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Review by torontoguy5 See Profile

  • Location: Richmond Hill, ON, Canada
  • Cost: $39 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
Download 500Kbps upload 133Kbps
Unable to download Microsoft Windows Update files.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

The service is generally good although I'm in the fringe coverage area of the telephone switch. The cost is CDN$39.95 plus tax. The ordering process was easy, just phone in and the modem will arrive in days through courier. Self-installation was easy although full installation is available. The home equipment was Alcatel Speed Touch Home modem. It is a PPPoE based service with dynamic IP. The service depends heavily on its proxy server, but it runs into problem when downloading Windows Update files. The file cuts off in the middle of the download, and never resumes.

member for 23.3 years, 2 visits, last login: 23.3 years ago
lodged 23.3 years ago

72245156 (banned)
TSWB.org
join:2000-07-11
Winnipeg, MB

72245156 (banned)

Member

Something wrong there.

It shouldn't do that. Post and we'll try to help you fix it.
--
Sometimes the simplest solutions are overlooked.
System

Anon

Re: Something wrong there.

Try :

> from the start menu,run msconfig> uncheck the startup group. Reboot.......

Try to download it now!!!

When done, from the start menu,run msconfig> check the startup group. Reboot.......

Worked 4 me with the same problem>>>>>

Anon

BUSINESS EDITION

I'M USING BELL HIGH SPEED BUSINESS EDITION (KEYPAK).
SPEED IS STILL THE SAME, COMPARED TO RESIDENTIAL.
THE PRICE COST $89.99CDN (DOUBLE TO RESIDENTIAL)
I WAS TRYING TO INCREASE MY UPLOAD SPEED, BUT DOESN'T HELP.

Review by Deck Officer See Profile

  • Location: Georgetown, ON, Canada
  • Cost: $39 per month
  • Install: about 6 days
install easy, no problems, 960 down, 130 up
Dialer not great, minor speed upgrade next year
I got lucky
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Georgetown ON self-install no probs 960/130K no drops. I got lucky. TCP tweak recommended. I want more speeed upgrades. Bottom Line: I got lucky. (I feel bad for all you out there having problems.) Many friends of mine have Rogers @ Home (cable) and have MANY outages...

member for 23.3 years, 17 visits, last login: 23.2 years ago
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Review by OLDTachyon See Profile

  • Location: undisclosed location
  • Cost: $39 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 5 days
Excellent performance, high reliability, low price, Works well with Linux
Must use Bell's DSL modem, Windows Software is average, tech support is hit or miss knowledge wise
Very good bang for the buck. Best if you have some technical skills and can handle install yourself.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Bell's Sympatico HSE (High Speed Edition).

Speed: 1024 Kb/s down 120 Kb/s up expected to change to 1300 and 360 early next year

Price: $29.95 month + $10 modem rental Canadian dollars

Usage: Unlimited

IP: Dynamic

Protocol: PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet)

Includes: DSL Modem Nortel 1meg modem for early users. Now ships with Alcatel modem. DSL line filters, software for Windows platforms.

Third party support: Yes, works with Linux, BSD's and possibly other UNIX's.

Sympatico Users Org is a great source of information »www.sympaticousers.org/

Notes: Roaring Penguin's PPPoE software is probably the best for Linux (»www.roaringpenguin.com/pppoe/). Bell's Windows software does not suport Windows 2000 yet though support is planned. currently RAS-PPPoE does support 2k and is probably better software anyway. »user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~normanb/

Also, HSE uses a transparent proxy on port 80 for web browsing. While this is a little disturbing, it has not been a problem at all.

Comments: I highly recommend the service. Speed is excellent. Given a fast server and a good route I can easily see at or near theorhetical max speed xfers. Multi-threaded news clients can easily get 100+Kb/s downloads. All compalints I have heard about the service have been from Windows users and I am willing to bet they are OS related or due to users with little to no technical skills. However a mildly skilled user that can read and follow directions can easily setup a fast, reliable connection. At least within the limits of Windows in those regards.

member for 24 years, 4 visits, last login: 23.3 years ago
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bruno9
join:2000-08-12
Sherbrooke, QC

bruno9

Member

You're so right

I think that you're right when you say that the problem is the OS not service, but the tech at BELL are not what you call tech. they're more like people that read acue card for help. As for there NG is as alot of info.
--
Hasta la vista Baby!
de Bruno!
System

Anon

Re: You're so right

Well win2000 pro is supported...as well as Win me..

