 Review by Smith6612 
member for 5.1 years, 2902 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 37 days ago
 North Tonawanda,Niagara,NY
 $25 per month about 10 days Verizon "Consistent Speeds, Very low pings" "Speeds are getting antiquated" "It's a good service to use overall, but keep in mind it is DSL."
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(ratings above consensus)
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I subscribe to 1Mbps/384kbps and currently recent 5Mbps/768kbps at the current time. Verizon recently hiked their price from $19.99 to $24.99 for the 1Mbps package. For 1Mbps, $25 isn't worth it too much. For 5Mbps? Worth it!
DSL is still working strong.
===OLD REVIEW===
Well, here's an updated review of Verizon's DSL service as I figured it's time to update it. For the most part, the DSL service has been working just fine for the past 4-5 years I've had it. I use the DSL like anyone else would today, streaming, downloading/uploading and playing video games. In terms of reliability, it's very rare to ever see the line down, though it seems as though every month or so the line likes to reset itself causing a re-sync. It can get annoying during gaming sessions (where it seems to happen the most) while you hope the modem comes online fast enough and obtains the same IP to get back in the game, but otherwise it works fine. Speeds are consistent, latency is consistent, and routing is decent but not as good as I feel it should due to the lack of local peering (only if you live in a major city will you get this). My line runs on FastPath, meaning nice, low latency can be expected from it (matching that of a cable modem or lower).
Going on about the speeds, this is the negative part about DSL these days. Obviously, it's DSL and you can't do too much about the speeds. Being a heavy user myself, large downloads or updates such as a game from Steam are rather common for me, and can take all night to complete. If it's large enough, can very well take over a day to complete. Add some additional time if you have other users or devices using the connection at the same time. Now a days with High Definition video becoming the Standard, YouTube streaming in HD can take hours to accomplish if a video is of decent length and is busy enough. Uploads of HD video to YouTube can take days, depending on quantity and quality.
In most areas, unless you are coming out of a Central Office, be expectant to be stuck with speeds of 3Mbps or less. Very few of Verizon's remotes have been upgraded to support anything faster from what I've been able to gather, and no amount of fighting or begging will give you anything faster. If you are fortunate enough to have the 5Mbps or higher provisioning, enjoy it, as you are in fact one of the lucky ones.
A few issues that are not directly affecting me however have made Verizon DSL lose it's shine in my eyes however, excluding speed from the picture. First issue is Verizon's Optimization system. We all know that it's there to help boost line stability, but with a simple look around the forums there's been times where other solutions could have improved line stability. Generally, the hate about the Optimization system is that it will turn down your line speed if it detects a problem. It can happen for no reason, or it can happen for a good reason if the line was in fact not stable. Once optimized, it's tough to get the line set back to where it was supposed to be unless you can improve the line condition yourself (It's hard to get Verizon to improve the copper unless a big problem is found in the line). The second issue I might bring up, which relates to speeds is an issue Verizon has known about for years and is one people here at DSLReports have known for some time. Verizon on many new hook-ups are using Juniper ERX Edge routers along with Lucent Switches (ATM/Litespan-based), and there is an incompatibility between the two pieces of hardware that trashes line quality, mainly on the download. There are work-arounds, but they cannot be done on every device, cannot be performed on Windows Vista or Windows 7, and don't give the best of results. If you're lucky to be on an ERX and not see such an issue, great! If you are seeing issues though, it's going to be rather tough to get the issue solved. The last issue I might address is the state of the Verizon copper network. In many areas we already know the network is starting to fall apart. Now that Verizon has in fact moved on to FiOS, the copper network has been neglected. Budgets have been cut a sizable amount giving the techs inability to repair the network (especially in my area from what I've gathered), only being able to do quick fixes which may or may not solve the problem directly. If you're fortunate enough to have FiOS, good for you. Otherwise, if you're in an area that Verizon bypassed for FiOS with old copper, be expectant to see problems soon.
Anyways, to get off of the negativity, I might as well wrap up the review. For the most part, this revision of the review isn't as positive as my other reviews are. Things have obviously changed. The DSL however is a reliable connection, which is something nice to have. The DSL has also been consistent for me, which is great due to the fact that I run a lot of real-time applications. Support can generally help you out but more complex issues such as with the optimization system or asking for ADSL2/FastPath may or may not go so well with support depending on the agent. The modems and equipment they offer are decent, rarely ever crashing though be aware Verizon can upgrade the firmware without warning on the modem. The pre-sales information as well as installation was rather good when I first got DSL hooked up.
But the simple reason I've lowered by Value for the money chart is due to speeds. The DSL is getting seemingly more expensive for the speed than other connections are such as Cable, and the aging network has been causing some problems for the DSL that have been rather tough to solve. I'm hoping FiOS arrives soon, but considering Verizon stopped building FiOS 3 miles away from me and haven't built anything since last January, I don't think I can hold out too much hope now that it will show up anytime soon considering recent news. Poor Verizon, missing out on a ton of new developments in the general NT area and a lot of older homes in the heart of NT. Tonawanda and Amherst have it, NT, nope.
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