iheartcanada
join:2005-06-29
Toronto, ON
1 edit | Just joined TekSavvy, thought to say a quick hola!
Hi,
Saying bye to Bell Sympatico in just a few weeks and making the transition to the warm embrace of mom-and-pop TekSavvy here (Unlimited 5Mbps D/800Kbps U). Time to buy local!
Service and billing
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Very nice and polite folks on the line. Prompt with confirmation. I was able to get e-billing--a major plus after being spoiled by iStop back in the days (I could never get Bell Canada to list my Sympatico bill as part of My Bell(?)--very nasty--avoid!!!) We like printing out the ebills and paper bills so we can figure out on the desk what we are spending every month.
Do you know about monitoring?
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Another thing I adore about iStop was that there was this CGI script you could visit to monitor your bandwidth use. I don't know if TekSavvy provides this but this is the way I'd ever dare to sign up for the Premium metered service. Anyone on Premium and know how you can monitor usage?
Answer to self: Doh, I am not too familiar with TekSavvy's support pages, it's RIGHT THERE: »www.pppoe.ca/gig_check.asp.
Speed test
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My service doesn't really technically commense until a little while out, but TekSavvy gave me the okay to set things up now. It's really helpful because I wasn't sure if the 2Wire was going to work on TekSavvy. It was working on Sympatico but. So I had to test. Test went green light, as you can see in the speed test. Thanks TekSavvy for letting me set it up now!!!
Pricing
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I am going for the unlimited program at $29.95 before tax. My old Sympatico bill was $49.93 after tax for roughly the same thing. Now I finally feel the strength of the Canadian loonie. My line is already subpar (notice how I can't ever get to 800kbps up?) with Sympatico's throttling and lack of administrative polish (My Bell for example) it made zero sense to stay with them*.
* I did give Sympatico the benefit of the doubt. But after been with them a couple of years their best offer was (in short),
"Let us lock you down for a year with a contract and all the funness contracts entail, after which you are once again BACK TO $49.93), and you can get it for a bit cheaper. This is how we reward our long time customers.".
Uh, yeah.
DSL Modem
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Instead of doing the prudent thing and buying a TekSavvy recommended modem, I just went out to Canada Computers out in North York to pick up my own little D-I-Y Disaster-Waiting-To-Happen. I don't know why there's so many of these 2Wires on the market, but it's got 54Mbps Wifi (802.11g). It's got a firewall. It's a dsl modem. It works as a router for a few CAT5s as well. I can't complain. I am just worried that it's probably never going to be updated in terms of firmware and that it can be easily rooted by some unknown 0-day group. *cross fingers*. Hopefully the business I am starting will help me get a proper firewall appliance that actually comes with ongoing subscription and updates. Know a good firewall appliance for SOHO? Lemme know.
Cheers!
-- High park area resident |
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iheartcanada
join:2005-06-29
Toronto, ON | Make that $49.93 after tax for Sympatico. |
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mac dude
join:2006-03-18
Toronto, ON | cool. I joined today and am a fellow high park resident (grenadier / roncesvalles).... let's flip the neighbourhood!
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I am one hit song away from a million dollars. |
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MmmPancakes
join:2007-05-29
Toronto, ON | You should put all that in your post into a review. |
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iheartcanada
join:2005-06-29
Toronto, ON
| reply to iheartcanada
Here's the 2wire when assigned back to the Sympatico account:
Thought to say that while the 2wire administrative GUI is pretty decent. I went back to the Dlink to do the firewalling and wi-fi. Mainly because the 2wire didn't do things like uPnP. I might go out there and pick up something that can do it all. Latest firewall plus QoS or whatever fun things modern 2007 firewalls can do. If you know a great one from a reputable brand name? (Linksys? Dlink?) Do let me know, thanks! |
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andrewhaji
Premium
join:2002-03-02
North York, ON | I have the Linksys WRT54GL running custom firmware (DD-WRT) and it's amazing. It has everything you'd ever want out of a router, and more! |
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The Flash
You don't win friends with salad
Premium
join:2002-10-17
Toronto, ON
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Execulink
| said by andrewhaji  :I have the Linksys WRT54GL running custom firmware (DD-WRT) and it's amazing. It has everything you'd ever want out of a router, and more! +1
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Test your Speed
»www.speakeasy.net/speedtest
»speedtest.cogeco.net/ |
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