Verizon FIOS questions

[marmasatt]

I really don't know where the hell to put this, so if someone here can answer it I'd appreciate it. We are a long-time FIOS customer out of contract. Verizon, in all of their wisdom doesn't give similar deals for existing customers as new customers, so many times you just have to leave every 2 yrs and then come back.

My question is this. (I don't really know the terminology but I'm going to attempt to use it here.) How do they throttle the internet speed down once it's already on a higher level at the housel? Are they always successful? The reason I ask is that right now I'm *currently* on 25/25 speeds. I actually get about 31/30. But I'm thinking about signing up for 15/5 because it's $20 cheaper and I'm not sure how easily they can 1) catch it first of all, and then 2) bring it down if they do see I'm actually supposed to go down in speed.

Thoughts?

 

[mnewsham]

Speed changes for me are always instant, currently have 50/30 from Fios and I get ~57/37
Moved down to 25/25 a few months ago but it only saved us $10 a month and I download enough where the extra $10 is well worth it for double the bandwidth. Each time I changed speed (upgraded or downgraded) it was in effect within a day.

That being said I have a friend who lives ~300 feet from a FIOS hub and gets unrestricted internet speeds. He only pays for 15/5 but he gets 400Mbps+ most days.

 

[mvbighead]

You likely have a device (modem) that is registered to you as a user. If you submit to have your speeds dropped, they make changes on the software side that'll limit your connection. They probably have automated systems that do this, or flag your device telling an engineer to make a change.

Long story short, if you ask them to drop your speed for a reduced bill, you're going to see your speed dropped. Be happy that you get sppeds like that and pay the bill. If you feel your speeds are too excessive for your needs, drop them. 15/5 is plenty for 99% of the things people do online. I am stuck with 10/1 DSL that does drop and reconnect from time to time. I generally stream Netflix/AmazonPrime/etc without issue.

 

[mfenn]

I'm 95% sure that they don't rely on CPE (customer premises equipment) to enforce rate limits. That opens them up to all sorts of nasty things that the customer will do (hacked firmware, etc.). It's more likely that the enforce the rate limits at some switch/router inside their network.

I say 95% because I know that this is how cable modem companies do it, and I can only presume that Verizon does something similar even though the tech is different. DOCSIS does have the capability to put rate limits down to the CPE, but nobody has used that since the early days of cable modems because it was so easy to hack.