Assistance Needed For Internet With Verizon...

[Mayo]

A friend has just relocated from Oregon to Sarasota, Florida.  She signed up with Verizon for DSL service.  Verizon brought her a GT704WUG wireless DSL modem/router and connected it to her phone line, but that is apparently it: the installer didn't attempt to configure her MBP nor did he confirm that she has service. ("I just run the cable.")

My friend has spent several hours at the local Verizon store and on the telephone without success; I'll spare you the sordid details.

Does anyone have experience dealing with the Verizon set-up? Or should she consider switching to Comcast, which is also available?

A related question, kinda...   She has always had problems sending e-mail when using her MBP outside her house and even though she has contacted her Web site hosting company about the problem (she uses its servers for e-mail...) they have never volunteered information about an alternative SMTP port. The support services at its Web site are pitiful; most of the time I get messages that "the web page does not exist" or a "404 error." Nice...    I've advised her to contact the company to get an alternative port number. How does she change the default SMTP port for sending mail in Apple's Mail? I've looked for a setting but I haven't been able to find one; I use Eudora so my Mail experience is spotty at best, and I gave my Missing Manual to someone...

I've given her info about how to join TS so with any luck she will do so when she goes to the library to use its Internet connection. It's a little tough helping her from 3,000 miles away with no Internet connection at her house...

[sandbox]

Sarasota, Florida is a City as well as a county and it's right across the Skyway bridge from here.
I have had Verizon DSL and it was hooked up the day the line was pulled. there must be something MORE to this story, because not connecting her is leaving money on the table and Verizon doesn't do that too often.
http://www22.verizon.com/residential/support/contactus/
You can do a chat online if you have the details.

Comcast Triple Play Starting at $99 per month*
http://comcast.scnes.com/fl-sarasota-comcast-cable.html

Residential Phone, Internet and TV

If you are a current Verizon customer, please provide your telephone
number when prompted to do so by our Voice Response Unit. To further
protect your personal account information and to speed up the handling of your request, we suggest or recommend that you have your bill
available. Sample bill

Due to a temporary work stoppage, you may experience longer than normal hold times when calling our customer service centers. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.


      
Customer service - billing
1 800-VERIZON (1 800-837-4966)
Monday - Friday 8:00am - 6:00pm
      
Customer service - orders
800-483-4000
Monday - Friday 8:00am - 6:00pm
      
FiOS
888-553-1555
Customer Service - Monday-Friday 8:00am - 6:00pm
Technical Support 24/7

      
High Speed Internet
800-567-6789
Customer Service - Monday-Friday 8:00am - 6:00pm ET
Technical Support 24/7

      
Centro Hispano de Verizon
800-743-2483
Lunes a Viernes 8:00am a 6:00pm
      
Mandarin
800-483-8688
Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:00pm
      
Korean
800-483-7772
Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:00pm
      
Vietnamese
800-483-2262
Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:00pm
      
Center for Customers with Disabilities Voice & TTY
800-974-6006
Monday - Friday 8:00am - 6:00pm
      
Repair (24 hours)
1 800-VERIZON (1 800-837-4966)

[chriskleeman]

Geez Mayo, I wish I could help out on this one... the only comment I could add would be that I remember my sister having nothing but trouble with Verizon DSL in New Jersey, lousy tech support, and she was running a pee cee at the time. That was a couple, maybe three years ago.

I hope someone who has some experience with the Verizon setup will be along shortly!

Don't have a clue about Mail, don't use it.

Chris K

[sandbox]

alternative SMTP port 587 is almost Universal

[Xairbusdriver]

While various ports are available, I get the distinct impression that Comcast absolutely, positively wants any and every user to use their outbound servers, not someone else's. Using the outbound server at her hosting company could well be a problem. Inbound is completely different, Comcast doesn't seem to care where you get your mail. As a matter of fact, I have all/any Comcast addressed mail go to my Apple account and then download it. (Comcast is still having trouble remembering peoples info and occasionally asking for one password!)

