Constant Verizon problems, is there any recourse?

[wash11]

We live in a remote area, off the grid so to speak. (Power, water, septic all handled by us. No landlines available) We are "line of sight" to a Verizon tower, which is our connection to the outside world when we want it. This service had been darn near flawless for several years with download speeds good enough to stream movies etc. We started experiencing slower speeds and periodic outages before covid and things have gotten exponentially worse over time. We pay $200 per month for a certain amount of data that we have no chance on using with such slow download speeds and down time has gone from 8-10 hours, lasting days now. This morning marks day 6 of the latest outage. The problem is tower specific, everything is great as soon as I drive far enough to pick up towers in either direction.

Emails, unsatisfactory surveys, hours on the phone (have to drive 20 miles to pick up another tower to make those calls) have all given me zero results. Is there anything a guy can do? Best case scenario is: I just want the shit fixed so I can move on with my life. Bare minimum, I feel like there should be some scooby snacks, discounts or refunds for the service that I've been paying for without actually getting it.

Going with another carrier isn't an option, we aren't close enough to other towers to get real service.

Starlink has been on order for several months, just waiting my turn.

We have Hughesnet Satellite as an emergency backup, painfully slow.

Our farm business orders are largely text message based. Our crappy Wifi through Hughes allows us to i-message with other iphone users but we can't communicate with Droid users- we've actually had to abandon a few delivery days because of this ongoing issue.

I am hoping maybe someone here works for Verizon or understands that industry enough to know where my energy should be focused to get this resolved.

 

[USMC2010]

Take your tractor over and "bump" the tower so they have no choice but to come out and perform maintenance on it. Or try to figure out where the local Verizon maintenance shop is and reach out directly to that office.

 

[wallnutz]

We live in a remote area, off the grid so to speak. (Power, water, septic all handled by us. No landlines available) We are "line of sight" to a Verizon tower, which is our connection to the outside world when we want it. This service had been darn near flawless for several years with download speeds good enough to stream movies etc. We started experiencing slower speeds and periodic outages before covid and things have gotten exponentially worse over time. We pay $200 per month for a certain amount of data that we have no chance on using with such slow download speeds and down time has gone from 8-10 hours, lasting days now. This morning marks day 6 of the latest outage. The problem is tower specific, everything is great as soon as I drive far enough to pick up towers in either direction.

Emails, unsatisfactory surveys, hours on the phone (have to drive 20 miles to pick up another tower to make those calls) have all given me zero results. Is there anything a guy can do? Best case scenario is: I just want the shit fixed so I can move on with my life. Bare minimum, I feel like there should be some scooby snacks, discounts or refunds for the service that I've been paying for without actually getting it.

Going with another carrier isn't an option, we aren't close enough to other towers to get real service.

Starlink has been on order for several months, just waiting my turn.

We have Hughesnet Satellite as an emergency backup, painfully slow.

Our farm business orders are largely text message based. Our crappy Wifi through Hughes allows us to i-message with other iphone users but we can't communicate with Droid users- we've actually had to abandon a few delivery days because of this ongoing issue.

I am hoping maybe someone here works for Verizon or understands that industry enough to know where my energy should be focused to get this resolved.

We had the same issue but in the city. We live near a mountain and when we first moved had excellent service. After a few years service went bad, it seemed like overnight it went bad. Come to find out, enough people complained about their service on the other side of the mountain and Verizon "adjusted" their tower. We were told this by someone that works on towers, Verizon said no that's not the way it works.

So what I am trying to say is, good luck and hope the best for you. I do like the tractor idea.

 

[Gramps]

Same issue here a few years ago. I knew the store manager in town, He said speaking to the customer service was a waste of time. You need to get in touch with the field dept. Go to the tower and see if there is any contact info posted on it. i like the bump the tower option. Who owns the land the tower is on? They might have contact info.

 

[WYRD]

Give them a call to report the trouble. If they find you're in a dead spot they can install a signal booster.

 

[FreeBird236]

You haven't said what they have actually done. When we had problems with the Frontier internet after being perfect for many years, although not the fastest, They had a tech contact me and after I explained the symptoms he thought he knew the problem, next day after about 2 hrs. of work and a couple calls from the tech everything was fine and I never ever got to thank him in person. He told me he replaced the port for my area or house a few blocks from the house. Been fine since, that was about 6 months ago.

