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Review by Amou 
member for 2.3 years, 297 visits, last login: 4 days ago
lodged 22 days ago
 Guelph,ON
 $45 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 7 days Bell Canada "Service is consistent, hardly any speed fluctuation." "Cheaper service else where." "Not worth the price."
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Speed was 5/0.5
After switching to Teksavvy after 15 years. The line decided to degrade itself.
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Review by sunday8pm
member for 2.9 years, 375 visits, last login: 1 days ago
lodged 23 days ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
- "super fast, low ping, no contract, fixing issues costs 0$, cheaper monthly bill than indies"
- "low cap, install/repairs coordination is a nightmare, the sagemcom router is crap"
- "if you can put up with the low cap and get a good discount (student promo for example), go for it"
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So, yes, it's Bell. I disapprove the way they are trying to kill competition and making indie's business hell.
But I was too broke to go with an indie. Bell offered a student promo, 50$ for 25/10 and 250Gb, free install, free router (no rental) and no contract. Hard to say no.
Install coordination was a nightmare (1 tech never came, the other one called in the morning and arrived late afternoon). We had to get a repair within the first week because there was cross-talk from a dodgy install from the first tech, this was also a coordination joke with 1 tech never dispatched, another missed appointment (tech didn't come and didn't call) and finally someone came to fix it.
After that, I have no complaints. It was fast, near 100% uptime and I never had any billing errors.
I put the sagemcom in bridge mode with my own router because the SC is far from being the best wireless router.
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Review by raphzugen
member for 1.1 years, 5 visits, last login: 6 days ago
lodged 33 days ago
- Quebec,QC
- $150 per month
- Bell Canada
- "Service impressionant, FTTH à la vitesse de l'éclair"
- "Configuration Modem+Routeur compliquée"
- "Je le recommande !"
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J'ai eu droit a une bell installation de la fibre optique chez moi. Installation rapide et service très courtois. Après 3 heures, tout dans la maison étais prêt et fonctionnel. La télé, avec son seul enregistreur partout dans la maison est très pratique. Malheureusement, le choix des canaux pour le sur mesure se regroupe seulement a une sélection de certains canaux. Certains des canaux qui sont sur mesure chez Vidéotron se vendent environ 5$. Pour l'internet, on a droit a une connexion avec un modem très rapide. Petit moins par contre, il y a pas de bridge mode comme sur les autres modem DSL de Bell, ce qui fait que la configuration avec un routeur est compliquée et diminue beaucoup la vitesse. Le service à la clientèle est très courtois et comporte un département qui lui est propre avec des agents québécois. La téléphonie est aussi très bien !
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 | | Bridge mode Tu peux te connecter en bridge sans probleme.
Fait juste enlever ton nom d'usager dans la section internet et sauvegarde. ensuite branhe ton routeur, met le en PPoE et entre tes informations. la tv déjà en place ne sera pas impactée | |
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Review by docbill
member for 6.5 years, 159 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 40 days ago
- Stoney Creek,ON
- $65 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 5 days
- Bell Canada
- "Very fast upload rate, all inclusive package"
- "will be too expensive at the end of the promotion"
- "would not recommend"
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It is now 2012 and I am back with Bell again. A door to door salesman sold me on a triple play package free for 6 months. It is however a 2 year contract, which will cost me $300 to disconnect early, and there is a $30 activation fee. I don't really need the satellite TV or the bell phone line, so I am listing the rate at $330/6 for the six months.
First the good:
The install service was excellent. The Bell tech showed up on time, and rewired my phone line. I hadn't used the line in years, when I had cancelled the regular phone line one of the reasons was phone picked-up radio signals and the DSL was dog slow. However, with the new Fibe connection I am getting the advertised 25/7 without the same speed both to Bell's test sight, and my favourite speed test site in the US. The Bell router has wireless N, two USB ports, and four LAN ports. Overall it seems like fairly solid hardware.
Now the not so good:
The technician could only connect the router within three feet of the phone jack. So I had to run my own 100 ft cable to get the connection to my computer. The wireless service seems fair, but not as good as my Asus RT-16N.
