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 Review by jonana 
UPDATED: 3 days ago
member for 8.9 years, 241 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Saint-Laurent,QC
 $45 per month
 about 7 days
 "I cannot find one!"
 "Tech support are very bad"
 "Not super fast but it is OK !"
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Not super fast but it is "OK" for the money !
They have the worst technical support in the world !
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 Review by Kringle
UPDATED: 15 days ago
member for 5.3 years, 1676 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Pierrefonds,QC
$33 per month
about 4 days
 Bell Canada
"It's an Internet connection"
"Throttling, daily resets, MSN email platform"
"Still a real pain to stay with them but..."
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I have been a subscriber to Bell Sympatico HSE for a very long time. Here's a bit of history and my relative satisfaction along the way.
The saga - part I
We started with Sympatico when Bell offered an employee promotion that entitled us to HSE for $19.95/mo and a NORTEL DSL modem (back in the stone ages). It was cheaper than the dialup that I was using so it was a no-brainer. The self-install kit was promptly delivered (3 business days from order date) and the line was set up at the CO the day after I received the kit.
The installation went flawlessly as the documentation was clear and concise. I found that I needed extra filters so I ordered them online (painless) and they were in my mailbox the next day! That's service.
After setting up DSL access on a single computer using Access Manager as a trial, I then connected the DSL to my network switches through a DLink DI-701 (retired) hardware firewall for shared access on the numerous computers that we have. This too went really well.
The speed, however, left something to be desired as the ADSL was really "A" at approx. 920/20 kbps.
The saga - part II
Over time I became more and more frustrated with the pathetic upload performance and was looking into switching to Videotron cable Internet service who offered an order of magnitude more upload speed (verified with colleagues that had Videotron) for about the same price. Then I stumbled upon the link to the speedtests on the Sympatico Web Site. Imagine my joy when I found the DSLReports forum describing an available FREE upgrade from the NORTEL modem to increase the ADSL speed to 1500/320. (However, Sympatico really should have advised their customers about the problem with getting the upgrade while using the NORTEL modem. They knew who we were!)
I called 310-SURF and I had a new SpeedStream 5200 delivered, again, in 3 business days. I picked up a DLink DI-604 router/firewall to replace my antique DI-701 and plugged everything in. It didn't work! A quick call to 310-SURF and I was advised that they had to change the card at the CO. The solution was to put back the NORTEL modem and wait until it lost sync and then replace it with the 5200. Total call time: 5 minutes. It lost sync almost precisely on schedule and the changeover was seamless. This is what you get when an ISP supports very specific communications hardware!
A little tweaking and I was getting 1435/318 quite consistently. So much for the experimental run with Videotron cable.
The saga - part III
Word on the street (read DSLReports forums) was that there would be another FREE upgrade from 1500/320 to 2500/640. What pain would there be associated with this??? Absolutely none. The modem lost sync and the DI-604 automatically re-established the PPPoE connection and I had the new sync rates! There have been no problems whatsoever with this completely transparent upgrade!
[update] Now my speeds aren't as good as some Videotron subscribers that I know but still far better than others. It really depends on the time of day and what cable node you're on. On the other side of the coin, there are geographic pockets where Sympatico (all DSL) really stinks.
The saga - Misc.
[update] I finally redid my POTS installation starting at the demarc point. There are still too many devices on the line, but everything is now centrally double-filtered and still my connection is rock solid with constant speeds of 2485/665 kbps. I guess that the work on the demarc was quite unnecessary given the quality of my signal. At least I'll be ready for the next round of upgrades.
Back at the beginning of "The saga - part II" I spent a lot of my broadband conversations ragging on Sympatico. The ragging has been replaced with something akin to electronic pride. Where else can you get this kind of service for even twice the 20 bucks a month I'm paying???
UPDATE: 2005/JUNE/03
Nothing new - still great although it could be faster. I really would like a faster upload speed. Still solid as a rock so who cares about STATIC IP? I've had the same IP address for over four months. I'm still very satisfied.
UPDATE: 2005/DECEMBER/18
Nothing new - I'm still very satisfied. Like I said before, this could pass for a STATIC IP address. Constant 310KByte/sec on a decent source (symantec.com). I STILL want a faster upload but I don't want to pay for ULTRA.
UPDATE: 2006/DECEMBER/18
Nothing new - I'm still satisfied (but less so). Like I said before, this could pass for a STATIC IP address. Constant 310KByte/sec on a decent source (symantec.com). I SHOULD be getting faster speeds but I don't seem to be eligible for the time being. Every now and then the word Videotron passes through my mind...
