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Review by GuyLeger 
Fair warning: reviewer joined this week
updated 5 days ago
 Montreal,QC
 $40 per month- (12 month contract)
 Bell Canada "Reasonable cost, No limit to download, good average speed (7-8 Mbps)" "Frequent connexion drops due to Zhone 1518 router/modem"
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Opting for a DSL (ADSL2+) connexion vs cable is like buying a Loto ticket. If everything turns fine you are fine but if you have even one single problem your nearly done. Colbanet looks at the signal quality and if it shows ok they get stuked with phone line length between house outlet and modem... or they say that the problem is on local company side (Bell Canada in my case). They may ask the Bell technician to go for a check, which will cost 100$ if Bell says everything is fine with them... As in my case, I contracted with VoIP phone line you can imagine what will be the interest of Bell Canada! So you are in between two parties that put the fault to each other.
I thus had the upsetting issue of frequent connexion drops (4-10 times a day) which means that apart from not having internet, I had no phone service!
It is not easy to try to finetune the router/modem as they warn that if you mess the configuration, they will charge 20$ for a reconfiguration. Colba tech didn't even want to let me know the router's IP address so to have a look at the configuration. They don't want you to solely change the SSID name...
What I did : I dared buy another brand router/modem : TP-Link TD-W8960N and I configured it with the exact same parameters found on the Zhone 1518A router/modem as can be seen with the modem IP address 192.168.1.1.
And what ?? It readily connected to internet and I since it is connected (6 days) I had
0 connexion drop and so for the phone service.
Too bad they charged my 125$ (taxes included) for the poor Zhone router. But it is still a lot cheaper than Videotron.
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Review by Kiba
member for 58 days, 1 visits, last login: 33 days ago
lodged 58 days ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
- Bell Canada
- "Price"
- "Speed"
 "Stay Away"
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I get Colbanet service 2 weeks ago and I was promised service ADSL2+ with speed 8 to 9 Mbps however what I got was only 2Mbps or less.
I called tech support and they, right away without checking anything, blamed the line and asked me if they can send Bell Tech to check it. After next day they contacting me telling me that Bell Tech checked the line and phone nothing is wrong with it so I have to pay them $100 because they are innocent and it is my mistake to have only 2Mbps for the unknown reason even though the week before I had DSL internet with Acanac with more than 3 Mbps!
I got charged $100 without even fixing their problem!
Their tech manager Jean-Francois is useless to talk to... He doesn't understand anything what service means and that they should provide the customers with what they promised. He keeps talking about their modem which you bought from them as your responsibility to troubleshoot and figure out and they only give you the line good to your building ( not even your apartment).
It is a big fraud.... I recommend to stay away, there is so many other better customer and tech services out there.
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Review by rkml
member for 93 days, 1 visits, last login: 83 days ago
lodged 93 days ago
- Montreal,QC
 Business customer- $95 per month
- (month by month)
 about 8 days- "ADSL2+ with Annex M and G.BOND!, Price, Level 2 Support, Unlimited, No Bell (other than Dry Loop due to Monopoly)."
- "Tech Support (unless it is level 2), Account Activation Fee for second line?"
- "If you are in the 2+ Zone, Great Alternative for Telco/CableCo Haters."
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Hi All,
We run 2 ADSL2+ lines with Colba. We had problems at the start where our DSL line quality was not good and had to get about 3-4 dry loops to test the quality of the lines. Eventually we settled with 2 ADSL2+ lines.
Currently we are using ADSL2+ with G.BOND, on the ATM level, the DSL Lines are combined to double the speed. I am 3.8km away from the CO with the following stats:
Link Power State: L0
Mode: ADSL2+
Channel: Fast
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 12.4 5.7
Attn(dB): 45.5 26.0
Pwr(dBm): 19.5 0.6
Max(Kbps): 8204 1339 (This is only one line of the 2 pairs that are connected)
Rate (Kbps): 5151 975 (This is only one line of the 2 pairs that are connected)
Here is my speedtest results. »speedtest.net/result/1575324221.png
Getting 11.44Mb/s down and 1.58 Mb/s up!!!
Using a Zhone 6228-I2-200 DSL modem/Wireless Router.