Now the bad:
I had to see comments in this forum to learn how not to have a double NAT. Bell seems to cycle my IP address very regularly. That breaks my IPV6 tunnel and causes my VPN tunnels to drop. I have to regularly update sites like salesforce.com which use IP security with my IP address. This also seems to mess-up Bell's bandwidth counter. I have a bandwidth tracker on my modem, so I know exactly how much I use. One one day when they toggled my IP address they list me as uploading 3.2GB and downloading 3.0GB. But my bandwidth counter shows it was really 0.5GB and 0.2GB. I NEVER have a higher upload than download usage. The Bell technician seems to think that meant someone hacked into the Bell wireless router. That is unlikely, as I am the only one in the neighbourhood with the knowledge needed to break SPA security. However, I have switched of the Bell wireless and I will wait to see if that happens again.
Unless I find ways to mitigate the bad, I will probably switch to TekSavvy or back to Cogeco Cable at the end of the six months.
Update: According to the sales brochure I was suppose to get a 125 GB capacity, but I only got 100 GB. I did not feel like arguing so I paid $10 for 80 GB of bandwidth insurance bring me up to 180 GB. At first glance that seems like slightly more than I had with Cogeco, but I have found the Bell bandwidth counter is more inaccurate than Cogeco. So I expect I really will get about 170 GB.
Update: 2012-02-29 Worst day ever. I went to the bathroom and when I returned my work VOIP line lost connection to the conference call I was on. I then tried my personal VOIP line, and that failed as well. I then tried the Bell Canada line. I tend to avoid using that because it is so full of static. But anyway, I got back into my conference and then my internet connection kept dropping for the rest of the meeting. Finally this evening I went to inspect why my line was so full of static. I had previously called Bell for that, but they told me there would be a service charge even though the problem existed since install which was less than 30 days ago at the time I called. Consequently, I decided to find the problem myself. It turns out that the bell technician who wired up the internet and put in the VDSL splitter, had wired the outlet so both the phone line jack and the internet jack were both wired together, and the actual voice line was wired to screws not connected to anything. Whenever I would use the phone, I would get flooded with static, and eventually the DSL modem would drop the connection. Now that I corrected it, the phone is crystal clear. All I can say, is I don't really blame Bell for the mistake, but they should stand by there services. If they do an install and it doesn't work, they should correct the problem they created.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
In 2002 I signed up for Bell Sympatico DSL service. They sent me a Speedstream 5360 and installation instructions. The network connection worked well, and I paid the advertised price. About a year later, they introduced bandwidth caps. After being presented several large bills, I suspended my Sympatico service and switched to Cogeco. I stuck with Cogeco for about six months, then Sympatico dropped the bandwidth caps and I switched back. When switching back I learned that Sympatico had unsuspended early and been charging my credit card. In the end they offered a few months of discounts. I still probably overpaid some, but it wasn't worth arguing because Cogeco and Sympatico were my only broadband options.
Several times in the last few years, Sympatico has notify me my DSL speed was being increased. However, it was 2400 kbps in 2002, and it is still 2400 kbps today. At least Sympatico remained a reliable connection.
However, about 6 months ago that started changing. Every few hours my VOIP phone would beep, indicating the DSL had recycled to a new IP address. I contacted Bell, but they refused to support me unless the modem was plugged directly into my computer. Unfortunately, I do not know how to configure Windows for PPPoE, and I have lost their directions years ago. When I asked them how to connect my computer to the modem, they could not help me. So I just lived with the problem.
Over the months, the problem got worse. Finally, by mid-October the line was recycling every 15 minutes. Since I was convinced the problem had to be either the line or the Speedstream, I decided to search my basement to see if I could find one of the DSL modems I used in Seattle. When I had inquired about using my own modem in 2002, the Sympatico tech had told me no other modem would work with Sympatico. However, after reading discussions on the internet I found that was a lie. In my basement, I found the Speedstream 5260 that had been sold to me by Speakeasy. I unplugged the the 5360 and plugged in the 5260 and found my disconnect problem was solved!
After that, I decided I have to find some other broadband service. I suspended my Sympatico account for six months and I will cancel at the end of that time if I am still happy with my new ISP.