AC
@bellglobal.com

AC

Anon

Re: You're so right

Windows 2000 in any version is NOT support officially.
ME is with the Access Manager 1.41

Beave
@209.202.x.x

Beave

Anon

Connection slows to crawl every few minutes

My connection speed is good (~50+KBps) but it slows to a crawl every 10 minutes or so. During this time the down;pad speed is virtually 0 and I can't do anything about it (any thoughts would be appreciated).

Overall I have been content with the service - used to have cable and basically didn't have an internet connection for about a month and a half so spotty connection is better than none.

Review by brookieman10 See Profile

  • Location: Nepean, ON, Canada
  • Cost: $42 per month
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

It took 25 minutes to install & Runs@961 kps. No problems, no sweat.
Did it all myself.

member for 23.1 years, 4 visits, last login: 23.1 years ago
lodged 23.3 years ago







Review by Auric See Profile

  • Location: undisclosed location
  • Cost: $42 per month
  • Install: about 28 days
high speed! great download and surf speeds
awful customer support
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Ok first off i'd like to apologize if i offend anybody that works for bell sympatico. as i have a couple friends that work there that actually know what they are doing!

My connection with them has been one headache after another. I ordered on June 23rd 2000 and only received my activiation date on July 24th 2000. I had to 'wait for service' which was okay. When the service came i was happy and elated at the download speeds. I expereinced only one or two slight outages.

Beginning of October I noticed how Bell Sympatico HSE was withdrawing 'double' the money from my account. After calling and confirming as such i requested that the second account that I had no idea even existed be cancelled. The next day I awoke to seeing a red light on my 'line sync' LED on my modem. It turns out they cancelled MY EXISTING working account. Even though I had given them my user ID password etc. confirming that this was the one i was using. Now it has been a week. Today they sent me a new Alcatel smart Touch home modem exchange kit. "send back the old nortel and u can use this one now" sorta deal. Well I opened it up and set it all up. They forgot to send me the damn LINE swapper adapter. I called , twice tonite, and the 'first level' tech support don't know half of what they are doing. They keep asking me all these useless questoins about software and OS etc. finally they said they would MAIL me the swapper. "Oh it will be another 6 days or so before your swapper is even put in the mail" so here i am on my pos 33.6 external modem so I can check mail, do homework and yes even complain about the service!. I mean not everybody there is dumb don't get me wrong. But why do I always have to draw the dumb ones? Once or Twice in my whole stint with having HSE service have i talked to knowledable technicians. one of whom is a friend of mine.(go figure eh?)

Another thing that is wierd is how this ISP has chosen to take its sweet time in supporting the new windows ME etc. I purchased a new pc from my employer (i build and service pc's) It came with windows ME, so i had to reconfigure it to allow for me to connect to the dsl as Access Manager is incompatible with ME. I finally used Enternet300 and was able to sustain a high speed dsl connection! that is until they cancelled my account.

Don't get my wrong though, IF you get lucky and have no snags in this service it really kicks. If you are unlucky like me then yer screwed.

member for 23.4 years, 14 visits, last login: 23 years ago
lodged 23.4 years ago

72245156 (banned)
TSWB.org
join:2000-07-11
Winnipeg, MB

72245156 (banned)

Member

Sorry to hear about the troubles

Another program (well it's not really a program, it's a protocol) that works with ME is RASPPPOE. You may wish to try it, but if Enternet is doing fine, great!
--
Sometimes the simplest solutions are overlooked.

shaner
Premium Member
join:2000-10-04
Calgary, AB

shaner

Premium Member

from a bell sales guy

you don't need a swapper!!! the original alcatel modems did, but sometimes they forget to insert one little piece of paper which tells you that. but you are so right about customer service...it's a thorn in our side because people call up my store and yell at us for something sympatico did. and don't even get me started on the full-installation guys!!!!!
System

Anon

Same with me!!!!!!

