Internet Provider

[Feivel]

Hey, im in the market for a new phone and internet at home. any suggestions on the best bang for my buck???
Rogers, Bell, Videotron, etc.......

Thanks

[JetJumper]

teksavvy.. no questions asked.

[Hookup]

+1

[Yams]

Bell has decent offers / prices. But when you have a problem, they have been rated time and time again as the worst customer service company in all of Canada. - 100 points in my books.

http://www.everydaymoney.ca/2010/08/reader-react-bell-has-the-worst-customer-service-in-canada.html

[JetJumper]

Something funny about bell,

They called me up a few weeks back and said, listen... we would REALLY like to get your business back.  I first said well you haven't ever had my business but lets take a look what you are offering.  So they asked me what I was paying currently and I explained that I had Teksavvy Home Phone and Internet.  They said oh, okay.. well lets see what we can do here.  So after they did their speech on the options I said well, I get 300g/month for $32(roughly) for internet.  Can you compete with that?  No was the flat response I got.  Then they went onto the phone.  I said I get Local calls for $26/month.  Can you compete?  Nope again she shyfully said.  Last she wanted to hook me up with Television... Well this was the fun part.   I told her I download all my TV Shows or stream them over netflix, so really you have nothing to offer me for the same price or cheaper right?  And that was that.

[magnosis]

I'm a hardcore Videotron fan.  Been a customer for 10+ years, nothing to complain about. Forget what you hear on tv and radio.  They have the fastest and most reliable service and this is simply the truth.  Look it up on SpeedTest.net, numbers (and customer reviews) don't lie.

Their customer service is unequaled, this is the biggest selling point for me.  It's simply and quite honestly A1.

Techsavvy is much cheaper, but like everything, you sort of get what you pay for... Although I've heard mostly good comments about them so they are worth a try (if you don't need an uber fast connection, in which case, Videotron it is)

Bell needs to die, for several reasons I don't want to get into details.
Rogers can't offer what they advertise.  They are not that reliable, have been the first to ISP to start ripping off customers on overage fees, and their tech support is garbage.
Primus has a lot of issues on the technical side of things; very flaky, unreliable service, and an uneducated tech support team.

Just my 2 cents.

PS: if it matters, I've been designing routers, switches, traffic managers, load balancers and other high-speed devices for a number of years... I know a thing or two about the infrastructure that allows bits to flow in and out of your devices ;-) just saying that I'm in a good position to judge whether a technical support team is knowledgeable or not.

\end-of-bragging 

You'll be happy with Techsavvy or Videotron.  Avoid Bell at all costs.  These are my recommendations.

[FocusFin]

I have a funny story as well.

Several years ago, a kid came around trying to switch people over to Rogers. He was an excellent salesman and I agreed to move everything from Bell to Rogers.

When the time came to change I ran into a whole slew of problems, I had no internet, the phones were buggered up etc...I had a home office and was essentially out of commission for most of the week.

By the third day, I called Bell and said "Okay, I'm ready to come back, I've learned my lesson" to which the customer service agent replied "That's terrific, were glad to have you back, we'll have a technician out to see you in three weeks".  I said, "Three weeks, the problems will be fixed within three days...forget it"
and I hung up.

They lost me twice 

[bitterman]

Definitely do not go with Xplornet unless it is your only choice.

Some of the worst and also oversold infrastructure I have ever seen.

[JetJumper]

Definitely do not go with Xplornet unless it is your only choice.

Some of the worst and also oversold infrastructure I have ever seen.

+100000000000000000000 to that!

[Greatwhite]

I had a messy breakup with Bell about 10 years ago, and went with Rogers...  Bell has been stalking me ever since, with letters, emails, drunk phone calls crying at 4am.  Don't make the mistake I did in dealing with them.

With Rogers, I get good service.  I have only ever had 1 problem with them, but it was just the Internet Gods angry at me, not a fault of Rogers' at all.  I get quarterly calls from Rogers, to make sure that I'm happy with them still and if there's anything that they can do to make me happier.  Last February, the girl on the phone was able to toss together some bundles and then gave me the movie channels free for a year.

I have LITERALLY every service with them.  Cell, Internet, Cable, Home Phone...

I actually just had a call from them an hour ago, and I started out the call ready to tear a telemarketer apart for calling after my kids were in bed.  But I explained to the girl on the other end of the line that her group had previously cut my bill down drastically and that the 5 attempts since didn't reveal any more savings.  So she gave me 6 free pay per view movies - no questions asked, no contract changes, just $58 worth of free movies.

How's that for customer service??

[FocusFin]

I had a messy breakup with Bell about 10 years ago, and went with Rogers...  Bell has been stalking me ever since, with letters, emails, drunk phone calls crying at 4am. 

Outstanding 

[Darth]

as far as rogers or videotron it all depends on where you live if you are serviced by videotron you can't get rogers and vica versa. Tekksavvy is great but start up cost are high (modem purchase install) and then if you have issues and a tech has to come out $65 service call. There is going to be something passed soom that ALL internet companies will have to have a bandwith cap (suprising only the people that use a lot of internet are going to blow a gasket) So your choices are either the cable company that services you (quebec videotron ottawa rogers) or bell so all companies have great start up prices and all offer you something look at the deals bell is prob cheaper because they offer you free box rentals why do they do this because they know once they lock you in for 3 years and the satelite goes out you are fubar, I say go cable in may cost a bit more but will save you a headache in the long run

[Yams]

+1 for magnosis & Videotron,

Bell let me down, Rogers did the same.

