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giffnyc
join:2004-06-24
Gardiner, NY

giffnyc

Member

Help with Frontier Customer Service

I have been having extremely slow speeds (300-500 K versus the normal 3 Mb service i have had for the past two years) going on three weeks now.

I have spoken three times to customer support and had two tech visits. On the second visit, the tech confirmed I had decent signal to the local box, and told me a "common cause" ticket was out for service in the area, and that my neighbors were having similar issues.

I felt bad for the guy, who was apparently assigned to go around and confirm that yes, the service sucks.

A week has passed, I've called customer service again and gotten information like: "The common cause has been fixed", then "I've checked again and found that I was misinformed, it has not been fixed."

Supposedly some form of "Emergency Line" was supposed to be tested today to the local equipment. Yet, no change, no estimate to repair, no information whatsoever about what is being done or planned and multiple weeks have elapsed.

Does anyone know how I can escalate this issue? Is there a local supervisor or executive who can light a fire under the group responsible for fixing this? It is ridiculous that despite multiple tickets being issued, there is no continuity on this problem.

I am in the Gardiner, NY area, zip code 12525.

I appreciate any assistance.

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY
·Charter
Ubee EU2251
Ubiquiti UAP-IW-HD
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-HD

4 edits

Smith6612

MVM

When it comes down to it, I have FrontierNet DSL service in Sanborn, NY and during the winter months of this year, more or less after the Christmas holiday, Frontier had the same kind of service in my area. Speeds were just great during the day with me pulling 3200kbps download, 390kbps upload with latencies below 15ms to the Rochester test server, but during the night the speeds would fluctuate anywhere from 200kbps to 1500kbps, upload would remain normal and latency would be anywhere from 34ms-150ms to Rochester NY. I called up Frontier after a few days of me noticing something with the line around 7PM. I got an agent in seconds, told them what was wrong, the agent remote connected to my PC after confirming that a speed test I was running to the Rochester NY Frontier speed test server was below half of my total throughput, checked to make sure my modem stats were fine (they were when I checked them, and when the agent checked them) and that everything was fine on my end. Shortly after, I showed them a DSLReports line quality test via the remote connection, showing them the varied ping graphs and packet loss, as well as a bunch of speed tests I ran. The west coast trace especially showed an issue, as that one ran entirely through the Frontier network from the test server and the east coast one was seeing the same issues, which was coming over Level3. I didn't have to explain a thing to them as they understood the test results. The agent put in a ticket for me, and the call ended. The next morning around 8AM in the middle of a heavy snow storm/blizzard, a Frontier technician shows up and checks over my line stats again. I show him my line quality tests which he understood as well and we talk for a little bit. He gave me his cell phone number and then he left. The tech right after leaving my home went down to Rochester for a meeting, where he mentioned what I thought was wrong, and it turns out what I said about our area running out of bandwidth was correct (Frontier knew about it before I called in, and they were delayed in bringing in more bandwidth due to suppliers they were waiting on). After this truck roll, a week later Frontier brought in more bandwidth. A month after more bandwidth was brought in, we saw packet loss but normal pings and speeds, and even Internet service in the area to everyone, even in the central office was going on and off with their DSLAMs crashing. Turns out Frontier's new fiber line got damaged, and it took 2 days to fully repair. Since then, everything's been rock solid and I've been happy. Just like in your case, others had called in about the same slow speed/packet loss issues as I did during the Winter months.

You've done everything that you had to do, so now it is a matter of waiting another week. If you have a phone number to one of the local techs, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to talk to them to see how the progress of the bandwidth installation is going. The techs in my area are nice people and had no problem letting me know how things were going, or even answering my questions about the system in my area. I assume they'll be just as nice in your area as well. Frontier has been doing a lot of backbone work this past year and hooking up a lot of new DSL customers from what I know, so they'll run into problems like this but they have been fixing them.