UPDATE: 2007/MAY/12
Still can't get full speed and I'm less satisfied with support now. Even with my discounts, I can save about $120/yr with Videotron. Not quite at the level where I'd put up with the hassle of changing everything over but it's sure getting there.
UPDATE: 2008/MAR/26
Now I'm getting the full speed that I'm paying for (they must have switched my line for another one). Support isn't an issue - I don't call them. I'm also pleased that they've grandfathered in my UNLIMITED bandwidth usage (as long as I behave). Still no contract and still cheap.
UPDATE 2008/AUG/21
This is starting to suck more. Every time they turn off the throttling (daily) I have to reset my modem. I still have sync but no Internet access - back to normal after a modem reset. This occurs whether or not I'm actually using the connection! I haven't used P2P for over 2 months either! I've tried another modem with no change to the symptoms. Also, they've just hit me with a $5/mo. price increase for the "improved" service which coincides nicely with having to reset my modem daily. On the plus side, I still have my grandfathered unlimited HSE plan. I think that they REALLY want to push me away from being a customer.
UPDATE 2008/DEC/13
The situation is completely unbelievable. My Sympatico email has been chugging along with no problems since I first got it back in the days of 33K dialup in the early '90s. Now I have been FORCED onto the MSN platform and it has been nothing but problems since.
1) My email accounts immediately went MIA until Deadpool kindly fixed them up.
2) My email client has intermittently been refused authentication but I read that it was being fixed so I didn't bother anyone.
3) Now email authentication just doesn't work, period.
Why is it that Bell, in their infinite wisdom, can't follow the old, simple adage... "If it ain't broke don't fix it." Why must I be continually insulted by being told that it's for my own good and it will make my user experience better when, without fail, whatever is changed (that worked flawlessly) goes directly to hell in a handbasket?
All of this, coupled with the fact that I have to reset my modem almost every time that throttling is turned off or on is really making me feel like an idiot for sticking with Bell for my family's landline, wireless and Internet needs.
UPDATE 2009/JUN/18
No change except for a bit more stability. Now I can actually go for a couple of days without having to reboot my modem! No, I haven't changed suppliers only because it's too much of a hassle given the very small cost advantage (employee discount). It's just OK for my needs and I'm sure that Bell's counting on that from most of their customers.
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 Review by Ian
UPDATED: 22 days ago
member for 7 years, 3183 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Shelburne,ON
$45 per month (12 month contract)
about 10 days
"Reasonable Rural solution (Bell Rural Wireless)"
"Speeds a little slow."
"Not bad."
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Initial problems, but seems to be resolved for now.
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Review by DrAkO
UPDATED: 27 days ago
member for 3.6 years, 1448 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Laval,QC
$41 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
"Très stable, vitesse tel que prévu, pas de plantage"
"Limite de téléchargement ridicule"
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La connexion Internet de Vidéotron est définitivement la plus stable et la plus rapide au Québec, sur son territoire.
Par contre, les limites de téléchargement sont absolument ridicule rendu en 2009...
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 Review by Talon88
UPDATED: 33 days ago
member for 5.8 years, 2583 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Toronto
$29 per month (12 month contract)
"Speed Is Stable 5Mb Service"
"Except BT Throttling From 6pm-1am ET, Price Error, Need to call every month to Fix."
"If they charge me more than $30, I will Leave right the way."
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Before BT Speed is good. But now they have
BT Throttling From 6pm-1am ET. Sad, But at least
not the Whole Day like Rogers. I am still have
unlimited. If you sign new contract, you will have
60GB Cap. Bottom line is, Internet service at Canada
is stepping back. Other country in the world is moving
Forward. It's Sad!
Renew the Contract after the first year. Still can get
$30 a month with unlimited cap.
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Review by graniterock
UPDATED: 34 days ago
member for 6.3 years, 282 visits, last login: a few hours ago
London,ON
$52 per month
about 30 days
Bell Canada
"Reliable and stable"
"installation was significantly late, learning there are cheaper DSL options"
"Average -- now happy problems with install fixed. Not the cheapest option availible."
