(note: this applies mainly to DSL customers in Ontario and Quebec)

CAN ISPs PROVIDE DSL LITE BASIC (AS SYMPATICO DOES)?
- NO ISPs Can only provide 256k (going up to 512k soon), 3Meg and 5Meg residential services (6Meg biz).

ARE ALL ISPs RESELLING BELL CANADA?
- NO - All ISPs dealing directly with Bell Nexxia have their own network infrastructure (ie: transit, routers, etc...)

DO ISPs HAVE TO GO THROUGH BELL IN ONTARIO/QUEBEC?
- YES - All ISPs using Bell DSLAMs must go through Bell's copper and authentication cloud in order to provide DSL

DO ISPs PAY FOR DRY COPPER?
- YES - All ISPs must pay for dry copper services (pricing is based on band rates A to G)

DOES BELL PROVIDE ISPs WITH SLA SERVICE?
- NO - Bell is only obligated to a Service Level Objective (SLO) to the ISPs (not an SLA)

HOW QUICKLY CAN WE EXPECT BELL TO RESPOND TO ISPs ON BELL TICKETS?
- 48+hrs Bell has a 48hr SLO waiting period before ISP staff can escalate. From there a 12ish hour period can be expected before further escalations, and so on and so forth

DO ISPs PAY LESS IF PROFILES ARE LOWERED ON CONNECTIONS?
- NO - ISPs can not control the connections speeds at lesser costs (ie: if bell gives ISP 3Meg, ISP can't shape to 1Meg and charge 1/3 less... ISP pays 3Meg rate and the same, if an ISP requests a profile change lowering the speed of a client lower to stabilize a connection. Original rates per original speed apply.)

DO ISPs REQUIRE ADDITIONAL INFO TO PROVIDE SERVICE TO NON-BELL LINES?
- YES - ISPs require accurate Circuit information on 3rd party telephone providers in order to provide DSL service over the Bell copper.

CAN CLIENTS CALL BELL AND RECEIVE DETAILS ON ISP/NEXXIA SUPPORT EFFORTS?
- NO - Clients 'can not' call Bell Nexxia as the ISP is the client of Bell Nexxia, not the client (therefore information provided to a client will not be accurate/consistent... ISP/Nexxia database isn't the same as Bell Canada/Sympatico nor is the phone number to discuss problems).

CAN SYMPATICO/BELL SOLICIT ISPs CLIENTS
- YES - Sympatico/Bell can solicit 3rd party ISP clients and is only obligated to a 90 day waiting period (Bell has an internal policy of communicating with all the households in Ontario and Quebec 4 times per year! - Might even be Canada wide).

CAN THE PRICES GET ANY LOWER FOR 3 MEG DSL SERVICES?
-DOUBT IT Bell gets the lions share of a DSL account! Currently an ISP can expect to pay Bell on average between $21 and $24 per account per month for 3Meg service. This excludes bandwidth, hardware, network, HR, software, etc., so, many accounts are required to make ends meet on $30/month accounts. Unless Bell drops the rates this will likely be as low as it gets.

HOW MANY DAYS CAN YOU EXPECT TO WAIT FOR DSL?
- 5+ DAYS The ISP places the order into the Bell Nexxia portal and a minimum 5 business days can be expected to wait. ISPs must wait at least 5 business days before opening any tech support related tickets on new orders.

CAN ISPs INSTALL DSL SERVICE IN THE BELL CENTRAL OFFICES?
- NO Only Bell authorized personnel are allowed to do so, therefore ISPs can not accelerate the install process.

PROBLEMS IN SPECIFIC AREAS ISP OR BELL/CUSTOMER?
- BELL/CUSTOMER! If a client has problems in a certain city but is A1 everywhere else (often seen in the forums), then at 99% of the time the problem is on the Bell or customer end. There are very few circumstances where this is not the case.

CAN AN AREA BE DOWN WITHOUT THE ISPs KNOWLEDGE?
- YES ISP feeds for providing DSL services come in over VLAN, provided by Bell. ISP can only monitor feeds within its realm so anything prior to it is monitored by Bell only. As a result, if a Central Office, or even an entire City is down it is likely the ISP will be notified by the client before Bell.

WHY DO MOST ISPs BLOCK PORTS?
- BLACKLISTING Nearly all major ISPs block certain ports (in particular port25) in order to lower the risk of having their main IPs black listed. A MAJOR problem for ISP is being blacklisted as it can sometimes take days before being removed

DO ISPs MONITOR CONTENT OR KNOWINGLY HOST ILLEGAL CONTENT?
- NO ISP simply provide a connection service and for those who use email a temporary holding ground for emails. The only things ISPs track are IPs to identify internet access history (ie: we can tell when a specific individual was online).