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR

darcilicious to giffnyc

Premium Member

to giffnyc
And this is the company that thinks they can take on and deliver FiOS speeds? *sigh*
Tollhouse
join:2008-07-15
Wallback, WV

Tollhouse

Member

said by darcilicious:

And this is the company that thinks they can take on and deliver FiOS speeds? *sigh*
from what i heard that last time i talked with someone 'in the know', all fiberlines for frontier after the takeover will be capped at 10mb down and get between 768k-1mb up.

while that is a TREMENDOUS upgrade in speed for me, for those on FiOS... it'll be a massive downgrade..... and also from what i heard, no change in the price you currently pay no matter whether you are getting the boost in speed or getting dropped speed.....

take all this with a grain of salt, though. can't confrim it as what was passed along to me is just what came down the grapevine....

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY
·Charter
Ubee EU2251
Ubiquiti UAP-IW-HD
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-HD

2 edits

Smith6612 to darcilicious

MVM

to darcilicious
I've talked to the tech in my area. He in fact would love to see Frontier start to offer Fiber Optic internet over DSL for more future proofing (despite the training he might have to go through) as well as myself, but when it comes down to it, all Frontier really seems to be able to afford at the moment is ADSL2+ 10Mbps/1Mbps speeds and some network upgrades, and of course considering buying half of Verizon's territory (taking on tons of debt in the process) and keeping their copper plant and fiber backbones up to snuff. It is costing Verizon a good grand or two per home to run FiOS cabling I believe, and another $300+ to install FiOS in people's homes, but Verizon has deep pockets from their wireless/telephone business and from the Bell Atlantic days. Frontier did state though that if they were to acquire some of Verizon's FiOS areas, they would continue to build out and install FiOS and keep the network up and running while looking into the technology for more developed areas, and even consider running fiber to homes (I believe they have a few already, I'd have to check though).

Sorry if I sound too optimistic, but I like to avoid being negative about situations unless I'm not in a good mood for much of the day, such as when I was ranting about poor local peering on most of the ISPs in my area. Speaking on that topic seeing the post above, if ISPs would find more local links to send data to, they wouldn't have to worry about lowering speeds, especially on the FiOS network, and especially if Verizon will be helping out Frontier for a while. But in all honesty I wouldn't doubt it if Frontier was only running a single Gigabit SONET ring to each of their areas.

But all I can and other can hope for is the best if Frontier does buy FiOS areas, and existing customers for higher speeds.

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR
·Ziply Fiber

darcilicious

Premium Member

Guess I'm in hyper-pessimistic mode -- I don't find anything optimistic in your post except for maybe this

"Frontier did state though that if they were to acquire some of Verizon's FiOS areas [...]"

IF? They apparently want to buy the wireline in four states that currently have FiOS. Does it seem like they won't get any of those sales approved?

"continue to build out and install FiOS and keep the network up and running"

You mean as well as they're keeping their current network up and running? DSLExtreme, here I come

As an aside, Frontier's Cable Franchise Transfer Request application (with input from Verizon even) to my local franchise authority is a joke.
darcilicious

darcilicious to Tollhouse

Premium Member

to Tollhouse
said by Tollhouse:

all fiberlines for frontier after the takeover will be capped at 10mb down and get between 768k-1mb up. while that is a TREMENDOUS upgrade in speed for me, for those on FiOS... it'll be a massive downgrade.....
Wow. I currently have 20/20 and I'm certainly not going to pay ANYONE what I'm paying for that for a measely 1mb up.

Hopefully just a horrible awful rumor...
Tollhouse
join:2008-07-15
Wallback, WV

Tollhouse

Member

said by darcilicious:

said by Tollhouse:

all fiberlines for frontier after the takeover will be capped at 10mb down and get between 768k-1mb up. while that is a TREMENDOUS upgrade in speed for me, for those on FiOS... it'll be a massive downgrade.....
Wow. I currently have 20/20 and I'm certainly not going to pay ANYONE what I'm paying for that for a measely 1mb up.

Hopefully just a horrible awful rumor...
i honestly couldn't tell you for sure this time. I haven't been told wrong yet when it comes to infom about the network and upgrades (at least for my area/west virginia).... WHat i was told could be solely for WV, or could be for the entire network... though i'm leaning towards just WV.... already got a solid Fiber rollout in the Frontier areas already and Verizon was upgrading all their trunklines here to fiber anyways.....