Verizon Fios Speed Test (USA) — Real Speeds & Fixes
Verizon Fios is the gold standard for residential fibre on the US East Coast, symmetric upload, low jitter, and consistent peak-hour performance. If your Fios test results are poor, the cause is almost always inside your home.
Verizon's CR1000B router is solid but Wi-Fi 6E only works at very close range. Position the router centrally and elevate it; for large homes use the Fios Extender or a dedicated mesh.
Often caused by the router's intelligent traffic shaping. Disable any 'gaming optimisation' features and put the gaming PC on a wired port.
On this page
- Wired speed is fine, Wi-Fi is half
- Speeds capped at ~940 Mbps even on 2 Gig
- Random latency spikes when gaming
Fios is only available where Verizon has run fibre, which is street-by-street rather than city-wide, and some buildings are served by a shared in-building install that changes the speeds on offer. Check the exact address on Verizon's site for what is actually available to you.
Plans and realistic speeds
- 300/300 Mbps: 300-340 Mbps both directions
- 500/500 Mbps: 500-560 Mbps both directions
- 1 Gig (940/880): 900-940 Mbps both directions
- 2 Gig: 1.6-2 Gbps wired (requires a multi-gig capable client)
Common issues and how to fix them
- Wired speed is fine, Wi-Fi is half: Verizon's CR1000B router is solid but Wi-Fi 6E only works at very close range. Position the router centrally and elevate it; for large homes use the Fios Extender or a dedicated mesh.
- Random latency spikes when gaming: Often caused by the router's intelligent traffic shaping. Disable any 'gaming optimisation' features and put the gaming PC on a wired port.
Typical latency
- East Coast to NYC PoP: 4-10 ms
- East Coast to London: 70-90 ms
- East Coast to Frankfurt: 85-105 ms
- East Coast to Tokyo: 150-170 ms
Wired vs Wi-Fi checks
- Test wired into a LAN port on the Fios router first; on symmetric fibre a healthy wired result is close to plan in both directions.
- Then test over Wi-Fi in the same room, and again where the problem is. Fios Wi-Fi 6E only holds full speed at short range, so distance explains most gaps.
- If wired is at plan and Wi-Fi is not, add a Fios Extender or mesh node rather than changing the plan.
- Confirm the ONT-to-router cable is CAT5e or better and seated properly — a damaged patch lead can silently drop a gigabit link to 100 Mbps.
- For gigabit and above, verify the testing device's Ethernet port supports more than 1 Gbps before concluding the line is slow.
Reading your result against your plan
- Fios is symmetric: upload should be close to download. An upload figure far below download on a wired test is a real fault worth reporting.
- Plans are sold at 940/880 rather than a flat 1000, so around 900 Mbps wired is the expected ceiling on 1 Gig.
- Latency should stay in single or low-double-digit milliseconds at idle; a large jump under load points to bufferbloat, not bandwidth.
- A 2 Gig plan needs 2.5 GbE hardware end to end; a 1 Gbps port will report about 940 Mbps no matter what you pay.
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