Hey! u think that yer gettin high speed connections!? well, with a tweak i've gotten up to 419kb/s down and 15kb/s up or 3500/120!!!!!!!!! later!!!!!!

Anon

Re: help!!!

hey can u help me to speed up my connection i'm downloading at 40kb/s and sometimes even less.
can u tell me what kind of tweaking did u do exactly?
urgent please send back.....
thanx

Review by pulp See Profile

  • Location: Toronto, Ont
  • Cost: $39 per month
  • Install: about 7 days
Customer service - credit dept.
Sympatico is far more interested in expansion, rather than servicing it's customer base.
It's just barely good enough...
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Rogers downtime is a bit much, however the speeds put Bell to shame. Sympatico's ping times are better, so for online gaming - this is your choice. Rogers uses static IPs, Bell's use of PPPoE is disgustingly problematic so IPs are dynamic. Run a server, transfer files - go with Rogers.

As for connectivity - I've had a ton of trouble. Everytime I download something I get disconnected. However, I'm getting a good deal with Sympatico and I'm not quite ready to switch. Things are getting better, however.

Bell's tech support is incredibly inept. For example on one call where I was explaining my problem with disconnections while downloading anything bandwidth intensive - a tech told me to set my e-mail program to check for mail once every one minute. I explained again that it was not a problem with being disco'd while the connection was idle, infact the exact opposite. He insisted this would help - I was already annoyed and said, no it won't. I offered an analogy similar, I said what if I got on IRC and joined 50 busy channels. He said this wasn't the same as checking your mail "keeps you in contact with the server". Indeed. To stop my connection from being lost, I should connect briefly to a mail server that could be god knows where in relation to my Central Office.

I offered a new analogy, I said, imagine this: I'm sent a large 40 meg e-mail attachment. While downloading this there's a 99% chance I'll be disconnected. He still insisted checking my mail would solve the problem.

I asked for the supervisor. All this guy is programmed to do is tell you "we'll look into it..." he wants you off the phone, asap. I'd had enough by that time anyway. So I agreed that monitoring my connection for 48 hrs would be a starting point. Two days later, with my ticket number, I called back for the results. Nothing....they had no idea what I was talking about.

Anyway, long story short, the tech support is awful. But the customer support is great - these people will give you free stuff without question.

member for 23.5 years, 156 visits, last login: 22 years ago
lodged 23.4 years ago

System

Anon

BELL SYMPATICO SUCKS

So far, I have had to re-intall my Bell Sympatico software 7 times. Whenever i called them I got the notion that their advice sounded very much like recorded messages. However, I followed their instructions and reinstalled everything over and over again as I said before.
I just found out that the reason Bell Sympatico is just unstable. I saw that some people suggested Bell Sympatico for Online games... Well, whenever I play C&C Tiberian Sun, a pretty simple game, I'm always the slowest one in loading. also, I'm always the lagger and therefore slow down the whole game for the others. The lowest downloading speed i got from Bell Sympatico was 330 bytes per second. 330 BYTES ! Hey i'm not talking in kilobytes but BYTES. This can be about 2.5 KILOBITS per second. Compare this to the expected speed of 960 kilobits per second.!!!!
and still, when you call them to find out what's happening, they simply tell you to uninstall and re-install.. HA HA HA. BTW, My house is about 1.5 kilometres away from the phone company.

Review by arthurcat2 See Profile

  • Location: Hamilton, ON, Canada
  • Cost: $39 per month
  • Install: about 5 days
Consistent speed.
Would HIGHLY recommend
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Previous to having DSL, I was with the Cable company for 18 months. Each month the speed would get slower and slower..drove me nuts. I finally went to the Bell Centre to test drive DSL, and decided I liked it, but a bit skeptical...after all it was set up in THEIR store.

