how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
Review by kevinbent 
Posted: 7.7 years ago
member for 7.8 years, 4 visits, last login: 7.7 years ago
 undisclosed location
 Contract price not specified.
 MPower Communications
 "When it works it's good."
 "Tech Support wouldn't know a Mac if it fell on them."
 "If you have a problem - you're on your own."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I got the self install package from Mpowered because previously I had to go over to two friends houses to do the install because when the Mpowered techs came out they didn't have a clue what to do with a mac. One of them sat in front of an iMac and asked where the tower was.
Anyway, I hooked it up correctly but had no connection - they had forgot to send someone out to climb up the pole and turn it on. Apart from having to reset the Cisco now and then the service was pretty good for the first couple months.
When I finally had a serious problem I found that I was on my own. Using Mpowered I had problems with software that was using UDP. I have a secondary account with a different ISP, and using the same software and equipment I determined that it had to be a problem with Mpowered.
When you call tech support you always get the "we are experiencing higher than normal call volumes" message. When I finally got through and told the techs my problem they were very helpful at first. They tried a couple of things over a period of weeks with no success. Finally, after a month, they declared that it was not their problem and now my emails and phone calls are being ignored.
So much for customer service.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
Review by DavidElliott2
Posted: 7.9 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 68 visits, last login: 4.2 years ago
Halifax,NS
$39 per month
 about 10 days
"All in one Solution for High speed Internet and now Digital TV"
"They don't support Win2K ?? WinXP"
"You think that's a knife - this is a knife!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
You think that's a knife - this is a knife!
-Crocodile Dundee
(Part 1)
I have been a Sympatico High Speed Internet subscriber for about 2 years. I have seen the speeds drop a bit from the beginning but few folks need better than 2000/750 Kbit. I hit as high as 5Mbit at one point early on after tweaking (thank you DSL Reports!!) Only a few outages in past couple of years and eMail outage when the SirCam worm was making the rounds.
Have had a couple of glitches - my Paradyne modem seemed to be dropping the line and I talked with tech support a couple of times until they found I had a Windows 2000 system for which they said they could not provide tech support. (I gotta wonder what they are going to do with all those new Windows XP systems.) This left me out in the cold for a while. I kept having to and IPCONFIG /RELEASE and /RENEW to get reconnected. It worked but it was a pain. However, I now have a new DSL modem which seems to be working fine. See part 2 of my story below.
(Part 2)
I just signed up for Vibevision - a digital TV solution that comes in over my DSL line. 120 potential TV channels + PPV, local and national radio, and 30 commercial free theme music channels. This is available through my telco Maritime Tel and Tel which is part of Aliant - the merger of the 4 telcos in the Atlantic provinces.
What blows me away is that this all comes in over telephone. They removed my old Paradyne modem and put in a new unit. They use a D-Link "hubby" to slit the signal - one Cat5 to my computer, the other to the SetTop box. They started the SetTop box first to let it grab the "hot" IP and then my computer was started to get an IP with narrower bandwidth. The TV signal is MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 encoded but is still at 5.9 Mbits/sec and I now have about 1080 Kbits/sec download speed on my "regular" DSL (It once was nearly 5Mbit/sec - ya can't have everything)
Together this translates to a honkin' 7 Mbits/sec that is possible. Long live DSL! and everything comes under one bill from the phone company - local, long distance, cellular service, Sympatico high speed internet, and TV. As near as I can tell, the High Speed Internet comes out to about $35/ month as part of the bundle, with the Digital TV basic at $19.95 month (Oh and did I tell you you can hook a keyboard up to the SetTop Box and surf, eMail, etc? so its like having a second computer hooked up) The settop box can be leased or bought for $99 as an introductory special - all other networking equipment - the ADSL modem and the D-Link Hubby are provided as part of the service
Whats not to like? To read more about it, check out www.mtt.ca/AtHome/VibeVision/index2.html
If anyone is wondering whether it is worth it. My advice, if you are close enough for a decent signal - go for it!!
I'd be interested in knowing about other subscribers experience with this technology.
DE
PS - I am not a plant from the Phone Company!!
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 8.1 years ago
(review was emailed from domain ns.sympatico.ca)
undisclosed location
Contract price not specified.
