O Canada! > Canadian > TekSavvy > Best way to minimise downtime moving back to Bell.

Best way to minimise downtime moving back to Bell.

We switched from Velcom to Bell (before coming to Teksavvy when VDSL2 was available wholesale), and simply made sure the Velcom disconnection date and Bell install date coincided. The Bell tech didn't have to do anything except make sure the sync rate was changed, and we got a call a few hours later from a tech down the street saying "I have a disconnection request from Velcom but it looks like you're with Bell" to which I said we changed providers and they left it alone. Hopefully your experience is similar to mine.

If it's any consolation, I'm negotiating with Bell right now for a decent FibeTV + internet deal because even though Bell has pretty crappy routing/peering (IMO), it's better than having 200+ms first-hop pings. I can't imagine how bad it must be on your end with 4x the latency.

HTH.

reply to UK_Dave
Hey Dave,

I checked the network just yesterday... Not a single link was saturated. Whatever is going on is for sure local. I'll try to get and ETA of when its due to be upgraded. Really sorry man.
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Marc - CEO/TekSavvy

Hey Marc,

I don't for one minute think the problem is congestion on your network. Firstly because I believe you, and secondly, if it was, and it was as bad as I see, there would be all hell breaking out on here from others as well.

But your dialogue with Bell seems to be stuck at "It's a speed pattern match problem", and has been since October. I don't even know if that is a TSI interpretation, or if that is a direct quote from Bell.

If it's a direct quote from Bell, then I guess I sit and stay where I want to be (which is TSI). But then again, I don't know why all the checklists I had to go through months ago to get a Bell tech out to the house, didn't result in getting a tech to the house.

And I don't get why there are no other issues for people on Bell in my neighbourhood. I put up posters in windows asking people to call or email me if they had slow speed problems with Bell. I got 3 responses. One was from a dial-up user who missed the point, 2 were from Bell DSL customers but they were "slow" with 100ms pings. I dream of that.

A thought just hit me.

Could there be 2 problems, 1 masking the other?

i.e There IS local congestion, but my problem is something else with similar but far more drastic symptoms.

Is the problem that Bell refuse to send a tech when they already acknowledge the problem?

If so, I'll give them another problem with the box on the pole near me.

It's possible that there are multiple problems... If you ping the gateway when you login to test@test do you still get 800ms response?

Seems to me you have a similar issue as millsy200 had.. Hopefully it doesn't take as much time to fix. I've just had my team double down on this to try to see if there's anything else that can be done... Effectively they need to upgrade the network and spend that money to fix it I would assume....
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Marc - CEO/TekSavvy

Hi Marc,

Yes - It's the same when I use test@test.

TSI David had a good idea for me to capture some tracerts from my neighbours kit. I really like that idea.

Also, would my logging in with my TSI user info from HIS dsl line add anything useful? I know when I have used HIS login info on MY dsl line it has made no difference.

reply to UK_Dave
Hi Dave,

If we have brought up slow speeds pattern, its more than likely because that is what Bell told us. We had another customer recently that his area, close to Chatham was part of a pattern, which I believe is even smaller than your area which was recently fixed after almost 1 year of "Pattern Matching".

What is all comes down to is Bell ordering equipment for the local CO/trunks to alleviate their network congestion.

I have asked someone to look into this further on my side with Bell. We may not get a concrete answer/update until Monday though.

Do you have neighbours that you know are on TekSavvy or Bell that are having the same issue?

Cheers,

Andre
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TSI Andre
Director of Service Delivery

TekSavvy Website | TekSavvy Blog

Hey Andre.

TSI David and I have swapped a few PM's and I have a few more ideas re: tracerts and swapping login ID's etc.

I'll document the tests and come back when I have the info.

Number 1 test for me, is to pick a time when I have the problem - then call them and get them to run a .BAT file i've written for them to do 1000 pings at the same time.

Then we'll do the same thing, but I'll use his login on my line, and he'll use mine on his.

I'll post when I'm done!

reply to UK_Dave
Hey Dave,

They apparently have no updates however they are still looking into it.

I have asked internally what else can be done on our end. Stay tuned.

Cheers,

Andre
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TSI Andre
Director of Service Delivery

TekSavvy Website | TekSavvy Blog

reply to UK_Dave
Hey Dave,

What were the results from your testing you did with David?