I ordered it on a Monday, over the internet. I chose to install it myself, rather than waiting for a technician. The Thursday of the same week a courier brought the goodies to my door. I had it set up and running in just over an hour. Immediately I could see that the speed was consistent and there was no problems logging on...unlike the cable. My download speeds are approx 85-95 K/sec...mind you I live right across the street from Bells central office. I'm very pleased with my choice; getting rid of the cable.

**One other thing I did was to NOT use the filter for the connection from the phone jack to my PC. A friend recommended I do this, and it did increase the speed.

member for 23.6 years, 261 visits, last login: 13.9 years ago
lodged 23.4 years ago

72245156 (banned)
TSWB.org
join:2000-07-11
Winnipeg, MB

72245156 (banned)

Member

(topic move) And with a little tweaking

Moderator Action
----------------
This entire topic was moved the forum:
Sympatico
(probably because that forum is more suitable for it).

The topic can now be viewed here.

[text was edited by author 2000-10-31 22:24:53]

Review by Tpav See Profile

  • Location: Canada
  • Cost: $40 per month
  • Install: about 14 days
Much better than dial up
Installer should ensure the connection speed !!!
People should pay for what they get and get what they pay for!!!
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

Found service guy friendly, new how to configure the browsers but hand trouble with Outlook and couldn't get it going, - it's going now.

I had to tweak my own settings - I thought originally I was getting highspeed and was only getting 56k go figure!!!

Now get the 960 range and connections have been good except for the fact that about once a month or during lightning storms my modem ALC-TEL freezes up.

Had to call tech-support they told me to shut down, unplug and re-start another go figure!! re-boot the damn modem it works and only a little annoyance. Has anyone heard of this I'm told that the thing has some kind of capcitors or something that can retain static and needs to be drained.

Southern Ontario,

If anyone could explain the difference between Access Manager and PPPoE and is it worth it to change - if it ain't broke don't try to fix it - right or wrong sometimes access manager hangs I just use the ctrl-alt-delete and shut down the task.

member for 23.6 years, 198 visits, last login: 14.2 years ago
lodged 23.4 years ago

System

Anon

Help with sympatico reg settings for windows

You mention that after you tweaked your settings you seen a nice improvement. Can you email me what you have done to increase the speed? I just got DSL and it doesn't seem as good as my Cable Modem in Hamilton. My ping for online games is almost double what my cable was. Any info would be much appreciated.

Torontonian
@69.xx.98.on.wave.hom

Torontonian

Anon

Re: Help with sympatico reg settings for windows

I use bell high speed edition and had an average ping of 30-60. Now since they implemented the access manager my ping is between 100-180. I want those 30 pings again but i don't know if it is possible. Helpppp!!!!!
System

to Anon

Anon

to Anon
What type of tweeking can be done to help improve or at least stabalize the speed? Tech support told me that Access Manager was already tweeked to peek perfomance and nothing needed to be done. Somehow, I believe you people more.
jfdenterprises
join:2000-10-23
Canada

jfdenterprises

Member

Report on Sympatico DSL (Kitchener Area)

DSL Vs CABLE

My company has been involved in Lan, Wan, and Internet communications for over 5 years.
In amongst the massive amount of knowledge and experience gained in this time, comes one INDISPUTABLE truth:

DSL is dedicated back to the source (switching network). UNLESS the switch gets overloaded (have yet to see it happen), the end user will ALWAYS have their full bandwidth.

This DOES drop off, the further you are from the switch.
Rule of thumb is a maximum of 2 kilometers.
e.g.: We are 1.5 km from the switch, and our DSL always provides better than 90k BYTES and has peaked at 115k bytes (>1 megabit) of throughput.

CABLE Modems on the other hand, share the available bandwidth throughout the neighbourhood. Unless ALL your neighbours are logged off, the end user will
be VERY lucky indeed to get the same bandwidth as the DSL user.
Locally we see this range from 35-50k bytes of throughput.
This does NOT drop off with distance.

