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Atticka
join:2001-11-26
Montreal, QC

1 edit

Atticka

Member

ISP's in Montreal

Hey all, I know this has been asked befor.....but any info would be great.

I'm looking for a new ISP in Montreal and have come up with a list of ISP's that I'm considering. If anyone has had a bad/good experiances with any of these ISP's PLEASE let me know.

Three important things went into selecting these ISP's, 3MB service or better, they allow servers and no transfer cap.

The list:
»www.electronicbox.net/english/ *
»www.3z.ca/ **
»www.cyberglobe.net/main/english/ ***
»www.acanac.ca/index.html
»www.primelite.com/prices ··· et01.php
»www.grafnet.ca/serv01.htm
»www.clubplus.net/english ··· adsl.htm
»www.radioactif.com/hvform1.php

Based on my research, these ISP's look promising:
»www.electronicbox.net/english/ *
»www.3z.ca/ **
»www.cyberglobe.net/main/english/ ***

* First choice
** Second Choice
*** Third choice

I've heard bad things about Cable and I'm not familiare with anything else available in Montreal. Any recomendations would be greatly appreciated.

diskace
Retired
Premium Member
join:2002-02-21

1 edit

diskace

Premium Member

i am working for electronicbox and seriously you get a real good connection when you signup here. Many users here can tell you how great is the peering and how great pings are on the internet using Electronicbox.net network.

If you are looking for quality... pickup Electronic Box Inc.

If you are looking for the BEST prices, stay away because we are not in competition with isp like AEI & cie.

Regards.

Bicephale
@vif.net

Bicephale to Atticka

Anon

to Atticka
Have you considered Vif InterNet (»www.vif.com)? They
charge about 30 $/m for what you seem to have in mind, just
make sure they support the MoDem if they make you buy one...

IIgs
Premium Member
join:2002-10-05
Montreal, QC

IIgs to Atticka

Premium Member

to Atticka
Don't limit yourself to just Montreal-based ISP's offering DSL, there are many very decent ones outside the province in terms of price, performance and extras (e.g. commercial Usenet account included in package). And a bonus is you only pay GST--7% instead of 15.56%!

I'd agree you should avoid Videotron; not necessarily because of cable-Internet technology, but the company is a real nightmare to deal with.

Atticka
join:2001-11-26
Montreal, QC

Atticka

Member

Very good point about the sales tax! I hadn't considered that.

3z.ca is out of Toronto and its one of my top picks, they seems to have good peering and offer everything I'm looking for.

I do however like Electronicbox.com (local co. so I can knock on their door if my service goes down ) but the extra %8 sales tax and $5 extra for a static IP adds up over a while.....

I guess I'll just have to try both:D

EUS
Kill cancer
Premium Member
join:2002-09-10
canada

EUS to Atticka

Premium Member

to Atticka
$5 for static is not out of line, and seems to be a pretty standard price at the residential level.
Also, be advised that if you go for an out of province isp, you will be tunneled to probably Ottawa. When i was with istop this added about 20ms to my first hop to equal 30-35ms.
With e-box I get single digit pings at first hop and end up with about 20ms to NY NY.
Important for gamers.
Good luck.

Bicephale
@214-51-69.sogetel.ne

Bicephale to Atticka

Anon

to Atticka
About my reply of August 20th, the cat is out of the bag now
so i must revise my opinion about Vif and warn that there are
other things to take into consideration... If you don't like
internal policies like "customers are morons and they believe
anything", euh... use patience are shop more wisely than i
did. There's a jungle out there and it eats us alive!
TheIceMaster
join:2002-08-31
Delson, QC

TheIceMaster to Atticka

Member

to Atticka
Bicephale: It just depends on who you talk to and if its basic (ie, walk through setup your emails) or technical

ViF has been fine for a few weeks now that they have changed their DSLAM connections. For me, there are 2 problems that continues: peering and throttling. At the moment, they use exclusively Cogent going through Toronto which is bad for gamers (35-40ms to NY instead of the 15-19 I used to). They promised to re-add other peers this month (Peer1 and ???) but I am still waiting.

