Verizon FIOS upload speed

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I have Verizon FIOS with 75 Mbps upload and download service. I’m running W10, up-to-date, no malware detected. While I do get pretty consistent 75 Mbps downloads, I’m only getting upload speeds of around 1% of that. (My uploads are primarily to Dropbox, Google docs, Amazon Glacier and Carbonite — all show pretty consistent dismal performance.) This has been going on since mid-2018 and has been gradually getting worse.

Oddly, about 75% of the time internet speed tests show good upload performance. Even more oddly, when the speed test is running the upload speed for whatever app I’m using also goes up by 10x or so. (Not all of the time, but maybe 30-50% of the time.)

I did one try with a support case with Verizon, but once I got up a couple levels and got a competent support person, they saw the problem, reset everything (FIOS box and FIOS router), got a temporary boost, but it quickly went back to the 1% level. I’ve also tried rebooting my PC, rebooting my router, and switching between wired and wifi — none of them have a discernible effect. I get much better performance when on some other network.

I’m pretty sure it’s a Verizon problem, but I don’t know what to try next. Does anyone have a suggestion?

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I also would have thought it could be your router that was slowing down things. The Verizon technician fixed it, you believe? Perhaps the problem is still in the router, because the fix was not done quite right or quite completely. Perhaps looking into an update of the router’s software would be the right direction to go now? Or, perhaps, the slow download is some limitation of your router’s model, if it is an older one, and a newer one may not have the same problem.

I also have Verizon FIOS with much the same arrangement as you do, and have not had any noticeable problems with the downloads and uploads I have been making for the last year, since my last upgrade of service that included higher up- and download speeds. But my supposedly fast down- or uploads are usually less than one gigabyte and very rarely more than that, while some larger downloads I sometimes make are expected to be slow, because the data come from servers known to be slow.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Did the higher tier tech do any line tests of all the connections, the outside of your domicile, any neighborhood distribution box?

You may need to call them back and ask them to run those types of diagnostic tests, it could be you might need a on-site service technician.

Also, did they offer to swap the older FIOS gateway/router for a new one?

As a thought, something simple can cause the largest problem.

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To be clear, your upload speed is sometimes 75Mbps and other times less than 1Mbps.

If this is the case, I would replace the router. If the problem continues, it is not in your home but somewhere in your neighborhood. FYI: never test speeds on a Wifi connection, ethernet is much more reliable.

Get up to speed on router security at RouterSecurity.org and Defensive Computing at DefensiveComputingChecklist.com

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