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Review by ZZink 
Posted: 8 days ago
member for 7.4 years, 455 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Etobicoke
 $80 per month
 about 7 days
 "No Cap, no throttle and most of all hardly any money goes to bell! Affordable, and i'm right on their OC (0.5km)"
 "Tech support over the phone is less than helpful for the most part"
 "If you are on Primus equipment and you hate bell, SWITCH to primus!"
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Review by Ravage_D
UPDATED: 182 days ago
member for 6.6 years, 312 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Kingston,ON
$75 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
 Bell Canada
"Fantastic Speed -- Unthrottled and Unlimited Download"
"Having to deal with Bell to hook up the last mile"
"Great option if you can get on their triple bundle -- They own their own DSLAMS"
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I'm in Downtown Kingston Ontario and I just moved to a new apartment. I had been with Cogeco for 3 years but they are capped and throttled so I decided to look and see what is available in the region.
Primus owns their own DSLAMs in Kingston and the central office is happily located less than a kilometre to my house.
I ordered their triple bundle pack which gives me a home phone, all the features, Canadian long distance and 7000/800 ADSL. This is the fastest DSL available in Kingston.
I ordered it at the end of April (on the 26th I believe) (I moved into the new house on May 1st) and the box arrived May 3rd with the modem.
They contacted me with the technician date on the 29th of April, it was set for the 7th of May.
The 7th of May comes around and the Bell technician only put the line as far as the demarc in the basement of my multi-unit dwelling because he's not able to get it to the apartment as the lines are dead.
I call up Primus and they see what happened, I was assigned my own service rep who gave me his cell phone number and always followed up when he said it would. Apprently he was told that Bell said the lines in the house were too old and the entire place needed to be re-wired and they were trying to work it out with my landlord. Primus said Bell was going to take care of it, but apprently Bell never got in contact with my landlord.
After being sick of waiting, I just called a 3rd party Bell technician who was retired and he came by then fixed the line running from the basement to my unit (along the outside as i live in a heritage building). Once it was fixed and up and running...BINGO! I'm getting the speeds I pay for and the phone is working great.
So far so good! I'm extremely happy. I have unlimited download and unthrottled/unmolested connection. The headache with getting the house's wiring is not Primus's fault and I feel they did everything they could have on their end to get things up and running.
Now that i have it, I can't wait to use it! It's only been a few hours so i'll have to follow it up. But...preliminary tests show I'm getting FULL speed and during peak hours I'm able to connect to a linux tracker and download a torrent while maxing out my connection (I got around 840KB/s)
Primus has been helpful whenever I called them, the tech that they assigned to me was extremely frank with the whole situation and completely honest. Things have gone well so far. I'm very happy at the moment 
Just to SUM UP:
I'm on the Primus Triple Value Bundle. The base price is $64.95/month for the first year, then goes up to $75/year afterwards. With tax it works out to $75/month for the first year.
I get:
Home Phone
18 Calling Features (This is the call display, call block etc..etc..)
7Mbps DSL
Unlimited Long distance in Canada/US
Best of all, the internet is Unlimited and Unthrottled! An EXTREME rarity in Canada.
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Review by Peeping_Tom
UPDATED: 199 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 8 visits, last login: 199 days ago
Canada
$85 per month
Bell Canada
"Very fast 7mbit service, great uptime and responsive Canada-based customer service"
"None!"
"Very fast, cheap and reliable!"
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Very fast 7mbit service, great uptime and Canada-based customer service. Primus offers great service, I get unlimited long distance within North America, 7mbit up 1mbit down DSL for $85/month, no contract. There is no bittorrent throttling, free newsgroup access. This service is AWESOME in Downtown London Ontario!
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 Review by Martin
UPDATED: 265 days ago
member for 4.5 years, 1524 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Quebec,QC
Contract price not specified.
Bell Canada
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J'ai maintenant le service Internet HV de Vidéotron.
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Review by djxs
UPDATED: 338 days ago
member for 338 days, 0 visits, last login: 338 days ago
Guelph,ON
$39 per month
about 535 days
Bell Canada
"Fast and a great price!"
