192.168.0.1 Main menu appears. Select "All Other Service Providers" When welcome screen appears. Click next. Wait up to 3 minute for auto-detection. Next window, enter ISP user name and password. User name may be primary email. Continue instructions in PDF to set up wireless network.
(B) For AT&T Providers Open browser ? may get error message which is normal. Go to http://192.168.0.1 Main menu appears. Select "AT&T customer".. If main menu does not appear, verify that ethernet port is configured for Dynamic IP. When welcome screen appears. Click next. Modem will connect to AT&T (up to 3 minutes) Following AT&T online instructions If window appears with Member ID and Password, record them for later use. Open a new browser window ? http://192.168.0.1 Setup screen appears. Enter ID and Password in "PPP" fields. Click Apply. Wait 2 minutes. Then return to AT&T window and complete process.
modem, powered it up and confirmed that these indicators light up: power, DSL, wireless and ethernet-1 (to PC). However PC does not connect to inter net. I'm not about to spend another 20 minutes on hold waiting for some mo ron at Verizon India to repeat "and how are we doing today" and "I do apolo gize for your frustration" 50 times. Poor saps -- they say these folks mak e $1 a day -- which is more than Verizon managers are worth.
http://192.168.0.1 and follow the fusking directions.
http://192.168.0.1, then it times out and fails. Tried both Firefox and IE . Reconnected old modem and verified that it still connects to websites. For curiosity, I tried to connect to http://192.168.0.1 with the old modem and it also would not connect.
y good, but it's way longer than it needs to be, so below are the steps....
es. If no, check yellow cable connections.
Are you sure you're typing it in correctly? Try typing just the numbers in to the browser:
192.168.0.1
That's all you need, just that followed by "enter".
That address is used by most routers, I guess you have a combo cable modem and router unit. The instructions list it for your router. I just tried it here on my D-Link and the router interface comes up. I'd say you don't have connectivity to the unit, except that you say when you put the old unit in, you can connect to the internet. I guess another possibility would be some anti-virus/firewall product blocking acce ss to that IP address, but that seems unlikely.
Last night I checked the file transfer speed -- 400Kbps up, 33Kbps down.
Then I bypassed all the house wiring & connections, and connected a new phone cable between the Verizon test jacks in the Verizon interconnection box outside directly to the Verizon modem phone input jack. Up/download speeds were exactly the same.
Someone will probably ask.... don't you mean 400K download and 33K upload? No, it's just like I said. The only SWAG that I have for the slower download is that I'm measuring it at the uploading modem, and the downloading transmitter is located 2-3 miles away at the central office?
hone cable between the Verizon test jacks in the Verizon interconnection bo x outside directly to the Verizon modem phone input jack. Up/download spee ds were exactly the same.
? No, it's just like I said. The only SWAG that I have for the slower download is that I'm measuring it at the uploading modem, and the downloadi ng transmitter is located 2-3 miles away at the central office?
What does Verizon say when you talk to them? They can remotely view the parameters on the cable modem, including the speeds, while you're talking to them. Did you get the replacement modem they sent you set up and working?
The speeds are the speeds, regardless of which end you measure it at. Stuff has to go in and come out at the same rate.
I have Optimum for internet and I'd blame the 10-15' of ancient RG-59 just before my PC modem as much as I'd blame anything else. 98% of the time my internet is reasonably fast, but every once in a while the laptop or PC "ca n't find" the internet! Every few months or so I unplug & reset both my mo dem and wireless router to resolve such hickups.
Also guys, let's face it: Two things have offset the increase in domestic internet download speeds(from 56kbps dialup in 1995 to 15-20MBps today): M ore sophisticated webpages(with animated ads and other crap) and the elepha nt in the room: 10-20 users today for every user back then. And remember, "user" does not always mean human. Lots of machines automatically access t he internet as part of their daily functioning - utility servers, commercia l enterprises, etc.
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