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Business internet downtown Montreal: fiber vs cableHere is the scoop. Our company is moving offices from the Plateau to downtown Montreal in the next month and we are investigating our internet options. Our current (previous) office had two cable drops, one 60/10 Mbps for the majority of computers (~30), and one 60/10 drop for VoIP + a few other computers (yeah it's overkill for VoIP but this wasn't my decision). We are paying ~$350 / month for this setup (some reseller of Videotron). We are currently a team of ~30 people, and will be growing up to a team of 50 people within the next 6 months. This means minimum 1 computer / person, plus 15 VoIP phones. For most of the team, our network usage is web based services (browsing, web mail, etc). The dev team will comprise the majority of network usage (interacting with cloud based dev/stag environments for development/QA purposes). Our current setup (60/10 Mbps setup) has proved sufficient, no complaints. My boss has me investigating getting a fiber drop to the office. I had a call with Fibre Noire today; we chatted about our current setup and future requirements. Talking with their network engineer, he estimated that we would be happy with 10Mbps symmetrical (maybe 20-30 Mbps with dev requirements), and that it would be comparable with a 60/10 Mbps cable installation due to the reduced latency. I am in no way a network engineer, just a dev/sysadmin, but I can't see the improved latency with fiber making 10Mbps equivalent to 60Mbps with cable. The other option (that I actually heard a price on), was 100Mbps symmetrical connection, for $550/month. How do these options stack up, and given the circumstances, what would you do? |
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GuspazGuspaz MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC |
They're BSing you. The latency on fibre is not that much lower than cable, nor is it enough to make up for the massive difference in speed from 60/10 (or even 120/20 like you actually have) to 10/10...
Considering how under-utilized one of your two connections is, though, and the large increase in upstream, you probably would see benefits in moving everything to a symmetrical 100 megabit connection. Run everything through one router/connection, prioritize VoIP traffic.
I'm not sure that I'd go with FibreNoire, however. From your side, their salespeople are clearly lying to you in order to make a sale. From my side, I've tried to get quotes from them in the past, and they ignored me.
You've got a favourable review of Electronic Box, and it should be noted that they can do enterprise fibre for you. You can also talk to Videotron directly, I know somebody who got a pretty good deal on fibre from them because they were already in an on-net building. |
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SimonJonesAllstream Alliance join:2010-09-16 Mississauga, ON |
to quickdry21
quickdry21, you're going to see more consistency, increased stability and get a generally improved (WAN) network transit on a dedicated Ethernet Internet connection as opposed to cable or xDSL. I'm guessing that's what the rep was suggesting.
It doesn't take a lot to cause latency spikes with heavy utilization on a cable circuit, in which case you might experience timeouts, packet re-transmission, VoIP degradation and "slower" performance.
From your description, I don't see that you have much of a need for high bandwidth downloads. On the other hand, VoIP and cloud-based services call for stability and consistency, not to mention 4H MTTR, etc. With some QoS, you should be solid.
IMO a 10/10 fiber-based Ethernet Internet is head and shoulders above cable or DSL. $550/month seems in the ballpark, assuming you're getting a 100 megabit port for future growth.
PM me if I can help. |
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to quickdry21
Lucky you, downtown Montreal is one of the easiest place in Canada to get fiber internet in Canada. There are plenty of providers. Prices are pretty good as well.
Just a few: - MTO Telecom (now Cogeco Data services), My employer was a customer before the change to Cogeco, porices were good and service as well. - Fibre Noire (no experience) - If I remember skynet started offering fiber (not wireless) downtown Montreal, search the forums... - There are others... |
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to SimonJones
You'd really recommend 10/10 symatric fiber over a dual cable or DSL setup, providing internet for 50 in a tech company? Either of them could provide an order of magnitude more download and double the upload. Wow.
If you want to get technical, AFAIK, on the aggregation networks upload is used significantly less than download and thus has no significant contention. On the download side, I believe there was a series of research papers published around the time when sandvine started selling DPI boxes for QoS. The general topic was how much utilization you could have on a best effort link before QoS produced better services. If I remember correctly, the numbers were around the 20% range. Purchasing over an order of magnitude more bandwidth will serve them better.
