Throttled no more - and never was!

I owe Verizon FiOS an apology.

In my last post, I suggested Verizon had throttled my connection in an insidious manner by remotely restricting the speed of my internal network to 10 Mbps. I now learn I was wrong. Still, I'm pleased to learn a new set of symptoms to watch for when a router is failing.

Many months ago, I discovered, but did not report, my Verizon-supplied Actiontec MI424WR router had mysteriously failed to recognize the encrypted wireless connection from one of my PCs. It had worked faithfully for some time, then suddenly refused to recognize the PC-provided key. I worked on the connection at some length, and finding it would accept something somewhat less secure, but still moderately safe, I settled for that lesser connection. I now believe that was the first symptom of impending failure.

The episode I reported in my last blog was but another symptom. It really made no sense to me that all 100 Mbps wired connections would work one day, and fail the next, yet the 10 Mbps would work without fault. I felt something was amiss, but Bocona's tendency toward believing conspiracy theories left me weak in that regard, and so I blamed Verizon... even though I had not spoken with them on the issue.

But when the router suddenly seized up and dropped all connections, I was left with no choice but to call Verizon. Power cycling did nothing for me locally, and while Verizon reported they could connect to and speak with the router from their end, their efforts to restart the router on their end produced nothing. They quickly gave up trying and overnighted a new router.

The new router (same model) works flawlessly. I'm again secured and back up to speed.

The moral of this story, all political motives aside, is when the Verizon-supplied equipment stops doing what it is supposed to do, I can troubleshoot to my heart's content, but should still contact Verizon support. It may well be that I'm experiencing symptoms of a bigger problem that only Verizon is aware of, and failing to report it only delays an inevitable heartache.

And while I'm at it, I should work harder to be more immune to Bocona's wild ideas!