2012-07-27: One week ago I got up in the morning and found my internet was down, and the DSL modem was not getting a signal. After waiting an hour, I called Bell on my cell phone. 47 days prior I had put in a cancel order for my phone line in 30 days and at the same time negotiated a new rate for my internet. It turns out they forgot to note on the cancel order I needed to be put on a dry loop. Bell said they had to send a technician out, so they couldn't come until Monday. Monday morning came along, and bright and early my internet was up. Two hours later a technician showed up, equally confused as to why Bell sent him out to my house, when they just needed to make the change at the office. Bell also made a $165 error in my bill this month, but after talking to them I got an instant credit for part of it. The other part is the termination internet termination fee, which of course I should not have to pay unless I terminate it... So for that they gave me a monthly credit that will balance out should I carry it the full term of the original contract. I'm still keeping Bell, but one more mistake like this and I cancel, no matter what. I already have a second internet connection. I would prefer to keep both, for enhanced reliability, but it isn't worth dealing with repeated mistakes.
2013-04-02 I've dropped Bell and I'm now with Velcom.
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Review by mand
member for 1.7 years, 69 visits, last login: 5 days ago
updated 42 days ago
- Montreal,QC
- $50 per month
- about 7 days
- "Very stable, fast, good services"
- "Price increases regularly"
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2010
I ordered Bell Fibe 10 plan.
Read carefully and be prepared to click few times to get the real price for only one service on Bell's website. That's a bad point.
The plan includes a modem/router/4 port switch that allows wifi B/G and 75 Gb of bandwidth usage that are more than enough for my usage at this time.
I'm happy with the very stable download speed which is 10.5 Mbits (advertised 10 Mbits) but I'm a bit disapointed with the stable upload speed of 0.7 Mbps (1 Mbits advertised). Condition for the speedtests: my everyday network configuration.
I don't like their mail service which is a customized Microsoft Hotmail account. The service isn't bad but I use a mail client to access mail boxes and mail that is spam doesn't show up. It is important to sometimes connect to the webmail to check for false positive spams.
Hotmail doesn't provide IMAP.
2011
Only one time 2 hours of service lost I'm aware of since I'm with bell. Don't now exactly what happened but I restarted the modem and all goes well again. Maybe I could restart the modem earlier to get the Internet back.
The Fibe 10 plan had a total price increase of 3$ this year. That's bad news.
2012
Starting the year there's a new bonus for Bell : 2$ more on the bill for the monthly internet service. This time I called them.
I have now 115 GB bandwidth.
Another bonus for Bell this spring: money savings for each bundled services dropped from 5$ to 4$.
I'm more and more interested to host my little website myself but Bell doesn't allow customers to run servers and they don't provide fixed IPs for residential plans.
I switched to another phone service. Internet download speed fall to 2.3 Mbits one month later. Had to call Bell a friday afternoon for the dry loop. All goes well again monday evening.
Had an issue with lost of service starting end of november. Had to call Bell 3 ou 4 times in 3 weeks and repeat things again. Finally a tech shows up without appointement. The problem was outside.
2013
Price increase on march bill: 3$.
End of march download speed upgraded from 10 to 12 Mbits.
Still good to very good service with Bell Internet.
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Review by toro
member for 7.3 years, 2453 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 67 days ago
- North York,ON
- $57 per month
- about 3 days
- Bell Canada
- "Great speeds, installation was great"
- "Cost is a bit high"
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I'm on Bell Fibe 25/10 and I've only had the service for about 2 weeks. I ordered it using a Dell Grab and Go voucher which gives the first 3 months of service and free installation.
I asked for an evening appointment (after 5 pm) and there was no problem. The tech who came to do the install was great, very professional (unlike other Bell techs I dealt with in the past), he called in advance to let me know he was on the way and came on time. He had 2 hours allocated for it but finished everything in about an hour (he had to change the demarc box because I had an old rusty one).
The service is good so far and I am happy. I am not a heavy downloader, so I think the bandwidth allowance will be fine. I just wanted a higher upload speed than what's available on the ADSL tiers and cable. The only other option was Teksavvy (which has been my ISP for several years before switching) but because of the dry loop fee and mandatory modem rental fee imposed on the Fibe package, it would have costed me about $20 more per month.