On the subject specifically of cable, unlike Rogers, Videotron is not known to overload it's nodes. I could be wrong. For Bell's aggregation network, the wholesalers have always criticized them for having a definition of congestion that was too strict, thereby causing unnecessarily costs (though they sometimes take forever to upgrade links).
Everyone seems to harp about how sensitive VoIP is to jitter. 10ms should easily be overcome by buffers. At 100mbit, that's 83 max size packets, or a ~125KB burst, or 20 simultaneous new tcp sessions' data being received. The aggregation networks and cable have even more bandwidth than that, and should have some form of dumb per-end-user QoS.
quickdry21: get fiber if you can, but don't get a 10/10. If you're thinking of getting 10/10 for 550$, then a much better alternative would be to get a dedicated ~100$ business 25/10 DSL link from Ebox exclusively for VoIP, and spend 450$ on proper internet for everybody else. The VoIP lines won't notice the difference and your users certainly will. |
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GuspazGuspaz MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC |
to quickdry21
Yeah, it's absurd to argue that you will get better performance from 10 meg fibre than 120 meg cable (or rather 2x60)... Yes, latency will be lower. But the massive drop in throughput (a 92% reduction in speed) would have a HUGE impact on performance.
You stated that the $550 was for 100/100 fibre, that's definitely a good option. I would personally not use FibreNoire, but that's me. I would ask eBox and Videotron for a quote first. Couldn't hurt to ask Skynet for a fibre quote too. |
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SimonJonesAllstream Alliance join:2010-09-16 Mississauga, ON |
to DSL_Ricer
DSL, my point was that it really isn't as clear-cut as measuring the bandwidth vs cost ratio. No question 100/100 is the way to go, but I'd hesitate to recommend any kind of cable/DSL service to a 50+ person company, especially when there's VoIP involved. The SLA alone should be a concern. |
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GuspazGuspaz MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC 1 edit |
to quickdry21
I guarantee you that trying to cram 50+ people on a 10 meg connection is going to hurt VoIP performance far more than the slightly higher latency/jitter on 120 megs of cable connections. Furthermore, Videotron's business cable services (60/30 for $126/mth) do have an SLA of sorts, they guarantee that a technician will be dispatched to resolve any issues the same day if you report before 4PM. And, as I said, Videotron also does enterprise fibre (this test is on a line in active use by a large office and through an ISA proxy, hence why the speed isn't max):
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olic join:2006-07-06 Montreal |
to quickdry21
I do not agree with the majority! I think that it's true, for a team of average size, with developers, that a fiber link, even slower is better. It's not home connexion for fun with friends!
With fiber link, the activities of a user does not disturb all other users. There is a decrease in speed, but that's all.
At my office, we serve 75 to 100 developers (MSDN subscription, VPN, RDC, cloud...) and other IT manager with a link at 50/50 on fiber (with a second 50/50 for backup) and it works well.
With a team of this size, the budgets of the company should still be correct. I do not understand why they would risk a breakdown or decrease productivity to save a few dollars. This is ridiculous.
Go with 100/100, for $550 and give good service to your users. It is a small expense compared to the wages of people. In addition, if a bad service at the wrong time a makes project is delivered late, it is no winner situation! |
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to quickdry21
I was looking into the high upload Videotron options as a backup. Does anyone know which packages are not throttled by Videotron? Their 30mbit upload packages used to be advertised as throttled _if_ the node was congested. I'm weary of signing up for this package since we're going to use it for VoIP.
It'd be interesting to compare Fiber vs VDSL vs Cable in various scenarios of bandwidth load by the customer. It really bothers me when people claim something is better without really stating a concrete, measurable example other than SLA. They have their mind made up (probably with good reason, for SLA and piece of mind) and spread misinformation about "home grade" products and services which they haven't even tested since 1999. (I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in this thread). |
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olic join:2006-07-06 Montreal |
olic
Member
2014-Aug-3 2:03 am
I can compare VDSL and Fiber right now! I don't think it's necessary, because it's not the same class of service, but if you want...
