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Review by destroyah See Profile

  • Location: Norwalk, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Cost: $110 per month (24 month contract)
  • Install: about 14 days
Steady 84/40 speeds using the Actiontec MI424-WR Rev. I
Occasional peering issues cause random slowdowns and packet loss, especially to Netflix and Youtube.
Still a good overall price, though it feels that we are paying for the east coasts low prices.
Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

Ordered: December 23, 2007

Installed: January 07, 2008

Running at proper speeds on: January 09, 2008

Other than the hurtles that I went through in the beginning with the Actiontec's poor firmware, it has been an excellent internet only service. I ended up getting one of the Motorola B-PON ONT's, though I wish it was one of the newer G-PON models.

Consistently get 14.5-14.8 on the download, and 14.5-17.1 on the upload, and that's with my D-Link DIR-655 with Beta 39 firmware connected through ethernet.

Will update once the 20/20 upgrade goes through.

Here's to hoping it will survive the 100+ degree with high humidity summer temps here in California.

A special mention here for James, one of the Fiber Network Field technicians, who helped with the four hour install along with his work crew of three. They did a clean, efficient install. After installing a modular ethernet jack that wasn't properly pumping out 15 mb/s, as it should be, he then came by a day or two later and replaced it. It's been working properly since that day.

Edit: Called on Monday, the 23rd of June, to inquire about the free upgrade to 20/20. Billing was very knowledgeable about the upgrade, and a order was put in for the upgrade. I was told it would take effect on the following day at 4:00PM. Lo and behold, on the following day at around 1:00PM, downloads increased to 19.3-19.6 mb/s. Upload was down to about 8 mb/s, so I rebooted the router. That didn't fix the problem, so a couple of power cycles of the ONT later, and my full speed became a reality.

I'm very happy with the upgrade, and latency seems to have gone down as a bonus.

Edit: October 15, 2008 - So far reliability has been ok, though I'm going to dock some points off, since every once in a while the upload is being throttled for some reason (ie. 23.6-23.8 goes down to about 10 mb/s. No clue why this is happening, but a total shutdown and restart of the ONT fixes this, after two or three tries. It may be the terrible heat we have in California right now. ;P

Edit: January 07, 2009 - I'm docking 1 more point from reliability, since I had to reset the ONT a couple of times for the last week of December since my upload was dropping down to my previous DSL levels. Since I'm not the only one using the connection (there are a couple of PC's in my household), this hampers my own experience on my PC. I just hope VZ stops sending adjustments to the ONT, since I'm almost 100 % positive that is the reason for the occasional problems, since both phone and internet run well the rest of the time.

Value for the money was dropped down 1 point for the above mentioned trouble.

Edit: August 03, 2014 - An update is in order for the amount of time that has passed since my last update. Speed upgrades that have gone by include a jump to 25/25 speeds, then down to 25/15, and then to 50/25 since Quantum tiers have been available. This past year, around November, my ONTs trusty BBU finally failed after almost 6 years of service. VZ was able to dispatch someone within 72 hours, and they installed a current model, along with a new battery, and everything has been running fine and dandy with the same Motorola 1000-m BPON ONT.

Since my two year contract was in the process of expiring in July, around June the 16th, I decided to check if VZ could throw me a bone, and give me any renewal offers around the same price point. I ended up jumping up to 75/35 for only about 5 more bucks plus taxes. With the current push by VZ to upgrade all tiers to symmetrical speeds, I shall update my review when I hopefully get the free upgrade in the next couple of weeks to 75/75.

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member for 18.9 years, 4454 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
updated 9.6 years ago

waiting4fios
join:2005-04-08
Howell, NJ

waiting4fios

Member

have you requested they send a tech?

Sounds like maybe you should have a tech come and replace the ONT or even the router, you might have a hardware issue that is going to continue to degrade where your reliability will end up being 0

destroyah
join:2005-04-20
Norwalk, CA

destroyah

Member

Re: have you requested they send a tech?

said by waiting4fios:

Sounds like maybe you should have a tech come and replace the ONT or even the router, you might have a hardware issue that is going to continue to degrade where your reliability will end up being 0
The first time this happened, I went through all the motions through the VZ direct forum. We troubleshooted the issue, and everything was fixed. I did not update my review then, but it happened in April, about 3 months after install. This was when I still had the speed at 15/15.

A couple of months later, when the 20/20 upgrade became available, I called the billing department, to order the upgrade. I was assured that no new contract was needed and I could keep my current 24 month contract. As I wrote in the review, at first when the upgrade went through, I was getting 19+ Mb down and 8 Mb up. Once I power cycled the ONT a couple of times, the speeds went up to where they should be.

Since then, whenever the speeds fluctuate too much, I just reset the ONT, and speeds usually come back up to peak condition. So I have been thinking it may be a problem at the central office, where I may be sharing the same B-PON link with too many 20/20 customers. So when this happened again in October, I called the FIOS solutions number I was provided with in the VZ direct forum, and talked to the CSR. He had me go through all the motions, and it was found that the problem was on their end, something about the gateway/router sitting at the following IP: 96.229.209.1

Since the service moved to these IP's, all my traffic has to go through this gateway, no matter what IP I have. Really weird problem, and while the speed comes down, my latency doubles.

Also, if you read the beginning of my review, I'm not using the Actiontec. I am currently using the D-Link DIR-655 with 1.21 firmware dated 11/13/2008.

Thanks for the information, waiting4fios. Maybe I'll give them a call, and demand a new ONT or a change of the CO cross connect.