Update, 3 months after the installation:
My 3 months of free service are up and I made some changes to my account, namely switched to a plan a bit cheaper, the 15/10 (same great upload speed which is the most important for me at this time).
Unfortunately I can't say the change went through without any problems but all were fixed in the end.
The first problem was a technical one, they set me up with a profile with 8 Mbps upload so since my line could do better before the change, I called and asked to be tweaked. Initially I was told that's the best the line could do, then when I pushed a little bit they escalated it to the second level who said I would receive a call within 24-48 hours. The tech called me about 7-8 hours later and was totally unprepared, he said initially I was on the Fibe 6 package, I told him "that's not true", he said "call our customer service". Then a few minutes later he called again, said I'm on Fibe 15 and he will change my upload speed to 1 Mbps, because there's no such thing as 10 Mbps. I told him to stop, don't make any change and double check, he went and did it anyways and changed my profile from a VDSL to an ADSL one.
I opened another ticket and about 14 hours later my speed was fixed and works great.
The second issue was with billing, they tried to charge me starting 3 months from the day the service was ordered rather than the day it was installed. I opened another ticket (over their chat) and this got fixed as well.
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Review by SPulcini
member for 10.7 years, 97 visits, last login: 66 days ago
updated 71 days ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
- Bell Canada
- "Excellent reliability, good latency, speeds as advertised"
- "Expensive without discounts, non-Canadian technical support"
- "Connection is extremely reliable, tech support is shamefully poor"
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This site doesn't seem to recognise the fact that the Sympatico brand is no longer used, so it seems that this review belongs here.
I have been using Bell's Internet services, under one name or another, for about 13 years. For context, this started when they first deployed the Nortel 1 Meg Modem platform in my area.
Except for performance and reliability problems when the service was first installed (which were caused by our old inside wiring), connection reliability has been outstanding, and speeds received have generally been as advertised. In all the time we have been using the services, I think we have had a few days of total down-time, including the old scheduled maintenance times they used to announce.
Early on, tech support seemed to be offered from call centres within Canada, and was actually respectable; not great, but courteous and tolerable. Since it was out-sourced, it has been useless at best. The only consolation is that the direct support forum is available on this site, and they have generally been quite efficient at addressing my concerns to date.
Up until about November 2012, we were using the Fibe 10/7 service, on their VDSL2 FTTN platform, via the provided CellPipe 7130. Around that time, we received a message that the service would be upgraded to 12 mbps downstream at no charge, and our upload speed would remain the same. A few weeks later, the notification of a $3/month increase was received via e-mail, claiming that it was due to extensive network upgrades.
The reliability of the connection continues to be outstanding, and all speed test results generally show results of at least 12/7 (sometimes *slightly* lower), and latency to nearby sites is usually between 4 and 8 ms.
The problem I am having is not with the service itself, but the pricing. The discount we had been offered expired recently, so we are now paying $15 more per month, in addition to the $3/month increase. Also, they are still charging the old "Upload Speed Upgrade" fee, bringing the monthly pre-tax, total to $62.95 (minus $4 bundle discount). This ends up costing more than we would be paying if they had simply moved us to the newer 15/10 package.
On another pricing-related note, I should add that, at $2.50/GB, their overage rates border on robbery. Combined with their comparatively low monthly transfer allowances and $30/month "unlimited data" add-on ($10/month with three or more bundled services), you either have to have modest transfer requirements, or should probably consider looking elsewhere, if you trust the independents.
I have raised the 12/7 versus 15/10 pricing issue on the direct forum, so we'll see if anything comes of it. I could always consider one of the other DSL providers, given that I already own two working ADSL2+ modems, and may even get a lower monthly bill and more appealing monthly transfer allowances, but I am hesitant, given my previous experiences with trying to change providers.