From my home 50/10 VDSL Bell Fibe :
(The speed test is made with a laptop connected with a ethernet cable while ping run on my desktop, also connected with an ethernet cable)
Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=14 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=14 ms TTL=57
Start Speed test d/l
Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=63 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=83 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=110 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=96 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=110 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=94 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=105 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=102 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=117 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=118 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=98 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=115 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=116 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=128 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=57 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=24 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=19 ms TTL=57
End : 53.12 Mbps
Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=12 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57
Start Speed test d/l
Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=116 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=107 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=85 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=110 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=112 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=80 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=97 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=117 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=96 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=114 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=107 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=77 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=91 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=100 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=109 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=65 ms TTL=57
End : 10.83 Mbps
Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=15 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=11 ms TTL=57 Réponse de 184.150.152.118 : octets=32 temps=14 ms TTL=57
On two crap VM at work :
Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60 Reply from 71.19.173.110: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60
I can't identify when speed test started or end, because it don't change anything on ping!
Result : d/l 24.88 u/l 42.91
It's slower then my VDSL at home, but at this time, we have a lot of synchronizations and backups run at my office. This is which explains why the speed is lower. But it also shows that even if the network is used by a lot of process, the service remains stable for users. It's just slower.
On which connection you want to connect employees? Your VoIP? Your presentation to shareholders on WebEX?
Well yes, with QoS, I could correct the situation for this time on my VDSL. But in a serious environment, with dozens of employees, why take chances? The cost of a good link are not very important! |
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to quickdry21
I ran the same test with 25/7 Bell VDSL and I have results similar to the results you have on your work Fiber. I don't have the fluctuating ping problem when the download is congested.
Are you using the Bell Sagemcom with 50Mbps? That could be your issue. |
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GuspazGuspaz MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC |
to olic
said by olic:I do not agree with the majority! I think that it's true, for a team of average size, with developers, that a fiber link, even slower is better. It's not home connexion for fun with friends!
With fiber link, the activities of a user does not disturb all other users. There is a decrease in speed, but that's all.
At my office, we serve 75 to 100 developers (MSDN subscription, VPN, RDC, cloud...) and other IT manager with a link at 50/50 on fiber (with a second 50/50 for backup) and it works well.
With a team of this size, the budgets of the company should still be correct. I do not understand why they would risk a breakdown or decrease productivity to save a few dollars. This is ridiculous.
Go with 100/100, for $550 and give good service to your users. It is a small expense compared to the wages of people. In addition, if a bad service at the wrong time a makes project is delivered late, it is no winner situation! You're advocating running 50 users on a 10 meg line, but you're running 75 users on a 50 meg line. Your logic doesn't make sense. Just because 50 megs for 75 people works doesn't mean 10 meg works for 50 people. |
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Thanks for the input people, lots of great info. 10Mbps for a minimum of 30-50 computers, plus mobile devices, plus 15 VoIP phones did not make any sense to me - at our current size, that would leave ~330Kbps at best per user (if everyone is utilizing their connection to it's full capacity). We're going to fish around for quotes for a 100Mbps fiber connection from the companies listed in this thread and compare what we get to cable options. I'm thinking we're probably going to end up paying the extra and going with fiber - even with a dedicated 60Mbps cable line, we are experiencing problems with dropped calls on our VoIP service, hopefully Fiber will help with that. |
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Ares45 Premium Member join:2007-11-14 |
to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:Yeah, it's absurd to argue that you will get better performance from 10 meg fibre than 120 meg cable (or rather 2x60)... Yes, latency will be lower. But the massive drop in throughput (a 92% reduction in speed) would have a HUGE impact on performance. Telus tried that shit with a client of mine. I couldn't help but laugh in their face. Client currently has 2x 150/20Mbps from Rogers, and the Telus sales guy kept saying that 10/10Mbps would be faster, simply because it was fiber. |
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olic join:2006-07-06 Montreal |
to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:You're advocating running 50 users on a 10 meg line, but you're running 75 users on a 50 meg line. Your logic doesn't make sense. Just because 50 megs for 75 people works doesn't mean 10 meg works for 50 people. It is because of my bad english! I say that fiber offers superior stability characteristics, so, go with this media. And the conclusion is to take the offer at 100/100 for $ 550 per month, which should not be a big expense for a company that wants to hire 50 employees. |
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to quickdry21
My 00000010bit view of this as a guy who spent alot of time in the network operations side of things :
a) get some means to measure and trend your utilization -- offhand, MRTG or PRTG is a good idea. The biggest challenge I found was "if no one has a means to measure it, how the heck could you tell whether it was performing good or bad?"
