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I just talked to Teksavvy about service in Alberta... I can get 2 DSL dry lines bonded through MLPPP so theoretically ill be getting 12/2 but realistically im thinking 10/1.4. Its gonna cost me about $115 a month and they are giving me unlimited download. I am lucky that we don't have to use Bell's backbone, but we are stuck with Telus. Well have to see how they act with the unlimited package Teksavvy is offering. I'm with Shaw now and my roommate and I are heavy internet users, so we normally go through Shaw's 100gb cap on the extream package in a week thanks to Steam ( I HATE YOU STEAM SALES ) and software/mmo/game patches and youtube.
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Dec 29, 2010 03:45
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Fricking FEAR was a 16 GB download heh.
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Dec 29, 2010 04:16
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If novus is in your city I would recommend them %100 to anyone. Best company I have ever dealt with in Canada. Like when you call their tech support a person answers the phone instantly, I almost fell of my chair when it happened. I was paying $80 a month to shaw and was getting poo poo download and even worse upload speeds. I am paying $25 a month to novus for fios. http://www.novusnow.ca/
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Dec 29, 2010 23:51
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I looked into Novus, they are only in BC from what I could tell. Looks like Shaw also wrecked my telco panel when they installed their equipment.
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Dec 30, 2010 05:04
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keyframe posted:If novus is in your city I would recommend them %100 to anyone. Best company I have ever dealt with in Canada. Like when you call their tech support a person answers the phone instantly, I almost fell of my chair when it happened. I was paying $80 a month to shaw and was getting poo poo download and even worse upload speeds. I am paying $25 a month to novus for fios. Teksavvy can be like that too sometimes. I had a lighting strike wipe out my modem's firmware and a tech was able to talk me through resetting it over the phone. I can't think of another company where the consumer is treated like an adult.
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Dec 30, 2010 05:44
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Pivo posted:Rogers: "Well, you still have 2 and a half years left on your contract..." Its worth trying again. I got my unlimited everything contract and an iPhone 4 upgrade just over a year into a three year contract. Like I said, call up, let them know you're unhappy and can't afford it, and work from there. They may be lovely at it but its their job to try to keep customers happy and paying for service. If you get snubbed then try again. Hell wait a week and try again. Call them regularly until you get somewhere. They won't relent just from your pestering, but it gives you a better chance that eventually you'll get that magic person that finally offers something to make you happy. Its stupid that it has to be this way. They're trying to make internet access the same game. Contracts and lock ins, and if you're a heavy user then negotiations and begging for secret plans or paying a small fortune for the regular ones. At least with phones the high price of the handsets made the contracts make a little bit of sense. 8ender fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Dec 30, 2010 |
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Dec 30, 2010 07:12
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8ender posted:At this point there is another link "Full offer details". Only once you click this link are you made aware that the package includes only 25GB of bandwidth per month, and that overages are $2.00/GB thereafter. Also you're signing into a 1 year contract, paying a $29.95 activation fee, and can only cancel with a 30 day notice. I read the everloving poo poo out of their contracts and detail and pricing breakdowns and found out about the 30 day notice to cancel, even if it's the end of your contract. I did that, and they still billed me for the next month (got it back) but got me on a modem return late fee ($113) that I've already posted about in this thread. Still no cheque in the mail!
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Dec 30, 2010 19:31
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keyframe posted:If novus is in your city I would recommend them %100 to anyone. Best company I have ever dealt with in Canada. Like when you call their tech support a person answers the phone instantly, I almost fell of my chair when it happened. I was paying $80 a month to shaw and was getting poo poo download and even worse upload speeds. I am paying $25 a month to novus for fios. I really wish they serviced the suburbs 
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Dec 31, 2010 12:10
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drcru posted:I really wish they serviced the suburbs Heh, suburbs. They don't even serve outside the Downtown Core.
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Dec 31, 2010 13:00
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less than three posted:Heh, suburbs. They don't even serve the entire Downtown Core. Fixed that for you.
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Dec 31, 2010 19:04
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SeventySeven posted:Fixed that for you. Exactly. "Hey, do you live in downtown apartment or condo high-rise? Great! Is your rent or mortgage over $2000 a month? No..... oh, uhhhh.... sorry, we don't serve the plebs."
