Mark Rejhon
join:2004-02-02
Ottawa, ON
 ·Magma Communications
| Addendum More Details about Latency...
I left out ping values. Pings tends to be between 10 and 25 millseconds for most large Ontario sites. The ISP gateway has been as low as only 7 milliseconds away during offpeak, and about 12-13 milliseconds during peak. I am usually considered the "LPB" (Low Ping B--tard) in most online videogames that I've tried that are populated
High Cost Note....
I neglected to mention that Magma is relatively expensive compared to Sympatico/Rogers. I need to justify my five-star rating for "Value for Money". Even though $64.95 per month is pretty expensive compared to competition (plus $15 per month for static IP address), the 5-star rating because it is still a bargian due to the near-revolutionary connection reliability as mentioned in my review.
Less Visibility with Residential than Corporate...
I have a residential connection. I neglected to mention that Magma tends to market service more frequently to corporations. I have noticed Magma tends to spend marketing money on the backbone and their data centre (Ottawa's first CLASS A data center, so they claim). Thus, the "Average Joe User" may not have heard of Magma due to the carpet-bomb-marketing wars that Sympatico/Bell(telco) and Rogers(cable) are doing due to their deep pockets. Marketing by Magma was never a problem to get me hooked, but I can understand why some people put less than 5 stars in the "Pre-Sales" category due to less marketing.
Download Cap Note...
I neglected to mention that Magma's download was recently upgraded to 40 gigabytes download and 40 gigabytes upload, measured separately. It used to be only about half that when initially I signed up. Uploads/Downloads are free & unlimited between midnight and 7am so the cap is even more of a non-issue. The cap should not scare people away since the dual 40/40 gigabyte cap is just like a single 80 gigabyte cap. This cap means more than 1 gigabyte downloads and more than 1 gigabytes upload per peak period. This can be compared to an 80 gigabyte transfer cap at another ISP that doesn't distinguish the difference between upload and downloads. Magma gives a virtually realtime running total of your uploads/downloads via the web-based Account Tools, so you can easily monitor traffic without waiting for your bill. This helps reinforce the 5-star "Value for Money" rating. |