b) get some means to measure and trend packetloss / delay / jitter. As others have said, VOIP is pretty sensitive to this, and again, if you have no means to measure this, then the providers may as well be selling you the moon with cherries on top.
And you REALLY don't want to get me started about a provider who comes back and says "we've no way to confirm or deny whether there's packetloss or latency on the circuit."
c) get IN WRITING a Service Level Agreement. By that, I mean Mean Time To Repair, QOS guarentee / classification, latency / jitter guarentees, etc. I don't know what this Fibre Noir person was talking about "reduced latency," but I'd IMMEDIATELY'VE called him on that and said, "quote / show me some actual numbers."
If they don't have any, take your business elsewhere.
d) consider N+1 redundancy / diversity. AKA don't put all your eggs in one (provider's) basket. Don't know if your budget will allow for it, or if you have a three 9's (ie. 99.9%) uptime requirement , but it may be an idea to consider.
e) consider growth, especially past the 6month mark. This goes hand in hand with points a) and b).
Regards |
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to quickdry21
FibreMedia.ca is pretty hard to beat in the downtown core with pricing starting at 145$/m for a dedicated 10/10Mbps fiber connection in your office to our newest promo of 10Gbps at $1450/m. Our 1G unlimited is 499$/m
Regards, |
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GuspazGuspaz MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC |
to quickdry21
That's pretty sweet for a gigabit connection. |
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to WebBluenet
50/50 at 300$ or 1000/1000 at 500$ are worth it for sure. If you want you could get 50/50 and if you can get FTTH or cable as backup if you really need 0 interruption. I would stick with 1 fibre line TBH |
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GuspazGuspaz MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC |
to quickdry21
LTE sticks can offer pretty nice backups, because on a flex rate plan they can idle at $5/mth, but be available to offer pretty fast speeds when you need a backup.
I believe that carriers tend to cut you off at ~$500, though, which would be 50GB, so they're only good for shorter outages. |
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Definitely investigating FibreMedia.ca 1Gbps/500$/month seems to good to be true. If this works out I may just move into the new office. It has a shower |
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to quickdry21
Might give a call to the skynetcanada team. They have a downtown fibre project called fibremedia.ca. Pretty much unbeatable in term of bang for the buck. |
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Already contacted them today. Great prices. |
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SimonJonesAllstream Alliance join:2010-09-16 Mississauga, ON |
to quickdry21
quickdry21, I'm confirming your building is Allstream fiber-fed, with services available up to 1Gbps. It's also eligible for Ethernet Over Copper (up to 10Mbps only).
Let me know if I can help. |
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to quickdry21
I think people should be very careful with generalizations.
When we moved recently (Mississauga), the quote for 10/10 from Bell was $840/month, 20/20 was about $950, both on a 3 yr term.
Allstream 10/10 was over $1,000.
Ending up getting a 60/10 Rogers line with backup DSL.
We run 40 users (all using cloud-based email) with 10 voip lines without issues.
I probably would feel more "comfortable" with fibre but when the pricing is insane relative to other options, it's certainly not automatically the best choice given budget constraints.
If I could get fibre in the $200 to $400 range, that would be a different story. |
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