It all boils down to the topology design of the network(s).
If you are within a couple of kilometers of the local switch, then DSL is the better choice.
If your are too far away, then CABLE should still give you around 8-10 times the performance of 56k dialup.

DSL lines are affected by thunderstorms, because you have to remember that phone lines are UNSHIELDED!
We have not seen the modem itself lock up, but have had the
"Server Dropped Connection" message during a storm.
In the past year, we have had this happen less than half a dozen times.

We also remind all high speed (broadband) users to run a personal firewall.
On average, our firewall log files show 20++ suspicious connection attempts per day! About 25% of these are attempts to connect to known trojan horse ports.
An excellent free (non business use) program is ZoneAlarm from http://www.zonelabs.com

You can test how vulnerable your system is by running the tests available
at the following site: http://www.grc.com

You may view a diagram of a secure DSL network by clicking on the ADSL button on our website: http://www.jfdenterprises.net

Regards to all, and happy DSL'ing.
System

Anon

Re: Report on Sympatico DSL (Kitchener Area)

Umm...people that live at the 4.5 km mark still can get speeds of 960/120..and those hits are scan's not connections...if you get connections attempts its because you do have a trojan on your computer..firewall are overrated...for the average user a firewall isnt needed. They can cause more problems that do any good..

Anon

Access Manager and PPPOE

For you info... Access Manager is a PPPOE client (PPP over Ethernet) PPPOE is the protocol itself... there's verious PPPOE clients out there... feel free to give me a shout if you need more info.
albundyhere
join:2000-10-26
New York, NY

albundyhere

Member

Tweaking works? HELP!!!!

I just got Bell DSL and my downloads suck. Getting 125kB/s or 1010 kilobits/s for newsgroups and its very fast, but when downloading from AOL5, I get 4-10kB/sec. I've tried speedguides tweaks, but nothin works. Did a test with DSL reports speed test and it came out a normal healthy speed 880k/s dl and 130k/s up. I decided to use an ISA NIC from Accton that I got free in the states. Should I be using PCI NIC or a PCI fast Ethernet NIC? I mean, I can only get 960 kbps downloads while the NIC can do 10mbps so would it really matter? I know the best would be a 3com 3xp fast ethernet or a 64bit pci gigabit, but I dont have $3000 to shell out. I have done alot of tweaks, I mean alot. Got my service on today 10/26/2000 and its suppose to be turned on on the 31. My net browsing is fine, its not as fast as downloading from newsgroups, its 55kb/sec. When using napster, i get 56k performance or worse. When downloading from the web, I get not so great speeds, just like in AOL. Any suggestions? Feel free to email me. zbundy@hotmail.com
berkes1
join:2000-10-03

berkes1

Member

Re: Tweaking works? HELP!!!!

AOL could have a slow server. Before you jump to changing your hardware/software too much, try downloading from some known-to-be-fast servers:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/downloads.asp
»ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/com ··· d476.exe

Also there's another bandwidth test at www.2wire.com. I don't think changing your ethernet card would do much good at these speeds.
albundyhere
join:2000-10-26
New York, NY

albundyhere

Member

Re: Tweaking works? HELP!!!!

Yeah, I get 125kB/s from microsoft and download.com. Its unusual for AOL to have a slow server. They do have a DSL service now and the setup lets you configure for TCP or DSL.
I reinstalled my OS and gave it another shot. Did a speed test that came out bad. Did a tweak test and my rWin was way low. Brought it up to 64000 and my speed is fine now. If anyone is not using Download Accelerator Pro which is free, you should. You will get max DL speed; this is truely a good accelerator to use. Got AOL 6 46megs in 2-3 minutes with this little proggie. The only slowdown now is my ISA NIC on bootup on my fast PC.
Canuck57
join:2000-12-16
Moose Jaw, SK

Canuck57

Member

Re: Tweaking works? HELP!!!!

Downloaded Dirext X 8 from Microsoft. Got over 200kbytes and evened out at 195kbytes.
Yeah Baby

Review by rdinning See Profile

  • Location: Canada
  • Cost: $20 per month (month by month)
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

I signed up with Bell Sympatico (Ontario & Quebec only) about the middle of
September, a Thursday. The following Wednesday the equipment was delivered
by currier. Apparently they had tried to deliver the day before, but my wife
was out.

