I have had Verizon Fios for a few years now and overall have been satisfied. However, over the last month or so my previously reliable Netflix streaming has gotten pretty much unusable. During a movie or show, it will stop for buffering every minute or two and hang for about 30 seconds, then resume, then repeat. I am currently suspicious that Verizon has put in place new network policies that corrupt the Netflix streams since they have a competing service. Or, they just don't care about providing the level of service i am paying for.
Here are some of the observations:
1) Problem comes and goes at different days and times so any of the following observations are hard to be 100%. One day we can watch a whole movie and it is fine, the next day we can't use it at all. Generally it is worst in the evenings when I presume Internet load is highest.
2) The problem occurs on both my Sony TV which has built-in Netflix and uses a wired connection to the router and a Roku box on a wireless connection. The problem does not appear to affect laptops streaming wirelessly but we don't use that much.
3) Resetting the router does not appear to make any difference and does not solve the problem.
4) My Verizon TV service, multi-room DVR, and general STB operation are normal.
5) I tried upgrading the Fios router from the original 10/100 unit to a more recent 10/100/1000 unit for $99. That didn't seem to help, in fact it seems worse.
6) I tried changing back and forth between 15/5 and 50/25 and it doesn't seem to matter. Right now I am still on 50/25.
7) I have run speed tests such as those on dslreports.com and have not been able to detect an issue and the reported speed is as expected. However, these are relatively short tests and would not detect a longer term streaming issue and they are not tests to the Netflix source.
8) When it is happening I have examined the traffic statistics in my router and the overall data usage is about what I would expect, maybe a few megabits per second for one or two active streams. Certainly nowhere near the advertised speed.
9) I went on my Netflix account and changed the speed/quality setting from "Auto" down to "Medium - Standard Quality". It worked better for one day, but was bad again last night so I think it was a random improvement.
If anyone has any suggestions on who I can contact to fix such a problem, let's hear it. Since it does not happen all the time and the standard response of resetting my equipment does not help, I am not sure if contacting customer support will do any good but I am ready to try.
Thanks,
.