Outgoing mail will still have whatever address you want to use, but it will also have info about what server it starts at (hopefully, anyway). I suppose that's why Comcast (and maybe Verizon) want to be able to control what gets their ID on it?

Here are a few pages that may help:
<Re-configure Your Email Settings to Send Email>
<Browser Info>
<General Internet Info>

BYW, the following instructions are supposed to get you past the normal phone menu helpbarrier: (800) 567-6789. Then say the following: ”I don’t know it” then ”technician”
My iPhone app, "Dial Zero," lists that number, also, but readers suggest (800) 340-6221 that gets you a live person in Florida. Whether she will be able to understand that language, of course, may be the problem!

[Reiddm]

They should have left a booklet with a CD (please do not use this CD, it will cause problems, or at least it did through out this Hi-Desert region) and instructions to connect and set up the modem, the address I have to use is192.168.1.1, yours may be different, but i believe they are the same!
In the network preferences select your choice of connection, I have run these numbers in the area called DNS Servers I have found if the field is set as:
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6
with this we have found the connection does not drop off into the sunset!
I know it shows it being optional but if I do not put this information in that area I will loose connection, it is the same with our little Mac club here in the area I live (probably 20 of us Mac users) we were haveing problems with the connection dropping and with this input we have been able to stay connected?
Don’t ask me, it just works!
Anyway, hope this helps, been with Verizon for about 7 years now and the only problem I’ve had is the modem only lasts about 13 months, one month past it’s warrantee, don’t that figure!!! Just quit buying their wireless modem and converted to Airport, life is good!!!!

Now the E-mail,

Name: your name
E-Mail address: i won't go there

under receiving mail

Account ID: mine is my e-mail address up to the @ symbol
POP server: incoming.verizon.net
SMTP server: outgoing.verizon.net

Verizon tried to get me to change the ports way back when, it did not help in my case, putting the right information in did take care of all and any connection problems we have had!

[Mayo]

First, thanks for the info so far... It is rather problematic attempting to trouble-shoot a Mac that is 3,000 miles away!

QUOTE

SMTP port 587 is almost Universal

That hasn't been my experience; the times that I have used an alternative port for sending e-mail it has always been a unique number and it wasn't 587. For example, the alternative port for my hosting company is 2525, and I understand that is a common alternative port...

QUOTE

I get the distinct impression that Comcast absolutely, positively wants any and every user to use their outbound servers

That may be true, but it is common for folks to use alternative e-mail servers for a variety of reasons. At any rate, my friend's e-mail problem is separate from her issues with Verizon (she was just curious about Comcast as an option to Verizon's seemingly poor tech support.) She just wants to be able to send e-mail via her Web host's servers. And she wants to be able to send e-mail when she is away from home and SMTP port 25 is blocked, which is very common when trying to send e-mail when on a network that isn't "yours."

For that matter, when I use Witopia's personalVPN I bypass Charter's servers altogether, so Charter doesn't even know that I am online and my usage isn't logged by Charter.

My friend mentioned that Verizon left a CD with her; she didn't mention anything about a booklet with set-up instructions.  So I will give her a call and see if she has the instructions.

She has been using an Airport base station to wireless connect to her printer; I assume that it isn't an option if she uses Verizon's router...

I think that she will probably have to find someone locally that does Mac tech support in order to get this all sorted out...

Hey Chris... Did you get the PM I sent you a day or two ago???

[pendragon]

My 2 €.015:

When I moved to Texas (from Maryland & Comcast), my only option was to use Verizon DSL.

Two days after placing my order, UPS delivered a “wired” DSL modem and 5 or 6 telephone line filters (the filters must first to be connected in-line to every phone).

After connecting their DSL modem to my computer, no joy. So I called Verizon tech support and explained I am a Mac user. Thanks for mentioning that, says the operator; we have a special Mac department. I’ll transfer you now. About 2 minutes later, all was sweetness and light.

Sorry I don’t have the number I called, but I think it was on the initial bill/order (or maybe it can be found on-line). The tech I spoke with well deserved a 5 mice rating.

