Verizon FiOS → Steam downloading issue in Washington DC

There seems be ongoing issue since last night for Steam users on FIOS in the Washington DC area. Steam will connect, mostly function normally, and play updated games, but if you try to update an installed game or download a new one, the downloads fail to start. Took a while to narrow it down to the ISP, but it's not a local PC issue, or Steam client issue. Appears to be a peering issue with Valve's CDNs.

Is there way to contact Verizon about this? This is way above most tier 1 techs at Verizon support.

Discussion that helped narrow the issue down: »steamcommunity.com/discu ··· 9636453/

»Verizon Direct techs are more knowledgeable than phone CSRs. You’ll have to confirm you did standard troubleshooting, but then they can escalate.

I had no problems downloading a patch from Steam a few minutes ago, and I am also using the US - Washington, DC download region as well. If you suspect ISP problems, could it also be ISP router trouble? I recently replaced my G1100 with a G3100, and Steam downloads sped up from 2.8 MB/s to at least 10 MB/s. So which router are you using?

Disclaimer: I am an employee of Verizon Enterprise Solutions. The views expressed here are my own views and not of Verizon nor any of its subsidiaries.

Has there been any acknowledgment from Verizon on this? I live in the DMV and have been affected by this problem for four days now. Verizon customer service is absolutely useless and insists it's on my end or with Steam.

This Wireshark screenshot shows that you are successfully communicating with a steam cache server, but that server is returning you a HTTP 404 (file not found) error. This is a problem on Steams end, and not a Verizon issue.

So what can be done then?

Since this is an issue with the steam server, you'll have to contact steam and ask them to fix their server. Nothing Verizon can do.

Looks like Valve is working with Verizon to get this fixed. Hopefully the tweak they made in the interim ameliorates the problem until then: »steamcommunity.com/discu ··· 3/?ctp=7

This steam server is hosted and run by Verizon. The IP address in the logs that I get a 404 error resolves to the following hostname: static-151-205-27-15.clrk.east.verizon.net

This is a content server hosted by Verizon using the SteamPipe content servers cacheing server. See the following for more information:

"Valve has partnered with ISPs across the world so that most folks have SteamPipe content servers near them (“near” in terms of both physical distance and also network hops). This saves ISPs money on transit and peering."

»arstechnica.com/gaming/2 ··· h-blues/

Regardless it seems it was a route issue, as we should have been able to be routed to a server that was working if this one wasn't. Both Valve and Verizon needed to be involved in figuring it out. See:

»steamcommunity.com/discu ··· 44591675

So after doing a quick look on the wireshark logs, I'm actually connected now to 151.205.27.13 which resolves to another Verizon hosted content server static-151-205-27-13.clrk.east.verizon.net. Downloading fast.