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Dec 31, 2010 19:31
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Powershift posted:For everyone on shaw: http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/internetdatausage Great news, alberta! involuntary sex time! shaw has updated all their plans! -the "high speed" drops from a 75gb cap to 60gb cap at $37/month and $2.00 every gb over -the "extreme" package drops from 125gb cap to 100gb cap at $57/month and $1.00 every gb over -the "warp" package drops from 250gb cap to 175gb cap at $97/month and $1.00 every gb over -the "nitro" package drops from 500gb cap to 375gb cap at $150/month and $1.00 every gb over -additional data: (10 GB for $5/month, 60 GB for $20/month, 250 GB for $50/month) In red deer at least, tekksavvy isn't available in either form, rogers isn't available, the highest plan telus offers is 10mbps and 125gb cap for $50/month and $2/gb over. Thanks for pointing out how horrible you are, shaw 
Powershift fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 4, 2011 |
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Jan 4, 2011 01:14
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Powershift posted:Great news, alberta! involuntary sex time! Yeah, mentioned it over a week ago on the previous page. Nice to see others are noticing now. Here's a giant thread where Shaw's official PR guy stops by to basically say "This is actually better for you, because now you have the choice between staying below your cap, or paying extra if you need more. See that's good because before you had only one option (using your internet without worry) and now you have two!  "ShawJames posted:I've seen some posts here suggesting that this new policy has been financially motivated to avoid upgrading our networks. That's actually not the case. In fact, just a few weeks ago we increased the included usage for all of our services by 25%, just in time for NetFlix. If you want to think about it in financial terms, just consider how much more bandwidth the network would need to allow a 25% increase for every customer, and how much that kind of network upgrade would cost. It's pretty clear that our motives are not financial. If they were, increasing the included usage would not be very sensible, would it? It would, after all, considerably reduce the number of customers exceeding their monthly traffic allowance, would it not? ShawJames posted:In the past, our direction was to identify customers who were exceeding the included traffic level, and after an initial warning, suspend their connections. Of course, having the Internet connection suspended is disastrous for many people, but unlimited bandwidth is not a possibility with today's technology. So how can we ensure that customers remain within their included usage without disabling their connections? By implementing a small charge, we give customers the option to either remain within their included usage or pay for the excess traffic that they are generating.  If he wasn't official, I'd write him up as being one of the best trolls ever. less than three fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jan 4, 2011 |
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Jan 4, 2011 02:06
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Word is Teksavvy has applied for a 90 day extention to the CRTC citing need to get word out. Bell, in light of this, has countered with a 30 day extension. At not-so-worst, Ontario will probably be waiting at least a month before our bills become a monthly colonoscopy. Meanwhile Primus has forged ahead for their customers and has taken the initiative to charge their customers for usage over 25GB. For team Primus, it's win-win, since they'll be keeping that money until Bell finally gets to charge UBB, and they're already putting the onus on Bell for the increases they're putting into play now.
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Jan 4, 2011 06:45
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less than three posted:Yeah, mentioned it over a week ago on the previous page. Nice to see others are noticing now. I love the "With today's technology unlimited bandwidth simply is not possible" line. Bandwidth is cheaper than ever, what the gently caress are they talking about?
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Jan 4, 2011 21:19
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rscott posted:I love the "With today's technology unlimited bandwidth simply is not possible" line. Bandwidth is cheaper than ever, what the gently caress are they talking about? They are talking about how they like your money.
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Jan 4, 2011 21:32
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quote:They are talking about how they like your money. Exactly, they're smart enough to know that the general public isn't well educated on this stuff. As long as they spout some half-hearted bullshit to justify it then they can pretty much get away with whatever they want. They had a chance to make a case for congestion and their own figures didn't really bear them out which should have been hugely embarrassing but instead somehow turned into UBB going forward. I can't even call the CRTC corrupt unfortunately, they are just literally comprised of ex-staffers from big telecom and such so it's no surprise where their views lean toward. It's just a really hosed up example of government regulation gone awry.
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Jan 4, 2011 21:32
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Hopefully the CBC or someone will pick up the story when Grandma Jones gets her first $500+ Shaw bill for having an unsecured wifi network.
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Jan 4, 2011 22:50
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Powershift posted:In red deer at least, tekksavvy isn't available in either form, rogers isn't available, the highest plan telus offers is 10mbps and 125gb cap for $50/month and $2/gb over. As far as I understand, telus doesn't have the infrastructure to even monitor bandwidth usage per customer, so while they may advertise data usage limits, they don't really enforce them. I'm on shaw in calgary. The moment I see a charge for data usage on my bill I'm gonna give shaw a call, spread my butt cheeks wide open and give them so much poo poo for implementing UBB. After which I will cancel my plan and switch to telus.
