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Review by catmandu 
UPDATED: 91 days ago
member for 7.2 years, 222 visits, last login: 15 days ago
 Grasonville,Queen Annes,MD
 $32 per month (12 month contract)
 about 12 days
 Verizon
 "Solid connection, always upgraded to best available download speed"
 "Menu driven tech support, even when talking to a person"
 "No complaints, no issues mostly, very little outage"
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4.5 years total service. Must reset the modem maybe once every three months. Basic home user with no complaints, just wish prices would drop a little. They say that there is no automatic update to a lower price if / when it becomes available (even with a new one year contract) like they do with their wirless service, but we'll see what happens when / if it is a possibility.
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Review by pjclere4
UPDATED: 93 days ago
member for 2 years, 45 visits, last login: 38 days ago
Millbury,Wood,OH
$30 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Verizon (ex GTE)
"Service/Speed/Local person Tech support"
"PHONE Tech Support"
"Good Service bad phone support"
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I have had Verizon DSL for close to 3 years now. I started off with the 786k service for $14.95/mo for a year, and then resigned when that was up for $17.95 (same speed). Then I called and got bumped up to the 3meg service when I bundled my services.
The service setup was hassle free. I got a free wireless dsl router. I have received acceptable speeds at 3meg since I ever changed it. I do get disconnects every few days, but that's not that big of a deal. It stays connected most days.
I have to say I have been satisfied and the service has been excellent up until a few weeks ago. I ran a speed test and was only receiving a downstream throughput of 400k with an upstream of 700k. When I saw that I thought maybe Verizon was experiencing network bandwidth problems or routing issues. I thought it would work itself out and I would be back up to my speed within a few days. It's been over 3 weeks now and I am still receiving 100-400k downstream depending on what server I am running a speed test on. I called tech support finally today and talked to them the for about an hour. First of all, HORRIBLE...
I explained my situation to them and they said everything looked okay on their end. The tech offered to run speed tests on my computer. I let him via GoToAssist. I thought it was neat they used that product. So he runs some speed tests from the Verizon.net web site, Speakeasy, and 2wire.com. They all come back with 100-400k max downstream speeds with 600-700k upstream. He then proceeds to tell me that the downstream speed is acceptable for 3meg service. I then explained that it wasn't. He says ok and calls tier 3 support in a private session while I am held on the line. Tier 3 instructs him to run some more speed tests and browse some other web sites. He also messes with some of my IE settings and disables my Windows Firewall. He looks at my task manager and explains to me that my memory is low and also that my processor is in use at 100 percent and how that can affect speeds. Ok, first of all, I'm an A+ & Network+ certified computer technician. He clearly did not understand what he was looking at and I explained that my computer was fine with 5% CPU usage and 2GB of RAM and how my computer was not the problem and that the Verizon network was. Finally, after raising my voice he created a ticket and told me that a tech would be out tomorrow (Saturday) to do some line tests. I then asked to be transferred to billing to get a bill credit for the service I was not receiving for the past 3 weeks, which I almost had to argue with that man to get. They applied a $17.99 credit to the account.
So, we'll see if the issue gets fixed. There is definitly something wrong with their routers and the path they take because 100-400k is pathetic for 3meg service. You can clearly see that in my line test reports that there is a problem, especially when they are failing.
If I didn't have this issue and horrible tech support call, then I was say 100% Verizon is the best, but that was pathetic today.
UPDATE 8/25/09:
Verizon dispatched a tech to come out this past Saturday. The tech tested the jack in the room the modem was located and the signal from the NID and said the signal was dropping off at the jack in the room. He installed a DSL splitter at the NID and ran a direct line to the modem. Fixed speed issue and also the disconnects issue. Verizon redeemed themselves. Had a great tech too.
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Review by eggman9713
UPDATED: 95 days ago
member for 6.7 years, 447 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Richland,Benton,WA
$42 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
"Good Speed for the price,"
"A dry loop costs more than if a phone line is installed."
"Service is great, customer service is not."
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Just moved out of my parents' place into a very new apartment complex. I have gone cell phone only because I just don't need a home phone. My friends have had very bad experiences with Charter cable here, almost on the level of Comcast in their markets, so I decided to go with Verizon. They were the telco at my parents' place and were great. Called to set up service and found out I could get the 3Mb/768kb package 8 dollars cheaper a month if I signed up online instead. I raised an eyebrow but said okie dokie. Aside from a minor clerical error in the install date, it was up and running right when they said it would be. I consistently get 80-90% of rated speed coast to coast and many times, sub 50ms ping times. Havent had an outage yet, but almost never did when they were my telco. Havent had to call tech support so I can't really get a fair rating there. 3Mb is way faster than I used to have, I don't know what im gonna think when they bring FIOS here, as rumor says they will. One little sticky wicket on the pricing though. A dry loop costs $38.99 per month where if you get local phone service (lowest tariffed line is $18 per month) it is $31.99. So its actually worth it to just get the dry loop if you dont need local phone service.
