Review of Verizon Online DSLAll reviews of |  about |
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08/21/08: I Called them back today to give it another shot. The rep that I spoke with was obviously from India, as her accent was so strong that I could barely understand her. I explained to her that I currently have DSL 3/768 service and was interested in upgrading to 7.1/768. She checked her system, and said that it was available in my area with a 1 year contract and that voice service was also required for $39.99 a month, then $42.99 a month after the first year was up (after renewing with another 1 year contract), at least this rep knew what 7.1 DSL was. Fine, I said sign me up. She gave me a service ready date of August 26th, said I could continue to use my current Actiontec router/modem, and that I needed to be home. 08/26/08 OK, 08/26 comes and goes, no upgrade. 08/27/08 I called them back today on the 27th and opened a trouble ticket. The rep I spoke with said that the last rep that placed the order for me, didn't enter it properly, and it was never dispatched to a local field tech. Ok, fine set me up again please. The rep gave me a new service ready date of September 2nd, and asked me to be home as the tech "may" have to do what is called a home run (place a filter at the NID). I said ok. 09/02/08 I took the day off and guess what? another no show. Ok, now I was not a happy camper. 09/03/08 Called back the next day on September 3rd, that rep said the same thing the last one did, the order wasn't placed correctly. Ok, set me up again please. The rep did so, and gave me a service ready date for September 9th (what is up with ONLY giving me Tuesday's, don't the field techs work more than one day a week?), anyway I said fine, and stayed home all day on the 9th, guess what? 09/09/08 You guessed it, NO SHOW., BUT, he did go to my local central office, and he CUT OFF MY INTERNET COMPLETELY., ok now I had had it. Called back that same day, was told that a rep would come out on the 16th some time between 8 am - 12 Noon, now I was fuming.It was bad enough I was missing time from my duties by taking off all day, but now I had no internet at all. When asking why I was cut off he said they have to do that first in order to upgrade my line to the new 7.1. That sounded fishy so I demand a supervisor, he says no that is not normal and said it must have been a mis-communication (yeah, no s*it). 09/16/08 The 16th comes, again a no show. 09/17/08 Called them the next day on the 17th and demanded a supervisor, who could barely speak english. He apologized several times and said he was escalating my problem to a dept for supervisors, and that someone from that dept. would be calling me within the next 24-48 hours to set up an appt. They actually called that same evening, and they set me up with a new service ready date of September 18th. They asked if I could be home. I said yes, I would be. 09/18/08 September 18th comes, NO SHOW! Now I am truly livid, as I have missed five days of my duties and stayed at home for nothing AND with no internet. I came here to DSLR and found a toll-free number to Verizon Customer Advocacy group, but guess what? they don't help you with a Verizon DSL problem, only a problem with your landline service. So I was back to square one. I called the outsourced call center in India and demanded to speak with yet another supervisor. Apparently none of the former reps or supervisors added ANY notes to my account, so they would know this is an ongoing issue, so I had to explain my lack of customer service issue to him from the beginning, he said to wait for someone to call me back from the same escalations dept. Finally someone from the USA got involved this time around, and returned my call a few hours later. The agent I spoke with said he would handle it personally and that someone would come out on the 19th and that I needed to be home, OK. 09/19/08 19th comes and again another no-show, called (you know the deal by now) and was given a new date of September 22nd (great,another weekend with no internet) Not like I really have a choice in the matter, Ok, fine I will be home on the 22nd 09/22/08 FINALLY a field tech shows up on the 22nd, but , not to my residence but to my local central office instead (field tech told supervisor I didn't need to be home after all, no home run required), since I reside in an large apt. complex, and doing a home run in a multi-dwelling unit can be troublesome and very time consuming, so now I had missed 7 days for nothing. This tech finally gets me up and running with 7.1/768 speed. He stopped by my apt. before heading out of town, and asked me to pull up my stats on the gateway to make sure I was getting good numbers. He was satisfied with the transtats, so all was good. I asked him if he knew what in the world happened with my upgrade. He explained to me, that apparently the first field tech who was dispatched to my local central office, moved my line over to a different card in the rack at the DSLAM but he didn't provision it properly once he moved it over. At least that was the gist of it, since it was nearly 7pm and past his normal quitting time, and the man was tired, as I was as well. So I didn't ask him to go into great detail. 