We have Verizon DSL in our house. We’ve had it since we moved in, about eight months ago. Speed tests show that we get a fairly constant download speed in the 768kbps range.
I was looking on Verizon’s website, and notice that they advertise their residential DSL as having “Maximum connection speeds of 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps.” What i’m wondering is whether i can get this sort of speed from them, and if so, what i need to do in order to get it?
Is my download speed only 768k because that’s all my line will allow? Or is it poossible that i have an “older” service that needs to be updated, or upgraded, or whatever? Would i need a different DSL modem to take advantage of higher speeds? Does anyone else in the Baltimore area get higher DSL speeds from Verizon?
Though I’m not familiar wth your area, I do know that often they advertise the maximum speed, but not everyone may be eligible for that. For example, a friend signed up with Qwest DSL recently and they advertised a certain speed. He had massive connection problems until someone realized that his apartment complex could only get a lower speed (for technical reasons I don’t understand). They offered to switch him to the lower-speed service, though it costed the same. He wasn’t very happy about it, especially since it took about a month to figure it out.
You might want to call Verizon and see what connection speed your particular location should have.
I had Verizon DSL back when I lived in NJ. Unless they’ve changed their business model, they had two DSL plans you could choose from. The 768k DSL cost $34.99/mo and the 1.5 Mb DSL cost $59.99/mo. The exact prices may have changed since, but if you call them, they’ll tell you their current price structure. At the time the upload speed was capped to 128k on both plans, but it looks like they’ve raised the upload cap on the 1.5 Mb plan since then.
I’ve had DSL three times in Baltimore, most recently with Verizon. They never offered me any speed options for residential service. I test 1.5 down on my line, but I’m very near a switching station.
Looks like they have changed their price structure considerably. I was just off checking out their website. $29.99 a month, eh? Not bad. They do provide up to a 1.5 Mb connection, so it looks as if your speed is a copper issue, as others have said. Not much you can do about that, other than moving.
I wouldn’t say nothing. It’ll be like pulling teeth, and you may have to be escalated several levels but there could be noise issues on the line interfering with the signal, coils on the line that are artificially extending your loop length, inside wiring issues, etc that could limit the upper speed.
However, if you’re getting right around 768k, I would make them try to reprovision you (even if you “appear to be provisioned correctly”, re-doing the provisioning may fix something that’s out of whack in your configuration that’s not immediately visible via their regular systems) or even put you on another port card on the same shelf in your DSLAM (the big box at the telco central office that you’re hooked up to that generates the DSL signal on the phone line). The DC-Baltimore-Northern VA area was the first area that Verizon (Bell Atlantic at the time) first started rolling DSL out to. That area (at least while I was doing level II and III DSL/ISDN tech support there from '99 to '01) along with NYC and Boston, was one of our worst areas for these kind of issues.
Actually, I would reverse the above. Make them reprovision you and unbind and rebind you in their Redback router before you do anything else. That (used to, at least) fix 75% of the “unfixable” issues, esp. those dealing with low speed, that got kicked up to us. If they do that and you’re still getting a low speed, then start pursuing them checking the line.
BTW, one quick way to tell whether the issue might be a Verizon vs an inside wiring issue - go to your NID, AKA Demarc box(usually a grey box on the outside of the house) When you open it up, you’ll usually see a standard modular jack into which is plugged a short piece of phone line. Unplug that line and plug your DSL modem directly into that, then see if your speed issues change or not. Note that while you’re doing this, you won’t get any phone calls. If the speed goes up, you’ve got a house wiring issue and you’re responsible for resolving it. If the speed stays the same, then the issue (if there is one) resides on Verizon’s side, and they’re responsible for resolving it. Remember to plug that little phone cord back in when you’re done.