UPDATE 05-16-08: I just moved into a different apartment in the same complex and it took Verizon 2.5 weeks just to disconnect my old line and provision my old one. They could not give me a dialup account since I did not have a phone line with them, so they did give me a 50% credit for the month after I complained. Let me elaborate on the complaint process. It literally took me all day just to get through their loop-de-loop phone prompts to a human who actually knew what they were doing. I was transferred from person to person to person and in many cases, would get disconnected between transfers.
I had a similar runaround when I actually moved into my new place. The modem would sync, but could not get an IP address, and it literally took me 20 callbacks and 10 people to actually figure out what the problem was. Many of the reps simply read from their script and "power down modem, reset, blah blah" and I finally got someone WITH AN AMERICAN ACCENT who fixed the problem in 5 minutes by directing me into an unpublished configuration section of the modem. 5 minutes to fix a problem that had lasted over 10 hours. Yeesh.
Bottom line now that I have experience with Verizon's tech support, just hope you never need it, and if you do, (insert favorite deity name here) help you to get someone in a timely fashion who actually has a brain.
As for the service itself, still fast, still reliable. Everything except tech support is great.
Update 08-29-08: I think I am going to move away from Verizon. I am moving from my apartment, where we can get good 3mb service, to a house where their website says we can only get 1.5. I have been trying all week to get a hold of a human, and all I get is menu after menu looping over and over. When I finally managed to get through to the state DSL office, I was suddenly disconnected and told the number was no longer in service. Seems a bit strange to me. So therefore I cannot even get someone to help me transfer or cancel my existing service. Looks like I get to do it the old fashioned way, by SNAIL MAIL. My new opinion on verizon is that their service is fine, but turning it on or off or moving it will make your blood pressure skyrocket.
Update 09-18-08: I have spent 6 hours over the last 5 business days trying to contact a human to cancel my service at my old apartment. Every time I call I get run around and around and around in the menu and SOMETIMES get to be put on hold for an hour before being asked to call back later and subsequently disconnected. I am through with their customer-no-service and have had to resort to sending a certified letter to cancel my service. I simply asked them to cancel my service and if I received no word within 2 weeks that it was going to be cancelled, that I would not be paying a cent for service after this month. Sent that letter last week (to Florida for cripes sake) and have yet to hear back.
Update 08-22-09: I forgot to update what happened with having to send my letter to them to cancel my service at my old apartment. I sent the letter during the first week of September, and received the return receipt around September 15th. "All right, they got the message, they should shut off the service and not bill me after the last day of September, as I instructed." Well they called me about a MONTH later, after I had already moved out of the apartment, and said they were callign to confirm I wanted my service disconnected. I told them about the letter and they didn't have a clue, despite my sending it certified mail and the return receipt coming back with a signature. They said I would be billed for half of October and I said, "Yeah, I am not paying that." It took 10 minutes of arguing to even get the rep to realize what I meant by "certified mail". They finally agreed to not bill me for October after I faxed a copy of the letter and the certified mail receipts. I have not had any communication with them since then but they continue to spam my email address with offers and crap despite my demanding they stop. Guess it's time to invoke the CAN-SPAM act for whatever good it does.
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Review by scaramouche
UPDATED: 95 days ago
member for 1.2 years, 19 visits, last login: 4 days ago
Lunenburg,Worcester,MA
$34 per month
about 15 days
Verizon
"Never goes down."
"Speed drops significantly towards end of week when load increases. Could use more bandwidth."
"Acceptable service, excellent reliability."
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Speed drops significantly Thursday and Friday evenings due to customer load. Inadequate bandwidth. Live in a small town so FIOS is off somewhere in the future.
Dependable workhorse. Has never failed, even during the Ice Storm of 08. Powerlines were down for two weeks, but when I started the generator, telephone was worked and so did DSL still worked. Not so with cable. Cable goes down, you're isolated from everything. DSL may not be as fast, but more dependable for my money.
