ISP recommendations - Kitchener

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Gary Layng <glayng-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org>

| I have a client in Kitchener who would like to move off Rogers, having been 
| off-line for about a week now.  Rogers promises a tech by the 6th to fix the 
| problem.  The problem: three commercial customers in a row are not able to 
| get internet.

The 6th seems like an outrageous delay to me.  Usually they escalate
if more than one customer is affected.  Although I have had Rogers lie
to me about how many are affected (as an excuse not to expidite).

There are only two obvious broadband paths into most houses (and small
offices): cable and phone.  Rogers controls almost all aspects of
cable and Bell controls most aspects of the phone line.  Even if you
actually buy your service from a third party.

This particular outage would surely have happened if they bought cable
internet service from a third party (last I remember there was just
one such ISP).

In my limited experience, Rogers consumer broadband infrastructure is
more reliable than Bell's.  Neither's support department is any good.

Third party ADSL is way more available than 3rd party cable internet.
There are good third party ISPs.  It is suspected that when Bell
suport is needed, Bell might be more responsive for its own direct
cusomers than for those of 3rd party ISPs.

| This client is a charity with minimal IT support and a cash flow that they 
| desperately need to direct as much as possible to the desperately needy, 
| rather than the corporately greedy.  They'd like to get something cheaper and 
| more reliable than Rogers.  It doesn't matter if it's cable or not, and 
| mentioned Sympatico as a potential alternative (hey, they're not that 
| sophisticated).

Most institutions keep important internet functions in co-lo or
hosting site.  Of course email needs to get to the actual office but
in an emergency dial-up can fill in for broadband for that function.

My 3rd party ADSL ISP offers me a few hours of dial-up service each
month (I've never tried it).  I don't know how common that is.
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