"I'm a hardcore Videotron fan.  Been a customer for 10+ years, nothing to complain about. Forget what you hear on tv and radio.  They have the fastest and most reliable service and this is simply the truth.  Look it up on SpeedTest.net, numbers (and customer reviews) don't lie." I agree there with magnosis. I am what some might call a.. Pirate? lol, and the internet is mighty speedy for my games and everything else 

[Greatwhite]

Speedtest.net is great.  A friend of mine just hooked up with Bell's Fibe service, which is supposed to be AMAZING.  Well... here's a comparison between Bell's best, and Rogers best (I have the Ultimate service).

Provider	Upload Speed	Download Speed
Bell Fibe	7MB/s	25MB/s
Rogers Ultimate	2MB/s	89 MB/s

In my business, download speed is much more important to me than upload speed.  And since the download speed is almost 1/4 with Bell Fibe than Rogers Ultimate, it's an easy decision.  My buddy was told that he COULD see peaks of 80 MB/s, but not to expect that.  That basically means that his modem was designed for 80MB/s, but the network only supports 25.

It'd be interesting to see what others on Videotron and Tekksavvy get for up & down rates.  Keep in mind that if you're on a WIFI connection on your network, you have a cap there.  Do speedtest directly wired into your router if possible.

[JetJumper]

as far as rogers or videotron it all depends on where you live if you are serviced by videotron you can't get rogers and vica versa. Tekksavvy is great but start up cost are high (modem purchase install) and then if you have issues and a tech has to come out $65 service call. There is going to be something passed soom that ALL internet companies will have to have a bandwith cap (suprising only the people that use a lot of internet are going to blow a gasket) So your choices are either the cable company that services you (quebec videotron ottawa rogers) or bell so all companies have great start up prices and all offer you something look at the deals bell is prob cheaper because they offer you free box rentals why do they do this because they know once they lock you in for 3 years and the satelite goes out you are fubar, I say go cable in may cost a bit more but will save you a headache in the long run

You might need to do a bit of fact checking on this...  First off with Rogers its either a monthly rental fee of $10 I think it is for the modem, or you buy it outright for the same price teksavvy is charging...  If there is an issue with the line, there is no cost for a tech to come out as its the lines company's fault.. IF there is a fault in your HOUSE, Rogers will bill you just the same..

[Nerine]

We have bell as Rogers broke up with us (due to moving out of their territory) and we've had a ton of bad issues with them, with the latest being our phone just dies randomly!!

but surprisingly they have been decent with service!!! I'm shocked as we had a messy divorce many years ago and fought for custody of the $$ hehe but go with anyone who isn't bell

and their customer service is improving by a LOT

[JetJumper]

Provider	Upload Speed	Download Speed
Bell Fibe	7MB/s	25MB/s
Rogers Ultimate	2MB/s	89 MB/s

Can you post the actual speed test link to this speed, I would love to see that on a rogers network.  Its also most likely a burst speed and not an actual 89MB/s sustained if it does actually come out reading 89.

[Darth]

You might need to do a bit of fact checking on this...  First off with Rogers its either a monthly rental fee of $10 I think it is for the modem, or you buy it outright for the same price teksavvy is charging...  If there is an issue with the line, there is no cost for a tech to come out as its the lines company's fault.. IF there is a fault in your HOUSE, Rogers will bill you just the same..

well tekksavy doesnt own the lines they rent them from bell/rogers or whoever so there is a charge to come out rogers does not charge for any service call, unless you want new lines installed or something, and you can also have the option to purchase a modem with any provider so I have checked my facts the rental fees for rogers are $4-$7 depending on type of internet

Teksavvy
Move Fee = $65
If a Dispatch is required for troubleshooting = $99
Additional Bandwidth = $.50/GB/mo
Account changes = $5
rogers
Move Fee = $0
If a Dispatch is required for troubleshooting = $0
Additional Bandwidth = $.50/GB/mo this is dependent on rogers teksavvy rules on bandwith allowance for now
Account changes = $o

so there are my facts 

[Nyx]

The link is Speedtest.net. And the bandwidth speed measurement is Mbps (megabits per second) not MB/s (megabytes per second). People often confuse the two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units#Megabit_per_second

I also have Rogers ultimate, their highest speed, which advertises up to 50 Mbps download speed and up to 2 Mbps upload speed. I consistently clock at between 80-93 Mpbs download speed and download a 350 MB tv show in less than 30 seconds. My upload speed always clocks between 1.88-2 Mbps. That is on my hard wired desktop PC. My wireless laptop is generally a bit slower but not by too much. I have 250 G of bandwidth per month. The cost is $100 per month but if you bundle your services, you get a 15% discount.

[JetJumper]

The link is Speedtest.net. And the bandwidth speed measurement is Mbps (megabits per second) not MB/s (megabytes per second). People often confuse the two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units#Megabit_per_second

I knew that.  I just wanted a copy of the post like this:



Its Mb and not MB   I would LOVE MB this fast..