"Uses Bell's network, traffic shaping"
"Cancel Bell and get Primus or Teksavvy!"
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I'm sick of listening to this garbage people are saying about Primus. Do your homework first before ranting about how bad Primus is. Chances are you live outside of their CO so you'll be using BELL's lines to connect to their server. (Yes, Primus does use their own network too, but you are probably too far away from it) And if you didn't know, Bell throttles traffic (and not just p2p), soo no matter which ISP you get you'll be throttled in some way. (95% of DSL ISP's lease a part of Bell's network) Don't blame Primus, blame Bell!!!!! There are easy ways to avoid this, but I guess you people don't like to do research anyways.
One packet that DPI finds 'questionable,' you'll be throttled until you get a new IP.
I've had Primus for over a year and a half now and I've only been down twice, both for about 30 minutes, and it was probably Bell's fault anyway. I always download at 530K/sec, although I'm on the 7mbps plan, but I know it's because my line is synced/capped to 5056/800 (Bell's fault again!)
$34.99 for 5/7mpbs and no caps, being able to run your own servers, sure you can probably get the same for $25-30 now, but I am very happy with Primus so i'm not switching... yet.:)
(Started off on the free 5 month promo, then paid $45.99 for about a year, then switched to the $34.99 plan when they introduced it. Although I was not notified and continued paying $45.99 for a couple months till I checked their website and found they dropped the prices.)
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Review by niallgal
Posted: 349 days ago
member for 5.2 years, 104 visits, last login: 129 days ago
Ottawa,ON
$65 per month (12 month contract)
about 30 days
"Price -- all-in local phone service, free calling in US/Canada + broadband (7M profile)"
"Broadband service appalling bad -- 3.8M during the day, 300K at night with 700ms ping tims"
"If you need broadband only during the day, it's fine otherwise stay well away"
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I'm in the west end of Ottawa. I got an offer from Primus Canada for local phone service with all bells and whistles, unlimited long distance in US and Canada and 7M broadband. I was using Bell for phone service and Teksavvy for broadband and the Primus offer was attractive enough to switch.
The transition went smoothly but I soon got complaints about the internet being too slow. I called Primus Tech Support, used their speed testing tool (speedtest.primus.ca) to measure for them. Results: ping time varied from a low of 60ms during the day to a high of 850ms in the evening. Download speed varied from 3.8M (day) to 300Kbps in the evening. The service was unusable. I made many calls to the tech support who genuinely seem technology illiterate before finally getting a ticket raised and speaking with a L2 tech. He explained the issue was capacity (as if this wasn't obvious) and that the problem would be resolved with the installation of new equipment. I wasn't able to get a date for the fix. I struggled with the service for six weeks and then switched back to Teksavvy.
Using the Primus speedtesting tool, my ping time is 18ms and download speeds are consistently around 3.8M (even in the evening).
If you're in Ottawa, AVOID Primus broadband. They bought the Magma ISP here and are obviously not focussed on residential business.
My recommendationL Teksavyy-- can't beat the combination of great customer and technical support, performance and price.
NG
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Review by funkengruven
Posted: 1.1 years ago
member for 2.4 years, 11 visits, last login: 6 days ago
Hamilton,ON
$64 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
"Home Phone and High Speed internet for a Great Price"
"Unacceptably long wait times when calling for Customer Service"
"Despite the issues, the price is unbeatable, and I'll take this over Bell anyday."
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Ordered this to replace my Cable internet since I was starting to do more video streaming, On-Line gaming and XBOX Live Video/Game downloads, I felt that the 60GB that Cogeco was providing was insufficient. 10 days after ordering it was set up and working. My TalkBroadband number migrated over to the home phone successfuly and it works nicely. The internet i was starting to have some issues with. I called Tech Support and had someone who was not particularly helpful ask me to reset my modem and to call back if something happens. Problems persisted, to the point where i was power cycling my modem every hour. Called tech support again, and this time got someone MUCH more knowledgeable who managed to resolve my problem completely. (signalling issue on the provider end). Other than some recent slowdowns during peak times, it works more than adequately for the price.
