Review by ultracat 
Posted: 142 days ago
member for 203 days, 77 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Toronto,ON
 $48 per month (12 month contract)
 "..."
 "Incompetant tech support, lies about speed, lock you into contracts, throttle non-HTTP traffic"
 "It's a really bad ISP"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I don't want to lie here, so let me tell you the situation. I am not currently a Bell Sympatico customer. However, I never did write a review on them so I figured they were due.
I left Bell Sympatico about 3 years ago for Rogers (As an aside, I actually left Rogers earlier this year for Teksavvy). The main reason was that after MONTHS of trying to fix my connection and then a few MONTHS of just living with about a 1Mbps connection (when at the time I was sold the 3Mbps profile) I left Bell for Rogers.
Now that Bell has started throttling and messing with users' connections, lying in their marketing, etc. there is NO WAY I would ever return to them. Stay clear if you can.
Pre-sales info: I give 1/5 simply because their sales pitch doesn't measure up to the service they deliver. Those damned beavers lied to me! No, you can't watch streaming video, and download, and game, and share you connection with other computers at the same time. Not on the connection I had anyway!
Installation: I don't remember anything really bad about the installation. Just the ususal "someone will be there between 2-5pm" but that's pretty normal.
Connection reliability: Now THIS is ultimately why I left. My speeds were all over the place. Maybe its better these days I don't know. All I know is that my connection dropped randomly all the time, the speeds varied wildly, and tech support was no help (see next point).
Tech Support: The second worse thing about Bell besides the actual connection you buy is the service you get when it's not working right. Basically, I wonder why they have a call center staffed by human beings. Why not just post the scripts to your website as a knowledgebase or mail a copy to every new customer. If you call tech support, you will get someone who reads you a script and/or has to put you on hold until 1 of the handful of ACTUAL tech support or tier 2 / 3 support people are asked what can be done. Just god awful. As far as my personal story, I worked with them for literally months, spending dozens of hours of my own time on hold and/or trying the asinine things that they suggested I try. No, it wasn't internal wiring. No, it wasn't the modem I already exchanged for another. No, I do have filters on all my phones. Was it my firewall? Let me just check my computer science degree from Oxford University.....nope, looks like I know how to configure a friggin' software firewall, thanks anyway.
Services: I'm not actually rating their current service, which I hear is quite terrible what with the throttling etc., but I can't verify that myself. All I know is that 3 years ago I paid for a 3 meg connection and reliably only got a 1 to 1.5 meg connection.
Value for money: I think it's pretty obvious that I experienced almost no value for the money I paid Bell.
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