 Review by AkFubar 
UPDATED: 322 days ago
member for 4.6 years, 1822 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Toronto Can.
 $53 per month
 about 5 days
 Bell Canada
 "When not affected by Bell/Sympatico issues, I enjoy a reliable solid connection @ 4300 Kbps down, 635 kbps up for HSE service."
 "No Sympatico Usenet, Email migrated to MSN, traffic throttling"
 "Overall I am dissatisfied with the way Bell treats its customers. I have left Bell after 10 years as a customer"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
I have been a Sympatico since the late 90's. To date I have watched what used to be a superior ISP deteriorate to "nickle & dime the customer", sub par service ISP.
Although I usually enjoy a reliable solid connection @ 4300 Kbps down, 635 kbps up for HSE service. Recent speed reduction experienced. Sympatico reduced my speed profile to 3300 Kbps download for unknown reason and without informing me . To remedy the situation I was forced to go through Sympatico's telephone support which was a nightmare experience. On three separate occasions I was queued to some offshore contractor that neither answered my questions or solved my problem. I finally got a Canadian support centre, and with the help of an excellent supervisor, had my 5 meg profile restored. Customer service is substandard and extremely frustrating.
Sympatico has removed its email servers and has migrating subscribers to a Sympatico version of MSN Hotmail. There are numerous reported reliability issues with email. I experience annoying and constant requests for authentication even tho I am always logged in. Sympatico has recently adopted traffic shaping which only seems to further their apparent agenda to "stick it to the consumer" and to Sympatico's competition. Sympatico will claim that they are traffic shaping to ensure adequate bandwidth for their customers. It is difficult to fathom how less equates to more for a customer in this case.
The service/offerings are reduced but their pricing remains very high. Recently, because I have a grandfathered unlimited account they increased my monthly fee an additional $5.00. With a decrease in offerings/service and and increase in their pricing I cannot recommend Sympatico as good value for your money spent. It kind of makes you wonder how they have any customers at all.
Final Update:
This will be my final update of Bell Internet (Sympatico) Services as I have left Bell after 10 years as a customer. My reasons for leaving are simply a deterioration of value of the services Bell provides (please see the text above for details). Unless there is a major transformation of services and mindset to return to providing value to the customer, it is unlikely I will return to using Bell services directly.
Followup comments:  bohn
join:2006-05-30
Scarborough, ON
| The newsgroups are nothing but a promotional thing You can do one gigabyte without even turning on your computer. One gigabyte of headers before you read anything does in no way constitute that being a news server. Dial up speeds on broadband for headers must be some sort of a joke. I'd rather bust that one gigabyte header cap in 20 minutes not waiting all day to download one gigabyte of headers. | |
| Outlandish00
join:2007-09-04
Petrolia, ON | Bell, lol-Go Acanac Bite the bullet, go Acanac. I had a year 18.95 a month and now I'm at $33.95 a month taxes included. My service improved as soon as I changed = 5.1 up and 663 dn. Best of all the staff speaks English! | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Bell Sympatico |
|
Bell Sympatico
(37)
(54)
(122)
(66)
(24)