Does Verizon DSL still suck or have they cleaned up their act?

July 31, 2006 8:55 AM

I live in Queens, NY. I want to take the plunge into broadband. Verizon is offering a pretty good deal ($18.00 a month for as much bandwidth as I'll ever use) but I am a little leery. Four or five years ago, I was hearing nothing but complaints about Verizon's DSL offerings. So . . . does Verizon DSL still suck or have they cleaned up their act?

I'd really love to hear from Verizon DSL customers who live in Woodside, Astoria or Sunnyside, if you're out there and have MeFi accounts.

posted by jason's_planet to computers & internet (17 answers total)

I have Verizon DSL in Astoria, and have no complaints- works very well.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:58 AM on July 31, 2006 [1 favorite]

I had Verizon DSL in the olden days (1999-2000) and it was crap and I told everyone it was crap and it went down all the time. I have it now and it's fairly solid, knock wood. The few times I've lost connection I just powered the router on and off and it came back up, no downtime otherwise, about 80k downstream realistically for what it's worth. But I'm in brooklyn, not queens, fwiw.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:06 AM on July 31, 2006

broadbandreports.com
posted by lovejones at 9:12 AM on July 31, 2006

I'm not in New York, let alone Queens, but I have heard from two different sources (one a Verizon FIOS installer, the other a salesperson at Verizon) that Verizon is really making a push for FIOS. They want everyone on FIOS because in the long run the lines are much cheaper to maintain. So I would expect Verizon to be devoting fewer resources toward FIOS down the road.

How long of a commitment does Verizon's DSL require?
posted by justkevin at 9:12 AM on July 31, 2006

Verizon's DSL service is ok, if it's working. Their customer service is mediocre, at least if you have anything more than a PC plugged into it.

For a home drop, it might be ok, particularly if you're a 'price sensitive customer'.

My advice would be get cablemodem service, particularly if Road Runner serves your area.
posted by baylink at 9:38 AM on July 31, 2006

Just under a month ago, I ordered month-by-month Verizon dry loop DSL, 3000/768, for $35/month. Initially, the CSR told me it would be ready "by the end of next week" - that is, around 7 business days. Then it was extended by a week. Then by another week. Now the online Verizon "status tool" tells me that my service was up and running last week, on 7/27.

I am still waiting for service (which was scheduled to begin last week). Having spoken to no less than five different departments in Verizon, it seems that as a company it has terrible coordination and inter-departmental communication. Soe of the departments in Verizon claim my DSL is operational, others that it is not, and one claims that my address doesn't exist and that my order is fiction.

My difficult experience of actually getting DSL set up doesn't inspire confidence in me concerning its future operation of the line.

The long version is here.
posted by meehawl at 9:41 AM on July 31, 2006

In Philly: it took a month or so to get my dry loop DSL set up by Verizon, but after that, I haven't had any problems whatsoever. When I was having bandwidth issues, a guy came out and replaced my wall jack (old building, wires were shit) free of charge, and that took care of it. Now I regularly get between 1-3 mbps speeds. Not shabby.
posted by The Michael The at 9:51 AM on July 31, 2006

I live outside of Philly and in 3 years have only experienced one down time, for about 15 minutes. I had another issue where I would get temporarily disconnected from being online whenever anyone called my land phone, and they did drag their heels sending someone out to see why (not a high priority problem, admittedly) but when they found that I had some crap phone wiring from the 50s in my house, they replaced it all for free parts and labor, which they were under no obligation to do.
posted by iconomy at 10:00 AM on July 31, 2006

I dunno about verizon, but I've used RCN in Queens and they've been mediocre at best.
posted by jonmc at 10:16 AM on July 31, 2006

It really depends on how far you are from the central office. I live in Williamsburg and ordered Covad DSL through speakeasy ( http://www.speakeasy.net ) and am extremely pleased. It's a little pricey, but solid. And, the service I got, onelink, doesn't require an existing land line.
posted by JpMaxMan at 10:20 AM on July 31, 2006

I'm a short ways away in north Jersey and have had Verizon for about 5 years, and it's been fine. Very, very rare outages that are usually very short, and the one time we needed to talk to a service rep it went as well as any service rep call can really go.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 10:21 AM on July 31, 2006

In the Bronx I had endless trouble with Verizon. When the DSL was working, it was fine. When it wasn't, it would take upwards of three hours on the phone to talk to somebody who could do anything other than suggesting power-cycling the modem and rebooting. One time I spent 2 hours on hold to be told that my oputstanding ticket was a billing issue not a technical one (big fat lie, as I found after another hour on hold).

My technical problems were largely because I was a long way away from the exchange, so the line could only keep a connection at the slowest speed. Every now and again they would say "congratulations we have increased the speed of your connection for no extra fee" and I would have to do battle to get the damn thing dialled back down again.

Depending on where you are in Queens, you might also suffer from the shitty quality of Verizon's copper infrastructure, otherwise all might be fine.

The alternative broadband providers available to me in Manhattan now seem even worse. Yes Time Warner, that means you.
posted by nowonmai at 11:01 AM on July 31, 2006

I think the consensus appears to be that they have, in fact, cleaned up their act, with some rough spots and ineptitude remaining here and there.

For a home drop, it might be ok, particularly if you're a 'price sensitive customer'.

You got it! "Price sensitive" is my middle name.

How long of a commitment does Verizon's DSL require?

I think it's a year for the slower speed and there's a month-to-month option for the higher speed (which is what meehawl is having problems with.) And I definitely don't need something like fiber optic. All I'm interested in are text-and-photo webpages, iTunes and short YouTube movies. Nothing too fancy.

It really depends on how far you are from the central office.

Yeah. I could be wrong but I think I'm about five or six blocks away from my central office. So there might be some copper issues in my (older) building but I'm not worried about being too far away.

(Does anyone know if there's a map of Verizon central offices out there? Just curious.)

Anyway . . . thanks to everyone who contributed, those who've had good experiences and those who've had less-than-wonderful experiences. I'm going to give Verizon a shot.
posted by jason's_planet at 12:48 PM on July 31, 2006

I live in Queens and RCN has provided me very reliable cable modem service for 3-4 years now.
They'll do a package with phone and cable tv if you want, too.
I've heard only bad about Verizon DSL.
posted by BillBishop at 1:46 PM on July 31, 2006

(Does anyone know if there's a map of Verizon central offices out there? Just curious.)

Yes, because I have one for west central Florida.

They're usually internal documents, but I might be able to track down one for your area.
posted by baylink at 2:27 PM on July 31, 2006

They're usually internal documents, but I might be able to track down one for your area.

Thanks, but I meant to say "Is there a map on the web?"

Thanks for offering.
posted by jason's_planet at 8:02 AM on August 1, 2006

Follow-up: Finally got Verizon. Setup was painless. Everything's working very well.

Thanks again!
posted by jason's_planet at 9:41 PM on November 30, 2006