09/23/08 I called Verizon Online billing/sales dept. today to complain about what I had been through and how I was being treated as a paying customer, and the retentions dept said they would give me 4 free months of service for all of my trouble, and being without internet for 2 weeks. So, I will update when my next bill arrives and let you know how that went. But I am not holding my breath with the billing dept., especially after what I had just experienced. 10/17/08: Well, bill cycled online today, and guess what? Yep. No 4 month free credit!I was charged the full $39.99 for the service. To late to call today, since the retentions dept. is currently closed. Will try to contact them on Monday when they reopen 10/20/08: Called retentions dept. today (was hung up on the first 2 times). Rep that I spoke with was very friendly and said she would handle this immediately. She said the original rep that entered the 4 month free credit, did enter it into the system on September 23rd, but she didn't enter WHEN the credit was suppose to actually begin. So, basically it just fell out of the system. She said she entered it again, for the credit to take affect asap, and that I would receive a statement in the mail confirming that my last 4 months paid service would be credited back to the account. I assume that they will just hold off billing me for the next 4 months, I could barely make out what she was saying, since I had to go through a rep in India first to get transferred back to retentions here in the states, so the connection was very bad. Hopefully it has been taken care of this time. I will update again sometime in the next 30 days to confirm if the credit went through as the rep promised. 10/24/08: Received phone bill in the mail today. Apparently Verizon Online credited the $39.99 back to my account on the same day that the paper bill cycled and was mailed out to me, just barely making it on the bill at the very last minute. Good thing I called on the 20th or I would have had to wait another month for the credit. So, I did get at least one month free, but I am not holding my breath that they will credit me for the other three. I will update in mid/late November when my next bill cycles. 11/20/08: Received latest phone bill by e-mail this morning. Verizon charged me the full $39.99 this month. So much for receiving a credit for the other 3 months. Unless they do what they did last month and apply the credit literally at the last minute before the paper bill mails out to me. I will update when I receive that bill by snail mail to let you guys know if that is what happened. At this point however, I am so frustrated dealing with them every month for the credits that I am just going to be thankful that I got at least one month free credit for the 14 days I was without service. I never did receive that so called statement in the mail, confirming the 4 months of credits. 11/25/08: Received latest phone bill by snail mail this morning. Sure enough, they charged me the full rate of $39.99 this month. So, apparently one month of credit is all I am going to see. I've decided to let it drop, its not worth the hassle of dealing with retentions yet again. 03/25/09: After not hearing anything more about my so called 4 month credit, my bill that I received today in the mail showed a credit of $171.96. Apparently I am going to get the 4 month credit after all, 4 billing cycles later. I must say I was VERY surprised after not hearing anything back from them since last November. After contacting billing, the rep said I was given a credit of $171.96 to cover 4 months of service at $42.99 a month. However I WAS paying $39.99 a month with a 1 year contract, which they were taking $3.00 off on the regular $42.99 a month, so I am not sure where the extra $3 dollars suddenly came from. I also noticed that they quietly extended my contract from September to December 2009. After the pure hell on earth that I went through last fall I will just let this slide, since by the time I fight them to get them to put it back the way that it was originally before applying the 4 month credit, my contract would have expired by the time it was all worked out. This company never ceases to amaze me. 07/31/09: I contacted Verizon Business Office today, after seeing on the portal that I was eligible for a bundle discount, by combining my POTS and DSL on one bill. Apparently I can get both Freedom Essentials and 7.1 DSL for $79.99 a month, which is called Verizon Double Freedom. I am paying $45.99 a month now for Essentials and $42.99 for DSL, so this would save me $8.99 a month off of my bill. The best part about this, is that the rep that I spoke with said I would be able to come off my 1 year contract, and would be placed on a month to month on the DSL portion. I can lock this price in for the next 12 months with no ETF if I drop the bundle. I would just go back to my previous billing. I took them up on their offer, so I guess I will see what happens to the billing when I get my next bill in late August. 