Canadian internet access gets shittier

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Canadian internet access gets shittier

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I don't see 50/50 on Fibe at all, just 50/10 and then 175/175.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2013 15:57

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:43

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

So I'm getting pretty pissed off with TekSavvy lately. I've been getting intermittent disconnects a few times a day on my cable connection. It started about two months ago and I was using a DCM475 that apparently had old firmware and wasn't supported anymore. The tech support people told me to buy a new modem, so I picked up a Motorola Surfboard SB6121. And I still get the disconnects.

Now they're telling me Rogers won't come out to test the lines or whatever they do as when they check remotely my signal levels are fine. They also advised me to upgrade the firmware on the Surfboard and referred to me to some guy on the DSLR boards.

Anyone deal with poo poo like this? I mean, I guess I'll upgrade the firmware but I'm wondering if I should just switch to DSL or maybe another carrier to get a more reliable connection. It feels like TSI controls so little of the connection that they can't really troubleshoot anything.

# ¿ May 18, 2013 15:30

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Shofixti posted:

Should I go with Start, TSI DSL or TSI Cable? I don't want to get involved with Bell, Rogers & friends if possible.

You are hosed either way, neither will really try to make using a third party easier. I've subscribed to DSL and cable through TekSavvy in the past and found them pretty comparable, however DSL has been more reliable. This is in the Toronto area.

# ¿ May 22, 2013 23:33

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Anyone actually use start.ca? I've seen it mentioned a few times as a more expensive alternative to TekSavvy (albeit more reliable).

# ¿ Jun 18, 2013 02:57

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Weird, I'm not sure how I've never heard of them. Their upstreams seem to be much higher than TekSavvy offers in my apartment for cable and DSL, so I think I'll switch. I'm pretty tired of random disconnects and two-hour hold times.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2013 15:05

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I signed up for Start last week. Got a modem in the mail from Bell, and they scheduled two tech visits for last Tuesday (one from Bell, one from a third party). Tech visits go fine, they replace the panel for the phone line and add a POTS splitter, test lines and sync, etc. So after they leave, my speed is 3 megabits. I call Start. So apparently Bell claims I never received a modem from them - even though their technician configured it in my apartment. Apparently since they claim I don't have a modem, they won't provision me to the correct speed (25/10) until their "logistics" department sorts it out.

So that was a few days ago. Start expects it to be fixed around Monday. Good times, glad Bell can still gently caress me when I'm using a third party.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2013 18:35

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Holy poo poo, TekSavvy's twitter account is literally full of outages for over a week now:
https://twitter.com/teksavvynetwork

One of my coworkers has had a 3 day outage with them. It doesn't seem that they're driven by Rogers or Bell either, it's specific to TSI. They've really changed service-wise in the GTA over the last few years.

On that note I'm finally on Start.ca now. Got a solid 25/10 which is fantastic and I can finally use Crashplan and poo poo. During the transfer my Internet worked on Start then stopped a few hours later; turned out that Bell had wired DSL to a new dry loop for me even though I have a home phone with them. Not sure if Start or Bell hosed that up, but that makes 3 for 3 signups with third parties take over a week of bullshit. Good times

# ¿ Aug 18, 2013 14:35

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Zigmidge posted:

That looks rad. I looked it up and my building doesn't have fibre because Rogers has or had some incentive deal with Tridel for it.

If a friend didn't just get this (and it's awesome) I would still think it's a scam; their site looks like a Geocities page and they spelled technology incorrectly for gently caress's sake.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 03:20

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Decairn posted:

Every day I see a Beanfield truck rolling around Liberty Village and all I can do is hurl expletives at it as I plan my move to downtown.

If you're in Liberty Village there's a good chance you can get Beanfield AFAIK. They've got a NOC there (or at least they did a few years ago).

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 05:24

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Kazinsal posted:

I just wish ISPs would get rid of all the telco cruft and wire Cat6 from a box on the side of my house to the room opposite the wall that the box is on so I can just plug in a real goddamn router, console into it, set up DHCP (or a static if I'm paying for one), make sure I can ping out, then set up a switch and all the actual network poo poo I want.

But then they couldn't control what ports I have incoming connections and stuff, so y'know. That's not gonna happen.

You can totally do that if you're in a region where fiber from smaller competing ISPs is offered; Beanfield and competitors in Toronto give you exactly that (with an optional wireless router).

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 13:05

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

The Sweetling posted:

I wish there existed a company as reliable and professional as start.ca but without the bullshit bandwidth caps.

Can't you just pay for unlimited with Start? I sure as hell am.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2016 21:27

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

The Sweetling posted:

Because they're Bullshit. Here's a great market niche for ISPs: do something your competition DOESN'T do, like charge for caps.

