Verizon FiOS Experience

[Gamingphreek]

[RANT]

It's a shame that FiOS is such a good product, because Verizon's support might be the worst in history.

The long and short of my problem is that my apartment complex requires Verizon FiOS. Thus, Verizon, seeing an opportunity, agreed to pre-wire the entire building for FiOS (Thus no other ISP is possible).

Additionally, when they set up the routers (Which cannot be swapped out without crippling my Set-Top Box) all were configured to transmit at 100% power. Thus, interference is so bad that I am unable to connect at all to my wireless as no less than 15 Wireless networks are available at a given time.

Today, I called and had my request forwarded to a supervisor who, to be quite honest, was rude and unhelpful. Apparently the supervisor at a given call center is the CEO of Verizon as he couldn't forward me to anyone who I could use as a point of contact for a problem that affects the entire apartment complex. Not customer support, not his supervisor, no one - not a single person is higher up than this gentleman.

I'm now paying for 25Mbps/25Mbps service but have to stand hardwired right next to my router and not a single person at Verizon can help.
[/RANT]

Any suggestions? I can't find an E-Mail or Mailing address for Verizon Corporate to send a complaint in.

-GP

 

[RavenSEAL]

Life's not fair, suck it up.

 

[Brainonska511]

Turn off your wireless on the router, use your own router (maybe go N with 5.8Ghz) to provide the wireless signal by just turning it into a dumb access point. You could also try changing the wireless channel to 1, 6, or 11.

I'm surprised you would use the Verizon router's wireless, the one my parents have has WEP only encryption.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Turn off your wireless on the router, use your own router (maybe go N with 5.8Ghz) to provide the wireless signal by just turning it into a dumb access point. You could also try changing the wireless channel to 1, 6, or 11.

I'm surprised you would use the Verizon router's wireless, the one my parents have has WEP only encryption.

I've tried changing the channel, but there is just simply too much on each channel (1, 6, and 11)

Going with my own router creates a bunch of other issues as you are then "Double NATing". Additionally, I pay money each month for the router that Verizon provides - I shouldn't have to use my money on 2 individual routers.

The 5Ghz Spectrum would work, except that not all devices (ie: PS3) are Wireless 'N' compliant.

My Verizon router supports WPA2 AES encryption - the only thing I will ever use to encrypt my Wireless traffic.

Life's not fair, suck it up.

Your point?

-GP

 

[James Bond]

I've tried changing the channel, but there is just simply too much on each channel (1, 6, and 11)

Going with my own router creates a bunch of other issues as you are then "Double NATing". Additionally, I pay money each month for the router that Verizon provides - I shouldn't have to use my money on 2 individual routers.

The 5Ghz Spectrum would work, except that not all devices (ie: PS3) are Wireless 'N' compliant.

My Verizon router supports WPA2 AES encryption - the only thing I will ever use to encrypt my Wireless traffic.



Your point?

-GP

The solution given above is definitely the best one.

Disable NAT/DHCP on your router. Problem solved.

 

[Brainonska511]

Going with my own router creates a bunch of other issues as you are then "Double NATing".

No it won't. You need to set up the secondary router as a dumb access point (disable DHCP and NAT on the wireless access point and assign it a fixed IP address).

 

[Brainonska511]

You could also try talking with your neighbors in your building and seeing if they have wireless issues as well. Maybe you can get them all (or some of them) to turn down their wireless router's output.

 

[Gamingphreek]

The solution given above is definitely the best one.

Disable NAT/DHCP on your router. Problem solved.

Unfortunately only 1 piece of equipment is able to operate at the 5Ghz frequency and it doesn't get to the root of the problem. Furthermore, I would then be paying to rent this router AS WELL AS buying myself another router.

The apartments are not big. I know this is wishful thinking, but if everyone turned their routers transmit power down to 50% or so they would still have 100% coverage within their apartments while not bleeding all over the rest of the complex.

-GP

 

[Gamingphreek]

You could also try talking with your neighbors in your building and seeing if they have wireless issues as well. Maybe you can get them all (or some of them) to turn down their wireless router's output.

Coincidentally, I just posted that too

Really I am aggravated that not a soul in Verizon had the foresight to say, "Hmm this could be a problem". And then I'm aggravated at the "apparent CEO" that I talked to on the phone...

-GP