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Review by Enkerli 
Posted: 1.5 years ago
member for 1.6 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
 Laval,QC
 $30 per month (month by month)
 Bell Canada
 "Fast, reliable, easy to setup, can use other modems, no nagging, no contract."
 "Could be slightly cheaper."
 "Straightforward service, good value."
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Looked at RadioActif.net, ElectronicBox.net, TekSavvy.com, Acanac.ca, Bell.ca, Videotron.ca, Velcom.com, and Montreal-DSL.com. Most DSL plans were quite similar, apart from Bell which was more expensive.
Go the standard DSL monthly plan: 5Mbps/800kbps at 30$/mo. without a contract (no installation fees).
Order was very straightforward: complete a short form online (including choosing a PPPoE username and password), call to give a credit card number. That's it. No nagging. The delay was reasonable and I had to postpone the setup date because I was moving.
Install was even more straightforward than order: send the PPPoE info to the modem, and that's it.
Didn't get any equipment from Vif. Using a Broadxent.com Broadband Blaster 8012-V and a Belkin.com Wireless G Router (F5D7230-4).
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Review by En Enfer
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 6.3 years, 2656 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Montreal,QC
$30 per month
Bell Canada
"Tech Support and value"
"THROTTLING and routing issues"
"Good average ISP"
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I'm with VIF since summer 2002 when I flushed AEI Internet (they were disconnecting me regulary to obtain "stats"), and VIF welcomed me instantly. Back then it was 35$/month for 3Mbit or 30$/month if you pay the whole year in advance, and all traffic was going through Cogent (and QIX/TORIX) with peer1 backup (normally took 15 minutes everytime to get it started), and it was truly unlimited. I used my own modem and they were fine with it.
Nowadays, price is 30$/month for 5Mbit or 29$/month for the whole year in advance, dry loop is offered, they peer with Bell Canada and Peer1 (QIX/TORIX are still being used), and they are throttling since the last 2 years. They also advertise unlimited with a fine print reference to a Soft cap of 100Gb (both ways). They won't charge for going over, cut you off or call you, but anyone going over this limit will be switched to their secondary slow server.
A few years ago, they had monthly problems where their upstream provider (Cogent) gets cut off at 2am and we had to wait until 8am the next day to get service back. Those days are (or seems to be) gone now.
Traceroutes to some destinations uses Bell Canada's network, which normally goes down to Chicago before going anywhere else, which is a bad thing.
Their website is bilingual and easy to use. The online timer counts bandwidth used and your shows login history.
Technical support is helpful, they do not read a script and doesn't take customers for idiots (like Bell or AEI).
If you don't mind throttled service and use less than 100Gb per month, VIF is a good provider. They are located downtown Montreal.
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Review by xgmranti
UPDATED: 2 years ago
member for 4 years, 76 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Almonte,ON
$29 per month
 about 5 days
Bell Canada
"Good speeds, cheapest ISP out there"
"Softcap"
"Great if you're a light user"
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Had these guys a few years back to replace Storm Internet. They had a nasty 10GB cap up/down so I decided it was time to switch. (2006)
As far as I can remember they were a pretty decent ISP. Their website was well layed out and ordering by phone wasn't too bad, besides a bit of a thick English (based in Quebec).
They did have minor outages but you were warned two weeks ahead of time and the downtime occurred between 2-4am.
They had occasional reliability problems but again nothing serious and never lasting more then a few hours.
The biggest downside was the softcap at 100GB. Once you hit that limit, regardless of 101GB a month or 500GB a month, you are moved to a secondary network. Web browsing slows to a crawl (near dialup speeds).
I wouldn't consider myself a super user, but occasionally I do pass the 100GB threshold. Spending three weeks on the secondary network was enough to make me drop them.
For decent service, as long as your a lite user, with a price that can't be beat, try VIF.
Note: I scored them neutral for Tech Support since I never had to call in.
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Review by Dave Lewis
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 5.6 years, 264 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
Nepean,ON
 Business customer
$212 per month
about 12 days
Bell Canada
"Very knowledgeable Staff, Especially the Owner, easy to work with."
"Slightly pricy for what I’m getting, BUT that is Bell’s DSL Sync Issue not VIF’s. No Bad Points with VIF"
"Worth every penny."
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When I went to VIF, they were the middle of the road cost wise. At the time I had a horrible experience with IStop, and VIF were very quick to reply to questions about their service, and accommodated every request I had. I ended up ordering the 6meg Bridged Connection (no pppoe). The install went smoothly on VIF's side. Had some hiccups with Bell not moving my PVC from my old provider to VIF. The thing that impresses me the most is that they are very candid with their outages. If you ask and it was their fault they will tell you (although the outages in general are few and far between). Most ISP's I've seen fail to admit when it was their issue.
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VIF Internet
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