FiOS was down 22 hours at home
16 years
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I deal with Verizon professionally.
When the internet went down at home, I got a real taste of how faceless of an entity they are. Good luck wading through the myriad of roadblocks to speaking with a human. It is easier to weave through eastbound traffic on the LIE at 17:00 EDT.
In 14 years of having FiOS, this was the first time it went down for more than 90 minutes, other than a power outage.
Also quite astounding that other than contacting neighbors, neither Verizon nor anything online can confirm nor deny service is out. Everything pointed at there is no known issue in your area, thanks for your money.
The one device that seemingly cannot recover from the internet being down? The TRANE thermostat. It was all jacked up. Said no network, yet I could control it with my phone. It could not see, nor connect/disconnect, from the 3 SSIDs in our house. It could see 2 neighbor SSIDs. It could not reboot--said to disconnect power (it's hard wired to the furnace). This made me realize how vulnerable we are to bad design/programming. My coworker said same thing happens to his, when the internet goes down.
I would say first world problems, but it's a bit more imho. We're far too reliant on being "connected."
All I can say is terrible. The end.
p.s. the best way to know there is no connectivity whatsoever, is to see that there is no dial tone. Remember the days when that was 99.999% uptime?
Verizon outage
https://downdetector.com/status/verizon/ Seems to report outages heavy around NYC and Philadelphia (others as well). Probably peaked around 4 PM yesterday.
John from PA
We are in for a world of hurt.
When everything is connected we are vulnerable to so many bad things and loss of control when there is no way around an issue.
Nuvi 2460LMT.
22 hours? try six days!
A one-inch rainstorm in my area last month killed off cable TV and interwebz in my town for close to a week. If you feel Verizon is faceless, try dealing with xfinity.
Garmin DriveSmart 5 My other toys: IMac quad-core i3, Mac Mini M1. MacOS: Ventura 13.3.1 The dog's name is Ginger.
11 days for me.
The Aug. 10, 2020 derecho storm in Iowa left me without power for 10 days and without internet for 11. It made me realize how dependent we are on technology and modern conveniences and how vulnerable we are without them. Fortunately I had a small generator and was able to purchase enough gasoline to keep my cell phone charged and my sump pump, refrigerator and freezer running. It didn't have enough capacity though to run the A/C.
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon
to keep your thermostat happy
I deal with Verizon professionally.
When the internet went down at home, I got a real taste of how faceless of an entity they are. Good luck wading through the myriad of roadblocks to speaking with a human. It is easier to weave through eastbound traffic on the LIE at 17:00 EDT.
In 14 years of having FiOS, this was the first time it went down for more than 90 minutes, other than a power outage.
Also quite astounding that other than contacting neighbors, neither Verizon nor anything online can confirm nor deny service is out. Everything pointed at there is no known issue in your area, thanks for your money.
The one device that seemingly cannot recover from the internet being down? The TRANE thermostat. It was all jacked up. Said no network, yet I could control it with my phone. It could not see, nor connect/disconnect, from the 3 SSIDs in our house. It could see 2 neighbor SSIDs. It could not reboot--said to disconnect power (it's hard wired to the furnace). This made me realize how vulnerable we are to bad design/programming. My coworker said same thing happens to his, when the internet goes down.
I would say first world problems, but it's a bit more imho. We're far too reliant on being "connected."
All I can say is terrible. The end.
p.s. the best way to know there is no connectivity whatsoever, is to see that there is no dial tone. Remember the days when that was 99.999% uptime?
I sometimes use my phone as a hot-spot and it is set up to present itself exactly the same as my modem/router. So,,, if you have cell service, and if you can keep your cell phone charged, and if it is a gibbous moon,,, you could consider that to keep your thermostat happy.
really
A one-inch rainstorm in my area last month killed off cable TV and interwebz in my town for close to a week. If you feel Verizon is faceless, try dealing with xfinity.
You can't even call your local store, any call to any store goes to one of those never ending robotic menus.
. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .
We've had att fiber
We've had att fiber (gigabit) since early 2018. A handful of maintenance outages after midnight here and there. As for actual outages, just a few, maybe 4 or 5 over that time. The most recent one was when they were doing some kind of work in the neighborhood, they took the whole system down.
Other than that, it's been far more reliable than any cable service we've ever had. Doesn't get affected by any weather events. No worries about any moisture/water getting into cable amps. The whole system is passive from the ONT to the central station. Just a strand of glass.
great idea
I deal with Verizon professionally.
When the internet went down at home, I got a real taste of how faceless of an entity they are. Good luck wading through the myriad of roadblocks to speaking with a human. It is easier to weave through eastbound traffic on the LIE at 17:00 EDT.
In 14 years of having FiOS, this was the first time it went down for more than 90 minutes, other than a power outage.
Also quite astounding that other than contacting neighbors, neither Verizon nor anything online can confirm nor deny service is out. Everything pointed at there is no known issue in your area, thanks for your money.
