Review by Sash55 
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 1.9 years, 9 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
 Brampton,ON
 $50 per month (month by month)
 about 1 days
 Bell Canada
 "Unlimited downloads (on more expensive subscription plan), Good Up-time."
 "Very expensive, Throttles from 5PM-2AM w/ P2P speed of 30kbps, Bad website interface (since it is bundled with bell phone)"
 "Too expensive and limits connectivity"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)
|
High Speed Ultra edition (3-5Mbps), Ulimited download package, $50.99/month.
(They offered some 3-6 months at reduced price of ~$30).
Good ISP UNTIL about a month or so ago, when they introduced throttling for P2P.
Before, as is now, speed is unlike what Swedish ISP's are. They sell you 3-5Mbps, but on your end you get 1.5Mbps. My statistics for about last 2 years are consisent, that is, about 1.5-1.7Mbps download, and about 0.4Mbps upload.
P2P Throttling:
5:00 - 6:00PM Top P2P Download Speed is capped to 60 kB/s. (thats bytes, not bits.)
6:00 - 1:00AM Top P2P Download Speed is capped to 30 kB/s.
1:00 - 2:00AM 120kB/s
2:00AM+ (until about 5PM) seems uncapped or at least 240kB/s+.
I have been with Bell Sympatico for about 2 years now and was fairly happy with the service. Their website is very complex and "hidden". It is hard to reach it. Their tech support is ...how shall I say.. you have to waste 15 minutes until you get to tier 2, though I am now experienced so before they even ask you for "How far is your modem from phone jack.. is there any inteference near cables, are you using a firewall? etc" Now I tell them look I know what is going on, and I have to insist to skip to the point. Last conversation with tech support, I'll give it 5/5 because they were understandable and skipped to resolving the problem right away.
Tech Support (2/5) (bogs you down with needless questions)
Privacy, 5/5. (no letters received for excessive downloads, or content issues)
Prior to October 2007 - Speed, 4/5 (Regular Internet)
After October or so 2007, Speed 1/5 (They throttle P2P as mentioned above)
Website/Service 1/5 - It is very difficult to reach menus, since their website is coupled with bell canada phone service. It is difficult to find right menus and to get to the core of the things you need to do. Their FAQ/Support on website is way too basic.
Anyhow, to conclude. I am switching ISP's tomorrow. Their throttling has done it. I am putting some energy into writing these reviews as an outcry.
-------------------
UPDATED Review due to recent monopolistic tactics they have done on their competition.
Followup comments:  
luckyU
@videotron.ca | yer lucky You said:
"you have to waste 15 minutes until you get to tier 2"
Consider yourself very lucky it was ony 15 minutes. If you take the time to go through other peoples experience you will see hours and days gone by. | |
|
Bellunder
@teksavvy.com | It very sad to see these Canadian isp's upgrade nothng I see AT&T just did a huge upgrade to its' core network down in America. Why is it these Canadian isp's spend nothing and blame everything on their subscribers when in fact the entire fault lies with the service providers? | |
|  |
xyzzy420
@startek.com
| Re: It very sad to see these Canadian isp's upgrade nothng We do even less than the U.S. to regulate ISPs and cellphone providers...The CRTC is more concerned about protecting the indigenous cultural elites and media magnates than they are with protecting Canadians from being gouged by content providers (Liberal-style regulation as opposed to good regulation)...And the Tories don't give a damn about consumer protections and will just make the situation wrose. | |
| Sash55
join:2007-12-13
Brampton, ON
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| Update: I transfered to TekSavvy. I am now saving $14/month for same service (I don't care about 200Gb cap which I can expand if needed.)
Funny thing is that sympatico offered me 3 offers to stay with them, ranging from 1 free month to evaluate their service longer. Followed by offer #2 to give me a boost to my service, followed by #3 to give me a year long plan at $37/month. Rejected all three.
Basically, from 5pm-1am, I get 10-30Kilobytes/second download.. That is about 0.08-0.24Mbps connection for P2P. Why when I pay for 3-5Mbps service!!! Obviously, answer is easy  Buy 1 3-5Mbps line, install a router, open your own isp service, sell it to 10 customers, and limit bandwidth of each and voila, you made 9x your investment. (Of course, flawed judgement there since I'm refering only to P2P, but the point applies.) From reading some other reviews, particularily from Sweden, apparently their ISP's deliver what they advertise. | |
|
croakerbc
@bell.ca
| Thank you guys First of all, I wish to thank you everyone here for their instructive comments. I had though that something was wrong with my modem,because of the significant decrease in my bittorrent speed. Then a friend told me about how Sympatico is throttling p2p speed. I didn't believe him at first,but after awhile, I decided he may be right after all and googled for it and I landed here. After reading all the comments, and seeing how they really do reflect my own situation (as I am writing this, it's 2am in the morning and I am downloading at 350kb/s. Before that, it was like 50 kb/s. But right starting at 1am, I am having normal download speed again. So every thing you guys have said are true) I have come to a decision "Fuck Sympatico. I am not paying 50$/month for unlimited service and 5mb speed only to get 30kb/s download.
First thing tomorrow morning I am switching to Teksavvy. I have spent 30 minutes just now exploring their site, combining with what you said about them, and it seems to me an excellent alternative to Sympatico. It's sad because I have been with Sympatico for more than 4 years now. But hey,if they don't give a f**k about ME and other p2p users like me and why should I continue to use their service? It's not so sad after all. Fuck them.
I'll be back to let you know how my experience with Teksavvy goes
Thank you all and have a good day. | |
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