I was getting problems with lines losing data/delaying traffic because my SNR was around 5.5-6.0 dBm, I reconfigured each line to approximately 12dBm and after 24 hours, the DSL lines have cleared themselves up and I have no more further problems.
The one thing that we are still waiting is for Annex M to be turned on. Problem is, the tech who can turn it on is unreachable from the support desk. Waiting patiently.
All in all, we are extremely pleased with their service and have been recommending their services to many people.
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Review by quickdry21
member for 2.7 years, 189 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 115 days ago
- Montreal,QC
- $29 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 8 days
- "price, unlimited bandwidth, no throttle, no bell!"
- "customer service"
- "If you are within their zone and have line stats suitable for DSL, they are the best choice"
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My dry-loop ADSL2+ service was activated yesterday. This is my first time living in Quebec/Montreal, and normally I would go with Teksavvy, but someone on the forums suggested I check out Colbanet, and since I am in their Atwater zone, I decided I would give them a shot. I was quite skeptical, as I gathered some line stats in my buildings, and they were marginally good; I'm in an old apartment building (not grounded/no 3-prong power outlets!) and not very close to the CO (1.25KM as the bird flies).
The signup process epitomized others reviews I have read on DSLR; signup was painful.
1. The rep on the phone was humming and swearing: "shit, oops I didn't mean to do that."
2. I had to repeat much of my information multiple times.
3. I had to ask about their cancellation policy three separate times, after each I was put on hold, only to be taken off as if I had never asked anything.
4. After the ordering process completed, and I was asked if there was anything else, I had to inquire about my installation date, and the answer was "Oh, yeah, you will have to be home between 8 and 5 on the 13th."
5. I was called back the next day, twice, to ask me information I had already provided them. I gave them my birthday twice when I ordered, and they called me twice the next day to ask for it again, along with my Visa information. This delayed my installation an extra day.
6. I was never sent my username/password, a receipt, or any correspondence. I had to call in twice and wait on hold before I was able to login.
Complaints aside, as long as I never have to actually deal with the company again, I'm ecstatic about the ADSL2+. Unlimited bandwidth, no throttle and best of all, no Bell. I prepaid ~$500 for 12 months: $20/month + ~$10/month dry-loop + ~$80 activation.
The installation itself was painless. On the scheduled day, I called them, got my username/password and was connected right away. The technician showed up 4 hours later and I told him I was already hooked up. He never came through the door. I was having issues with a Thomson Speedtouch 516v6 (it was showing an upstream attenuation of -2 and getting half the throughput of my profile/sync). I tried out a branded 2Wire 2701HG-G that I had flashed with unlocked firmware, and magically I was getting throughput of 650KB/s.
Even with questionable line stats, my modem reports a ~6000/450Kbps profile. The upload is half of what I would like, but I assume that is my line's fault, not Colbanet's.
Service with Colbanet feels like a gamble at this point, based off their reviews and my own experience on the phone with them I'm still not very confident prepaying for a year. However, if the connection remains stable it was worth the risk.
UPDATE: After three weeks of service, service has been reliable. I disconnected all the phone lines in my house minus the one serving the DSL (no home phone), and my line quality improved. I'm now getting speed tests consistently 5.7Mbps and 0.70Mbps.
UPDATE 2: I purchased a TP-Link as per a suggestions, and I got an instant 1Mbps downspeed bump. I'm syncing at ~ 7441Mbps now. Still slow compared to cable, but it is much more reliable in terms of speed. I would rather have 7Mbps all day instead of 1Mbps during some times of the day.
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 Reviews:
 ·Acanac
1 edit | line stats? Hi, what are your line stats? I've seen tp-link modems go below the 6db minimum signal required to get a synch meaning people usually got a nice speed boost from regular modems. I've seen synchs as low as 4.3db with them... Might give them a try if your line stats are above 6db. I had one client mooved from a linksys modem/router to a tp-link td-8960N unit and she got bumped from 5mb to 11mb/sec. I'm not saying it's the same case everytime but if you want better speed, better give it a shot! | |
| | | | Re: line stats? Attenuation: 41.1dB down, 11.6dB up.
Power: 19.3dBm down, 10.8dBm up.