Bell Canada
CLEC party: Bell Canada
"overall"
"increasingly frequent e-mail outages, almost impossible to get through to help desk"
"excellent, but problems getting more frequent and more frustrating"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
Hi,
I have had MTT's MPoweredPC high speed service for about a year now. I
have separate accounts in my office and home, and use a laptop with a PC
ethernet card to switch between the two. Most of the time the service is
reliable, excellent, hassle-free and good value for money. But in the last
few months things have started to deteriorate - particularly at least every
few days the outgoing e-mail (smtp) server malfunctions. It does not appear
to respond, and messages appear saying so, but later it turns out to have
sent multiple copies of messages to the same recipient. This appears to be
the case using several different e-mail clients. Sometimes it just doesn't
respond at all. Most of the time attempts to reach tech. support by phone
are hopeless, as there is almost always a message saying "due to an
increased load our tech. support people are taking longer than usual to
respond" and usually after about 15 minutes of canned music I give up
trying. They have a help desk home page
(»www3.ns.sympatico.ca/mpowered.helpdesk/), but it has no helpful
information for existing users and hasn't been updated since July 31.
As there are now alternatives (e.g. Eastlink Cable) in Nova Scotia being
aggressively advertised, I think their marketing people should look
seriously at 1). getting a better and more reliable smtp server, 2).
improving their phone tech. support, and 3). keeping their web site up to
date, e.g. with info. on outages and problems etc., and then we'd have an
excellent service.
I'll send them a copy of this in case someone actually takes notice of
customers' concerns.
####################
Richard Stern
Kentville
Nova Scotia
Canada
rbstern@ns.sympatico.ca
####################
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by jeffc2
Posted: 8.3 years ago
member for 8.5 years, 7 visits, last login: 8.1 years ago
Timberlea,NS
$40 per month
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
i presently have both dsl(mpowered) and cable(eastlink)
i live in halifax nova scotia canada
i have found that dsl where i live 99% will kill cable
i have done many test
done test with the computers they are connected to side by side
downloading from tucows (many differnet locations of tucows) with the
same file at the same time
there has been maybe 5 times at the most were cable has beat dsl
that my expreiance
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by BeeGee5
Posted: 8.6 years ago
member for 8.6 years, 4 visits, last login: 8.6 years ago
Canada
$39 per month (month by month)
"Speed, stability, reliability, and price make MpoweredPC definitely a great bang for the buck!"
"Not always willing to admit to a problem though it always gets fixed in time, and dynamic IP addresses. Small drawbacks..."
"I can't imagine internet access in Nova Scotia without the MTT insignia attached. :-)"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
Hi,
I, and my family, have been proud MTT customers for a very long time. Phone service was installed in my current residence 22 years ago, and has not been disconnected or altered for any reason whatsoever since. To my knowledge, the phone lines that were installed then are same ones that bring this review to you now.
I initially subscribed to MpoweredPC in May of 1999. It was a wonderful change from the 33.6 dialup connection I had previously. It was fast, cheap, stable, and very easy to use and very easy to setup myself as I've had to do after having formatted my hard drive several times since installation.
Equipment provided by MTT, for me, was a 10 MBit ethernet card by 3Com, and a Cisco router, model 675. (It has since been replaced with a Cisco 678.) I was not required to rent these items, or buy them in any way. They are provided as long as I am subscribed to the service, and should service be cancelled, a network technician will visit free of charge to collect them. Cost of installation at the time I subscribed was a mere $24.95 Cdn. I've noticed several sign-up deals of late where they will install MpoweredPC free in order to compete with a certain cable provider in Nova Scotia who shall, of course, remain nameless.
The date was set for May 26, at which time I would be visited by two techies. One would do the hardware side of the installation, and the other would come half an hour later, and do the software side. Installation was quick and simple - on both fronts. I was (and still am) running Windows 95 OSR2. Windows needed only to detect the ethernet card and successfully load its device drivers and the rest would be done by DHCP.
The Tech Support helpline, unfortunately, always gets a bad rap. It is true that their be all to end all solution for everything is to "power cycle the modem", but being a user with half a clue, it's probably safe to assume that if I'm calling, I've checked everything here - including the modem power cycling - and came up short. This suggestion gets old really quick.