About throttling, if you use newsgroups, port 119 is throttled to very low speed during peek hours (20-30kB using 4 connections of my external provider). Using the same provider, changing the port to 8080 yields a constant 315kB/s thus, it is throttled. ViF is in denial about it so, dont expect this to be lifted any time soon

One thing is always clear though, regardless of the ISP you choose, you usually get what you pay for
corvus_corax
join:2003-08-01
Lebanon, NH

corvus_corax

Member

I just finished getting setup with both electronicbox.net and videotron. So I have some input to this thread...

First, electronicbox.net is great now that I am set up. Bell had said I'd be set up by 8/22, 5 days after my order was placed. Neither of the two modems I had got sync when I tried them on 8/25, so I reported the problem to the techs at electronicbox, who took it up with Bell...and Bell sat on it for a week with no response. I finally got sync on 9/1 but at 1720 Kbps. I reported the low sync, and ebox arranged with Bell to get a Nexxia tech out to check the line...he found it was good and supported up to 7 Mbps, and then called in the sync upgrade and I was where I was supposed to be...2 weeks late though. Electronicbox support was phenomenal throughout. They kept in touch with me throughout the process and were cool the whole time. This same thing occured to me with Speakeasy and Qwest in the states...seems like the relationship with Bell Canada and independent ISPs is poor.

Anyway, for me this was a bit of a minor disaster as I had to work online at random hours at broadband speeds from the moment I got back. I had intended to get a redundant connection with Videotron but had held off as I too am not their biggest fan; both because of their policies and also because they seemed to have alot of downtime and random slowdowns last year. But when I got here and was without a connection I just went ahead and put in an order with Videotron for their cheap service + basic cable. They had me up and running 72 hours from my order.

So I have a direct comparison now. ICMP ping times for me are nearly identical on both connections...in the low 20s for most major sites in the states. HTTP sites dish up faster with electronicbox.net than Videotron. My VPN connection to work is less latent with electronicbox. I haven't had time to check much else...

Hope that helps in some way. I hope perhaps someday electronicbox can offer the 6 Mbps that Speakeasy offers in the states, since it appears my line can handle it.
fromage5
join:2003-03-31
Montreal, QC

fromage5 to Atticka

Member

to Atticka
Electronic Box can only offer what Sympatico offers.

diskace
Retired
Premium Member
join:2002-02-21

diskace

Premium Member

fromage: sympatico offer static ip ?
sympatico offer lowest latency network peering (best ping) ?
sympatico offer tech support for unix users ?
sympatico allow server ?

many things sympatico don't offer is offered by electronicbox. Unfortunately if you are comparing all isp only on their speed profile advertised, yes they are similar.

Regards, jean-philippe.
fromage5
join:2003-03-31
Montreal, QC

fromage5 to Atticka

Member

to Atticka
What I mean Electronic Box can only offer the speeds Sympatico offers.

Bicephale
@213-51-69.sogetel.ne

Bicephale to TheIceMaster

Anon

to TheIceMaster
Hi TheIceMaster,

The main thing that caused my opinion to trip so
badly was, like you wrote, DENIAL and i'll limit
my grief to just that to be fair with readers...



I realize denial went quick while all my capture
logs stood as gross evidence. I simply couldn't
tolerate that after three weeks of patient posts
and calls i still couldn't manage my Web site as
my credentials failed to be recognized - i think
their server was too slow to respond, i observed
that the PPP authentification (over PPPoE) would
require retries while the FTP server just didn't
grant me access (because of that same problem, i
presume). Well, after six FTP clients, two OSes
and two different PCs i still had the impression
all the captures i sent them were systematically
discarded and when i asked the Vif personel that
they verify their setup via DialUp access before
claiming victory their answer was no - which got
me pretty much certain of where this was heading
to (i don't trust people who can't read logs and
who keep asking that i tear appart installations
which worked minutes later: same FTP client and
without quiting)! Anyway, the last warning-bell
went on when the tech guy i spoke too started to
complain about his bad day, and he added to this
that i hadn't paid my 60 $ bill yet... Well, it
turns out i'm still waiting for the bill and the
man didn't provide me an answer when i asked him
how they could charge 60 $ for only three weeks!