Noise Margin: 7.5dB down, 9.3dB up.
Sync: 6288kbps down, 946kbps up.
Think I could do better with a TP-Link? | |
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)
lodged 133 days ago
- H4B
- $24 per month
- (12 month contract)
- "high internet speed, no-limit"
- "some of the customer service reps"
- "Good price for high speed and no limit"
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Hi,
this is a review of Colbanet Customer Service mainly Francois - customer service representative.
I want to complain about a stupid response from Colbanet customer service rep.
I am a satisfied DSL user for more than 3 years. I am with Colbanet for 2 months - no problems, high internet speed 8 Mbps "stable-ish". Last week sept. 24, 2011, my internet connection started to crash every few minutes. I don't know how it works during the day (i am at work), but at nights and early mornings it is terrible. On the modem the internet/dsl light is off every few minutes; the modem home page shows the service down.
I called them today, Saturday Oct 1st (this was the first time I could call them during their working hours) and the tech guy, Francois - as he presented himself, asked me how long is my cable from the jack to the modem. It is 5 m and he said it is way too long, it should be 2 m (what about the tens of meters in the walls?). He didn't even check anything - logs or what they have there. When I asked to talk to someone else he said he is the only one there during the weekend. I used other ISP's with the same configuration and never had any problems.
Satisfaction scale:
Colbanet internet: 4/5 (because of this week disconnection and NO SOLUTION yet)
Customer service - Francois tech guy: 1/5
Thank you.
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| | Same Boat. been with Colba net since 2010.
service was not working on for a couple days
called Tech..spoke to Francois and he was like you need to try another modem or cable .. who always has a spare modem? does the normal internet home user have a spare modem.
they said they 'll to check the line but it will take forever.
this is the reply :
By replying to this e-mail,
you acknowledge you are aware that during a service call, if the
problem is proved towards the equipments inside the house (telephone
wiring, plugs, ADSL filters, modem, computer, or any other problem
proved inside the house.) fees of $ 87.70 will apply and must be paid
as soon as possible, otherwise your Internet service could be
suspended. | |
| | Crixox
join:2010-09-10
Repentigny, QC | Re: Same Boat. heard they lend spare modems for free
as per the 5meters phone cord, this definatly can be an issue, it sux to give a bad review and blast someone only because you did not feel like testing what he asked you to test and could have fixed your issue, but this is your call  | |
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Review by wlym
member for 148 days, 1 visits, last login: 147 days ago
lodged 148 days ago
- Montreal,QC
- Contract price not specified.
- "Fast, cheap, unlimited."
- "Old, slow and overpriced modem offered. Buy your own."
- "Awesome!"
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I was on Bell Fibre 25 and hating it. Slow (never got a speed over 2mbps and that was a short-lived rarity), inconsistent connection, ridiculously expensive, greedily data-capped, and the absolutely most useless, uninformed tech "support" imaginable! I have horror stories.
So, after much research and gnashing of teeth, I decided to go with Colba.net as I live a block away from one of their COs and the sales rep felt that I'd get great speeds depending on the line quality in my apartment (it's a 100 year old building and a maze of wires). I needed a dry-loop as I have no land-line (take THAT, Bell!). Their ADSL2+ modem is double the same model's retail price elsewhere and slow (Wifi is G and not N for example) so I bought a TP-Link (TD-W8960N) modem/router from Futureshop for $75. This choice means that Colba won't help me with any modem configs if I have trouble.
Bell showed up to install the dry loop. The technician was really friendly and after testing the line-quality for interference, he disabled a couple of old jacks that were causing line noise. Done in 20 minutes. The modem setup was dead simple: I just plugged in my username and password and I was online.
With a theoretical top speed of 24mbps, my speed test resulted in about 12mbps. Way better than Bell in my experience. Connection has been solid since plugging in two days ago so the jury is out on reliability in the long term.
I prepaid for a year so not including the $60 activation fee and the $18 dry-loop visit, I'm paying less than $30/month for fast, unlimited internet.
What a difference after a year on $80/month BELLch. I wish I had done this sooner.
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Review by amsk
member for 177 days, 0 visits, last login: 177 days ago
lodged 177 days ago
- Montreal,QC
- $45 per month
- (month by month)
- about 7 days
- "Great price, great speed, no throttling, no caps!"
