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TheIceMaster
join:2002-08-31
Delson, QC
| Re: ISP's in Montreal 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
Montreal, QC
| Re: ISP's in Montreal 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. | |
| 
Bicephale
@sogetel.ne
|  ISP's in Montreal
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 | Re: ISP's in Montreal 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. | |
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Atticka
join:2001-11-26
Montreal, QC
1 edit | Re: ISP's in Montreal 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. | |
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