The one device that seemingly cannot recover from the internet being down? The TRANE thermostat. It was all jacked up. Said no network, yet I could control it with my phone. It could not see, nor connect/disconnect, from the 3 SSIDs in our house. It could see 2 neighbor SSIDs. It could not reboot--said to disconnect power (it's hard wired to the furnace). This made me realize how vulnerable we are to bad design/programming. My coworker said same thing happens to his, when the internet goes down.
I would say first world problems, but it's a bit more imho. We're far too reliant on being "connected."
All I can say is terrible. The end.
p.s. the best way to know there is no connectivity whatsoever, is to see that there is no dial tone. Remember the days when that was 99.999% uptime?
I sometimes use my phone as a hot-spot and it is set up to present itself exactly the same as my modem/router. So,,, if you have cell service, and if you can keep your cell phone charged, and if it is a gibbous moon,,, you could consider that to keep your thermostat happy.
I wanted to do that, but could not see where I could change the name of the SSID on my iPhone (I didn't put much effort into it).
I have a company hotspot, and it does have a guest SSID I've configured to spoof an SSID that we program gear to connect to. That way, I can do it from home (although it can't really connect to the co network, it can prove the gear was programmed correctly). My boss has a VeloCloud so that she really does have the company network in her house. The hilarious thing is she's always freezing up or dropping off of meetings as a result (probably a complicated and long path for her to connect). The days anyway of a co. device going straight to the internet are gone. Remember websense, that was funny at my last job when stock trading was blocked. Why do that? It was just the culture at the time, that people should be working, not surfing the web. Today, if one walks around an office, 85% of the people are doing something on their smartphones. Even cops in their patrol units...
Generator capacity?
Fortunately I had a small generator and was able to purchase enough gasoline to keep my cell phone charged and my sump pump, refrigerator and freezer running.
What is the nameplate rating on your generator?
Some years ago I bought a generator with the specific hope that at need I could power a refrigerator, or my internet connection, if not both at once.
I was quite suprised when the time came that my generator could not support the big startup transient load of the refrigerator, even though it was rated for several times the steady-state load.
personal GPS user since 1992
don't know if you're interested in jumping thru flaming hoops
Fortunately I had a small generator and was able to purchase enough gasoline to keep my cell phone charged and my sump pump, refrigerator and freezer running.
What is the nameplate rating on your generator?
Some years ago I bought a generator with the specific hope that at need I could power a refrigerator, or my internet connection, if not both at once.
I was quite suprised when the time came that my generator could not support the big startup transient load of the refrigerator, even though it was rated for several times the steady-state load.
I wish I had a better answer. If you do a search with the following arguments "rv air conditioner soft start kit" you can find products solving what seems to me to be the same problem. Needless to say there is no discussion of what is under the covers.
A search on "what is a soft starter" is a little more productive. As usual I'm a sucker for wiki articles e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_soft_starter
I don't know if you're interested in jumping thru flaming hoops to solve this.
Emergency Generator.
What is the nameplate rating on your generator?
Some years ago I bought a generator with the specific hope that at need I could power a refrigerator, or my internet connection, if not both at once.
I was quite suprised when the time came that my generator could not support the big startup transient load of the refrigerator, even though it was rated for several times the steady-state load.
Mine is a McCulloch rated at 5700 watts. It has a 13HP engine and a 5 gallon gas tank. I'm not sure if the brand is even manufactured any more. I bought it back in 2008 after the devastating floods in Cedar Rapids, and have only used it a few times during short duration power outages. The exception was the 10 day outage from the 2020 derecho, where I ran it about 16 hours each day.
I have 2 refrigerators, an upright freezer, a sump pump and a forced air gas furnace. When starting the generator, I have everything in the house turned off on the breaker panel (including of course the main so I don't bleed power into the grid and electrocute a line worker). Then I start up each appliance one at a time and try not to have more than 2 large appliances going at the same time. LED lights and small draw appliances like cell phone chargers can be used at the same time as the appliances because they draw so little power.
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon
Talking about electric outages and generators
That sounds like what I need. A generator would keep our well on and I would have a toilet!!
When the lights go out no water.
Mary, Nuvi 2450, Garmin Viago, Honda Navigation, Nuvi 750 (gave to son)
Last power outage (from a
Last power outage (from a bad storm) lasted twp days and the service stayed up until my UPS gave out. It was unbearably hot and had to leave anyway.
for power
I have 4 charged used car batteries (removed from my cars and 1 actually passes a load test). I then have 2 power inverters, one being I believe 1200W and pure sine wave, supposedly capable of running the fridge. But I won't do that, I'm already paranoid about the 2002 refrigerator monitoring its defrost cycle daily. I did hook up my RV voltmeter and once again that inverter seems to be doing what it says it's supposed to.
We would have enough power for small lights and charging phones and laptops etc. It is amazing how seemingly reliable wireless LTE is these days, and I have a hotspot from work. I have poor Verizon coverage yet can download at 75 mbps down. Only 1-3 mbps up, which wouldn't cut it if replacing the home internet...(1.5 up / 1.5 down used to run entire warehouses at work).
I guess none of the above fixes Verizon FiOS' poor customer service and high price tag, though.