I don't think Bell or Rogers allow resellers (or whatever the correct term is) to do that.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2016 23:39

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Does Bell give you the PPPOE credentials when you get fiber? I want to bypass the Homehub but I'm not sure if I have to bribe the tech or something.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 20:00

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

unknown posted:

They give it out, but the challenge is if you use Fibe TV service, which runs on a vlan (iirc 35), and there's some weird Wifi stuff for the TV receiver.

Thanks, I'll be skipping the TV. Glad they give the credentials, I plan to pop that SFP modules into a Ubiquiti switch or media converter and put the Homehub in the bottom of a closet (or well).

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 23:14

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Last time I used Bell like a decade ago I spent months arguing on the phone about them not receiving the returned DSL modem. I managed to avoid any actual charges and credit dings.

Then a few years later when I moved I found it in a closet.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 01:35

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

It bugs me that in all his recent videos when he shows their office it's completely fully staff (albeit with masked employees). Like nobody can edit and upload his videos with a loving 10GE SSD SAN, so everybody keep coming in for this essential service during a pandemic.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2021 18:24

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

mediaphage posted:

i'm guessing he's also a big elon fan

I did a quick search and he has both a video called "Why I Bought a Tesla" and a video called "Here's why I didn't buy a Tesla".

# ¿ Feb 26, 2021 20:01

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Less Fat Luke posted:

Does Bell give you the PPPOE credentials when you get fiber? I want to bypass the Homehub but I'm not sure if I have to bribe the tech or something.

Self-replying but got the service set up and bypassed - the tech would not give me the credentials but 24 hours after it was setup I could login to Bell and reset my Internet credentials (PPPOE password). Popped that into my UDM Pro with VLAN tag 35 and boom, Homehub is in the closet.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2021 04:18

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I resent how well my Bell fiber has held up, granted I ditched the Homehub for a UDM Pro but in like 6 months it hasn't disconnected a single time. I also can't believe nobody has ever reached out from Bell given how much I use it!

Speaking of Internet companies I resent, I managed to get my parents a Starlink kit in Nothern Ontario recently. The Bell plan they have their was a whole 2 megabits and I gotta say it works startingly well. My dad mounted it on a deck surrounded by trees and easily gets 80/30 most of the day. Finally they know what Netflix HD looks like!

# ¿ Sep 14, 2021 14:11

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I don't know if it's by default but when the signal has to go through walls usually only 2.4GHZ is gonna cut it (and that will have more interference for sure).

# ¿ Sep 14, 2021 14:22

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I almost replied with a link to my answer but then realized you're the same person! There's been no slowdown on my PPPOE at gigabit speeds whatsoever, PPPOE on VLAN 35 from the GPON works just fine. Been a year and Bell hasn't noticed or cared. Every speed test and Fast.com check is 1000/1000, and I can download and upload torrents at those speeds too.

Less Fat Luke fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jan 6, 2022

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 14:21

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

teethgrinder posted:

Just wanted to reiterate how reprehensible Bell sales are? Had my parents pushing their 80s paying $80/mth for 30 Mbps down and a $20/mth Crave subscription they don't know how to use.

My parents paid that for a 2 megabit connection in the loving boonies, and Crave flat out didn't work at that speed but they weren't allowed to remove it from the bundle. Now they're on Starlink at least, haha.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2022 15:48

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Not for me (near Sudbury), still a blistering 158$ after tax.

# ¿ May 11, 2023 15:28

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

codo27 posted:

Can you explain a little more about this? I'm not holding my breath for fibre in my area but I sure hope it does come soon and I'll want to continue to use my own setup, or upgrade to something besides the dubious homehub

If you get "lucky" and get a plan that uses the HomeHub 3000 (which only works up to 1.5gbps) then you can pull the fiber adapter board (SFP+ adapter) out of the Bell equipment and stick it in things it's compatible with like many PC network cards or the Unifi Dream Machine Pro and completely bypass their garbage.

# ¿ May 11, 2023 18:47

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

And do you have a link to the Discord? That's such a shame, DSL Reports has been a go-to whenever I have ISP issues for like god, 20 years.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2023 14:26

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

infernal machines posted:

To whom? Do you have a link to the announcement?

They're just for sale so far - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-teksavvy-for-sale-internet-provider/

Edit: non-paywalled https://archive.is/qfn4r

# ¿ Jun 23, 2023 13:11

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

It really sucks that all the smaller ISPs are getting eaten, but on the flip side it also seems like Internet services have gotten so fast from the big 3 that all their bullshit anti-piracy DPI stuff they did isn't really sustainable anymore so their services are a lot more better than when I used TekSavvy/Start. I'll miss their services actually acknowledging the use of third party network gear, lol.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2023 13:43

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Yeah I've stayed at 1gbps up/down just to keep the HH3000 in a closet and use the SFP in my own equipment. And agreed on the prices being exorbitant.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2023 15:26

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:43

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Are you aware that Telus bought Start.ca?

# ¿ Oct 7, 2023 05:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Canadian internet access gets shittier