Ottawa,ON
$45 per month
about 5 days
Bell Canada
"Truly Unlimited Package, Amazing Customer Service and No Hidden Fees"
"Package speeds (same with all DSL resellers)"
"Great ISP, Can't recommend them enough!
After having been with Rogers for 8 years in the Greater Toronto Area (and being used to the Rogers "Express" & "Extreme" packages), I moved to a non-Rogers serviced area west of Ottawa in 2006. For 2 years, I fought with serious line quality issues, amplification via load-coils, a ~24,000-foot copper loop length (copper to this CO and then copper from this CO to the next town CO 6 KM away) and MultiLink PPP via 4x 56K modems.
Over the last 18 months, I've been through the fixed wireless gamut, first with Storm Wireless (which worked well minus the occasional disconnect and an antenna failure), but was subsequently bought out by Barrett Xplornet (who replaced all the customer premise equipment with Motorola 3.5 GHz gear).
For the last 9 months, I have been fraught with rage and frustration at the blatant disregard that Xplornet has had for their service quality and provisioning. Four service tech visits (including a level 3 and two independent install vendors), two antenna changes, two botched installs, multiple escalations later and $65 a month down the drain and still I was no closer to achieving any semblance of service.
With seemingly bleak connectivity options, I believed I was relegated to the digital dust bin... disadvantaged in a major way compared to those in urban areas with affordable, reliable connectivity options.
With the financial assistance of the OMAFRA Broadband Fund (»www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/rur···/faq.htm) and working with the local rural township municipal government, Bell Aliant successfully completed their installation of 6 KM of fiber optic cabling and an Alcatel-Lucent 7330 DSLAM, lighting up DSL services in my small rural Ontario town of 1000 residents two weeks ago.
Upon shopping around Bell Canada's DSL rates and packages, it became blatantly obvious that there was no "niche" package that heavy users with high-demand requirements could subscribe to at a reasonable price without having to worry about hefty overage charges or customer support that lacks any ability to communicate and address issues.
Shopping around, I came across TekSavvy and based upon the DSLReports.com customer feedback, pulled the trigger on their Unlimited 5 Mbps DSL package with static IP & public IP block. I placed this order around 10:00 PM on a week night and was hooked up 4 days later. Service has been very solid since first spin up (5055/797 kbps, SNR=28 dBm, ATTN=11.1 dBm... minus some teething problems on Bell Aliant's side) with a Thomson SpeedTouch 516 and 40-year old interior quad telephone cabling.
TekSavvy customer support has been available 24/7 to take my calls and even worked for 45 minutes yesterday evening around 11:00 PM to diagnose an issue with PPPoE handshaking on Bell's side.
How often does an ISP go to these lengths to keep a new customer happy? In twenty years of connectivity across 10 ISP's (CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL, AOL Canada, DocuSystems, Inter-Links, Rogers, Magma/Primus, Storm Wireless & Barrett Xplornet), I've seen NONE in the same class as TekSavvy.
If you're looking for a DSL provider with a truly unlimited package, world-class customer support and no-nonsense billing practices, TekSavvy should be at the very top of your list.
*****UPDATE April 8, 2013******
Just wanted to say that the service has been OUTSTANDING over the last 4 months since installation. Can't stop recommending the service enough.
$45 per month
about 5 days
Bell Canada
"Truly Unlimited Package, Amazing Customer Service and No Hidden Fees"
"Package speeds (same with all DSL resellers)"
"Great ISP, Can't recommend them enough!
After having been with Rogers for 8 years in the Greater Toronto Area (and being used to the Rogers "Express" & "Extreme" packages), I moved to a non-Rogers serviced area west of Ottawa in 2006. For 2 years, I fought with serious line quality issues, amplification via load-coils, a ~24,000-foot copper loop length (copper to this CO and then copper from this CO to the next town CO 6 KM away) and MultiLink PPP via 4x 56K modems.
Over the last 18 months, I've been through the fixed wireless gamut, first with Storm Wireless (which worked well minus the occasional disconnect and an antenna failure), but was subsequently bought out by Barrett Xplornet (who replaced all the customer premise equipment with Motorola 3.5 GHz gear).
For the last 9 months, I have been fraught with rage and frustration at the blatant disregard that Xplornet has had for their service quality and provisioning. Four service tech visits (including a level 3 and two independent install vendors), two antenna changes, two botched installs, multiple escalations later and $65 a month down the drain and still I was no closer to achieving any semblance of service.
With seemingly bleak connectivity options, I believed I was relegated to the digital dust bin... disadvantaged in a major way compared to those in urban areas with affordable, reliable connectivity options.
With the financial assistance of the OMAFRA Broadband Fund (»www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/rur···/faq.htm) and working with the local rural township municipal government, Bell Aliant successfully completed their installation of 6 KM of fiber optic cabling and an Alcatel-Lucent 7330 DSLAM, lighting up DSL services in my small rural Ontario town of 1000 residents two weeks ago.
Upon shopping around Bell Canada's DSL rates and packages, it became blatantly obvious that there was no "niche" package that heavy users with high-demand requirements could subscribe to at a reasonable price without having to worry about hefty overage charges or customer support that lacks any ability to communicate and address issues.
Shopping around, I came across TekSavvy and based upon the DSLReports.com customer feedback, pulled the trigger on their Unlimited 5 Mbps DSL package with static IP & public IP block. I placed this order around 10:00 PM on a week night and was hooked up 4 days later. Service has been very solid since first spin up (5055/797 kbps, SNR=28 dBm, ATTN=11.1 dBm... minus some teething problems on Bell Aliant's side) with a Thomson SpeedTouch 516 and 40-year old interior quad telephone cabling.
TekSavvy customer support has been available 24/7 to take my calls and even worked for 45 minutes yesterday evening around 11:00 PM to diagnose an issue with PPPoE handshaking on Bell's side.
How often does an ISP go to these lengths to keep a new customer happy? In twenty years of connectivity across 10 ISP's (CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL, AOL Canada, DocuSystems, Inter-Links, Rogers, Magma/Primus, Storm Wireless & Barrett Xplornet), I've seen NONE in the same class as TekSavvy.
If you're looking for a DSL provider with a truly unlimited package, world-class customer support and no-nonsense billing practices, TekSavvy should be at the very top of your list.
*****UPDATE April 8, 2013******
Just wanted to say that the service has been OUTSTANDING over the last 4 months since installation. Can't stop recommending the service enough.
I wish teksavvy had fiber.
ReplyDeleteif they had it i'd get it :)
Bell's "25mbps fibre optic" service is not fibre optic. It is plain old regular ADSL2+, but the CALL it "Fibe" to make it sound like its fibre optic, when it isn't. Apparently their marketing trickery worked on you.
The reason that Teksavvy doesn't offer 25mbps ADSl2+ is that despite an order from the CRTC, Bell just simply flat out refuses to allow independent ISPs access to those profiles. This has been rolled up into a proceeding before the CRTC, and hopefully there will be reasonable resolution to it soon.
Actually it's not ADLS2+, but VDSL2.
There's no ADSL2+ connection that can offer 25Mbps down and 7Mbps up. Unless you're bonding, but Bell has no intentions of doing that.