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Review by Tom54
Posted: 95 days ago
member for 2.3 years, 3 visits, last login: 56 days ago
Ridley Park,Delaware,PA
$29 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Few"
"Many"
"Get Cable"
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Speed varies wildly, signed up for 1.5 to 3.0 package, rarely get even 1.2. Was told by Verizon supervisor that 3 Mps means it MAY go anywhere up to 3 Mps. I have recently been lucky to get downloads at about a half a meg. Moving soon, back to cable for me
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 Review by Bobcat
UPDATED: 96 days ago
member for 8.8 years, 4974 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Bedminster,Somerset,NJ
$32 per month
about 5 days
Verizon
"Service is working perfectly"
"Neutered newsgroups; Initially provisioned at the wrong speed"
"Decent speeds for an excellent price"
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Update August 22, 2009: I've had Verizon DSL for 5 years, and it's still working perfectly. No outages in that 5 year period. Speed is 3M/768k bps. Nothing else to say.
Update June 16, 2008: The service is still working perfectly; It's never down. However, Verizon increased my rate by $2/month and eliminated most newsgroups from their news server. I have adjusted the ratings accordingly.
Update April 28, 2007: Verizon DSL is working perfectly. I recently heard that Verizon had increased the distance limits for the speed tiers. I'm at 11,765 feet and had 1.5M/384k bps service. I called Verizon and asked if I could be upgraded to 3.0M/768k bps. They said I qualified, and I was upgraded within 24 hours. Speed tests show 2725/725 kbps. Price is still $29.95 per month. Regarding the Verizon DSL service overall, no outages; zero, zilch, none. The newsgroup server has been fantastic. DNS working fine. I'm as happy as a clam.
Update Sept 19, 2006: Just updating the lower cost, as the rate has decreased to $29.95. (I'm saving $180 per year compared to the overpriced Optimum Online.) Verizon DSL service has been flawless. Zero outages. Newsgroup server has been great. DNS is working fine. Not much else to say. How can you argue with perfection?
Update Sept 19, 2005: I've had Verizon Online for over 14 months, and the service has been virtually flawless. There were some intermittent problems for a 4 hour period one Sunday morning a long time ago, but other than that one occurrence, my connection has been up 100% of the time with rock-solid 1520/378 kbps speeds. The only real problem has involved the DNS servers, and that was easily solved by switching to other DNS servers. VOL's news servers are fantastic and the email service has worked as well or better than any other ISP I've had. I'm very happy that I switched from overpriced OOL to Verizon Online DSL. The service is better overall and I'm saving $138 per year.
Original review follows:
I was an Optimum Online customer for 2 1/2 years. During that time, OOL imposed several price increases, while Verizon lowered their DSL price and increased its speed. So, I switched.
I ordered DSL online. The first month is free, and subsequent months are $29.95. My understanding is that this rate is permanent, and there will be no price increases for as long as I have the service. There was a $12.95 shipping and handling fee for mailing the modem. If I cancel within the first 12 months, I have to return the modem or pay a $99 fee.
The speed ordered was 1500 kbps down and 384 kbps up. Verizon "over-provisions" the line to account for the overhead. 1500/384 service is actually provisioned at 1792/448.
My "service ready date" was given as 7 days after I ordered. But the service was ready two days early. I was shipped a Westell 2200 (A90-220015-04) DSL modem, 5 inline filters (but no wall mount filter), a telephone cable, an Ethernet cable, and a USB cable. The installation kit arrived just two days after I placed my order. I used a mix of the Verizon-supplied pieces and parts I had from a previous DSL installation.
There were two problems during the ordering process. One was that the online installation status was wrong. If you order, don't bother with the online status page. The other problem was that my line was provisioned for the 768/128 service. I called Verizon's Billing Department to have them reprovision the line for the 1500/384 service. That was done quickly, except that I had to wait for the actual service ready date before they could submit the request.
The service works well, and I get 1492/370 on the speed tests. Verizon claims I'm 11,765 feet from the central office. Email works OK and the newsgroups are much better than OOL's. (On one text newsgroup I check, OOL had only 200 headers, but Verizon had over 14,000 headers!) The account comes with web space, but I haven't tried that yet.
The Westell 2200 modem actually has a PPPoE client and NAT router built-in. Since I have my own Netgear RT314 router, I set the Westell to "bridge mode" so it will operate like a traditional DSL modem, with my router handling PPPoE and NAT.
In summary, Verizon provides good service at reasonable speeds and a very good price. Unless you really need multi-megabit/second speeds, Verizon is a good choice for broadband.