08/21/09: I checked my online billing today. The paper bill went out a few days ago, which hasn't arrived yet, but I was able to view on the DSL side at verizon.net what Verizon Online was going to submit to the POTS billing as my current billing cycle before the $79.99 Double Freedom bundle reset it. Apparently I was taken off the $39.99 a month DSL billing. They reset my DSL billing by taking me off of my old billing agreement and entered me into a month to month agreement. They treated it as a new customer agreement, and basically reset my billing in January of this year under the promo that was running at that time for the 7.1 tier for new customer signups. The first 4 months are free and then it bills at $42.99 a month. I was placed on a month to month billing, which would run through December. Then the regular price would be $52.99 month to month with POTS. Of course this is all moot now since it will be reset yet again under the $79.99 Double Freedom promo that I recently signed up for. I then went to their main verizon.net signup page to find out exactly what they charge for the 7.1 tier at the full price month to month, with and without POTS. The current billing info for the 7.1 tier list it at $62.99 month to month dry,$52.99 month to month with POTS, $39.99 with a 1 year contract and POTS or $37.99 with a 2 year contract and POTS. No wonder they can't seem to keep the billing straight, they have so many different billing scenario's, there's no telling what you may end up with at the end of the day. 08/25/09: I received my bill in the mail today, and I was billed correctly under the Double Freedom bundle at $79.99 plus $12.01 in taxes and fees, for a total of $92. You gotta love those damn unfees! I can't believe they actually got it right this time on the very first try. Go Figure!  11/15/09: Connection has been pretty much rock solid since January of 2009, with the exception of a couple of minor outages that each lasted for maybe 3-4 hours. Bottom line is this, obviously there is very poor communications between the different departments at Verizon Online AND Verizon Business Office, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, and that is unacceptable with a so called telecommunications company. Usually when you want to give a company more MONEY, they don't require that you jump through hoops first to do so! As long as everything is running smoothly, and you never have to contact them for any reason, they are great, but god help you if you do have to call them! If you don't need hand holding and rarely have a need to contact support,unless something goes terribly wrong, then Verizon should do just fine. If you do need hand holding, I would suggest searching for another provider, IF that is an option. Attachments:  Followup comments:
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Verizon is now blocking SMTP port 25. Change this setting to port 587. Technical support could be better. You might get lucky, or you may fine yourself speaking with an idiot. By tweaking your computer's settings, you can get more bang for your buck. Verizon DSL users should optimize their connection for best results. Verizon says, "Note: You only need to run this optimizer if your Verizon High Speed Internet service speed is greater than 3Mb/second." My speed is about 2.8 Mbps. I ran the optimizer and it did improve the performance of my connection. Optimize Connection »www2.verizon.net/help/dsl_settings/ Followup comments:
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=== July 2008: We've moved, but are still in the area. Verizon transferred our telephone number and DSL connection (3M/768) as scheduled. Completely painless. It looks like speeds are a bit more consistent. It's a shame Verizon dumped the alt.* groups :-( === Feb. 2008: I check the connection daily and it usually performs as advertised - 3M/768. If not, a reset sets things right. Verizon works well for our home network and on-line games. === Oct. 2006: Nothing new to report. No need to call customer service, but sometimes the connection is slower than expected. === Dec. 2005: Current connection is 3M/768 and it is pretty smooth sailing most of the time. VOL sent a new Westell modem without any hassle the last time I called tech support. === Original Review: We made the jump to DSL from dial-up in May 2001. The Westell Modem kit arrived within a week with plenty of filters (about six). Installation was very straight-forward. I was connected at 640/90 within 20 days of my order, and that's how it stayed until the recent bump to 1.5M/128 in May 2003. I called Tech Support and the upgrade arrived the following week. We currently share the connection between 3 computers and the extra bandwidth is a blessing. === Thank you, Broadband Reports, for all the great information! Followup comments:
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I figured id come back to verizon. The connection is solid and I get the same speed when I need it most Id hafta say I can move more data during that time now. Not to mention im saving 15 bucks on the Phone/Dsl bundle. Had a few issues the first couple month until the Business tech support got involved once they took over my ticket they kept me informed on how they were handling my issue. Once the issue was resolved they refunded my 1st 3 months and the service has been awesome. the residential side is a bit flakey but business side is no joke Followup comments:
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Connection speed is as advertised 1492/374, slightly under, but close enough to call it exact. I got the Westel wireless hub from VZ, works fine, however I didn't try the wireless yet, no need for it at this point. I didn't use the Tech Support, so the rating is based on CSR that I placed the order with. The open relay blocking is bad, I'm watching the thread in VZ forum on it. I just had one of my friends forward me the return e-mail so I'll be contacting VZ about the blocking. UPDATE: 1/18/06 I downgraded to the lower 768/128 plan as cost saving measure. At this time, VZ DSL is probably the best value out there. I really don't notice a difference in the speed until I download a large file. E-mail attachments (3-5mb) take few seconds longer, windows updates download just fine. I play BF1942 and I don't notice any major lags or differences either. I'm not sure if the e-mail blocking is still there. I switched over to yahoo and the only e-mails going to verizon mail are the official stuff. One stupid thing about VZ is their security package, that they tried to push on me. I had e-mails coming about it almost daily for about a month after the upgrade. Now I get snail mail cards to download it. No thanks, doing just fine on my own. Update 4/12/07 The price went up to $17, however it is still a good value. No problems to report, except cat chewed on the cat5 and had to be replaced.. cable that is. I've since started using wi-fi and that is also working pretty good, although the Westel range is not that great, but I can still sit on the porch and get very good signal. Update 02/08 I had to move up to 3/768 level as uploading pictures was painfully slow. When you have a newborn, that's pretty much all you will do, upload pictures or send them through e-mail. Upgrade was painless, and took about a week, all done at CO. I had some initial problems with speed, but it turned out that one of my cats chewed through the wire. Took me 15min to fix and speed was up. Last I checked the upload was around 2.5, download over 700, so pretty close and good enough for me. So now I have 3 years and counting of solid performance from VZ. Oh an the cat now has 2 strikes... but I'm not sure which one, so I guess both will end up as General Tso Chicken one day. Update 11/09 Make that 5 years and counting without a problem. Even the Westel modem is still chugging along. I did use the wireless for a while but then my laptop crapped out. The Wi-Fi worked OK at best, not a very strong signal even in next room. Was enough to do light browsing, and to push updates to PS3. Followup comments:
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Although with the dreaded tech support, they wanted a one time fee of $89 for the Tech 2 "expert" people, just to help me change 2 UDP ports. I need those ports for a special VOIP program I use. I said to the "expert" what he could do with the fee. But in a polite way of course  Followup comments:
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About a year ago I switched to Verizon DSL Dryloop service. I don't have home landline phone service, so ordering/pricing/checking availabilty was a bit confusing. There are more than a few complications from Verizon when only having a dryloop DSL account. There shouldn't really be any. Billing is different and options are limited more with this type of account. I get no paper bill, and the website does not show the bill in a reasonable time after its in effect. Customer Service wise, the install was smooth. Tech Support is not the best, but I only had to use them once or twice since I have had the service. I did have the opportunity to call customer service and was very happy with my experiences. Verizon had made available better services at similar prices after my one year contract had ended. I was able to get the newly advertised prices and speeds without much of a problem, although I think it did involve a decent amount of attention from the service representative. I never notice any connection problems, or speed reductions while using this service. My ping times are relatively consistent and low. The Westell 6100 Modem/Router provided with the service is reliable and has proven useful when I needed to use it in different capacaties as a router or bridge mode, firewall, etc. Followup comments:
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My dsl is still going strong. No outages or slowdowns. I added Direct TV service for a triple bundle and said goodbye to Time Warner. We're very happy with this setup. 5/28/09 update: My phone discounts expired in December so I changed my service to a double freedom bundle and my download speed was increased to 1.5. My dsl has always been solid...no down time since I've been with Verizon. The few times I've called tech support this year have been positive so I gave them a little better rating. Rumor has it FIOS will be in Whitesboro (a suburb) later this year and shortly after that in Utica. I've noticed different wiring on the telephone poles around town and some large tan boxes on some of those poles. Sure hope that FIOS. 11/27/08 Called and got an upgrade to the 1.0 speed. I had to change from the $14.99/month for life to $19.99/month with a one year commitment...still a great deal for an always on connection. Speeds are very steady with a better upload and it's never been down since I got it. The fastest dsl speed in my area is 1.5 for $29.99 so the 1.0 speed is definitely the better deal. Unfortunately FIOS will not be here very soon. 1/10/2008 update: I was able to get the price for life online. Took several tries though. 1/8/2008 update: My dsl has been solid since I got it. No down time...steady speeds...all I really need in an internet connection. After setting up my mother-in-law's computer for the $14.99 for life 768 speed dsl I was impressed with it's performance and price. I just do email and surf...no heavy downloading. I could very easily live with the slower speed. And for $14.99 a month? Great price for what you get. I called Verizon billing to see if I could downgrade my speed to the 768/128 from my current 1.5 speed for the for-life price. They told me that offer was for new customers only but they could give it to me for $19.99 a month which I declined. Since I was not on a contract I told them I would rather cancel my dsl (I'm still on Roadrunner). They transferred me to the cancellations department. I spoke with a very nice lady who offered me the 768 service at 14.99 with a 1 year contract. She also gave me a reduced price on my phone service for 6 months. I accepted that and plan on calling them again when each offer is up. Too bad you have to play these games with them. Roadrunner has gotten their act together and also finally gave us a speed increase this month to 10/1 but at about $45 a month. I called them to cancel a few months ago and they immediately offered me $29.99 a month for a year to stay which I also accepted. I still have the kids living here and they like the higher speeds. I use the dsl and the kids use the cable...every one is happy. When they move out and if the Verizon connection is still steady I will just go with that and cancel the Roadrunner. Probably will have to haggle with Verizon every 6 months or so to keep the price low. Original review: I have been a long time cable user (Adelphia and then Roadrunner) but the switch over to Roadrunner was a bad experience in the Utica, NY area. We would lose connection or it would be dial-up slow and my voip (ViaTalk) would not work. I decided to switch back to Verizon for phone service and also decided to look into dsl as a backup connection. Since I was also getting phone service it took a little time to be activated. I've been on Verizon dsl a little over a month and it's been a stable connection with no down time. I have a Westell 327W modem/router. It took a few calls to tech support and a few visits from a technician but now I'm getting a consistent 1.5 down (too far to get 3.0). I don't notice much of a difference doing what I do over the internet vs Roadrunner (about 3.5 down). Cost for dsl is $19.99 for 6 months (then 29.99 after that). I also went with a Freedom Essentials plan for $24.99 for six months. After six months it'll change to a Double Freedom plan. If the connection remains stable I'll drop Roadrunner and just go with Verizon. I may not be saving any money with a Double Freedom over a cable/voip setup, but I have a stable internet connection and reliable phone service and that's what I want. Followup comments:
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About a month ago we lost our connection for 4-5 hours. The tech support person was pleasant during half an hour spent trying to fix it before learning there was an outage in our area. Followup comments:
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Verizon Online DSL
(139)
Crisfield,Somerset,MD
$40 per month
about 14 days
Verizon
"Connection reliability"
"Customer Service is poorly trained"
"Great, as long as everything runs smoothly, otherwise you'll be forced to deal with a poorly trained outsourced tech support."
Re: their teir 1 phone techs are the worst
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Business customer