- "As of now, nothing about which to complain."
- "If you can get good ADSL2+ speeds relative to your location, it's a fantastic deal."
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Originally, I was planning on going with TekSavvy because of all the fantastic reviews it has. The speeds weren't looking amazing, but better than some other options. I e-mailed TekSavvy about what speeds I could expect at my location and with several other questions. A day later, I got an e-mail autoreply to wait 24 hours for a reply (from this e-mail or my original e-mail?). No reply until 4 days later. It basically said, in one sentence, that they cannot confirm what is available for my location at this time. Nothing else.
I'm not trying to trash TekSavvy, this is just the response I got. So, I decided to take a chance with Colba.net. The reviews are very mixed, but the CO is about 1km away from my apartment. I sent them an e-mail one evening with several questions. The next morning, I got a prompt, full answer to everything, promising about 10Mbps speeds at my residence for ADSL2+.
I went on their website, sent in the subscription form, and several hours later got a phone call where I ordered the service ($34.95 monthly plus $9.95 dry loop fee; there was also a $60.00 activation fee plus an extra $18.91 for dry loop installation; the total with tax was $141.05). Today, 5 business days later (7 days in all), is the planned activation day. Their e-mail to me said I'd need to stay home all day in case someone had to come by, which did not please me.
I didn't feel like waiting too long and plugged in the modem/router I bought on eBay for cheap (TP-LINK TD-W8960N), and went to the quick setup page. I didn't know about which values to plug in, so I left everything default and put in the username and password Colba e-mailed me into the PPP user/pass boxes. Finished the set-up, and lo and behold, everything worked swimmingly.
I only wish I hadn't waited all that time and done the set-up earlier. I just assumed from the sound of the e-mails I exchanged with Colba that someone would probably come over. So far, this has not been the case, nor do I anticipate it to be.
The connection is faster than promised and works very well. It's only day 0, so I can't provide any long-term review as of yet, but I'll update every so often as I continue with the service.
Speedtest.net results: »www.speedtest.net/result/1439130744.png
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Review by epack
member for 185 days, 0 visits, last login: 185 days ago
updated 182 days ago
- Montreal,QC
- $40 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 8 days
- "16.5 *ACTUAL* megabits/second! I love this. Tech support is hit/miss, but the last guy *ROCKED*"
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I am a happy Teksavvy customer (and will not be getting rid of them) and wanted a little more speed. Alas, Teksavvy doesn't offer adsl2+, and are still slaves to Bell's dreaded infrastructure. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover Colba.net uses their OWN infrastructure (so Bell can't rate-shape you).
I ordered their $20/month (for a year's prepaid subscription) service for ADSL2+ (24 megabits). The order process was easy enough. Pop by their office (!) and cough some cash, and a bell technician shows up in a few days to hook up a ready-to-go line. Simple. I used my own Motorola Netopia modem, which seamlessly worked on the first try, and squealed with delight when the modem established a connection at 21 megabits/sec.
Sadly, while the DSL worked, actual IP throughput was fairly terrible. Packet loss was orders of magnitude higher than my trusty Teksavvy link, and throughput was about 2.5 megabits per second instead of the potential 21.
I called tech support, and was met by someone who instantly blamed my modem, and wouldn't talk to me further until I agree to try one of theirs. This is rather inconvenient for me, as I could demonstrate a clean DSL connection. Nerdrage caused me to run some formal speed tests and send the dismal and damning results to Colba.net's CEO.
*10 minutes later* at 11pm, the CEO REPLIED, and suggested he'd have someone call me in the morning.
Sure enough, next morning I had a pleasantly erudite chat with a backbone guy, who admitted there's a known congestion issue that they're already right about to fix. Sure enough, 2 weeks later, packet loss dropped to near-zero levels, and all was well, except I still only attained 5 megs throughput.