I ask because we checked and Bell does 100% recognize this as a "problem area" and they currently have no updates but it is still on their list to fix.

Do you have any neighbours that you could solicit to open a ticket? The more the merrier. If you have any TekSavvy neighbours, we can contact them, we just need names.

Cheers,

Andre
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TSI Andre
Director of Service Delivery

TekSavvy Website | TekSavvy Blog

reply to TSI Andre
Hi Andre.

Sorry it took until today - took a bit of setting up.

The long and the short of it, is that everything is now the same for the 2 other folks on Bell DSL I tested this with. This was not the case 4 months ago. Which fits the bill of what the poster in the other thread said to me about increasing congestion since October for half the town (the ones on BAS5SUD98).

I'm afraid there are no other TSI customers that I know of up here - so I couldn't do that test.

When my pings were low, the 2 folks on Bell had low pings too.
When my pings were high, the 2 folks on Bell had high pings too.

I'm afraid it fits the exact bill of local congestion pretty much as we thought.

Have you got anything more from Bell about "next steps"? The poster from Sudbury mentioned work being completed by March. Can Bell at least confirm this with you?

Cheers
Dave

Let me check with Bell again.

reply to UK_Dave
Ok. So we have been informed that it has been pushed to the Capacity Manager at Bell however there is still no ETA.

Thanks,

Andre

Do you mean my particular ticket - logged with you - which you have logged with Bell - has been pushed to the Capacity Manager?

Or do you mean Bell are accepting there is an issue for the whole area which has been pushed to the Capacity Manager?

And does "no ETA" mean "we are working on it with no time estimate till it's fixed?"?

Or does "no ETA" mean "we haven't started looking at it yet?"

Did you ask about the stuff the chap from Sudbury posted? The possibility that its being worked on now, stuff swapped out, and lines being put in and connected over the next few weeks?

You see - this is what I mean by pushing the issue on my behalf because I have to go through TSI and can't talk to Bell. These are the sorts of things I'd be asking them - and I'd be calling them every damn day.

You'd do it too if it were your internet connection.

Hi Dave,

What I meant it as is that Bell recognizes that your area needs some upgrading and the entire case is being pushed up to the Capacity Management team, without our doing.

I do understand what this is like and I know its not pleasant. We cannot ride them everyday but we can certainly do so more than what we have been doing.

Sometimes, these issues do take a bit of time to resolve, but I as mentioned before, if more people bring up the issue, the more pressure we can apply. So those neighbours that are on Bell, I encourage you to have them complain to Bell directly.

I will schedule a weekly update on our side of things and if anything changes, we will notify you.

Cheers,

Andre
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TSI Andre
Director of Service Delivery

TekSavvy Website | TekSavvy Blog

Thanks Andre.

It's more than pleasant. As the wife said yesterday - we might as well just cancel the internet subscription for all we can use it. Wait it out.

I still would be interested in getting Bell out to the house. I'd like to hear what they say and to see if it matches with the anonymous "1 post guy" from Sudbury who posted about a fix coming for Powassan in March.

So - will they come out to the house after 6pm / 7pm when it's 100% guaranteed to show up and at its 1000ms worst?

Look forward to the updates.

Cheers
Dave

reply to UK_Dave
Bell has multiple chronically overloaded DSLAMS on the ATM legacy network. The annoying part is that not all DSLAMS in a particular city or even in a particular remote are overloaded - so some users see performance problems while others do not.

In our area, I know off the top of my head:
Windsor-North Talbot
Lakeshore-Wallace Line
Lakeshore-Belle River
Wallaceburg
....

No answers at all from Bell. Their customers are impacted as much as wholesale. Pinging with test@test proves this.
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MNSi Internet - »www.mnsi.net

reply to UK_Dave
Hi Dave/Andre

It's Will @vianet in Sudbury - more than 50% of our customers in Powassan have been affected by this so we've been keeping an eye on the timing of repairs. Our latest information is that the work that had been scheduled for end of February has been rescheduled for the March 8th time frame -- we'll see. we've ordered new circuits for some customers and more often than not they land on a new uncongested BAS. Sometimes they don't. So that's a hit or miss option if Dave doesn't trust Bell's timing for repair. Sending a tech on site won't help.