Bottom line - For the price (64.95) you get a working home phone with unlimited north american long distance and reasonably reliable high speed (5-6Mbps) internet service with no download cap. Customer service isn't the greatest but is still many times better than Bell Canada. Overall, worth the money.
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Review by igofman
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 1.8 years, 35 visits, last login: 126 days ago
North York,ON
$45 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Price, if you get the phone line from Primus too. Support Level 2 is honest and helpfull"
"Sales personnel lie about expected speed. Speed is inconsistent - drops significantly after 9 PM EST"
"If you want consistent level of service stay away. Otherwise it can be a good deal if you are close to Central Office(CO)."
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When I was doing my research Primus sales person told me that I'm 1.5 km away from their CO and therefore speed close to 5 Mbps can be expected on my DSL connection. It was an outright lie. After I signed up, DSL modem connection was only 1.2 Mbps down. Actual Internet speed was about 900 Kbps. Two weeks of calls to Support led to some tweaking done by Support Level 2 and DSL speed down is 2.2 Mbps now. Actual Internet is 1800 Kbps at best times. Every day from 09:00 PM till about midnight speed drops to 500-800 Kbps. Primus Tech. Support also confirmed several times that I'm 4.5 km away from CO and with such distance without additional amplifying equipment between me and CO I can't expect speed above 2 Mbps. The price for unlimited 5 Mbps DSL is $25 if you sign-up for 12 month ($19 a month) of Primus Telephone (regular, not VOIP). Internet service requires no contract and can be canceled at any time - you have to buy the modem though ($35).
If you are close to Primus (Bell) CO you may get a good deal. But keep in mind that Internet speed may drop significantly in the evenings. If you are in need of consistently fast Internet, look somewhere else.
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Review by KC
UPDATED: 1.3 years ago
member for 3 years, 308 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Ottawa,ON
$69 per month
about 5 days
"Bundel is a great value, POST is good, Long Distance is Great"
"DSL, too far away from CO. Tech Support SUCKS"
"If you have working DSL, check out Primus, but you if you have trouble you are on your own!"
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I've been with Primus ever since they bought out AT&T Canada (10 year?) Had dial up for just as long, expect for one billing issue, it was smooth sailing.
So when they offer the Voice, Long Distance, and 5 Mbps DSL, We jumped at it. No contract, no caps, we keep our home phone number. Air Miles is a bonus. All for $70.00 a month and NO Network fee. Sign up was fast and customer service was helpful. The voice switch over happened in 5 business days, we didn't notice a thing! Got all sorts of phone feature in the bundle; my teen age daughter had lots of fun. So Voice and Long Distance is fine.
DSL is another matter. The Modem is a Speed Touch 516 (nice) which arrived 7 business days after I order. The Modem is set to bridge mode. So I had to use a PPPoE client, no problem. First off I know that the Bell CO is 4.5 km away. And I know that I'm going to take a hit in terms of speed. So when I get speed of 0.5 to 1.0 Mbps, I was not surprise. But we get periodic line drops. It was okay at first, maybe one a day. But there are days when the modem would lose sync for hours on end. Tech support is offal. Of the dozen calls; I had 2 really good operators. The last one actually when though my record and told me that they have put me on several networks, tried me on different switches. That the last line test came back and the attenuation is roughly 5.7km.
So If you have DSL that works and you are looking to save a few buck, Primus have really good bundles. But DSL support.... Spottie
Update Dec 07, It has been a year since I sign up with Primus triple bundle, and I stand by the review.... Phone has been great, Long distance has been solid. DSL has been okay with only 2 line drops since the last review. Considering my distance and line quality in my area, I consider my self lucky. And their support still sucks....
Update July 08, still going strong@ 1Mbps, the line is being throttle by Bell like everyone else, there are rumors that Primus are co-locating some of their equipment in Bell's CO if you are that lucky, then you will no get throttle. Can't comment on tech support since everything has been steady, slow and steady. KC
Followup comments:  
anon20000000000
@bell.ca
| Do not sign up with Primus PRIMUS IS THE WORST PHONE COMPANY OUT THERE!!!!
