Verizon DSL slow since Sunday January 6, 2013--Northern Virginia

Question

I will try to make this short as the last 4 days have been a real nightmare.
My normally and for a long time rock solid DSL 3360/768 began running slowly on Sunday January 6, 2013.  I let it go until Monday, January 7, 2013 when it became so bad I had to call for a trouble ticket.  Aside from the time I spent finding a number and waiting to create a ticket, I managed to get one created.
During the ticket creation process, no less than three tries of a line test by Verizon technical support showed (to them) no problems.  On the fourth try they said there was a "short" somwhere outside my house, they would send a technician.
On Wednesday, January 9, 2013 a technican arrives and begins the process of trouble shooting.  The NID is checked as well as all jacks/dsl filters.  The "problem" is indicated in a wall jack.  All speeds are verified with a meter the technician has, at the NID, at the wall jack and through the modem.  The modem although old (Westell 2200) have been very reliable.  The "short" is "fixed" and we begin putting things back.
When I try to get onto the net, everything is very slow (as I have been saying).  The technician is puzzled as am I.  I run several speedtests on DSL Reports and they all show various speeds ranging from .5 mb down and .7 up speeds.  I run several latency tests and there is severe packet loss along the traceroute.
The technician (who was very nice) offered to swap the DSL modem, brings in a Westell 6100g from his truck and we spend the next 30 minutes trying to set it up. After the technician calls his tech support, the modem is brought up and is working.
The Verizon webpage loads very fast.  When I go to do another speed test the results are the same.  The modem diagnostics show 3360/768, his meter shows 3360/768.  At this point he says that he does not know anything about third party websites and if the Verizon webpage loads there is nothing more he can do, at which point I agree.
Later last evening I get an automated call telling me that my problem has been resolved.  If I disagree I can speak to someone, which I promptly do.  When someone comes on the line I relate my story and they begin again testing the line.  This person immediately recognizes a problem and escalates my issue to a level two support.  While I wait, I manage to find a speed test on Verizon's website that (not suprisingly) shows the same slow download speeds as the "third-party" site did..
When the person returns to the phone (a call that lasted over an hour) I am informed that there are "network issues affecting my speed" and they are working on it.  Interestingly, the speed test on the Verizon website also has a message about my test being impacted by network issues and that I should run the test later.
As I wait for something to be fixed, I just wanted to relate my story as there is little anyone here could do to help me.
Hope others have better luck and you really do not want to hear my experience trying to order FIOS to replace my DSL.  I have already sold my Verizon stock after these last four days.

Answer 1

I feel your pain! Things are slow down below you in Fredericksburg, VA and customer service equally bad!
I have been having problems with slow DSL connection, extreme packet loss and latency issues for months in Fredericksburg, VA. Calls to tech spt are typical “line check is fine, nothing more we can do”.  Won’t send me a new router, or listen to any of the inputs on issues I am seeing on the network with test tools, etc. I told them it would be easier for me to and less hassel to just drop them and move back to Comcast, they basically send that fine with them, so I said transfer me to billing, of course I sat on hold for 30mins and gave up. .  I’ve been a network engineer for over 16 years, and I would treat an of my customers that way I would be fired, in addition we work till a problem is fixed no matter how small.
Over the last day, I took my Linksys router out of the picture, ran my laptop direct to my modem and got the same results, packet loss and slowness. Checked all my in house wiring and all is fine. I then hooked my modem and laptop directly to the test port or NIC outside the house and got the same results. So, not my wiring or personal equipment, still might be modem.  I even involved one of my neighbors that has Verizon DSL connection, and his connection is fine, however we compared trace routes to various places and routing path goes over a different back bone router than mine. Can understand why one house over travels a different path than me and I see packet loss about the same point that we separate out.
During all the trouble shooting I notice that I had static inside and outside the house, so I call Verizon again  told them I had static on my phone lines as well, this finally prompted them to send tech out…we will see what he comes up with…supposed to be here by tomorrow, we will see what happens. I note convinced it the wire more so a problem with the back bone network, as this problem comes and goes but this is the worst it has ever been. I am fed up with customer support or lack there of and will be ordering up Comcast this coming week, if all goes well will be say goodbye to Verizon.
Here is sampling of trace routes and pings, if by chance someone from Verizon actually checks this forum…which I never see anyone of the provide feed back.
C:\Users\Owner>tracert www.cisco.com
Tracing route to e144.dscb.akamaiedge.net [72.247.64.170]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1     2 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  10.27.29.1
  3     *        *        9 ms  ge-3-1-2-0.IAD5-CORE-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.8
1.21.250]
  4     *       11 ms     9 ms  so-6-3-0-0.RES-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.2
2.68]
  5    10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  0.xe-4-0-3.XL4.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.30.9]
  6     *       13 ms    29 ms  TenGigE0-5-1-0.GW1.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.38.250
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    17 ms     *       11 ms  ash-bb4-link.telia.net [213.155.130.2]
  9     *        *       19 ms  nyk-bb2-link.telia.net [213.155.134.128]
 10    17 ms    16 ms    19 ms  nyk-b5-link.telia.net [213.155.130.245]
 11     *       22 ms    17 ms  a72-247-64-170.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [72
.247.64.170]
Trace complete.
Target Name: www.pingplotter.com
         IP: 216.92.151.75
  Date/Time: 1/19/2013 9:13:06 PM to 1/19/2013 9:14:36 PM
 1    1 ms    1 ms    1 ms    1 ms    1 ms    3 ms    1 ms    1 ms    1 ms    1 ms  [192.168.1.1]
 2    9 ms    9 ms   12 ms   11 ms   *        9 ms    9 ms   11 ms   10 ms    9 ms  [10.27.29.1]
 3   20 ms    8 ms    8 ms    8 ms   *        9 ms    8 ms   13 ms    8 ms    8 ms  ge-3-1-2-0.IAD5-CORE-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.21.250]
 4   *       *       10 ms    9 ms   *        9 ms    9 ms    9 ms    9 ms    9 ms  so-6-3-0-0.RES-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.22.68]
 5   10 ms   13 ms    9 ms   10 ms   *       39 ms   10 ms   *        9 ms   11 ms  0.xe-4-1-0.XL4.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.2.253]
 6  N/A     N/A     N/A     N/A     N/A      56 ms  N/A     N/A     N/A      13 ms  0.xe-11-2-0.GW10.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.35.233]
 7   *       25 ms   35 ms   25 ms   *       *       30 ms   *       26 ms   25 ms  pair-gw.customer.alter.net [152.179.50.138]
 8   *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *      N/A      [-]
 9   *       25 ms   *       27 ms   *       26 ms   25 ms   *       *       27 ms  pingplotter.com [216.92.151.75]
Ping statistics for www.pingplotter.com
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 5, Lost = 5 (50.0%)
Round Trip Times: Minimum = 25ms, Maximum = 27ms, Average = 26ms