Internet Provder Switch.... recommendations?

Mr.Azim

Mr.Azim

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So I have a Bell phone/satellite/internet package...... but they are raping my family with ridiculous internet charges (big surprise).

We basically pay $50 a month after taxes for 100-something gbs downloading, I have a data logger on both laptops and the main computer and I can't account for more than 50-60 gbs plus whatever online gaming I do (which is seldom and no way takes up more than 40 gigs).

But last month they said I went 50 GBs OVER and charged an additional $80 for that. Not only that, but the service period was November 4 to December 3 (ummm..... it's Nov 23 today).

TekSavvy doesn't operate in my area (Mississauga) and it looks like my only choices are Bell or Rogers, neither of which have reasonable fees/charges. Whatever happened to unlimited internet???
 
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Doesn't teksavvy offer cable there? And if bell is available, so should teksavvy. See with Start - they have a good reputation. If DSL works for you other than the overage fees, talk to Velcom.
 
Mr.Azim said:
TekSavvy doesn't operate in my area (Mississauga) and it looks like my only choices are Bell or Rogers, neither of which have reputable service or reasonable fees/charges. Whatever happened to unlimited internet for $60/month?
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The CRTC happened. They granted the wholesalers literally 20+ times more money for data transfer to the wholesale clients. It's put a serious damper on the whole wholesale market and made a number of ISPs get right out of the game.

Here's what I'm talking about... our AGAS circuit (to get to DSL customers) was like this:

$1800 / mo + $100 / mo = 1Gbps AGAS circuit, plus per-customer connection cost

Now it's:

$1800 /mo + $100 / mo + $2250 per 100Mbps on a 1Gbps AGAS circuit, plus per-customer connection cost

So just do the math... what once cost about $2000 /mo to get 1Gbps to customers now costs $25,000 per month.

Not joking in any sense. The cable companies got similar (but not exact) tarrifs.

The good news is that we have lobbied so hard that the CRTC understood it was in peril (especially in the eye of the public) and is now in the process of forcing the telcos and cablecos to be fully transparent about the cost of the services - this is probably about 80x less than they are telling the CRTC, fwiw.

The bad news is that the CRTC moves like treacle. So, any movement before 2015? I doubt it.

Oh and to cap it, three weeks ago at the ISP summit, the federal economics dweeb said that it was a good thing the prices were now so high, because it would incourage independents to invest in their own infrastructure. Everyone was infuriated and he made a hasty retreat, because a) in 100 years nobody has been able to compete with the grants and favouritism shown to Bell (and later to cablecos) and b) people immediately countered "with what money, now that you've taken away most of our income?"
 
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Mr.Azim said:
So I have a Bell phone/satellite/internet package...... but they are raping my family with ridiculous internet charges (big surprise).

We basically pay $50 a month after taxes for 100-something gbs downloading, I have a data logger on both laptops and the main computer and I can't account for more than 50-60 gbs plus whatever online gaming I do (which is seldom and no way takes up more than 40 gigs).

But last month they said I went 50 GBs OVER and charged an additional $80 for that. Not only that, but the service period was November 4 to December 3 (ummm..... it's Nov 23 today).

TekSavvy doesn't operate in my area (Mississauga) and it looks like my only choices are Bell or Rogers, neither of which have reasonable fees/charges. Whatever happened to unlimited internet???
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Double check with TekSavvy.

This is another problem when the data comm companies went semi private and ended up oligopoly by default. The issue is that neither one seems to want to invest more in their lines (cable or fiber) so instead of building more lines, they just hammered the **** out of us for using our internet.

The worst part is, bandwidth costs nearly NOTHING.
 
油井緋色;1924898 said:
The worst part is, bandwidth costs nearly NOTHING.
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Not true. It's quite expensive. However after amortization costs are done, per-Gbps is quite low. The companies in question are long past the time of the big expenses and are making their shareholders happy - by buying up competitors for billions of dollars.
 
I moved into a house that currently had a Bell connection (homeowner had this). I was going to switch to Teksavvy but I first called Bell and let them know this. The offered me the 'introductory 6 month' which I believe is 1/2 the normal rate.

If you are stuck with Bell, call and offer to cancel because you're moving to Teksavvy. They will usually bend like a pretzel to keep you as their customer.

I changed homes and now i'm with Teksavvy again. I love those guys and dont' mind giving them my money.
 
Thanks, Teksavvy cable is available in my area:

30.95/month for 300 GB bandwidth AND their overage charges is capped at $25 and ulimited is $40/month

Definitely going to call this weekend. Looks like I'll have to fork out $$$ for the cable modem and initial switch.
 
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Mr.Azim said:
Thanks, Teksavvy cable is available in my area:

30.95/month for 300 GB bandwidth AND their overage charges is capped at $25 and ulimited is $40/month

Definitely going to call this weekend. Looks like I'll have to fork out $$$ for the cable model and initial switch.
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Wholesale ISP's work with VERY slim margins so they can't offer free modems. Install is a Rogers fee. They have to send out a tech and they still haven't trained them to eat grass :cool:
 
FiReSTaRT said:
Wholesale ISP's work with VERY slim margins so they can't offer free modems. Install is a Rogers fee. They have to send out a tech and they still haven't trained them to eat grass :cool:
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Initially why we switched from Rogers to Bell.... they had to return twice to get the internet installed/hooked up. I didn't have working internet after 3 visits and then it crapped out after 2 weeks because of a bad install.
 