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Review by mperkel
Posted: 98 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 44 visits, last login: 83 days ago
Gilroy,Santa Clara,CA
 Business customer
$109 per month (12 month contract)
Verizon (ex GTE)
"none"
"Still waiting for install"
"Stll waiting after more than two months for install"
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This is a complaint against Verizon's installation of phone lines to my home.
Placed an order with Speakeasy for DSL service second week of June. Turns out I have a bad underground 3 pair cable. They have isolated it to a 20 foot section and they are supposed to come out and replace it but they never show.
They tried to run an above ground cable laying in the grass and laying across my sidewalk but that was neither legal or safe. They keep saying they are coming out but they don't show. The last time they were supposed to come out they said they did at 6:00am and said they talked to me but they didn't. I'm getting really angry with Verizon and it's frustrating because I'm several layers removed from Verizon. Speakeasy has to talk to Covad who has to talk to Verizon.
I'm putting the blame on Verizon but both Speakeasy an Covad need to make sure this happens so if something doesn't happan I'm going to review them next.
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 Review by jasonreid25
Posted: 98 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 220 visits, last login: 59 days ago
Nitro,Kanawha,WV
$42 per month
"Price and availability"
"None"
"Good value"
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I recently switched from POTS bundled with 7.1 DSL service to a naked DSL. The transition was smooth and I saved over $40/mo. The quality of the service is excellent. I have been a subscriber of Verizon DSL for years and cannot remember any downtime. The speeds are constants and often exceed 7.1.
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 Review by Edge1
UPDATED: 98 days ago
member for 3.7 years, 1002 visits, last login: a few hours ago
York,York,PA
$30 per month
"Low cost"
"Dropping connections"
"better than cable"
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Lately its been dropping connections (a new phenomenon). Not sure if its Verizon, degrading old copper line infrastructure, or what. Comes and goes. Will take action (cable?) if problem persists.
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 Review by marcelle19
UPDATED: 102 days ago
member for 7.7 years, 1697 visits, last login: 23 days ago
Upland,San Bernardino,CA
$30 per month (month by month)
about 2 days
Verizon
"Decent speed for a low cost"
"Techs are pretty much clueless, or so it seemed on install"
"Good bang for the buck, if you don't mind doing your own troubleshooting"
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I have no real complaints against this company. You should be prepared to do your own troubleshooting regarding line connectivity (like if grounding is an issue, they aren't even aware of it), as much as such is possible. I wouldn't recommend using the tech support except as a last resort, as they tend to throw out recommendations and answers that really aren't viable or related to the problem; they will even schedule a field tech to come out to your home, and that takes at least a week or two, so you would be without service for that amount of time, which is pretty much unacceptable.
All in all, I like the service, but like I said above, be ready to do your own trouble shooting - or to wait for a long time before they send a field tech out.
On a positive note, the cost is amazing for the service. All the other providers I had and checked out would charge no less than $60.00 a month for similar service, and the main ones I've used go up as high as $100.00 a month for service that is not that much better.
Overall, I'd say I'm happier with this provider than I have been with others, simply because the price is so low.
A little side note: They called their service Verizon Online, and I don't see a similar title listed in the provider listings. You might want to check that out.
UPDATE: I've found the speed varies with different things, but stays around 3mb for the most part. If I'm downloading from several sources, sometimes I get 3.5.
I talked to their techs about something else, but they were pretty much as clueless as the first time I talked to them: oh, yeah. It was about service ceasing because of what I thought was the modem being damaged from a power surge (despite my surge protector), but it really wasn't their fault - it was my nic card that got fried.
They sent me a new modem which wouldn't work with USB drivers, so I switched back to the old one, tossed my nic card, and voila! Back in service.
I still have the modem they sent that won't work period: anybody want it? ;o)
Update: Well, everything settled in and I'm averaging less than the average user - the higher downloads are from multiple sources, still, but just using it as an ISP, the speed is a bit disappointing - the upload speeds remain closer to that which the company advertised than the download speeds.
Most of the time, the speed is still a good deal for the price.
****THIS IS AN UPDATE****
We have breaking news of marcelle19 going to the lowest speed package that is offered by Verizon....wait, I'm getting something now...OH, YES, marcelle19 will be seeking to, if God wills, go to the next tier where it is 3000 up, and, I believe, yes, I think, around 768 down...hmmm, no confirmation on that...but it is DEFINITELY a better speed package, like the one marcelle19 had around three years or so ago.
****THANK YOU FOR READING, THIS HAS BEEN AN UPDATE TO THE STATUS OF marcelle19's CURRENT ISP PACKAGE****
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