I believe there is a terrible lack of communication between the tech support level of the company and the actual network techies. Often, getting straight answers as to what the problem is out of the Tech Support Helpdesk is like pulling teeth from a crocodile. They often won't admit anything is wrong at all. This is most likely because they don't even know themselves. That annoys me. I mean, I don't expect it to be a *perfectly* stable 24/7 connection all the time. Sh... uhh, stuff happens. =) I just think they should at least be able to identify what the problem is, communicate it to the right people, and have them able relay that information on to the customer more readily. Having said that, there have been times where I've called the helpdesk and a pre-recorded message has identified a known problem. In that one rare case where there was a problem on my end (my router was configured incorrectly for new network config... It was simply replaced with a nice new 678.) I was nothing but satisfied with working along side MTT in fixing it.
As I understand, the helpdesk does the best they can with the tools they're provided. I honestly believe that it's really unfair they get to bear the full brunt of the somewhat common impatient and sometimes downright abusive customer.
About the only other bad thing I can say about MpoweredPC is the fact that my IP is not static. I would very much like to have a static IP address, but that will never happen with the NAT setup MpoweredPC uses. Oh well, c'est la vie. 'Tis but a small drawback.
Pricewise... If your long distance telephone plan is also with MTT, you instantly save about half of the original cost. At last check, that was around $85/month Cdn. Since my long distance is with MTT, I pay $39.95/month, as most people do. MTT flat rate unlimited long distance rocks too, so why have a long distance package with anyone else? :-P If you subscribe to several of MTT's phone services (like CallerID, Call Waiting, etc...) and choose to have your MpoweredPC charge shown on the same bill as your monthly phone service, you may qualify to get MpoweredPC for even cheaper than $39.95 as part of a "service bundle". I have chosen to have separate bills. Either way though, definitely a great bang for the buck.
Speed tests on the internal network have proven very quick. I was (and still am) able to sustain speeds of 310+ k/sec down, and max out at about 115 k/sec up. Out on the internet, I have also duplicated those speeds. This is probably due to the excellent connectivity to the major hubs in Canada, namely Montreal, and Toronto. Bellnexxia is MTT's provider, which makes getting around in Canada very quick, and effortless. It is true there have been issues with the routers before, however those issues were beyond the control of MTT. Problems were fixed, life goes on.
And now... A little rumour and speculation.
Rumour has it that the Cisco routers (675 and 678 models) were intentionally capped at about 3.200 MBit, due to a few moronic/ignorant folk who may have called in complaining that they're paying the same price for a service their buddy is getting twice the speed from. Further research has shown that their buddy also most often lived right across the street from the CO, and that they have absolutely no clue as to how DSL is limited by distance that way. So MTT "caps" us all at about 3.2 MBit. It's like giving everybody the lowest common denominator. The few people with Paradyne equipment still get blazing fast speeds of 500+ k/sec. Uploads are limited *ONLY* by the actual ability of the Cisco router, for those who have that equipment, which in this case is 1.088 MBit. I am unsure about the Paradyne equipment uploads because, as mentioned, I have the Cisco.
Speaking of caps... Other than the one just mentioned for download speed, we have none. We are free to download and upload however much we please every month, and at whatever speed we are able to establish.
I am a VERY satisfied customer, and have recommended MpoweredPC to many of my friends and colleagues. Speed, stability, reliability, and price are all reasons why MpoweredPC stands above and beyond any other DSL provider in Canada, and perhaps even in the US as well.
DSLReports... Thank you for your time.
And MpoweredPC...
Keep up the great work!
Jamie
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by jdh79
Posted: 8.7 years ago
member for 8.9 years, 239 visits, last login: 6.7 years ago
Halifax,NS
$40 per month (month by month)
about 5 days
"Good solid ping times"
"Terrible customer service, long waits for technical support, cannot get a straight story from their tech support line"
"Avoid it like the plague"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
What a nightmare!
I called up MTT to order their Mpowered DSL service. I was relatively pleased with my current cable connection but frustrated by its high peak hour ping times.
