T1 Business Support from Verizon

Lightning Strikes

A  small office near Dulles airport in Virginia had a Business T1 line from Verizon because they didn’t qualify for DSL or cable Internet. Everything was working great for about 3 months. Then there was a big lightning storm.

When people showed up to work the next day, the Internet was down. Verizon told them that the line was good and that it was likely due to their router being hit by lightning. This seemed to make sense. But unfortunately Verizon was no longer responsible for the router after they installed it. Even though Verizon had sold them the router and set up all its configuration files, it was the office’s responsibility to diagnose any router problems and fix it. So the office asked me to take a look.

Finger Pointing

I ran a series of T1 loopback tests on the router and everything responded correctly. I even spoke to Adtran (makers of the router) and they agreed that everything looked good. So I called Verizon. Then the fun back and forth began.

Verizon VanVerizon said that they were sure it wasn’t their fault because they ran their own loopback tests. I asked them to come out. Eventually they did, but they didn’t come out when they said they would so I didn’t get to see them do any tests. When they reported that everything was fine, I didn’t believe them. I knew that they hadn’t even gone into the room with the customer jack and router since no one in the office saw Verizon enter the building.

So I had to set up what Verizon calls a “vendor meet”. Verizon said this was the only way to arrange a specific time. But Verizon warned me that if it didn’t end up being their problem, the business would be charged. Verizon didn’t show up for our first vendor meet because one of their techs was sick. On their second meet, the tech noticed some weird line activity but the Internet came back up.

The next day the line was down again. This process happened three more times, with the Internet going in and out and Verizon coming out occasionally but still maintaining that it was probably the router. Four weeks after the storm, one of Verizon’s techs finally switched out their line between the phone room and the customer jack. That fixed the problem and it has been up ever since.

The router wasn’t broken. Evidently the storm somehow damaged the last bit of line that Verizon owned, but that line was past the phone room that Verizon typically tested against.

The office had been ready to give up when this was finally solved. They were going to move to a cellular Internet solution.

Lesson: Verizon Sucks

This story illustrates Verizon’s failure to properly handle their business customers who pay $500 per month for T1 Internet service. By not being responsible for the router that they sold, Verizon was able to just point fingers instead of properly investigating the problem. Small businesses without a tech staff have no way of dealing with that. They can’t easily log into the routers and type Cisco commands to prove Verizon wrong. These aren’t as simple as Linksys routers for the home.

Verizon should provide a business solution that is responsible for Internet all the way to the local area network. This would have saved the customer a lot of time and money.

The only positive thing that I can say about Verizon is that at least they aren’t Comcast.

4 Replies to “T1 Business Support from Verizon”

  1. I’m in the same situation right now. Many wasted hours. I’m waiting for someone in tech support to call me back. I also in Va…must be Virginia”s water and Verizon techs don’t mix.

  2. This is also true of Verizon in my area. We are a computer/managed service provider in southern New Jersey.

    Comcast is quite responsive in my experience. We can usually get an update from tech support as to what the issue is immediately when calling.

    Compare that to not even being able to talk to a help desk for T1 issues.

    I think Verizon is also a victim of too much government and taxes and has trouble competing because of the old regulations.

  3. True of Verizon in the NY area. I received lots of attention during the T1 sign up and validation process but can’t get in touch with ANYONE who knows how to program the router since then (Tier1 in the Philippines doesn’t count). During our “Circuit Activation” the Verizon Engineer on the conference call couldn’t even tell us how to change the Default Passwords on the Router (you have been warned!). Don’t let them close the Activation Ticket until you get everything you want. Once you are “Activated” you’re strictly on your own.

  4. Installed this piece of crap Adtran T1 from Verizon Business a.k.a. MCI (MCI sucks, they sucked 20 years ago and they still suck now). Verizon made a bad deal acquiring them. Nothing but problems with this $500.00 month VOIP. DO NOT use Verizon Business. Verizon Small business is still as good as ever. Verizon has gotten to big and is now going to feel the pinch of unhappy customers. Too bad, it all sounded so good!!!!!!! How can you allow a division of your own business steal your own business and call it a “win back” when you go back to Verizon???? What a disaster.

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