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 Review by WiMax 
member for 8.8 years, 64 visits, last login: 71 days ago
updated 71 days ago
 Canada
 $19 per month about 45 days "Terrible tech and customer support, system crashes frequently leaving me without service" "Never should have left Vonage."
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UPDATE 10Mar12 This week my ATA failed and I diagnosed it to a faulty power supply. I tried to call iKtel and was stunned to find out the only phone number on their website is out of order. I found their local number, called and they told me to go to Walmart to buy a replacement and said I would have to pay for it! NO WAY! A two month old ATA (third one since subscribing in November) was still under warranty!! Begrudgingly they allowed me to drive to them to pickup a new power supply, they are not happy because they had to take a ps from a new ATA and now send it back. So? That's business!
This company got nothing right. They gave me a dud ATA that didn't support CID blocking and tried to tell me because I didn't have their Internet it was a problem at my end. They finally exchanged it after admitting there was a problem with some ATA's. Next one was worse, make a call and sit for 40seconds before the phone would ring. I had to take it back TWICE for them to fix right! They don't test any of the USED gear they sell before giving to customer. The worst - four major systems crashes from December/11 - Feb/12. Not once did they advise after the outage what the issue was or even an apology. Met the owner and told him I was not happy that one of his staff told me that it was their supplier that screwed up and then he tells me it was really him testing his LIVE system during the day! The last outage was because of a major power failure in Niagara Falls that affect them. They don't have any redundancy to cope with this - no power backup systems, they even lose their own phone system. They have no redundant bandwidth supplier so when their backhaul has problems, it affects everyone, there is no fail safe system to fall back on. Switching to this company was a waste of time and money - over $150 it cost me UP FRONT! Even if their Internet ever does come to my city, no way I'm risking losing everything when they have a failure. I don't like Cogeco but at least their system is rock stable. When there was the power failure that blacked out Niagara Falls, Cogeco was still running no problem and that's where their Internet head end for Niagara is located.
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 | | niagra falls Most horrible tech support and customer service ever !!!!! Call in to report a problem only to be told well no one else is complaining .. clearly they are. tech support refuses to notify owner of complaints. MOST HORRIBLE SERVICE EVER NEVER USE IKTEL!!! | |
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Review by iamdrumming
member for 8.9 years, 1335 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 84 days ago
- Niagara Falls,ON
- Contract price not specified.
 "Price. Speeds are back to normal"- "Wish for more communication"
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As an updated review, it seems that things are back to normal at ikTel. Speeds are good, and you can't beat the price for a Cogeoc TPIA. I recommend them. Just wish their doors of communication were more open to their customers.
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 Review by Celery
member for 8.3 years, 1415 visits, last login: 38 days ago
lodged 121 days ago
- St Catharines,ON
- $35 per month
- "Cheaper than Cogeco, better caps"
- "Slow speed, bad routing"
- "Great if you want to use for torrenting, but horrible for everything else."
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Signed up for Iktel back in October, speeds were good and then I was extremely pleased with them.
Starting around December, the speeds took a severe hit, going from around 13-14Mbps down to 2-3Mbps. Streaming of Youtube and Netflix was horrible and was constantly buffering, feeling like I was using RealPlayer. A 30 minute program on Netflix buffered 8 times. Speedtest.net showed a paltry 1Mbps.
»speedtest.net/result/1720569627.png
I have ended up asking for my profile to be downgraded from 14Mbps to 7Mbps. I will not be paying full price for services that are 1/10 the advertised specs.
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 Review by WiFi
member for 9.9 years, 251 visits, last login: 123 days ago
updated 127 days ago
- Port Colborne,ON
- Contract price not specified.
- about 55 days
- "Free, only pay ld for USA and some of Canada"
- "Poor customer and tech support, no redundancy (1 transit provider - Cogent, no power or data backup)"
- "Mediocre value, inexpensive at the cost of service outages"
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**VOIP services ONLY.
I purchased a refurbished Cisco PAP2 adapter for $60 plus $100 administration and number port fees.
The service was on out of the box but there were no instructions to customize the features as I had been told existed. There was no documentation on the website so I had to call to ask what to do. After 10min of messing around and generating a master password, which I thought would have already been done, they emailed the instructions.
Logging in I noticed it was not my phone number. I called and was told they had programmed somebody else's phone number into my ATA. No kidding... I received two calls for someone I had never heard of and they insisted they were calling a totally different number. IT was fixed, new passwords generated and I had to start over and set everything up again including voicemail. (So did the other customer because their account had to be reset.)
The next day I found out that CID blocking does not work. They tested with their own adapter and called to say it should work. I was told to return the ATA for testing, I made yet another trip and sure enough it didn't work. They didn't know what was wrong and could not offer an immediate solution. I left and called back a day later because it still was not working. They said I need to bring the adapter back and they will give me another one. Another 25km trip to pickup a replacement.
IT worked but now the new ATA had a long delay of almost 25 seconds before any number called would start to ring. I called back and they realized that the unit had not been fully programmed. They would not give me the password to access the programming and walk me through fixing the known issue and said if I wanted it fixed to bring it back. It was just before Christmas, I was busy and therefore had to wait two weeks which also cost me another 50km round trip. It was reprogrammed and it's now working as it should. (I asked if they test before sending equipment out and I received no answer. Hello??)
UPDATE: In late December the phone service failed a few times over a two hour time span. I called in immediately and their lines were all down. I emailed and it didn't work, either! I reached them after an hour and they said one of their suppliers and made a mistake. A few days later Alan (the owner) told me that he had been testing the live system and made a mistake that took out their entire network including Internet. (Live system testing during the day? What happened to standard maintenance and testing during non-peak hours?)