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Jan 5, 2011 01:18
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Powershift posted:Great news, alberta! involuntary sex time! I don't even see anywhere on the Shaw site that lets me track this. I'm in Red Deer too, and man if I get a bill with an overage charge when they don't even let me track my usage on their site there will be hell to pay.
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Jan 5, 2011 19:24
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Antioch posted:I don't even see anywhere on the Shaw site that lets me track this. I'm in Red Deer too, and man if I get a bill with an overage charge when they don't even let me track my usage on their site there will be hell to pay. According to ShawJames this is how it'll work: The first month you exceed your bandwidth allotment, you'll start seeing usage details/chart on your bill. The bandwidth counter will also then be available on shaw.ca (No charges though.) You get another free pass for your next monthly overages. (Plus a bill warning) Third month that you have overages, you'll start paying. So basically you can't even start to monitor your usage until you've gone over.
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Jan 5, 2011 22:17
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Antioch posted:I don't even see anywhere on the Shaw site that lets me track this. I'm in Red Deer too, and man if I get a bill with an overage charge when they don't even let me track my usage on their site there will be hell to pay. You can see when you log in on here: https://secure.shaw.ca/ Their monitoring seems to be really bad though. I track my own internet usage through habit now because of terribly low bandwidth caps back when I was living in dorm for university. The figures they give me are usually 20-30GB of bandwidth below what I actually use a month, and that's not even including the bandwidth the rest of my family uses.
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Jan 6, 2011 02:50
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Shaw has a policy of not allowing you to see your usage until you've been warned and asked for it though, so you wont get to see it outright usually. Atleast in the Edmonton and Northern Alberta area.
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Jan 6, 2011 16:01
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So my outrage has been noticed and CBC Marketplace asked me to do a TV interview tomorrow. 
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Jan 6, 2011 22:10
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less than three posted:Yeah, mentioned it over a week ago on the previous page. Nice to see others are noticing now. I like how he mentions that it would be disastrous if they gave everyone a 25% increase in bandwidth but then goes on to say that most people don't even hit their current caps Tyrsell posted:Their monitoring seems to be really bad though. I track my own internet usage through habit now because of terribly low bandwidth caps back when I was living in dorm for university. I've taken to tracking my own usage with a widget called Network Meter as well but thankfully Bell has a pretty decent tool on their website. I've heard stories that Bell lowered their bandwidth caps in other provinces but so far Québec seems unaffected.
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Jan 6, 2011 22:30
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less than three posted:So my outrage has been noticed and CBC Marketplace asked me to do a TV interview tomorrow. Holy poo poo, awesome. What do you plan on bringing up if possible?
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Jan 6, 2011 23:16
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That's really awesome. I hope you get a chance to expand out into bandwidth capping and all that, but you'll probably just be steered in some direction after telling your story. Good luck though! Let us know when/if it airs! edit: Unless you mean like a LIVE interview tomorrow, which I would totally tune into.
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Jan 6, 2011 23:25
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less than three posted:So my outrage has been noticed and CBC Marketplace asked me to do a TV interview tomorrow. This is a very good thing. It's worth noting that, in my experience (albeit mine was once with The National) they don't completely misquote you and the like to make it more interesting. I did a story a year and a half ago about Conficker (had a thread here) that was pretty much the only report about it that was realistic (i.e. if you have updated AV and your Microsoft Updates you're totally fine). Plus I got to plug AVG Free back when that was a good thing. If they haven't told you this already, you want at least one good soundbite, and keep it as short and simple as possible to lower the risk of them cutting out things you want kept in.
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Jan 6, 2011 23:43
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I recommend "gently caress you CRTC".
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Jan 6, 2011 23:45
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I did some complaining about Rogers traffic management a while back. With a VPN in place and some clever routing rules set up, It's just like living in the states again.... literally  No effect on anything else I do which I did not want to go through the VPN either.
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Jan 6, 2011 23:50
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less than three posted:So my outrage has been noticed and CBC Marketplace asked me to do a TV interview tomorrow.