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Overall happy with the service. I have found using the Broad Band Report direct support forum very useful in solving my problems. I wouldn't recommend telephone support due to a wide range of problems I have had with them over the last three years. I had an unlimited package but was forced out of it due to raising the cost of it. I was also very annoyed becuase they promised me a 7 meg sync rate if I changed to a capped package. I specifically said I know you guys say up to, but what will the actual rate at my house be. The guy on the phone said after clicking a few buttons it would be 7. After getting changed to the 60 gigs per month package, I found it was slower and the direct support guys on the forum confimed I would only be getting 6 (5015 actual speed). I am discovering that there are cheaper options than bell that would save me 20-30 dollars that would give me just as good speeds and services (and perhaps better). Don't be surprised that my next review will be from a different ISP.
When I first got the service it was significantly late (by about a month) from the date they said it would be activated.
Followup comments:  
Peter T
@rogers.com
| Sympatico Sympatico Sucks
Its not about the speeds, broadband is all very similar these days, Its all about the service dummy. I sign up for a sympatico modem package and 3 weeks go by nothing. I call them they give me a number that not a 1800# and is located in Quebec. Most of them do not speak fluent English only french, they assure me its on the way. 3 weeks more go by nothing, I call them and ask for a manager (that’s after talking to someone who could not, or would not speak english). He assures me he will send it out, 2 weeks go by nothing. I call them back and they tell me we never got your application would you fill it out again?. I then call Rogers and they put in high speed cable the next day, and the service is excellent. The tech desk is knowledgeable and helpful always open. I’ve had sympatico call me with package deals some of them almost half the price im paying today, but I refuse to go back to the nightmare. This is the same company Bell; that has their customer service desk located in India. Now they are losing customers by the truck load oops. Maybe we need to bring this back to north America; Well its too late for me. | |
| | slishnevsky
join:2006-04-09
 ·Bell Sympatico
| Re: Sympatico 100% true !! IT SUCKS SO BAD. I can only wish them to loose all their customers as soon as possible. No respect for customers at all. Shitty service, shitty customer support, shitty everything, except of maybe regular money withdrawals from your account. | |
| | |
AOLHater
@bell.ca | Re: Sympatico It depends on were you live in K-W the service is great, the support is ok. They're a million times better then AOL though. | |
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Jakob
@bell.ca
|  Am I a rare case?
To sum up, my experience with Sympatico has been overall quite positive - I wonder if I'm a rare case. | |
| | wonkaman2002
join:2005-08-23
St Catharines, ON | Re: Am I a rare case? Interesting why do I smell a Bell employee over here? or someone that's trying to suck up to bell? good for you though ...guess what? NOBODY CARES...BELL SUCKS | |
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Review by olic
UPDATED: 34 days ago
member for 2.9 years, 1144 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Laval,QC
$36 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
Bell Canada
"Very stable and fast service, Handsome price."
"Bad tech support for level 1."
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The service for Internet access is excellent, very stable. But, the emails service do not respect standards.
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Review by knothead
UPDATED: 37 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 24 visits, last login: 37 days ago
London,ON
$45 per month (24 month contract)
about 18 days
"Better than cable"
"Customer support is horrible; Pre-Sales assurances of Line speed were completely FALSE"
"Check to see if there are other affordable DSL providers in the area first"
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Ordered the 7Mb service, so far am only obtaining ~4.5Mb.
Customer support is a nightmare. They seem to have all of their call centres located in India. This is the main killer of the service since you obtain a different answer every time you call in, and nobody seems to know what's going on or how to solve any real issue.
It took almost a week after the modem finally arrived before it worked at all.
*Update*
I've been talking to some techs in the sympatico direct forum, these guys are 1000X better than those jokers who answer the phone. Anyways, long story short, I've been told that my CO doesn't even support ADSL 2+ which means that it is impossible for me to obtain over 6 Mb. This really pisses me off as I inquired specifically about the bandwidth before placing my order for sypmatico, and was re-assured that my building was obtaining the 7 Mb. This is very dishonest, and quite frankly I'm going to move my business elsewhere when my contract is up.
*Update 2*
It's now been about a year on the service and it's been pretty rock solid. My only really annoyances are the unnecessary throttling and that the sympatico DNS servers seem to be sketchy. I've since switched to using opendns instead of the sympatico ones and this has cleared up the problem, of course this was a solution I had to find and implement myself seeing as the support people couldn't suggest a thing. As for the throttling, I really wish they'd stop this. I don't often use much bandwidth, but when I do need it I hate seeing my rate drop to ~55 Kb/s.