It took about 70 minutes to unpack, read and install the hardware. The only
problem was one of the supplied filters (for all other phones in the house)
was for a wall phone jack, which we don't have. I made it work, but called
Bell's help line the next day and they sent me two regular filters. (I still
was one short - even using the wall mount as we have five phone connections
in use running eleven devices.)

The software and hardware install on my Windows 2000 machine went with out a
hitch. The problem came when I tried to connect - no go. I called the help
line (7:00 PM) and got tech support immediately. He checked out some of my
install and reported I had set everything correctly and then passed me to
accounting (That's what he called it.). A very nice lady checked my account
and said the line had not been activated. She asked me to wait, and about 2
minutes later said try it now. I did and it did.

Since then, it has been used a lot. I never shut my computer down, because I
run things like backup (Back Again II), defrag (Diskeeper 5), virus check
(Norton AV 6), Norton Live Update, etc in the middle of the night. I also
run Norton Internet Security on this system, which I hartily recommend to
anyone getting any type of always on connection. (I get several security
alerts per day. Use Steve Gibson's Shields Up to tune your security.
Especially turn off NetBios.)

That's about it. It's up, it works, its fast, it has never been down - to my
knowledge - since it was installed (other than one prewarned outage for
maintenance). It is not as fast as some other systems, Rogers Cable claims a
maximum download of 3.x Mbps. Bell's system claims 960 Kbps (Bits per
second) download and 120 Kbps upload. All I can say is its much faster than
the T1 at work, but that I share with the whole building.

Richard Dinning
C.G.I.
(905) 771-5315x7013

member for 23.4 years, 9 visits, last login: 22.8 years ago
lodged 23.4 years ago


illbill
@bellglobal.com

illbill

Anon

upload----what's that?

I'm setting up a shop on yahoo stores only I can't upload anything through the browser. It fails everytime after waiting about 5 minutes. Same with large e mails written on the internet. When I switch back to 56k everything uploads fine.

I called them and they always try to pass the buck. It's a joke. I've used sympatico in Toronto and now in Montreal. I've used the norton modem and now the alcatel modem - both times I've had the same problem uploading.

I'm going to have to switch due to this inconvenience which Sympatico would have me believe is unique only to me -- in 2 different cities on 2 different computers on dozens on different sites!!!! It's a shame coz the d/l speed is great.

I HATE MONOPOLIES
berkes1
join:2000-10-03

berkes1

Member

Re: upload----what's that?

Have you checked your MTU settings? If the MTU is too high you can get stalls in uploads and downloads. This was a problem I had with both linux and Windows until I fixed it (in linux).

illbill
@bellglobal.com

illbill

Anon

Re: upload----what's that?

Thanks for the advice but I'm using mac os and have no idea what mtu means. I've searched high and low through my comp and still can't find such settings.

mac info
@bellglobal.com

mac info

Anon

Re: upload----what's that?

Try these to tweak your MAC :
http://www.sustworks.com/site/prod_otat_readme.html

or

Look for network extras on your MAC OS cdrom then find OT extras, from there drag the TCP/IP Options control panel to the control panel in your system folder. You'll then have access to it via -> apple menu -> control panel.

John MacLean
@cae.com

John MacLean to illbill

Anon

to illbill
FYI, Sympatico doesn't have a monopoly on ADSL service in Montreal. Check out www.aei.net for alternative ADSL service. Of course they use the same lines as Bell but I believe they have their own computer network. Monthly service fee is the same and you can buy the modem (Nortel).

I'm still with Sympatico so I can't speak for AEI's level or service. Since I set up my Linux gateway I haven't had any reason to complain (the provided software used to drop the connection constantly in Win98SE - even with the patches and newer updates avail at their site).

