Attn DSL users in the Toronto area

[LocutusX]

I've heard that there are 3rd party DSL providers which are actually better (gasp!) than oh-so-reliable Sympatico HSE... </sarcasm>

Has anyone heard about other ISPs offering DSL services? Has anyone tried them out? I have just about had it with Bell...

 

[Jal]

Go Cable with Rogers/Shaw EKKKKKKK

 

[sookaa]

i have had the hse from sympatico for about 24 months now....was probably one of the first to get it in its current offering.

i live right downtown, so i am probably located extremely close to the CO and it probably has the best and most current equipment and wiring, so my speeds are always constantly top notch. reliability has never been an issue. the ppoe implementation is a pain, and it allows them to log you off which is a pain in the ass....but that is no indication of the actual reliability. more indicative is the ppoe client that you use...do NOT use the one that they distribute..it is flakey, crap and bloated....i forget what i am using but it is a hundred k max, runs flawlessly and with no footprint....i am at work now and will edit later with the name of the prog when i get home....

all being considered, any new companies that come in to offer dsl are basically piggybacking on bell's lines...so you are getting the same lines/equipment etc. if something happens, these companies have to contact bell.

Sympatico HSE is miles better than cable...IMHO


sookaa

 

[Valhalla2000]

I live in North York(close to yonge street), and Bell HSE is Not available!
I'm going to get LOOK DSL connection on December. But not sure if it will be good.

 

[LocutusX]

sookaa,

Reasons why 3rd party DSL would be better than Bell's:

- Bell has capped upload at 120kbps, even though the POS Nortel modem they use is capable of 320.

- The fact that Bell use a POS Nortel 1meg modem, while some of their competition make 2.2mbit Alcatel's available

- The fact that Bell is unreliable (I consider them &quot;logging you off&quot; to be unreliable -> they advertise the service as ALWAYS ON... it is *NOT* always-on if the bastards kick you off when they feel like giving you a new IP address)

- Other than that problem, they are inherently reliable in *my area* and these are problems related to the Sympatico ISP side of things, *NOT* the C.O. i.e. server related (their DHCP server crashed and went offline for the better part of a day and they made up science fiction stories to explain what was going on)

- Their technical support people are clueless and will make up stories to explain what is wrong (Sir, try turning off your computer for at least 10 minutes. It is a known fact keeping it off longer is &quot;better&quot; than just rebooting your computer when dealing with certain connection problems)

- The fact that other 3rd party ISPs have numerous OPTIONS! i.e. STATIC IP available for a small extra charge! What a boon that would be...

- 3rd party ISPs have lower rates


And please don't suggest cable... I know that cable is da bomb since i've had it before, but it's not an option in the area I live in.

BTW I thought Look used &quot;wireless&quot; high-speed internet. I didn't know they were offering DSL...?

BTW Sookaa I've been using RASPPPoE since the day the Sympatico package came in (The Bell CD went straight to the garbage) so it's definitely not a client problem.

 

[LocutusX]

bump

C'mon 3rd-Party DSL Users, where are you.

 

[kami]

I haven't had any problems with my HSE service. I'm in kitchener and I've had it for about 15 months now.
They don't &quot;log me off&quot;...I have had connections stay alive for days on end before. I noticed a speed improvement with their new access manager...i think it's 1.4. Well, they don't call it access manager anymore..now it's just &quot;bell internet high speed.&quot; Works a hell of a lot better than the older versions plus it gives you a bunch of statistics on your bandwidth. Much better Win2k support too. It's just NTS Enternet software with a bell logo slapped on...it's not bloated. Dunno what you're talking about there...it doesn't eat any resources.
New HSE subscribers are starting to get the 2.2meg Alcatels (I actually installed one for someone) but the speed is still capped. Early next year bell is upgrading to the 2.2meg though. Check sympatico users.org for updates. People with the 1.3meg/320k Nortel's should be able to upgrade to the Alcatels.

A friend of mine has a 3rd party provider and it IS just bell's service resold, except they gave him an internal modem instead. The speed is the same...and why wouldn't it be? He's on the same fscking network!

I guess you just had some bad experiences with bell, but the service has been good to me. Wouldn't even consider going cable now.

 

[kami]

btw, what do you HSE users get here for the 1meg test?

I get this:

Test starting...
Average throughput: 825 kilobits/sec
Total Time: 10160 milliseconds
Done.

my downloads are a steady 100KB/sec usually.

 

[LocutusX]

Kami,

Try uploading a file to someone at your full upload speed (for me it's 11K.. you might get 13-14) and tell me if your downstream &quot;slows down&quot; at all. It does for me, which is very irritating.

Anyways, the worst thing I find with HSE is how we get disconnected every 2-3 days and get a new IP address assigned. The gateway computer with Win2K ICS installed doesn't seem to &quot;realize&quot; that the net is down, and doens't try to reconnect, so we have to specify some sort of idle time detection to prevent that from happening. And then we use an automated pinger to prevent any disconnections due to idle time. In short, a lot of unnecessary things which wouldn't be necessary if Bell didn't use PPPoE.

Another thing is that it's extremely easy to saturate the downstream, and max out download speed. 100KB/sec is nothing. I used to live in Kitchener proper and I had trouble maxxing the downstream - sometimes I'd be at 350KB/sec and web pages still loaded up quickly. Not to mention the 40KB upload speed which isn't affected by download speed.