I was happy with my Rogers internet, except for the bandwidth. it was a 30 mb connection with 150 gigs a month bandwidth, which I easily passed every month. I compared Teksavvy to Rogers, Teksavvy obviously had much better bandwidth deals. So I called Rogers, talked to a few people till I got to someone who could do something about it. They gave me a 300 gig plan for no additional charge. I would have stayed with Rogers except even that I went over, with HD streaming, constant screen sharing from work to home, and vice versa and other things that suck up my bandwidth. I did switch to Teksavvy, which was pretty painless. I already had the modem I had purchased from Rogers. Now I sav $7 a month on internet, get a 28 mb connection with unlimited bandwidth.
 
Good to hear a positive review from Teksavvy...... thanks for your help! I think the decision is already made :P

They're straightfoward to add the additional startup/transfer costs on the site, rather than hiding it in fine print.
 
RockerGuy said:
Lol, wut?
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That means that Robbers has to pay their tech to do the install, then they bill Teksavvy and Teksavvy bills you. Techs don't work for free - they gotta put food on the table at least until we train them to eat grass :cool:
 
OP, doesn't Bell have a maximum overage fee policy? I don't think they should be charging you more than $20 - $30 no matter how far over you go.

Acanac is another alternative for both DSL and cable. I've got their DSL now. ~$36 /mo unlimited @ 6mbps down. They also provide a SSH tunnel to circumvent Bell's throttling practice (Teksavvy probably offers something similar too) among other things.

However, I'm planning to switch to Teksavvy DSL because I need more bandwidth. They've got a 25 mbps down / 10 mbps up line for ~$53 /mo. It comes with a cap but the unlimited pkg is $25 more (= to the max cost of overage fees).
 
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AF4iK said:
OP, doesn't Bell have a maximum overage fee policy? I don't think they should be charging you more than $20 - $30 no matter how far over you go.

Acanac is another alternative for both DSL and cable. I've got their DSL now. ~$36 /mo unlimited @ 6mbps down. They also provide a SSH tunnel to circumvent Bell's throttling practice (Teksavvy probably offers something similar too) among other things.

However, I'm planning to switch to Teksavvy DSL because I need more bandwidth. They've got a 25 mbps down / 7 mbps up line for ~$55 /mo. It comes with a cap but the unlimited pkg is $20 more (= to the max cost of overage fees).
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Bell (and Rogers) bumped their max overage charge to $100. (used to be 20, then 30 then 50, then 60, now 100).
 
AF4iK said:
OP, doesn't Bell have a maximum overage fee policy? I don't think they should be charging you more than $20 - $30 no matter how far over you go.

Acanac is another alternative for both DSL and cable. I've got their DSL now. ~$36 /mo unlimited @ 6mbps down. They also provide a SSH tunnel to circumvent Bell's throttling practice (Teksavvy probably offers something similar too) among other things.

However, I'm planning to switch to Teksavvy DSL because I need more bandwidth. They've got a 25 mbps down / 7 mbps up line for ~$55 /mo. It comes with a cap but the unlimited pkg is $20 more (= to the max cost of overage fees).
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Their plans that have a cap (including the one you are talking about) are unlimited from 2-8am. Download schedulers work quite well with these plans :)
 
Mr.Azim said:
Nope... no max coverage fee. I can post a copy of my bill when I get home. It's REALLY stupid.
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Actually there is and it looks like you hit it :(

$1.50/additional GB (max. $80/mo.). Subject to change without notice and cannot be combined with any other offer. Taxes extra.
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I was looking at this a month or two ago and I swear the overage fee was capped at $30. Sneaky bastards put a BS clause in there that says they can basically charge you whatever they want without telling you. This is obviously so they can sell those ridiculous "extra usage plans".

Fyi, Teksavvy has a much more "reasonable" cap on their overage fees.
 
Mr.Azim said:
Nope... no max coverage fee. I can post a copy of my bill when I get home. It's REALLY stupid.
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When i switched from bell to rogers...I got a nice $275 bill...mind you that was with no contract. Constant fighting after 2 months just settled on 130 they are beyond retarded!


I wish I could switch from rogers to someone else but no one can support our load with exception of dedicated lines/t1.

+1 for Teksavvy, we had them at our old house but saved a crap load of money. I still have the modems if you want them.
 
Mr.Azim said:
Good to hear a positive review from Teksavvy...... thanks for your help! I think the decision is already made :P

They're straightfoward to add the additional startup/transfer costs on the site, rather than hiding it in fine print.
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I had Acanac DSL before. Then we moved, we switched to TekSavvy cable. Same plan as you're talking about - 300GB cap, 30 MBps connection down / 1 Mbps up. Two years now, can't be happier. In two years, we probably didn't have internet twice for a few hours.
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