Verizon DSL speeds
May 22, 2011 10:02 AM Subscribe
What effects the Verizon DSL speed I can get at my home?
My Verizon DSL download speed is consistently around 3 mb per second as advertised. They offer up to 15 mb per second for the same price. When I called to inquire about getting the faster speed at the same price I was told it's not available to my location. The telephone "switching station" is located 6 city blocks from my home.
My Verizon DSL download speed is consistently around 3 mb per second as advertised. They offer up to 15 mb per second for the same price. When I called to inquire about getting the faster speed at the same price I was told it's not available to my location. The telephone "switching station" is located 6 city blocks from my home.
The distance as-the-crow-flies to the station isn't important. What's important is the cable path length, and the cable almost certainly doesn't follow a straight line to your home.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:15 AM on May 22, 2011
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:15 AM on May 22, 2011
aside from the obvious answer which is that Verizon is run by a bunch of know-nothing bozos, I would guess that the answer has something to do with multiplexing. Either the lines in your area haven't been upgraded to the new equipment that allowed the jump from 3mb to 15, or your line is the dsl version of oversubscribed: if you live in an apartment building often the lines running out of the building are multiplexed to cram more phone customers on the same copper...
Age and quality of the phone lines to your house greatly impact the speed of DSL that you can get.
But Verizon will be happy to sell you the service anyway... they run America's greatest floating copper scrapyard .
posted by ennui.bz at 10:28 AM on May 22, 2011
Age and quality of the phone lines to your house greatly impact the speed of DSL that you can get.
But Verizon will be happy to sell you the service anyway... they run America's greatest floating copper scrapyard .
posted by ennui.bz at 10:28 AM on May 22, 2011
Best answer: And who is to say that your house uses the closest switching station? Also the switching station that you are connected to might need an upgrade to support faster connection and/or the backhaul network from the switching station to the core of Verizon's network might need to be increased before they can unleash 15mbps connections on this chunk of their network.
posted by mmascolino at 10:29 AM on May 22, 2011
posted by mmascolino at 10:29 AM on May 22, 2011
The best I can get from Verizon is 768/384. A local CLEC gives me 8MB/1.5MB over the same lines coming into the house. So you might want to check to see if you have any other local provider options.
posted by COD at 11:41 AM on May 22, 2011
posted by COD at 11:41 AM on May 22, 2011
Response by poster: The Verizon CSR was no help with supplying any reason why I couldn't get the higher speed. Your replies here give me a better understanding of the situation. Thanks.
posted by boby at 5:20 PM on May 22, 2011
posted by boby at 5:20 PM on May 22, 2011
The DSL signal runs from a DSL card at the phone company down the pair of wires direct to your house (along with your regular voice phone service). That DSL equipment is usually at the "central office" or CO. The cable distance from the CO to your DSL modem is generally what determines DSL speed capability.
One recent rule of thumb I've heard of is that 6 Mbps DSL requires that you be 6000 feet max distance from the CO.
However, that assumes 24 AWG wiring -- AWG is a wire thickness rating, where higher numbers mean thinner wiring. Often you will have 26 AWG (thinner) wiring along the path somewhere, if not the whole run. And that kills the signal.
Now, that said, the telco CSR likely won't know anything about this AWG stuff. They just know about the distance rules, and so if you are beyond X feet from the CO, they'll tell you that they can't go higher than Y speed. And they usually are trying to be optimistic, so if they say it won't work, it likely won't.
I know this partially because I used to work in the telephony business (tangentially), but more specifically because just last month I was distressed to find out that I can't get DSL faster than 3 Mbps at my new house. After 5 years of patiently postponing the DSL upgrade until we got the new house. BAH.
posted by intermod at 10:25 PM on May 22, 2011
One recent rule of thumb I've heard of is that 6 Mbps DSL requires that you be 6000 feet max distance from the CO.
However, that assumes 24 AWG wiring -- AWG is a wire thickness rating, where higher numbers mean thinner wiring. Often you will have 26 AWG (thinner) wiring along the path somewhere, if not the whole run. And that kills the signal.
Now, that said, the telco CSR likely won't know anything about this AWG stuff. They just know about the distance rules, and so if you are beyond X feet from the CO, they'll tell you that they can't go higher than Y speed. And they usually are trying to be optimistic, so if they say it won't work, it likely won't.
I know this partially because I used to work in the telephony business (tangentially), but more specifically because just last month I was distressed to find out that I can't get DSL faster than 3 Mbps at my new house. After 5 years of patiently postponing the DSL upgrade until we got the new house. BAH.
posted by intermod at 10:25 PM on May 22, 2011
The quality of the lines in the house and the lines going to the house is a huge factor. When my mom first got DSL, she was only averaging 400k download even though she was paying for 1.5Mb/128k. I ran all new lines inside the house, and dug and ran a new line from her house to the junction box, and had Verizon connect it up. She was now consistently hitting her speed cap, even eventually upgraded to the 3Mb/256k plan and was capping out on that as well.
posted by xedrik at 10:47 AM on May 23, 2011
posted by xedrik at 10:47 AM on May 23, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rhapsodie at 10:12 AM on May 22, 2011