Review by Exodus_  UPDATED: 297 days ago member for 3.1 years, 223 visits, last login: 32 days ago
Brockville,ON
$89 per month (12 month contract)
about 15 days
Bell Canada
"stable, consistent speeds, quick install"
"tech support, billing issues, business portal has bugs"
"deent enough connection"
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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***edit feb 8 2008 ***
I am no longer with bell and have gone back to cogeco as they performed an extensive rebuild of this whole area and the service has been much better. I still had continual billing and some technical issues with bell that were never resolved to my satisfaction
*** end edit ***
I switched to bellnet due to technical problems with my last ISP cogeco that were not resolved. I was given information in my sales call that was not applied to my account and had to call back and speak to billing several times quoting the day/time I called an the agent I spoke with before they would believe me and put me on the correct promotion. I'm now on the correct promo though and thankfully do not see the need to call them any time in the near future! I'm on the small business ultra connection with a "static" IP address. My promotional rate is 50% off regular price for 6 months and I'm not paying the $10.00/month for Dryloop DSL.
From a technical standpoint I have no issues with the service as it works well enough for me. Ping times and latency are far better than with my previous ISP, especially during peak-hours. I also notice less "peaks and valleys" which had started to crop up with cogeco. So as for the actual connection I am quite pleased with it and have surprisingly few problems!
The eCare website not only allowed me to delete my administrator email account, but also allowed me to downgrade it to a normal user by accident! For each incident it was hell trying to get it fixed as tech support would tell me that billing only had the authority to fix it, while billing kept telling me that tech support was wrong and that they could not do it, could I please call tech support? I finally managed to have someone in tech support fix this issue for me. I also do not like the fact that the ecare site does not function correctly with my browser and only seems to really support a windows machine with netscape or Internet Explorer!
As for the tech support centre now mainly being based in India, that's not an issue for me as the level of service you get still seems to be the same -- their tech support just simply is not as good as that of other companies/ISPs I have used over the years. I would say it's "barely adequate" but I hardly ever have to call tech support unless I break something (like my email) or something is not working correctly and I've already taken steps to try and fix it myself.
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