Here is my story:
I have primus VOIP for the past year. I called to cancel my service in May. They said i needed to give a months notice.. fine.
They have a modem etc that i had to send back.
Since i was moving (to another province)- i told them to send the 'send back' package to my new address. They said 'ya, no problem'.
I call 2 weeks later to confirm this new address. No problem.
The date that i was supposed to get the package came and went. I called them to see what was up. "oh- we sent it to your old address".
They agreed to send a new package to my new address.
I get the package. Send it. Get confirmation from Canada Post that they have received it Aug 1.
Aug 22 i get a charge on my credit card for $160
I call them to find out why. "We havent received your package". I tell them to go check. "Oh, we received it". I ask them to reverse the charges. They say that it will only happen on my next billing cycle.
I found this totally unacceptable (what about visa interest charges??)
I called visa to try and get something done about it. They transfer me to the "resolution department"- yadda yadda i'm back on the phone with primus.
Now the primus guy is telling me that i have to call them back on my next billing cycle to get a "charge back" on my credit card, because if i leave it to them to refund it will take up to 8 weeks.
I asked to speak to supervisors, no go. I demanded an instant refund. No go.
WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?!
I am going to try and call visa again on monday- but i dont know what i can say to get these charges taken off.
I am trying to spread this word as much as possible.
Primus has screwed up on my account SO MANY TIMES!!
I am very disgruntled and would like to do as much damage to their business as possible. | |
| | superporky0
join:2002-07-24
Burlington, ON
| Re: Do not sign up with Primus The original post was a while ago but thought I would respond anyway.
ATTENTION ANYONE SHIPPING HARDWARE BACK TO PRIMUS!!!
KEEP YOUR SHIPPING TRACKING NUMBER.
I signed up for Primus was very clear that I already have a modem and do not need one. Surprise, surprise the modem arrives a few days later. Primus sent me the return package and for some reason I photocopied the label before and stuck it on my desk. The next month I was charged for the modem. WTF!!! Auto paid to Visa, great. I called and they hadn't received the modem. The modem that I didn't need in the first place. While customer service was 'looking into it' I received another bill, no refund. At this point I calling cust support fairly regularly. But they have no record of receipt. Short story long, I remembered I kept the tracking number. It took about 3 months but I got my money back.
KEEP YOUR TRACKING INFO!!! | |
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Review by heavyduty
Posted: 1.3 years ago
member for 1.6 years, 163 visits, last login: 81 days ago
Brampton,ON
$69 per month (12 month contract)
Bell Canada
"bundle price cannot be beat, good DSL service"
"required 12 months contract which has $100 early termination fee"
"if you want voice/fax/long-distance/dsl, this is probably the best deal around"
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- Residential mega-bundle deal
- includes analog voice + 9 features, plus free Teleguard
- includes additional telephone/ring for fax line (added $4 month)
- includes unlimited long distance Canada/USA
- includes up to 7mbps DSL
I absolutely love the Teleguard feature. Have not received any telemarketer calls for over a month. This is with the same phone number which received on average 10-20 per month telemarketers. Voice service and its features all work as expected.
DSL service is great. Unfortunately my loop is on a Bell remote so I cannot get DSL from Primus' own platform, thus the basic DSL infrastructure is similar to other Bell wholesale ISPs and the line is still subject to Bell Canada bandwidth throttling.
DSL latency and training is excellent. I'm at 4.2km according to attenuation, and am trained at 5000/800 fast-mode. Latency to google.ca is approximately ~12ms, much better than my previous ISP (another Bell partner ISP) on the same loop.
I'm online all the time, and DSL downtime has been almost non-existent. Only experienced 1.5 hours downtime in the last month.
The ST516v6 DSL modem works fine, and Primus' install CD worked even with my Mac system. Afterwhich, I just connected the modem to a switch and let it serve the entire home LAN.
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Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc.
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Apparently quality of my line can be improved