O Canada! > Canadian > TekSavvy > TekSavvy - glorified reseller, not ISP

TekSavvy - glorified reseller, not ISP

Your experience sounds oddly familiar,.......but the Teksavvy technicians said I should go to the Direct forums to get told it was all somehow my fault.

I must say it was NEVER like this before Rocky got sick. Whoever took over is a piece of crap who doesn't deserve to be in the same room as him.

reply to OneWorld9
Your connection from your home to the TekSavvy POI in the Rogers head end is provided by Rogers. The connection from there to the "internet" is provided by TekSavvy.

So, most of the time any problems between your home and the TekSavvy POI to Rogers is the fault of Rogers, and unfortunately because of Rogers distrust and arrogance, they give TekSavvy no tools whatsoever to find out what is going on with your connection.

Any problems after the POI are indeed TekSavvy's ... such as overloaded interconnects. BUT even those could be Rogers fault because they are very slow about providing extra connectivity for 3rd party ISPs.

No company would be able to fundraise enough capital to install wire or fibre to every home, so the only option is the wholesale purchase of incumbent services.

So, it's not a reseller ... but it's not a full end to end ISP either. It's a hybrid.

Unfourtunately a lot of the problems you've experienced were created by the CRTC being too liberal with the incumbents on a service level standard for repairs etc.

I understand all the reasons why TekSavvy support is abysmal, but that doesn't change the fact that it is ... why provide a service that you actually cannot reliably provide in the first place? Sure, when you don't have a problem things work well... and when you do, that's when you *need* to be able to get proper support. TekSavvy willingly points the finger at everyone else. Why should the customer care about all of their problems? When you say you'll provide a service, you need to provide it. I don't see anything in their marketing / sales pitch that says, "We'll only be able to help you if our suppliers are cooperative and the CRTC is nice to us." What kind of business runs this way? As far as I'm concerned, hybrid or not, if they can't support their customers they're just a reseller.

reply to OneWorld9
I'd like to give you some perspective. In 2002 I worked for a contractor who provided technical support service to Rogers. I was constantly bombarded with irate customers who complained of unfixed problems for weeks on ends. What's new under the sky? Rogers cable internet service is at best mediocre. They can afford to be like that because there are not real competitors in the market.

Be that as it may, I had Rogers Internet for several years prior to switching to TekSavvy. I can count on one hand how many times I've had a problem with their service, nothing like I experienced with TekSavvy. Calling Rogers (regardless of the time of day) got someone on the phone who resolved the issue within 24 - 48 hours. I'm not saying Rogers is great, and I especially don't like their monopoly on things (which is reflected in their inflated pricing), but at least it worked. At the end of the day, you want your Internet to work. I'm OK with short outages here and there, but not the kind of ongoing issues I've seen with TekSavvy, and the incompetent level of support you get when you have them.

reply to OneWorld9
The grass is always greener on the other side.

No company is perfect but you have to settle with what you want to pay.

TSI has evolved over the last few years to survive.

If it wasn't for the indie ISPs, bell and rogers would still be getting away with 7/1 meg with 50Gb caps.

Unfortunately as much as we hate them, Rogers and Bell still hold a lot of political and industrial power in Canada. They own most of everything. They can get away with what they want.

So it's really a personal choice. If you feel like the incumbents are better, you can go back. For others, what TSI offers is the better alternative. There's no contracts like the big 3 to tie you up so you're free to switch. If you feel like that extra $5-10 gets you better service from rogers or bell, then do it.

I've been with TSI longer than the majority of the people here and it's never been so bad that Rogers or Bell would be better choice for me personally.

Oversubscribed? been there, every single damn one.
Long wait times? I use the direct forum here which is a good alternative.
Intermittent service? man, even you said it. rogers is doing maintenance. How would a rogers line be better if they're working on the whole area.

whatever makes you happy is the way you should spend your money. life is too short to write a pure rant on a forum and losing it over internet. Buy a fibre connection if you want, grab a beer, take long walks and be happy.

reply to Nemo888

reply to OneWorld9

(topic move) TekSavvy - glorified reseller, not ISP

reply to OneWorld9

Re: TekSavvy - glorified reseller, not ISP

reply to OneWorld9
funny isnt it that in 6 years with tsi ive had one day where i had issues and i'll add the speed is stable ....if only i could get better dsl here then the 5megabit ( i know about the 6 megabit stuff but thats not what i mean , i'm like we got a complex with ten rooms here and 4 of us have internet.....a 25/7 would or could be a seller here
be nice to have 10/2 of it and give the other guys on a capped cogeco wireless 5/1 uncapped.....

but hey im not the person doing line upgrades .....

reply to Cloneman
But he is right. You can't keep offering a decent service if there isn't one to begin with. Just look at all these threads in the forum. There seriously needs to be a more effective way to fix these problems instead of filing a ticket then waiting days/weeks/months. Yes, "independent" ISPs are not godsends, they have problems too. But all this waiting around for a "decent" reply is terrible. There has to be a better way especially with all this growth that's happening. How are you guys supposed to be a proper competitor to Rogers when there are a ton of threads and complaints of high upstream power, back-to-back disconnects, slow speeds, high packet loss, etc..

