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Review by Hal_Emmerich 
Posted: 5.6 years ago
member for 5.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 183 days ago
 undisclosed location
 $45 per month (24 month contract)
 about 14 days
 MPower Communications
 "They aren't forcing PPPOE.... yet"
 "Incompetent tech support, slow speeds, and inability to connect to another IP (DCC files, host multiplayer games via server)"
 "Good if theres nothing else available"
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First off, I'm going to get the good points out of the way. They do provide DSL to rural areas Eastlink will not consider, their set up staff are somewhat competent, and the connection, if it does go down, is typically not down long.
Not a long list is it?
Now then, the bad side (Grab a coffee, this'll be a bit)
1: Their tech support are dense as posts, most of them don't even know your router needs to be programmed, or that they password locked it so you can't mess with the settings.Below is an actual account of a conversation I had.
Me: I need to access my router, can you please tell me the password?
Employee: What are you talking about sir?
Me: You password locked the router, I want to try correcting a setting so that I can send files again
Employee: The problem is on your end, not ours
Me: ... the problem happened when I joined Mpowered, It worked before, it works when I use dial up, its on your end, or the router. I've tried your PPOE solution, which you said would fix it, I had to reformat 3 times to get it off my system completely, then I had to talk to your manager so I could get switched back to NAT so I could use the internet I am paying for. I've memorized my way through network neighborhood through your help desk. You've tried, I want my turn
Employee: Sir, I don't know what you mean by access the router
Me: Dial into it, you know, Telnet 10.0.0.1
Employee: Sorry sir, I'm not sure what your..
Me: Can I please talk to a senior tech support...........
Absolute genius's. They're even more incompetent when it comes to solving your problems, it took them six months to realize that overwriting windows 95 drivers with windows 98 ones was a bad idea (I was young and foolish, sue me ^^). The wait is atrocious, and sometimes I think that they refuse to answer a call five minutes after answering a first. As for the claim that its '40 times faster then dialup' well, only if '40' means 3, and you insert a 'rarely' in front if it. Now, they are planning to switch everyone to PPOE by June if I am not mistaken, which will completely screw me over since my system does not like it. They also gave me a defunct USB - Ethernet convertor that doesn't seem to work either (not that it made things any worse) In short, if Eastlink is available to you, get it, as for those of us poor saps in rural parts of Nova Scotia, I feel sorry for all of us.And finally, as I said, outgoing connections do NOT work, you can not DCC files on Mpowered.
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Review by hecubus21
UPDATED: 5.8 years ago
member for 9.4 years, 140 visits, last login: 3.7 years ago
Wolfville,NS
$34 per month
about 14 days
"Sad to say- none used to be great"
"pppoe slow speeds sh*tty support"
"crap"
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What a bunch of crap. Can't believe what has happened to this company...PPPOE???
1.5 MBIT. Cancelling and going back to cable.
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Review by Gwarsbane
Posted: 7.1 years ago
member for 7.1 years, 3 visits, last login: 7 years ago
Lower Sackville,NS
$50 per month
"24/7"
"50 bucks a month now I get 1/8 the speed"
"MTT/Sympatico/Mpower/Aliant/whatever screwed me, i'm goin cable"
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I'm with MTT/Sympatico/Mpower/Aliant/whatever they want to name themselves now and i'm VERY ticked.
When I started with Mpower I signed up for a 8 megabit connection. It was 50 bucks a month. I was all happy with this speed and price per month. It was faster then most people were getting on DSL or Cable anywhere and I never found any real limits. It was about the same price as others were paying.
For about the last year or so, my Paradyne modem was acting up and would drop 2 or 3 times a day, most of the time while in a game. Tech support was useless as usual (never found any techsupport anywhre that has been useful and didn't suggest stuff I have already tried), they even sent a guy out to check my lines and everything was fine on my end. I decided that I would live with this as it was great speeds.
Then about 3 weeks ago the Paradyne modem started dropping like 15 to 20 times in one day. I got them to check to see what the problem was this time and as usual it wasn't my end. So knowing that a few local friends of mine were on newer modems that weren't dropping on them I decided to get a new one from mpower/alliant. This is where I now get pissed...
The send me a new Comtrend DSL modem and its new and nice and all. I was told that I would only notice a "slight" drop in speed.
I'm a power user and I noticed a HUGE drop in speed right away. Before I could upload and download at 100k/sec at the same time and still be able to surf webpages. Now i'm lucky to break 50k/sec TOTAL. If i'm uploading at 30k/sec the max I can download is at 20k/sec. When I try to surf while at my max speed it takes pages for ever to load up.
I called the Tech support and I told them my problem and they said that I'm now capped at 1.5megabits. He said that I should be getting more then 50k/sec but that he doubts I would ever see the speeds that I was getting before.
So my speed has been reduced to 1/8 or so of what it was and yet they still expect me to pay 50 bucks a month. I told the tech just what I thought of that.
When I signed up, I signed up for 8 megabit. When I got the new comtrend modem I never signed anything new, so I'm still signed up for the 8 megabit connection.
If they put my speed back up, i'll stick with them, if they drop the price i'm paying to equil the speed drop so that I am only paying like 10 or 15 bucks taxes in then i'll stick with them, if not I'm goin cable by the end of November.
Bottom line: MTT/Sympatico/Mpower/Aliant/whatever SUCKS. I already know 3 people that have switched over to cable modem because its now faster and cheaper then DSL in my area. I know at least 3 other people, not including me, that will be switching over to cable very soon.
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Just a quick update:
I went to »www.chi.speakeasy.net and did a speed test. My results were
1166 kbps for download and 398 kbps for upload
Also forgot to mention that I have had Mpower since about a year after it came out.
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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."
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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.
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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"
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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.
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MTT (Nova Scotia)