Followup comments: BCBoy
join:2008-05-27
Hawkesbury, ON | I feel your pain I really do, since your story is almost an exact mirror of mine... | |
| wolfchen
join:2008-05-22
London, ON
·Bell Sympatico
2 edits | Who was your ISP before Bell? We're in London, ON, too, apparently at the limit of distance from the CO. After this, our 4th annual nightmare of dealing with whatever they change at this time of year, we're looking for an alternative, Rogers. Not optimistic they are fundamentally better, but if they at least don't fix what isn't broken, we'd be happier.
May I ask who your ISP was in the London area before Bell? | |
| | knothead
join:2008-05-20
London, ON
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: Who was your ISP before Bell? Hi, I actually came over from Germany, and Bell is my first ISP in the London area. Before that I did have HSE with Bell in Ottawa, and was getting my full bandwidth and then some, so I'm somewhat disappointed with them now.
I have heard some good things about TechSavvy in this area. And they're slightly cheaper. | |
| | | wolfchen
join:2008-05-22
London, ON
·Bell Sympatico
1 edit | Re: Who was your ISP before Bell? You'll have to pardon my misspelled username here. Hope it didn't make you shudder 
We again have fairly consistent 1500 kbps download rates after the annual failures to connect, and like you, hate paying for something we are not getting and that Bell cannot deliver at this distance from a CO. The attitude we've had so far has been cavalier and patronizing, "Those are the numbers. Take it or leave it.", and we've had to argue forcefully to even get them to raise the cap they'd placed at 1184.
Unfortunately, anyone who uses Bell's equipment is subject to the same issues, and there have been reports in the news recently that Bell is perhaps doing bandwidth shaping for ISPs who use Bell equipment.
If we want to eliminate potential headaches caused by this monolith, the only real option is wireless/satellite or cable. So far, we're still discussing what we SHOULD be charged for this mediocrity, but we'll move if the rate doesn't drop to a more reasonable, proportionate amount.
Tschüss
Paul
P.S. Having read the details you posted, your current speed is enviable! | |
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travisc
join:2001-11-09
Port Perry, ON | Better than cable? Doesn't really sound like you've determined that to be true. | |
| knothead
join:2008-05-20
London, ON
·Bell Sympatico
1 edit | Re: Better than Cable I have had Rogers Cable Internet in the past, so yes, I have determined that it is better than Cable. I know this isn't always the case, but in my area the price/performance ratio for sympatico clearly beat out the Rogers packages. Of course I'm now looking at Teksavvy as their price/performance is beating out Bell right now.... | |
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Review by Peeping_Tom
UPDATED: 54 days ago
member for 5 years, 8 visits, last login: 54 days ago
London,ON
Contract price not specified.
Bell Canada
"Consistently fast connection speed with clean, short lines."
"Constant bittorrent throttling!"
"Bell is a packet molester, keep your packets off their networks whenever possible!"
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I never had an issue with Bell before they started throttling me, but it's so aggressive to inspect my encrypted packets. This is a serious invasion of privacy, I have canceled my Bell phone and DSL service due to this disrespect. Use a DSL reseller or switch to fibre or cable, it's worth it.
Followup comments: dr1pht3r
join:2009-05-20
Outremont, QC | How did you find out? I knew "they who must not be named" throttle the P2P connections but I did not know that they also inspect the encrypted packet...I smell a lawsuit here...:)
How did you find out about that? | |
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Review by Zyzomys
Posted: 57 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 93 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Cantley,QC
$46 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
Bell Canada
"The Bell Direct Forum fixes problems quickly"
"Too slow a speed for considering what Bell advertises. Pay for 7.1 Mbps and only get 5.0 Mbps. Of course no discount."
"Bewteen UBB and the tiny 60 GB cap, Bye bye Bell Canada"
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The Bell Direct forum is an excellent way to solve problems quickly and efficiently.
Bell advertises 7.1 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. I can only get 5.0 Mbps down (on a good day), and 640 kbps up. Does not mean I get to pay less.
The 60 GB cap is too small and I am constantly having to watch my bandwidth.
I gave Bell my 30-day notice saying I was leaving at the end of my contract, and going with TekSavvy. Immediately my speed dropped to 4.0 Mbps down, and 640 kbps up. I was able to get this fixed using the Bell Sympatico Direct forum - in fact Bell Sylvain fixed the problem in less than 1-hour.
Bottom line, if Bell cannot provide me with a faster speed, I will go with TekSavvy for an enormous savings plus get much more bandwidth.
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