The representative on the phone told me that I was eligible to get self-install as long as I had an Ethernet card and Windows 98, ME or 2000. I had Win2000 so I ordered the self-install kit that Saturday night.
By the nest Thrusday it had arrived via courier and my account was ready to hook up. When I hooked up the line the first thing I noticed were the amazing ping times that stayed constant all day long. The second thing I noticed were the horrible download speeds, considering that Mpowered is supposed to be a 3000/1000 line. I was lucky to get 50 K/sec from internal MTT sites.
The next day, I called tech support to complain and they told me I should be getting closer to 300 KB/sec from the Mpowered prxoy server and they scheduled a repair appointment for Sunday (in two days time). So far, I was impressed by the relatively quick response. Boy was I in for a shock!
When the tech support person arrived, he ran some tests on my line and determined that the problem was outside my building and in the cabling and he referred the issue to the cabling department and said it should be resolved within 48 hours. After 48 hours, I had seen no speed improvement so I called tech support again.
I spent the next week and a half having to call tech support daily and sometimes twice daily trying to figure out what was going on. I actually talked to one senior technician who tried to tell me that 80 KB/sec is acceptable from internal servers.
Finally, the problem came to a head on a Monday night when my modem died completely. When I called tech support, they told me that they had run tests and found severe packet loss and would have to schedule another appointment. This was Monday and they couldn't schedule anything until Friday, unacceptable to me when you have no connection.
At any rate, the technician arrived on Friday and had no idea why he was sent out there and I had to explain everything to him again. He ripped apart all the wiring in my apartment and ran a bunch of packet and line quality tests. Finally, he replaced the modem and went to get an IP from my computer. He then realized that I was running Windows 2000 and basically flipped out saying I'm not allowed to have this and I'm wasting their time by calling them to fix a problem when I have an unsupported operating system.
When I told him that I was specifically told by sales that Windows 2000 was OK, he called his boss. He then told me that he was under orders to remove all my equipment and cancel my account because they unequivocally do not support Windows 2000. I argued with him for 30 minutes and he actually admitted that the problem has nothing to do with my operating system.
I told him to just fix the network issues and I'd worry about getting it to work with Win2000. He said no, sorry, can't do that. I told him to fix the damn problem, when he left I would install Windows ME.
He still would not accept that. He said once I installed ME I could call sales and arrange a new installation appointment (4-6 weeks) but that no matter what he was taking my equipment away. I basically told him to take the damn stuff out of my apartment and shove them. I am now back to using Eastlink cable who have no problem with Windows 2000.
I am absolutely disgusted with MTT and Mpowered. I spent weeks of my time trying to troubleshoot a connection to have something like this happen. As far as I am concerned, it is absolutely unacceptable to have help desk people and sales people who tell you ten different stories whenever you call.
My advice to everyone, avoid any MTT products like the plaque. MTT is a severely disfunctional mess of a phone company where one division does not have a clue what the other is doing. I wasn't even offered an apology for the problem, just basically the "screw you" treatment. Hopefully, I save someone else from the same pitfalls.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by callahan2
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 9.3 years, 6 visits, last login: 8.8 years ago
Canada
$39 per month
about 14 days
"Very fast, Low Price, Good Tech Support, Oblivious to some things happening that arent allowed by the service contract"
"Down occasionally without answers, Internal 10.x IP's through a NAT, Only allowed one computer per connection unless you pay mor"
"Great service, but have a few stupid things in their service contract."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
MpoweredPC has always been a great service. Its dirt cheap (39.95, might as well.. a lot of dialup accounts are that expensive around here), and very reliable.
I've had DSL through MTT for over 2 years now and its been extremely reliable. Down time is always under an hour. The only gripe I have about it is they won't tell you what happened to cause the down time.
Tech support is very good for the usual problems.
They technically only allow one computer per connection unless you pay an extra 10 bucks a month per computer. You can just run your own NAT and they never know.
The other problem is that the whole system is one huge NAT with internal 10.X IP's, but they are all mapped to an external 142.X IP as well.. so its not that bad and you can run your own servers. However, since the external IP's are dynamic they change quite often. But running a dynamic host service client works great to solve this problem as well.