For those who are curious, I tried two other providers (neither of which exists any longer) some years ago, when Bell first tried usage-based billing. One never got me connected at all, while still trying to bill me. Despite the fact that Bell had done their job (SpeedTouch Home I had purchased had sync; old Nortel to be returned to Bell no longer worked, obviously), they never issued a PPPoE ID or password that worked. The other provider managed to get me connected, and seemed about as good as Bell, at first. Then the capacity and routing issues started. These were all at their end, as I still had sync at the appropriate rates, cell loss rates were reasonably low, and I could usually connect and (maybe) reach their mail/Web server, but not much, if anything, outside their office. With those experiences, I went back to Bell and have had very few problems, other than a bit of congestion around 2005/2006 or so.
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Review by maxboha
member for 1 year, 190 visits, last login: 2 days ago
updated 90 days ago
- Acton Vale,QC
- $70 per month
- about 700 days
- Bell Canada
- "Illimité enfin !"
- "Qualité de la ligne, prix, caps, vitesse"
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Slow Sync rates, habite dans un devellopement résidentiel neuf avec pas de FTTN.
Attachments:
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| | La faute du gouvernment et du CRTC... Le gouvernement federal devrait exiger que les FDSI offrent automatiquement soit du FTTN soit du FTTH a tous les nouveaux developments.. Peut-etre un Quebec souveraint offrait un meilleur systeme de reglementation, mais faudra retourner presque toute l'infrastructure hydroelectrique aux Autotochtones si le Quebce se separe du Canada. Donc appuies-toi au NPD ou au Parti Pirate pour assurer que les consommateurs canadiens soient traite honnetement.
(Je m'excuse pour les erreurs d'orthographes ou de grammair. Le francais n'est pas ma langue maternelle.) | |
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Review by beoneradio
member for 95 days, 0 visits, last login: 95 days ago
lodged 95 days ago
- Laval,QC
- $56 per month
- (6 month contract)
- Bell Canada
- "bad service"
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they sold me a plan for 6 months 56$ after with out notice my plan change to 79$ told them is too expensive they advice me that i would keep same plan .
Now I received a bill of 177$ for this month really how can that be if I was on vacations.
well they don't care and all they try to do is to sale me more bandwidth.
I am canceling with them .
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| | Stay away from BELL. They are the biggest crooks I just got out of a 3 year contract and i paid through my nose. Never ever trust what they say. You will pay for that big time and when you go back to their crappy customer service, they will simply say sorry but you still have to pay no matter what anyone promised you. | |
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Review by Furious1964
member for 1.7 years, 7 visits, last login: 86 days ago
updated 96 days ago
- Dorval,QC
- $143 per month
- (12 month contract)
- Bell Canada
- "Bandwidth is fast now that throttling is gone."
- "Tech support and reliability is non-existant."
- "NEVER, EVER deal with Bell."
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Never deal with Bell EVER.
Been a client for nearly 20 Years and I placed an order for a FibeTV/Internet/Cell bundle Saturday Feb. 2, 2013. Got a call from a rep on Tuesday about canceling my lan and confirming my order. For some strange reason, the rep canceled that order and I was left waiting like an idiot. Was on the phone for 3 days with 8 different reps trying to get everything settled, but it all snowballed and I ended up canceling everything and trying to go with someone else. I couldn't because of a bankruptcy I had to declare 3 years ago because I lost my job and couldn't pay my bills. I have a good job now (for over 3 Years) but because of that, I can't get my services reconnected and I'm without telephone and soon will be without internet.
So I recommend that people go elsewhere for internet/phone/TV service and give Bell the cold shoulder.
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smallj53
join:2002-08-25
Niagara Falls, ON | Your speeds won't be any better with Acanac You have a physical problem with your line. Only Bell can fix that. | |
|  ns
@142.240.200.x | Bell internet customer service - The worst customer service that I have had. For last 7 days they could not restore my internet connection. Calling customer service will tell it will be done in next 24 hour/ 48 hour, I feel they don't know the meaning of hour. Bell customer service has some buch of jokers up to the supervisors. Right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. For last 6 days I have spoken to 28 representatives without any success to my issue. (This might be a record). | |
| | | 1.1mbps isn't even 12 meg speed at 12/1 synch You'd be better off dropping down to 12 meg which is supposed to be 1.4 megabits per second at a 14/1 synch rate. | |
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Re: You couldn't afford to run a server with Bell anyway
Re: email