Nerd rage may have ensued
But it wasn't Colba.net's fault this time
I could demonstrate my modem was connecting at 21 megabits at the DSL level, but could only attain 5 megabits of IP throughput. Their techs suggested everything is fine, and I'm not being rate shaped, so it must be on my end (*more nerdrage*) the CEO gets involved again, politely, patiently, and dispatches a senior tech guy to my local central office to run some experiments for me (wow).. and he demonstrated that his modem and laptop can get 16 megabits on my connection. He suggested I just factory reset my modem because "What have I got to lose" (*extreme nerdrage*). So I did this, and to my infinite shame and humility, it worked. I now have more throughput at home than at work. Colba net really went above and beyond, and I must say, I have no idea why I didn't sign on with them sooner.
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Review by ZeroHealth9
member for 2.3 years, 3 visits, last login: 222 days ago
updated 222 days ago
- Montreal,QC
- $51 per month
- "If you are lucky and get a good connection... it'll probably be okay"
- "tech support hates your guts, reliability is questionable"
- "If any problems arise... you'll be sorry you chose them."
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Been with Colba since the NINA-IT days. A believe that's about 2 years. I have their month-to-month plan (no contract).
Speed: I have the ADSL2+ service. I've never got anywhere close to 24 megabits per second. On a good day I might get about 300kb/sec, which is about 1/10th of the advertised speed. Still, to be fair it was faster than the speed acanac gave me (had them before getting colbanet).
Reliability: Its not terrible, but its not 100%. So if you always need to be connected I would get something else. My own personal experience is that there might be a day or two every other month where I just lose internet for an hour, or have a very very slow connection that is barely usable.
Customer support: The technical support hates your guts. I've never, ever, met such rude people in my life. Except for one guy there... they really don't care.
The end: It was good enough for me until it just stopped working a few days ago. Their solution? Go over to their office and pick up a test modem -- which is by the way, in the middle of nowhere (and I don't have transportation) -- or have a test modem shipped to me at my own cost. Then I have to return it too. No thanks. The very least they could of offered was to reimburse me for the shipping fees if it turns out my modem is fine. If they cared about my business they would try harder to keep it. I just hope they don't try to strangle me with their 30 day cancellation policy.
In summary: With such an expensive activation fee, a chance to get a not-so-reliable connection and shoddy speed... not to mention the cancellation policy... and the need to purchase your own modem... would you risk it?
I don't like internet corporations like Bell which try to monopolize and control internet, so I wanted to support smaller companies like Colba. Unfortunately, I regret that I did.
Sad, but I'll be signing up with Bell next.
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Review by dbsanfte
member for 6.9 years, 1380 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 272 days ago
- Montreal,QC
- $49 per month
- about 14 days
- "ADSL2+ up to 24meg, Annex M if you want it, no throttling, no caps"
- "need to be near a CO. dry line pricing wasn't on the website"
- "this isn't the company it was 2 years ago. HUGE improvement"
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With throttling and now UBB coming down the pipe from Bell, I decided it was time to try out the alternatives, ie, an ISP that wasn't just wholesaling DSL through Bell. Colba has its own equipment in the COs in the Montreal area, and is thus immune to throttling and Bell's UBB policies if you're hooked up through their equipment.
I emailed the sales address on the Colba website, and had my order handled personally by an Ellen Chalyuk, account manager for Colbanet. Colba can tell you whether you're within service area of one of their COs or not, and what speeds others in your area are getting through their service (ie, what you can expect).
I had my dry DSL line hooked up to Colba's equipment on the day of my cancellation with Teksavvy, actually a day earlier than my official activation date. No technician visit was required, but Colba needed directions to give to the Bell tech in case they needed to visit the demarc in my building (the contact # for my landlady was sufficient).
I was told the other customer in my building was syncing at 10megs down, and on the activation date I achieved a sync rate of 11megs down. Hooked up to the NDG CO, which gives me 39dB attenuation from the corner of Sherbrooke W and Elmhurst Ave.
Speed tests match the sync rate (accounting DSL overhead), in offtime as well as primetime (if they've oversold their backhaul from the CO, I can't tell). Pings to my game servers are 12ms higher versus 5meg DSL fastpath on account of interleaving, but I was expecting that.
There's a monthly plan, or you can prepay for a year for a discount. They also offer an Annex M service for a higher price, if you want a better upload speed.
That's about it! ADSL2+ in Montreal, no caps, no throttling! Lovin' it.
NOTE: OFFSITE LINKS REMOVED
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