Review by pseudo 
UPDATED: 33 days ago
member for 60 days, 19 visits, last login: 23 days ago
 Brookline,Norfolk,MA
 $53 per month
 Verizon
 "Used to run fine (6 months ago)"
 "Runs extremely slow during peak hours (6PM-12AM)"
 "Verizon has major network congestion issues, avoid them"
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Install Co-ordination:
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(ratings below consensus)
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For the past 6 months or so my DSL connection has been running extremely slow every day without exceptions between the hours of 6:00PM and 12:00 AM. During this time I'll get around 300kbps downstream for a connection rated at 7Mbps.
A back and forth with Verizon tech support resulted in them sending out a tech 3 times to my apartment. The tech was unable to find anything wrong with my local connection. He concluded that it was probably a network congestion problem and had me switched to a less congested router. The switch had no effect at all which means that all their routers are congested. In fact, simply looking at the forums here at this site confirms this as many people from different parts of the country complain of the same issue. It's pretty obvious to me that Verizon is aware of these issues (how could they not be?) but figures most people don't notice so it's not worth it to spend the money to upgrade their capacities.
If you live in the Brookline, MA area, there's really no reason to go with Verizon DSL since both RCN and Comcast have connections that go up to 20Mbps for the same price Verizon charges for 7Mbps.
Bottom line:
Avoid Verizon DSL. If you use them, be sure to run speed tests during peak hours to ensure you are getting a consistently acceptable connection. If you find that you're not, switch immediately to a different provider and save yourself the tedious hassle of leading yourself to my same conclusions.
Update:
After calling them to cancel, they had the gall to charge me a termination fee. Unbelievable. "Well the contract states that it provides speeds up to 7Mbps". Yea fine, I don't expect a perfect speed all the time but I at least expect something reasonable (i.e. between 3 and 7mbps).
And by the way, the DSL companies always like to brag that cable is shared but DSL is not. This is completely false as once your unshared phone line reaches the CO, it's shared with everyone else. Yea sure, maybe it's not shared in the immediate neighborhood but who cares. What matters is the bandwidth pipe that you connect to and DSL's is as shared as cable's.
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