[kwlug-disc] OT: Non-satellite alternatives to Rogers Cable?

[Bob Jonkman]

On 11-10-28 01:17 AM, unsolicited wrote:
> Bob - I think, if you know you're 5+ km from the C.O., you're right to 
> not play with it. 

I'm within 1 km line-of-sight, about 1.4 km as-the-wire-runs. But I'm 
not touching it.  Bell has me scared silly.  And I don't think it's 
technical incompetence -- the cosmic rays that get through my tinfoil 
hat tell me that this is (probably unwritten) policy at Bell to show 
that 3rd party services are inferior to Bell's own.

--Bob, who is buying stock in  http://www.vortexmetals.com


Bob Jonkman<bjonkman at sobac.com>           http://sobac.com/sobac/
SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice: +1-519-669-0388
6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel: +1-519-635-9413
Software   ---   Office&   Business Automation   ---   Consulting


On 11-10-28 01:17 AM, unsolicited wrote:
> Speaking from very bitter experience, they are right.
>
> When Bell (Golden) upgraded from 3 (?) Mbps to 5, and I wasn't seeing 
> any improvement (a year later), I got Execulink to get Bell to check 
> the line. They took me from 1.5 Mbps to 512 Kbps, and I had to beg to 
> at least get back to what I had before.
>
> The only other way I could have gotten better service would have been 
> to cancel my service for some months, then reconnect, and hope I got a 
> better DSLAM connection. And there was no guarantee I would.
>
> I ended up going to Rogers, and haven't looked back since, except for 
> the price - 'til recently. Since then I've learned I'm 6km from the 
> C.O., so nothing is ever going to help me on a DSL line. Bob - I 
> think, if you know you're 5+ km from the C.O., you're right to not 
> play with it.
>
> The last few months I've been watching the Acanac forums, and not 
> liking what I see at all. Poor customer service capacity, and many 
> inconsistent reports of < 5Mbps service - with no effective recourse 
> (on 15 Mbps lines). [They blame cable congestion, if they say anything 
> at all.] I'm tempted, to go through the hassle of their customer 
> service and purchase a +$100 modem, but not so much so far that I've 
> gone ahead and done it.
>
> There seems to be a better feeling at TekSavvy, at least they seem to 
> have a responsive customer service department, but the TekSavvy AU 
> policy is almost as bad as Roger's (no services, port 25 blocked), 
> while Acanac doesn't even have an AU policy (at least as far as 
> internet use goes).
>
> Moral: The grass isn't always greener, and the effort required to get 
> over the top of the hill to see is non-trivial, if it goes sour.
>
> Oh, and to fire up a 2nd cable service, at least until the new install 
> is proven, is an $80 charge. And there are lots of forum posts on 
> transfers from Rogers to Acanac where multi-month service delays (so 
> no internet in the mean time) are reported.
> Bob Jonkman wrote, On 10/28/2011 12:39 AM:
>> On 11-10-27 09:28 AM, chaslinux at gmail.com wrote:
>>> Talking with Bob before it sounded like his download speed was 
>>> similar to mine without MLPPP?
>>
>> Yes, but both Teksavvy and I know that I'm on a line that's been 
>> badly provisioned by Bell.  I'm getting 3Mbps down / 800kbps up on a 
>> line that should be 5Mbps down / 800kbps up.  Teksavvy says that 
>> requesting Bell to fix this profile may just result in something like 
>> 5Mbps down / 500kbps up, and I believe them.  Mostly I find 3 Mbps 
>> down fast enough, but 800kbps up is already too slow.  Anyway, the 
>> persistent connection (always on) is more valuable to me than raw 
>> speed. And since I'm using MLPPP I've managed to evade Bell's 
>> throttling, so I'm really getting 3 Mbps, not whatever Bell's 
>> throttled throughput is.
>
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