Can't complain about Mpowered at all, they have a great service and they really kill Cable around here for speeds and reliability.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by davlee
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 9 years, 11 visits, last login: 8.8 years ago
Bangor,Penobscot,ME
$39 per month
"Quick setup - cheap - one of the fastest DSL services going"
"Frequent connection problems in the last couple of months"
"At these prices, why bother with dial-up? Go for it!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
With Mpowered, there's only one speed, and one price. Happily the price is cheap (39 Cdn... that's like 28US/month) for a blazingly fast conection. I usually get +1700/600 on the tests.
The guys who install the service are pretty quick about it. And on those times where I've called up their tech support, their guys were very helpful.
One bad experience last spring was when they put a firewall on everyone's connection, inadvertently blocking TCP ports required by many PC-to-Phone services such as Dialpad. As my wife frequently makes international calls overseas, we complained and after about two weeks their network people called and admitted what they had done, and opened the ports back up.
Since November Mpowered has suffered some service outages which I assume are growing pains. These usually last for a few hours. I hope they're working on this. On the plus side, they've expanded a lot in the last year but I haven't detected any slowdowns in service.
Overall, it's an awesome service at any price. We're lucky the price is such a good one.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by titanium1
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 38 visits, last login: 8.5 years ago
Halifax,NS
$40 per month
about 14 days
"Got it fast, Great speeds, Very cheap."
"Bad tech support, they try but are unknowledgable"
"If you're close to the CO and you don't think you'll have any problems, go for it"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I'd been waiting for this DSL for over 2 years, because it just was not in my area, and I REALLY wanted it (cable here _sucks_). When it finally came, they called to inform me, and I placed an order. Two weeks later, the tech came at the right time, and set it up no problem. However, my service was slow, and since November (when I got it), I've been having problems (UNTIL NOW, January!). My connection was slow as hell, and it would randomly disconnect, or do strange things like slow down and I would need to cycle the modem's power HOURLY. Call after call to tech support, and they had no idea what was wrong -- they just tried different things. I have to admit, they did REALLY TRY. The techs are very nice, and they definately gave it their best shot. Eventually, (today) however, I fixed it myself... I ran the Tweaks page here at dslreports, and I changed my Rwin... now my speed and connection are stable! Finally! I'm also very far from the CO (over 2 miles), but I'm getting 1.5mb down and 0.5mb up. This is pretty good for being this far away. I'm paying for 3mb down and 1mb up. Not bad.  .
The service is dirt cheap, stable, the tech support is fantastic and friendly (although they do miss some things if they didn't even think about Rwin problems, and they never mentioned getting an Mtu patch once.) The home equipment is simply a network card and a VERY small modem (actually, its a router). You can see the modem/router at »www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/rt/600rt/. It's the grey one . One annoying thing is the dynamic ip coupled with having an internal and external ip (they use a NAT setup). This can be irritating for some things. If you can get past the internal and external ip hurdle, you are allowed to host any servers you want on your account, and its GREAT for hosting.
My cousin and friend both have this isp, and have had no problems, ever, so I think I was just a bit unlucky, and I have it fixed now.
Overall, I'd say go for it.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
| »next page (previous review)
Review by scoobydodade
Posted: 8.8 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 15 visits, last login: 8.4 years ago
Halifax,NS
$40 per month
"Fast, Reliable, and great Tech Support."
"Downtimes happen at least once every couple of weeks"
"A very good service, overall a 9.5/10"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I order the DSL service in September of 2000. it took 2 weeks for installation, they were pretty booked i guess.
I pay ~$50, so its pretty good.
The install was easy, took 5 minutes. I also formatted my HDD, and it took 15 secs too, just using the Windows Connection Wizard.
I am using the Cisco 675 modem, its good.
From what i know I get my IP switched every now and then.
Overall a good ISP, however they get their downtimes at least once a month, which last anywhere from a couple of hours to a day. I also had trouble with the
e-mail, as they changed their server (upgrade i guess), so i had to change some settings, but the tech support is great, 24/7. Usually get a tech support person on the first try. Also when you call tech support, before you can choose any options, it informs you of the status of the network, in case your calling due to it being down. Save a lot of time, you don't have to hear it from a tech support person.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of MTT (Nova Scotia) |
|
|
MTT (Nova Scotia)
