Review by decx 
UPDATED: 358 days ago
member for 7.4 years, 3670 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Scarborough,ON
 $61 per month (month by month)
 about 7 days
 Bell Canada
 "You do get to access the internet."
 "Traffic shaping, high prices, lousy email, and restrictive transfer cap for new users."
 "Not worth the price (or even half the price)."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
I have been using Sympatico for almost nine years. I'm still on the the old Ultra package which is no longer available to new subscribers.
Sympatico currently has a transfer cap of varying sizes for various packages. For some long time users (before December 2006), me included the service remains unlimited (at the moment) although there has been mention of a soft cap even for this user group. Along the same thread, since late 2007 Sympatico has started throttling P2P and certain encrypted traffic to a slow transfer rate of about 30KB/s. This traffic shaping has since been imposed by Bell on independent ISPs that "rent" the last mile copper to sell DSL to their customers.
Tech support can be rather repetitive when following their scripts, especially for multiple calls. Even after one gets through to higher tiers of tech support it may still take days to resolve an issue on Bell's end.
Also connection reliability (once a high point) over the past year has not been what it used to be. For some reason the modem would completely lose it's connection to the remote every few days. The strange thing is that the modem doesn't sense that it has lost sync. However I'm sure that this isn't due to a fault with the modem as I've tried 4 so far (6520, 2Wire, and 2 Speedtouch 585) without solving the issue.
Email service is provided through a MSN based mail service which uses Microsoft/MSN run mail servers. Even though the mail storage is substantially greater than the space given on the old Sympatico mail service, MSN/Hotmail's tendency to auto-filter and block a number of legitimate mail sources without notification, make the new mail service unreliable and certainly not recommended as a primary mail service.
For the few users who were still on the old (but decent) email system (me included) were forced migrated at the beginning of Nov, 2008. Bell decided that the best way to handle this was to quietly switch over the user's accounts to the MSN servers, [b]then[/b] send an email to the user about the switch. A certainly interesting method as I only found out after not receiving emails for a day or so and after seeing posts in the forum tried to log in through MSN/Hotmail.
Usenet service is no longer available directly from Sympatico, but very limited use (1GB/month) download only service has been arranged from a third party provider.
Modems currently issued are the Speedstream 5200, 6300, 4200 and 6520 and a 2Wire 2701HG-G (depending on sevice level). I'm current have a 2Wire 2701HG-G which is rather useless when used with a external router as Bell's crippled firmware doesn't seem to work well in a bridge situation and refuses to pass PPPoE sessions from any router or client other than the modem itself. There also seems to be no way to set the Bell version into a bridge only mode. As a result, I'm currently using my own Speedtouch 585 as the modem.
Specific to the old Ultra package, Bell decided to increase the price once again in 2008 by $3 to $58 + tax (after the $5 price increase in the summer of 2007). The tier shares the same bandwidth (5Mbps up, 800kbps down) with the old High Speed tier but has additional value added services like a home networking modem (rental of a Speedstream 6300, 6520, or 2Wire), and a security package (anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall) is included with no additional fee. The price for what one is getting is far beyond reasonable now as a comparable service with true unlimited usage can be had for ~$40 and a 200GB cap service at ~$30.
Sympatico has been offering to upgrade some subscribers' speeds to the newer 7Mbps tier. If the subscriber is currently on a unlimited package, they will no longer have unlimited transfers after the upgrade and will have no way of returning to the unlimited package afterwards.
I have recommended Bell/Sympatico for many years, but with the high prices, traffic shaping, low usage caps, high overage charges, and mediocre email and tech support, Bell is no longer a reasonable value when it comes to internet access. For new customers looking for broadband internet access, there are a number of choices out there offering the same or similar product better and at a lower cost.
Followup comments:  NefCanuck
join:2007-06-26
Mississauga, ON
 ·Bell Sympatico
| Mail "upgrade"? Boy this review has me dreading the day Bell offers to "upgrade" my mail service to the new platform... I think I'll politely decline thanks... I need reliable e-mail service and I have it now 
NefCanuck | |
| 
Bellundo
@bell.ca | Re: newsgroups Doesn't take long to burn through a gigabyte of headers. Don't expect to even be able to read anything your headers will take up the full gigabyte. | |
| geoimpala
join:2008-11-21
Ottawa, ON
| sympatico goodbye I too was a loyal sympatico customer until they duped me into taking the new "never to be achived " higher speed service that only gouged my pocketbook to higher levels Sympatico seems to consider the passage of data through their system as more valuable than the customers data. Indeed they remind me of the natural gas transfer problem ridden area between Russia and Europe, or the boats of Somaila that seems to take all it wants from everyone just cause they are there.
Bell goodbye -- 
to cancel Sympatico ( they don't tell you how to do this anywhere on their propangdated site )
1 call 310-7873
2 select english 1
3 option 2
4 enter phone # , sympatico # hit # key
5 option 2
6 option 3
7 tell rep to cancel sympatico and Get CANCELLATION #
8 provide Cancellation # to new internet service provider
and get the olde style unlimited service at reasonable cost you had | |
|  | joey45454
join:2007-05-30
Quebec | Re: sympatico goodbye You forgot #9
9. Breath a long sigh of relief knowing the worsening nightmare has come to an end. | |
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