 

[last1]

$200 a month for a certain amount of data? I would switch just for that
With all the new updates it may just be your phone.
We had sprint and they merged with t mobile. They said our old sprint phones won't work after the first of the year
We got 2 new phones for almost free and our bill dropped to $90 a month for everything unlimited
We go to remote spots in northern az and they work great

Do you have T mobile now, And it works every where?

 

[Booshy]

Have a picture of the tower? What side faces your house? If you wake up very early does it work better? Might be a user load issue? I know at my house early am things work better then as people wake up it slows down. I’m on a microwave link..

 

[c_land]

I have no real input. Maybe if you have a long gun some long range target practice should get Verizon’s attention

Starlink should be a huge lifestyle change for your situation.

 

[Xtrmwakeboarder]

Is it truly an outage? Have you tried a cell booster for your house?

 

[RadMan]

Verizon user. My next door neighbor at the lake house bought a $600 signal booster from Verizon and it fixed his issue. I spoke to Verizon store and was told Verizon also has a free booster they can provide and sounds like I’m a good candidate. My experience is similar to yours. I have not contacted Verizon about the free in-house signal booster.

 

[Taboma]

Probably due to the increase in truckers running I-40 all watching TV or YouTube videos. Is it better early Sunday morning perhaps ? I know all our ranch neighbors down the hill to the west of you all depend on I-40 sites and all require booster antennas and depend on that slow-ass Hughes net. A few have reported getting Star link and are jazzed. Hopefully you can get that sooner than later Joel.

 

[ChumpChange]

I guess this is why when I called you an hour or so ago it went straight to voicemail.

Bummer it's Verizon as one of the guys at the gym works the corporate tower stuff for T-Mobile. I'll try and remember to ask tomorrow morning when I see him.

 

[Englewood]

We just switched from ATT to have better service at the river and it sucks!

 

[wash11]

We had the same issue but in the city. We live near a mountain and when we first moved had excellent service. After a few years service went bad, it seemed like overnight it went bad. Come to find out, enough people complained about their service on the other side of the mountain and Verizon "adjusted" their tower. We were told this by someone that works on towers, Verizon said no that's not the way it works.

So what I am trying to say is, good luck and hope the best for you. I do like the tractor idea.

I think we are up to about 30 families in the area, all North of the tower with most of them on Verizon. I really don't know enough about cell tower technology or what they can and can't do but other than i40 travelers and our small community, there's nothing in other directions for them to focus on. And yeah, I REALLY like the tractor idea but feel like a D8 is more appropriate than my backhoe at this point

 

[wash11]

Same issue here a few years ago. I knew the store manager in town, He said speaking to the customer service was a waste of time. You need to get in touch with the field dept. Go to the tower and see if there is any contact info posted on it. i like the bump the tower option. Who owns the land the tower is on? They might have contact info.

You're right. Even customer service admits to sucking in this area. I messaged the owner of the property to gain access to see if there's a sign, that's a great idea

 

[wash11]

Give them a call to report the trouble. If they find you're in a dead spot they can install a signal booster.

Documented outage, they've known since Sunday October 3rd. When it works, Amy can stream as much midget porn as she likes with no buffering, on multiple devices. Our neighbors are down in a valley and did require a signal booster which helped quite a bit. The current problem- there's simply no signal from the tower to amplify.

 

[wallnutz]

Documented outage, they've known since Sunday October 3rd. When it works, Amy can stream as much midget porn as she likes with no buffering, on multiple devices. Our neighbors are down in a valley and did require a signal booster which helped quite a bit. The current problem- there's simply no signal from the tower to amplify.

I have no idea how the towers or "cells" work, but like I said in my first post they can be adjusted according to those that work on them. I wonder if maybe some wind knocked it off kilter? Maybe they did adjust it to serve I-40 better. Best bet is to be the squeaky wheel.

 

[wash11]

$200 a month for a certain amount of data? I would switch just for that
With all the new updates it may just be your phone.
We had sprint and they merged with t mobile. They said our old sprint phones won't work after the first of the year
We got 2 new phones for almost free and our bill dropped to $90 a month for everything unlimited
We go to remote spots in northern az and they work great

It's spendy for sure but it's also our internet service. I want to say we have a total of 240gb that we can hotspot on the plan but have only been using a fraction of that because of data speeds. As of next month we have pulled back to the bare minimum on data purchase. Rep gave me some bullshit about how, as a business customer with that data plan we get preferential speeds and with the change, that won't be the case anymore. I just laughed and said, "I really doubt it can get any worse at this point".