John
System

Anon

Good Reason for Upload limitations (there view)

Apparantly there is a few questions about why the upload limit is around 130 k this is because all regualar aDSL home use is ment to be for entertainment only...running a server or business is not really what your internet account is for...they purposely limit "joe" user to 128-130 limit to deter big servers...they would rather the servers have a separate account paying business rates...

Review by berkes1 See Profile

  • Location: undisclosed location
  • Cost: $38 per month
  • Install: about 6 days
Fast setup. Good service (+technical support). Excellent performance.
Poor upstream (130 kbps) and poor simultaneous upstream+downstream
Excellent value
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:

MTS Sympatico advertised 960 kbps down / 120 kbps upstream at $40/month. In fact I'm consistently getting 1080 kbps down / 130 kbps up and am very satisfied with the service.

The kit shipped with an ethernet card, the Nortel Networks 1 meg modem (rental) and a bunch of phone filters and cables etc. It had everything I needed to get set up. Everything worked nicely the first time.

Winpoet gave me problems at first (no fault of my ISP), but then I set up a linux firewall and gateway (with rp-pppoe) which is nicely sharing the connection throughout my house. I seem to have a static IP (at least this month).

When I first signed up the connection seemed very reliable, but in the past two weeks I am finding durations of network trouble. I hope it will pass.

member for 23.4 years, 82 visits, last login: 21.9 years ago
lodged 23.4 years ago

72245156 (banned)
TSWB.org
join:2000-07-11
Winnipeg, MB

72245156 (banned)

Member

MTS

My IP hasen't changed since January, when I 1st got it! Go figure. Happy to hear of more happy people!
--
The Twelfth Step has been attained!
berkes1
join:2000-10-03

berkes1

Member

Re: MTS

That's good news! I'm wondering now if it's a good idea to run a little web server... hard to tell if MTS will actually switch to "dynamic" dynamic in the future. Hmm...
72245156 (banned)
TSWB.org
join:2000-07-11
Winnipeg, MB

72245156 (banned)

Member

Re: MTS

From talking to a tech a while back (6 months?), they may go to a static IP anyways. If you wanted to run a "little" web server, you'de really need to use a dynamic DNS program, subscription. The upstream from it would really suck though!
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The Twelfth Step has been attained!

WhiteCollarCrook
join:2000-08-20
Canada

WhiteCollarCrook to 72245156

Member

to 72245156
I was just wondering why Bell's upload speeds are so low? Are there any other packages available that allow for more than 120 kbps?

Not that upload speed is critical, unless your using it for a Web Server or send tons of email, etc... But is Bell capping your upstream for any particular reason?

Just wondering because I'm currently living in Alberta & Telus is my DSL provider... and I get around 1300/525 (on a bad day) on the standard 1500/512 plan for what seems to be the same price as Bell is charging - $34.95/month. And I don't know what this PPOE is exactly (only that it seems like a pain in the ass), as Telus doesn't need any additional software whatsoever. Not only that, but Telus also offers a DIY ADSL package in which they credit you $160 on your following phone bill & give you an additional free month with no install fees.

The other reason I'm asking is because I'm thinking of moving back to Ontario, and now I'm not sure weather to get DSL or Cable...lol. Does anyone have any opinions of how Bell does vs @Home out east there?
berkes1
join:2000-10-03

berkes1

Member

Re: MTS

Well one of the friendly MTS tech support people told me that the limit in Manitoba is in part because of these Nortel Network 1 meg modems they're using. The modems don't support fast upload. So the poor upload has to do with both the modem, and the ISP's service.

MTS is also apparently upgrading their service. Next year they will offer an 8 mbps connection. WOW!
bobo758
join:2000-10-21
Calgary, AB

bobo758

Member

Re: MTS

Hi . I love your site. It is very helpful.
I live in Saskatchewan Canada and am using Sympatico high speed (DSL).
My download is very good at around 1400 but my upload wont go above 94.
Can you please help?
I would be happy to have my upload at 120 if possible.
System

Anon

Poor Upstream+downstream

Just to reply to the poor upstream and downstream combination... DSL is half duplex... therefore can only send or receive at one time... which explains the poor quality of both at the same time...