That was about 6 months ago and I couldn’t be happier. When I used Comcast, my DL speeds were faster, but for day-to-day surfing, I see no difference, well, downloading a large file takes longer. On the other hand, I found Comcast would have frequent & unannounced service interruptions and their tech support was dreadful.

So I say, don’t grieve. Just call Verizon; that is why those folks exist.

[Mayo]

My friend told me that she spent a significant amount of time on the phone with Verizon; at one point she wound up being transferred to tech support in... India. No Joy!

I'm surprised that the fellow who brought her the modem and connected it didn't offer any additional assistance...

[Paddy]

I suspect that if she calls and threatens to switch to Comcast unless they get someone out to the house to get her connection working, she might get some action.

Nicely threaten. As in "Given that my calls to tech support and my own efforts have yet to produce a working internet connection, I'm seriously thinking of switching to Comcast, unless you can send someone out to straighten this out for me."

[Xairbusdriver]

As you can see, tech "support" varies all over the place. I've had generally good support from Comcast, but I'm still holding my breath for a real need! And others have reported seriously lacking support from them. So, I'd follow Paddy's advice. But that alternate phone number might help. And make sure she asks for Mac help, right up front.

Good luck! I hope she realizes what a great technical resource she has in you!

[sandbox]

Due to a temporary work stoppage, you may experience longer than normal hold times when calling our customer service centers. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

It's also the weekend which is always a bad time.

QUOTE

But there is another SMTP submission port, port 587, which almost all mail server supports. In fact, according to the relevant standard, port 587 is the preferred port for mail submission. But even if the mail server software supports it, it may or may not be turned on. You need to check with the administrator or hosting service. Not all large hosting services support port 587.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1838667,00.asp

QUOTE

Apple Mail

        * Open Mail
        * On the Mail menu, click Preferences
        * Select the Accounts tab
        * Select your email account
        * Click the "Server Settings" button under Outgoing Mail Server section
        * Enter in the "Outgoing Mail Server field: mail.inno-tech.com
        * Change the "Server port:" from 25 to 587
        * Make sure "Authentication:" is set to Password and the username and password are completed
        * Click OK and close the Preferences window

http://www.inno-tech.com/support/user-port587.html

Gmail uses 587 for POP and 465 for IMAP

QUOTE

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
3.1.  Submission Identification

   Port 587 is reserved for email message submission as specified in
   this document.  Messages received on this port are defined to be
   submissions.  The protocol used is ESMTP [SMTP-MTA, ESMTP], with
   additional restrictions as specified here.

   While most email clients and servers can be configured to use port
   587 instead of 25, there are cases where this is not possible or
   convenient.  A site MAY choose to use port 25 for message submission,
   by designating some hosts to be MSAs and others to be MTAs.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2476.txt

These are just a few examples, she could try port 26 which is what  this server uses.

[gunug]

My sister in Northern Virginia (Verizon) had more trouble with getting her PC working than with getting her G4 working later on; this is to say once the connection worked and was hooked up to a PC nothing else was a problem: her router was part of the DSL modem so she was able to just hook the G4 up.  The installer who set up the DSL line (had to do some surgery) admitted that he didn't think his tech support guys knew much about MACs and OS 10.  This was about 5 years ago so there was no "temporary work stoppage!"

[sandbox]

Gunug verizon DSL was the only option we had when departing from dial-up. I had it for a few months and hated it and as soon as the cable option became available I switched. It was slow and unreliable for us, but we have friends and clients that have used it for years without a problem.

[MamaMoose]

You are damned if you do and damned if you don't in choosing an ISP. there are horror stories for every known ISP!. Fortunately for me, we have Verizon FIOS (Fiber optics) in our neighborhood. he trick with Verizon is to get on their Web page (I know if you aren't connected you can't access it).Go to the local library and search the web page for answers. it takes patience but I did find solutions to my problems. I did find router set up instructions.

However, unless you have a certain level of expertise follow Paddy's advise and threaten them with moving to another ISP. If you cannot get satisfaction from them, ask to speak to a supervisor. Don't take any excuses, you want a Mac expert at your home the next day or you will move to Comcast.

Good luck,

MamaMoose