 

[wash11]

You haven't said what they have actually done. When we had problems with the Frontier internet after being perfect for many years, although not the fastest, They had a tech contact me and after I explained the symptoms he thought he knew the problem, next day after about 2 hrs. of work and a couple calls from the tech everything was fine and I never ever got to thank him in person. He told me he replaced the port for my area or house a few blocks from the house. Been fine since, that was about 6 months ago.

They sent out new sim cards in the beginning, swearing that it was our (almost brand new) phones. No change in service.
Followed by 19 claims of, "we'll send a tech out and get back to you". They've never gotten back to us and problems are still getting worse.
That's the entire summary of what they have done, minus sucking up about 25 hours of my time on hold the last two years

 

[wash11]

Have a picture of the tower? What side faces your house? If you wake up very early does it work better? Might be a user load issue? I know at my house early am things work better then as people wake up it slows down. I’m on a microwave link..

It looks like 3 sets of panels, facing all directions. It's a stepchild of a tower that was originally installed to service that stretch of i-40. I am told that those towers were never designed to handle loads like the ones in metro areas, nor will it ever be 5g. Our download speeds are all over the place, sometimes sitting under 1mb even at 4am. It was a pretty abrupt change which makes me think there's some sort of mechanical/software/hardware failure at the sight. We went from 50-70mb speeds to under 5mb almost overnight, a couple years ago.

 

[wash11]

I have no real input. Maybe if you have a long gun some long range target practice should get Verizon’s attention

Starlink should be a huge lifestyle change for your situation.

RDP campout/shootout weekend??

 

[wash11]

Probably due to the increase in truckers running I-40 all watching TV or YouTube videos. Is it better early Sunday morning perhaps ? I know all our ranch neighbors down the hill to the west of you all depend on I-40 sites and all require booster antennas and depend on that slow-ass Hughes net. A few have reported getting Star link and are jazzed. Hopefully you can get that sooner than later Joel.

The boosters have definitely helped neighbors that aren't line of sight. I can see the entire tower from our house- when it works we have great service. One neighbor is closer to the tower- line of sight PLUS did a $1000 booster. His download speeds are the same as mine. Fuck if I know at this point........

 

[FreeBird236]

They sent out new sim cards in the beginning, swearing that it was our (almost brand new) phones. No change in service.
Followed by 19 claims of, "we'll send a tech out and get back to you". They've never gotten back to us and problems are still getting worse.
That's the entire summary of what they have done, minus sucking up about 25 hours of my time on hold the last two years

That's crazy they won't even respond. I agree that it sound like something failed at the site. Like Gramps said you need to get directly to a tech, easier said than done. I do know that with Frontier I get better service with the PH# on the modem than calling the service # on the bill. Good luck.

 

[wash11]

I have no idea how the towers or "cells" work, but like I said in my first post they can be adjusted according to those that work on them. I wonder if maybe some wind knocked it off kilter? Maybe they did adjust it to serve I-40 better. Best bet is to be the squeaky wheel.

I've been trying my best to be that squeaky wheel, I really have. It's a minimum 40 mile round trip to catch the next tower so I can make the call that let's me sit on hold for 30 minutes before I get to jerk off the next customer rep that answers. I can almost recite the script at this point, "Have you tried re-starting your phone?" blah blah blah. My hopes and dreams revolved around a RDP inmate reading this that just happens to be a swinging dick at Verizon and could shed some light or point me in the right direction. That, and bitching out loud is soothing at this point.

 

[spectra3279]

If you get enough people complaining. They will re-aim one of the antenna. But it can take a lot of complaining

 

[Gramps]

try the number on this sign. they might steer you in the right direction

 

[Bear Down]

Joel,

Once you find the right contact/ #.. post it up and perhaps 30 members (your customers/friends) or so can call on a schedule and push the issue with valid "resident complaints"..

Good luck!

 

[Taboma]

The boosters have definitely helped neighbors that aren't line of sight. I can see the entire tower from our house- when it works we have great service. One neighbor is closer to the tower- line of sight PLUS did a $1000 booster. His download speeds are the same as mine. Fuck if I know at this point........