They have no power over Rogers. CRTC (the regulator) has no bite, and cannot enforce rules even if they were granted. Teksavvy uses Rogers and Bell's lines (think driveways linking your house to the main road). The only people that can maintain that link is Bell / Rogers themselves. Nobody else can touch it. Only form of asking for help is through email. Their hands are pretty much tied at that point.

For TSI there is no other alternative (that is feasible) beyond Rogers and Bell. Even if they have capitol to build out the "3rd line" (read fiber optic to the home) they still have to go through municipal red tape.

I've been telling people about TSI as follows:

It is a pain to setup, and repair if things go south. The price you pay for the speed and "bandwidth" you use is significantly cheaper. If dealing with TSI which has to go through a middle-man to get anything done is okay then they're great.

If you don't want to worry and just want to complain over the phone to someone who'll just type something up for contractors to look at, go with Rogers/Bell/Telus.

Only ever had to call TSI twice, once was the York Mills POI teething problems, the other was an "expired" credit card. I've had no complaints about TSI.

Remember TSI goes through Bell/Rogers/Telus, that means no matter how helpful they are, you are still subjected to Robellus BS. It is up to you the consumer to decide if that is worth it.

reply to OneWorld9
I think it's quite obvious, if you're in a Robbers market, don't even think about going to Teksavvy or any other third party reseller for cable because you'll be in a world of hurt when it comes to internet access. If your job depends on a solid internet connection, you'll need back-up DSL, which makes the cable pointless and just a needless and expensive option.

This shit has been going on for at least a year now, if not two, and it's exactly why I never bothered to get cable internet from TSI, because it would be even worse for me. - I currently live in a large highrise so there's always people getting their connection hooked up or cut, so you can imagine the Robbers techs having a field day with my connection. A third party ISP tag? What's that..... *cut* And then I'd be without internet for at least 4 business days. A shame they don't have any sort of deal with Eastlink in Sudbury, because I'd like to think that they are far less evil than Robbers could ever be.

Robbers wins because they know the average person will just say "fuck it, I'm going to Robbers because it works".

reply to OneWorld9
Whilst these problems occured after the OPs change to TekSavvy, a lot of Rogers customers were having problems with them during the same period, in part due to the shuffling around of the different head ends in Toronto to create "Dupont". It wasn't impacting just TekSavvy custmers. So, chances are you'd have been complaining bitterly about Rogers too.

This is what I was trying to point out in showing how TekSavvy and other TPIAs depend on the incumbents. It's easy to say "I changed to a TPIA and look what happened". What you don't know is what might have happened had you actually STAYED with the incumbent.

reply to NightMayor

reply to OneWorld9
Although TSI's customer service went down greatly, it is still far much better than dealing with the big ones.

I agree that Marc's way of operating TSI is different from the way of his brother Rocky. However, I have faith that Marc will his best to overcome TSI growth issues, and to bring TSI back to the level we used to admire (I really hope so).
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It will be better if everyone cares about others

reply to The Mongoose
1) Remember the 90-9-1 rule where 90% lurk, 9% make an account and probably make a few posts, and 1% actually come here regularly. Not everyone comes here regularly or even knows about the site so 99% is extremely optimistic; when you count threads you have to take account into this. It's almost like how not everyone writes a pen and paper letter to their MP, they know a couple of people wrote but they have to weigh in the fact that not everyone takes the time to do so.

2) Well no one deserves to have to go through months of disconnects and slowdowns as well either. And if OP complained countless of times he at least deserves some sort of reimbursement or some other options for the time wasted complaining and for the spotty internet. It's like when you get really cold food at a restaurant but they can't warm it up, some if not most people would not want to pay for said meal or would want something a lot better.

3) I do notice they are doing a better job at reporting bad areas, so when you enter your address in the website it'll list the available services. The point is if you know a specific location, not just the POI area, you need to acknowledge and communicate that there may be some problems and notify your customers in said area. Regardless if it is a small percentage, they need to know, Teksavvy definitely has contact info. I know many people around my intersection that would've benefited from this. I bet if there was better up-to-date communication at the very least, OP wouldn't have been this upset. Also, you know something needs to change when you're waiting on the phone for hours.

That said, I don't agree with OP's "you get what you pay for" statement because I think we all know these are the reasonable prices for each plan and we shouldn't have to get used to anything higher in terms of price; $62 for 120GB is definitely unreasonable. But you still have to admit after all OP and others have gone through, it f*@king sucks.

reply to OneWorld9