Rogers and Bell Customer Living in Ontario and Quebec {Read Me}

[MoJo]

To those that use Rogers and Bell as their ISP in Canada be aware that you are getting screwed in the wallet. Rogers incorporates throttling of all P2P, does web hijacking/ injection and has a 60GB cap. Bell throttles and has a cap set at 100GB a month. They both are increasing the average price of Broadband Internet, while at the same time reducing operational cost to them (limiting traffic on their network, canceling their NewsGroup service, outsourcing their emails to either Yahoo or MSN, etc...). This has been business as usual for these two big companies, walking all over their clients and taking advantage of no competition. Other ISP culprits are Shaw, and Telus which are big in the western Canada region. I've done my share of ranting and raving, now it's time for action ... thats why to those still in the Rogers and Bell trap I tell you about another alternative.

Meet TekSavvy

What TekSavvy is basically a competitive ISP that literally blows the competition out of the water. What they offer cannot be matched by no other. Here is what TekSavvy has to offer:

Technology: ADSL

Speed: 5Mbits/800Kbits

Price: $30/month (200GB Cap Premium), $40/month (No Cap Unlimited)

Options: $4/month extra for a Static IP, MLPPP and Usenet

Premium Monthly Service: You get a 200GB/month cap and your internet runs through Peer1 ip transit network resulting in very low latency ... excellent choice for avid gamers and those with VoIP.

Unlimited Monthly Service: A little bit higher latency( 5ms-15ms) as it runs through Cogent but the trade-off is that you get Unlimited data cap ... excellent choice for us downloaders that download quite a bit.

The thing that blew me away about TekSavvy is their Customer Service ... when I called I was surprised a human picked up on the other end rather then some automated script. They are very helpful and curteous and believe it or not their employees are allowed to help people over at BroadBandReports.com. Their support and sales office is open 24/7, and even on weekends.

Those living in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and Vancouver looking for an alternative option check TekSavvy out over at BBR, and ask any question you would like answered by a qualified employee from TekSavvy.

BBR Forums

If TekSavvy is not your cup of tea, these are good alternatives as well:

Acanac East Coast

Distributel East Coast

ElectronicBox East Coast

Execulink East Coast

MNSi East Coast

Yak East Coast and West Coast

[Firon]

There's also Aliant. They also offer service without caps, I believe.

[mister pister]

try 3 web out of calgary

[diomedes]

Here are 2 more that popped up in a discussion between me and a friend of mine:

http://www.yak.ca/index.aspx?id=26&lg=en

http://www.acanac.ca/

I'm also going to call TekSavvy in addition to those above to see what they can offer. I'm with rogers and i'm finally seeing their underhanded ways in action. I'm probably going to cancel my internet with them tommorrow and go with one of those above, as long as they provide me with the info i need to hear.

Thanks alot for the info MoJo, that's some good stuff. I value customer service a hell of alot and i do live in toronto ontario, so this is right down my ally. Maybe i'll edit and update this post after i call them.

EDIT - yak and acanac don't really provide service on weekends. Teksavvy seems locally based, i got in contact with them easily, superb customer service, answered my questions with the answers i wanted to hear , in perfect english i might add (Some of the people at rogers have undecipherable accents, seriously). They're CHEAPER than rogers, with no binding contracts. I'd be retarded to stay with Rogers....

Anyway, lets hope all goes well from here on. ~

[MoJo]

Happy Canada Day Bump ,

I did a couple of updates on the original post, for example the premium service has been upgraded from 100GB cap to 200GB cap. On this auspicious day, I wanted to remind fellow Canadians the state of the net. We the consumers are marginalized, and our service is being intentionally degraded by doupolies. Recently the question of Net Neutrality has been sparked in this nation, and so it is companies like Teksavvy that fight the incumbents (Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw) for control of the net. The incumbents have become more aggressive, and the CRTC is such an antiquated bureaucracy that they can't be trusted to make the right decisions on behalf of the people. The fight is over the stoppage of Throttling, the use of DPI equipment, Web Injections, Wholesale access to remotes (So as to reach more customers), Speed Parity (Speed Upgrades)

To help this fight against the incumbents, you can follow along over at:

Save Our Net

TekSavvy News

Ultimately the most effective form to discouraging the non-neutral methods done by the incumbent ISP's is to speak with your wallet. Money is what Rogers, Bell, and others listen to. When you switch over to a smaller ISP you say that as a customer you were not satisfied with the throttling and being labeled a pirate when all you did was download a TV show you missed the day before because you were working to pay for your TV Bill!!! The Company is the sum of all it's customers, when they stop caring it is because the customer stopped caring. If the fellow Canucks that visit this here forum switch, imagine we are the type of people our friends consult on all things electronic/ net related ... we make that much of an impact on the average consumer.