I'd read in another of your responses that this isn't a gradual service degradation but a reported and acknowledged problem Verizon is dragging their feet to respond to.
Unless they did a realignment to boost one coverage area at the expense of yours, which maybe a field tech might admit, but probably nobody else above him or her.
Hopefully you get it rectified.
But then I'm in populated Escondido area with marginal cell service and slow-ass at best 20 MB download DSL internet on it's best days and Star Link advises to pay them and wait at least a year.

But our weather is awesome, unless we're on fire of course.

 

[Ziggy]

We just switched from ATT to have better service at the river and it sucks!

We recently switched to ATT from V and we're looking for a way to switch back w/o it costing us a buttload. Miles & miles & miles of no service on our drive through desert with ATT. Aways had coverage with V.
On the lake they seem to be about the same although I have not been out much this summer.

 

[bowtiejunkie]

Since moving to Dallas area, Verizon has sucked badly. I had to buy a APC UPS battery backup to run the WiFi router just to keep internet up when power goes out. LTE service at house is worthless and even when out and about, there’s a lot of dark spots where LTE is terrible. Bums me out as Verizon has been great since 2002. I’m having bad thoughts of switching to ATT.

Hope you find resolution Wash11. Just takes finding that one person with the power to make real decisions.

 

[STV_Keith]

Joel, I know you said you have issues with your phones, and also said you have something that acts like a hotspot. If you have a Verizon hot spot, which device do you have? I have the 8800l unit which has a Class 18 modem. I wonder what class your hot spot has?

 

[wash11]

Joel, I know you said you have issues with your phones, and also said you have something that acts like a hotspot. If you have a Verizon hot spot, which device do you have? I have the 8800l unit which has a Class 18 modem. I wonder what class your hot spot has?

We used to have the jetpacks, now we hot spot from our iphones.

 

[wash11]

Turns out, it was a fiber line problem. Verizon does not own the fiber optic line that was cut, Century Link does. Service restored around 9:00pm last night, just a few hours short of a full week outage. My biz rep is crediting me one month, @$200. I'd pay twice that to not have this happen again.

 

[wzuber]

Documented outage, they've known since Sunday October 3rd. When it works, Amy can stream as much midget porn as she likes with no buffering, on multiple devices. Our neighbors are down in a valley and did require a signal booster which helped quite a bit. The current problem- there's simply no signal from the tower to amplify.

Have you filed a complaint with the PUC too? Are they useful or just another useless gov't entity?
Verizon response to your issue is complete b.s.

 

[Ziggy]

Since moving to Dallas area, Verizon has sucked badly. I had to buy a APC UPS battery backup to run the WiFi router just to keep internet up when power goes out. LTE service at house is worthless and even when out and about, there’s a lot of dark spots where LTE is terrible. Bums me out as Verizon has been great since 2002. I’m having bad thoughts of switching to ATT.

Hope you find resolution Wash11. Just takes finding that one person with the power to make real decisions.

We recently switched from V to ATT, no reason other than a deal that was offered. Other friends of ours with ATT seemed to always have the same or similar service as us so we didn't think twice about coverage.
Then on our first trip across the desert we found out ATT did not have service in certain areas.
We want to switch back now☹

 

[wzuber]

Turns out, it was a fiber line problem. Verizon does not own the fiber optic line that was cut, Century Link does. Service restored around 9:00pm last night, just a few hours short of a full week outage. My biz rep is crediting me one month, @$200. I'd pay twice that to not have this happen again.

It's great they finally figured out the problem and resolved it. I would still file w/the PUC. You are literally out thousands of dollars at this point from serv. Payments to lost business revenue and their only crediting you $200.00‽ What a slap in the face and grand disrespect for you and your business.

 

[nordictom]

try the number on this sign. they might steer you in the right direction
View attachment 1056818

American Tower, probably the largest tower owner (2-way & cell ) in the US. got a story about some dealings with them, too long to tell.

 

[wash11]

UPDATE: After two years of slow speeds and several outages, it's fixed. Somehow, my complaints finally made it up the food chain and I was contacted by the head Network Performance Engineer. Over the course of three weeks the remote tower received some substantial hardware updates/upgrades. Our average up/down speeds are up to 60x faster than what we had been fighting with. On the backside, we received a $600 credit and a bump by 80gigs of hot spot data per month- no extra charge. Am I still anxiously awaiting my Starlink? Absolutely. In the mean time, I am happy to have decent cell service and reasonably happy with the scoobie snacks Verizon offered.