UPDATE: On January 12 the system failed again for nearly three hours during the early evening. I had dial tone but kept getting a recording for every call that all circuits were busy. I tried calling in from my cell and the line was out of order. IT was finally fixed and I was notified by email that one of their providers created the issue. Really?? I think I've heard that one before.
Four trips (about 200km total), a few phone calls and emails, two major system outages all in two months.
Days from order to DELIVERY was 7 days, with all the issues, days from order to SUCCESS is closer to 55 and even then with system outages I'm not sure it is successful. At least there are no recurring charges.
This company appears to be copying RIM's business model - unreliable systems and not communicating to the customer. I'm looking for another provider.
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Review by ITTech
member for 173 days, 3 visits, last login: 127 days ago
updated 127 days ago
- L3J3W2
- $11 per month
- about 15 days
- "Cheap"
- "Unreliable - 2 major network outages in two weeks, no customer communication, poor customer support"
- "You get what you pay for"
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IT's great when it works. Phone service has gone down a few times during the day and night. They don't tell us what's going on or how they are fixing it not to go down again. IT's cheap but I'm getting what I pay for. Cheap price, service that works whenever it wants not when I want.
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Review by GreenEnvy22
member for 291 days, 123 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 129 days ago
- St Catharines,ON
- $45 per month
- about 7 days
- "Prices and cap ceiling are good"
- "Speed is HORRIBLE. Everyone on Iktel Cable is getting 1-3Mbps on any package, including 16meg plan and business plans."
- "It's cheap, but it's also almost unusable it's so slow."
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I got Iktel in the late summer, and for a couple months it was great. Speeds were quick and it was reliable. Then starting in October/November, speeds began dropping massively. Speedtests were getting a max of 6-7Mbps instead of the 16 they were a couple weeks earlier. Uploads remained at the proper 1Mbps.
Allan, the owner/operator, said they were oversold/congested, and that they were upgrading the connection by the end of November. That upgrade did not fix any issues, they actually seem worse now. If I have a download going, my wife often can't even surf any webpages, she keeps getting timeouts. Speedtests show sub 2Mbps frequently.
I had Cogeco before this, and it was excellent (just pricey and low cap) so I know it's not a local node issue, my neighbours that are still on Cogeco are still flying.
I've contacted Allan several times, and the excuses keep changing. First it was congestion, then it was Cogeco messing with him, then it was incompatible equipment between him and Cogeco. No credits have been offered through this, and Allan continues to sign up new customers knowing the unusable state his service is in.
Allan is now touting the new 30meg profile coming in February, but I don't see how this will solve anything.
I'll be cancelling soon if this is not resolved.
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Review by brawnybronco
member for 159 days, 16 visits, last login: 122 days ago
lodged 138 days ago
- undisclosed location
- $45 per month
- "there isn't any"
- "Everything"
- "Don't bother it's garbage"
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The ISP is a scam. 99% of the time you'll be lucky to get 1/10th the advertised speeds. The support is non-existent with the owner\tech blaming everyone but his own service. Asking to be downgraded for cheaper results in him making excuses for you to continue paying more for the same service as those paying for the bottom tier. It is currently taking me 1hr on to download a 85mb file, on my laptop leeching off a neighbor (with only 2 bars) it took 10 minutes. The best part is that he's going to DOCSIS 3 in Feb! So that modem you bought a month ago needs to be upgraded. Who would have thought that a Nigerian would be running a con?
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Review by jandsbob
member for 170 days, 17 visits, last login: 94 days ago
lodged 159 days ago
- St Catharines,ON
- $45 per month
- "its cheap"
- "its dial up speeds"
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I ordered the 14Mb package for 45 a month and get blazing speeds of up to 200Kb sec. The tech support consists of the owner Alan blaming everyone but his service for the issues. Avoid at all costs.
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Review by AwolRJ
member for 5.3 years, 285 visits, last login: 35 days ago
updated 163 days ago
- Niagara Falls,ON
- $54 per month
- about 20 days
- "Cheapest in Area and no implemented caps so far..."
- "Getting to be congested"
- "Worth it if they upgrade there equipment like promised."
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Was very happy to get away from bhell a few months ago and this service was great. Just lately getting some congestion at peak hours. The owner promises everything to be back to normal by end of the month and if it does I recommend this isp to anyone in the area. If he doesn't upgrade he may go out of business as fast as he went in!
Edit: While it appears it aint back to normal even though he said he upgraded equipment. He is now blaming it on Cogeco when he said in the beginning he was totally segregated from there network, he is now flip flopping and saying cogeco is throttling and implementing caps on his customers! I can't recommend this Service to anyone at this time!
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Review by eotsuka
member for 6.7 years, 211 visits, last login: 232 days ago
updated 163 days ago
- St Catharines,ON
- $34 per month
- about 14 days
- "Very reasonable fast cable internet in the Niagara Region."
- "Only one transit provider (Cogent)"
- "Go for it, it is the best provider in the Niagara Region"
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Was on Bell Fibe 16 plan but we noticed that we kept going over the limit and our free 4 month promotion was coming to a end.
So with some research I found ikTel Networks on DSLR and figured I would try it. I used the SB5101 (Used Comcast cable modem) - not the approved SB5101N but it works regardless.
The plan I am on is the Pro plan (14mbps/1mbps down).
Only problem is because of the install time to install - this was due to the rush of student installs in my area.
All in all great service, and low price.
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