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Jan 6, 2011 23:55
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teethgrinder posted:Please talk about how the caps are insulting to legitimate traffic, like Netflix (maybe even mention that it seems awfully like anti-competitive behaviour), but also digital distribution like Steam and PSN. (I have no idea what downloads are like on XBLA.) Yeah, I was definitely going to mention Netflix/Steam and Shaw's own VOD offering. Also mention how it was tried (and failed) in the USA with 300gb caps, far more than what they're offering here. Going to counter the talking point that "Only 20% of customers go over their caps" by mentioning this fails to address the rest of the client base who's most likely hovering just below the cap, and with usage increasing at a steady rate it's only a matter of time before this 'timebomb' explodes and normal users start getting charged. vvvv yes was going to mention bandwidth costs and what Rogers/Shaw did with lowering caps. less than three fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jan 7, 2011 |
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Jan 7, 2011 00:08
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teethgrinder posted:Please talk about how the caps are insulting to legitimate traffic, like Netflix (maybe even mention that it seems awfully like anti-competitive behaviour), but also digital distribution like Steam and PSN. (I have no idea what downloads are like on XBLA.) Xbox Live Arcade games can be anywhere from 50MB to 500MB. DLC for games routinely runs up to a gigabyte or more. less than three, if you can, make sure you mention that even with infastructure and overhead costs Canadians are still paying obscene amounts for access every month (ie. 125GB cap for $70 a month when it only costs the ISP pennies per gigabyte.) Oh, and Rogers dropping caps the day after Netflix announced they were going to be Good luck, too. Marketplace (and CBC as a whole) is one of the few news programs that still produces interesting/worthwhile content.
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Jan 7, 2011 00:11
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For some hard numbers, some single-game Steam installs are HUGE. Uncompressed there are several games that take up 15 gigs or more. Grand Theft Auto 4 Complete is I think something like a 30 gig download. Basically if you bought GTA4 Complete, FEAR 1, Age of Conan and Star Wars The Force Unleashed (the first one) you'd have used up about 80-90 gigs of bandwidth, roughly. Four games, and if you'd taken advantage of the Christmas sale that entire bundle may have cost less than $50. NetFlix is 6 megabytes a minute for standard definition. No idea about high definition, although usually if you buy an HD movie on iTunes you're looking at between 3 and 5 gigs for one depending on how long it is. Also, if you're running Windows Vista RTM 64-bit and decide to update it, it's about a 1.5 gig download for both Service Packs and miscellaneous updates. If everyone in your family does it within a month, say 3-4 computers, that adds up to a pretty big chunk. And if you don't update it, and then your computer gets hacked and used to send spam or as an FTP, that's going to be an even bigger chunk. VV I'm aware that at least some games come down the pipe compressed on Steam. Having said that, there's a limit to how far compression goes, especially since a lot of game data is already "compressed" in a sense. univbee fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jan 7, 2011 |
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Jan 7, 2011 00:40
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univbee posted:For some hard numbers, some single-game Steam installs are HUGE. Uncompressed there are several games that take up 15 gigs or more.
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Jan 7, 2011 01:05
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DropDeadRed posted:I did some complaining about Rogers traffic management a while back. With a VPN in place and some clever routing rules set up, It's just like living in the states again.... literally
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Jan 7, 2011 02:32
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Chris Knight posted:Uncompressed size is irrelevant. It's not, because most Steam games come uncompressed.
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Jan 7, 2011 05:05
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Chris Knight posted:Uncompressed size is irrelevant. The average game in my Steam library is at least 5GB and the largest is 30GB, they were all delivered uncompressed by the way. All Steam does is recreate a cached image from the central game repo and then update system libraries for things like DirectX, PhysX and whatnot. In many cases it doesn't even do that, it just plops the game on your drive. I have no idea what(if any) compression techniques the consoles are using but regardless the point is that legitimate usage is now driving higher usage, not just pirated movies and porn.
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Jan 7, 2011 14:50
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Anyone else think that having usage caps INCREASES bandwidth usage? I know when I used to be on the pseudo-unlimited comcast service (before the 250 gig cap in the U.S.) I would never worry about bandwidth, using about 40-75 gig a month. Now when the 25th or 26th of the month rolls around I am sure to queue up at least 100 gig of stuff to download since it's basically "free".
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Jan 7, 2011 15:03
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Shumagorath posted:What are you using? I have my VPN set up through Windows 7 (SSTP) and it's kind of annoying to have everything go through it when all I need to route is BT traffic. I Set up the VPN as a non-preferred route to the internet by using manual metrics on both VPN and my regular ethernet adapter and then a manual ROUTE ADD in a batch file launched by task scheduler when vpn connects. I also cofigure Vuze to ONLY work on the VPN interface. This goes against all of windows assumed "normal" ways of doing things but it works great for me. I have Vuze set up to launch from the same TaskScheduler trigger and it is effectively one click to start the whole deal but that one click is a right click->Connect on the VPN interface.
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Jan 7, 2011 15:57
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