Hummm... Still about denial, that's right it is
not expensive at 30 $/m but if that forces me to
keep my 56 Kbps access to have presence on INet,
euh... i'm better off with the ADSL service the
company i've been with for years would offer! I
don't like beeing treated as a liar and a thief,
on top of that, and especially when i pointed to
contradictions on their own site (which has cost
me hours of unnecessary manipulations because it
was a setting instead of an other)... If a deal
is valid for other customers why should i settle
for less, in any case? Euh... To put it short,
i warned Vif that their failure to support their
original obligations constituted a breach of the
contract between us. As a result, i'm no longer
with Vif InterNet and they'll need a pretty good
excuse to make me change my mind, i must add!...



In my opinion i acted in good will and asking me
to be an expert at everything just to prove some
point is improper behavior if the logs are clear
(and the guy asked me if i got acces to port 21,
and the server, while he had it under his nose)!


Atticka
join:2001-11-26
Montreal, QC

Atticka

Member

Thanks for the info guys.

Looks like I'll go with electronicbox and see how it works out.

I'll let you know what I find out.
Atticka

1 edit

Atticka

Member

Quick update.

I've been with Electronicbox for about two weeks now.

Their tech support is great, I have them on MSN and they are quick and helpfull.

Speeds have been alright (I have their 3Mb service) and its nice having a static IP.

I have been having some issue's however, first problem was a routing problem with the first static IP I was assigned, they changed my IP and that seems to have cleared up.

Second issue I'm having is random outtages of service, I'll be making another post on this for advice, we cant seem to figure it out (might be my setup, seems to only happen when running bittorrent or P2P apps).

AS far as the ISP goes, its a good company, I enjoy using them.
fromage5
join:2003-03-31
Montreal, QC

fromage5 to Atticka

Member

to Atticka
How are the ping times, and stuff. Post some traceroutes. I'm thinking of switching over to e-box.

Atticka
join:2001-11-26
Montreal, QC

Atticka

Member

Just an aside, I think the network disconnects or packet loss has to do with a physical line issue....I dont think it has anything to do with Ebox.

I'll get some traceroutes up this evening.
nyt2
join:2003-02-20
france

nyt2 to Atticka

Member

to Atticka
Since monday ISPs have the ability to check line condition in real time. Ask them about yours.

Atticka
join:2001-11-26
Montreal, QC

1 edit

Atticka

Member

I've been sending them my line stats from a Gnet BB0060B modem....looks like it might be something with my line.

here is my version of a speed test... Started a torrent download of the Suse Linux 10 CD's and took a screenshot of my download speed

this is where my speed hovered around (keep in mind, I have a 3Mb connection)
»www.sandboxcafe.com/misc ··· peed.bmp (link fixed!)
It peaked around 2.34Mb/s and rarely droped below 2Mb.

I'd say is a pretty fast service!
Atticka

Atticka

Member

Just a heads up guys.

Its been about two months since I've been using Electronic box DSL and I'm happy to report excellent service.

Despite the packet loss in the beginning (I suspect it was Bell.....but who knows, its all fixed), the customer service and leniant usage policy makes this ISP a winner.

Pluses:
allows servers
3MB/800K service for ~$45
good customer service (I have Ebox support on MSN)
doesnt block ports (from what I can tell)
Static IP availa for $5 a month
unlimited bandwidth

Minuses:
Limited online pay options (need a Desjardin account to pay online)
packet loss at the beginning (resolved)
Website could use a overhaul with more "account administration" options (Bell's customer portal is great, Ebox would be unstoppable if they had something like this).

Enjoy!

diskace
Retired
Premium Member
join:2002-02-21

diskace

Premium Member

hey atticka, thanks for the good review. You have the option to pay using visa and mastercard + direct withdraw is coming for 2006. Just need to upgrade the accounting system before (canadian payment association rules) in order to offer this service.

For the website, we used to have a portal like bell is offering (not sophisticated like they offer) with a trouble ticket system included but it was not used by our customers so we just dropped the project.

Btw stay tuned, there is a very nice promo coming monday.