OT: Bell Internet Performance Service - Up to 7 Mbps

John McGregor mr.mcgregor-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Sun Nov 2 03:26:27 UTC 2008


Meng Cheah wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Is anyone using the above and would like to share their experience, both 
> good and bad?
> 
> What is the performance with Bittorrent?
> 
> The Bell salesperson first told me that Bell does not do trafficshaping.
> When pointed out that the issue is before the CRTC, he informed me that 
> the CRTC forces Bell to trafficshape.
> Finally, he admitted that Bell trafficshapes because users are using 
> "excessive" bandwidth(but the cap is 60 GB per month).
> All this in less than 3 minutes and without embarrassment.
> I have the impression that if telling me that Obama is the AntiChrist 
> would clinch my signing up, he would.
> 
> Any info will be appreciated.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Meng

I regularly get called in by new Sympatico subscribers to sort out the 
mess left by Bell's own technicians. Wrong passwords and b1 i.d. numbers 
(issued by Bell) that don't match up with the modem/router or the info 
they have at the call center are the rule rather than the exception. 
They are currently issuing a new wireless router/ modem combo. It comes 
pre-configured with an SSID and in twenty client calls so far I have 
only encounter three that worked as advertised. Either they don't 
transmit wirelessly at all or if you try to set up WPA they fail and you 
have to reset the unit and start over and choose WEP. They will send out 
a new unit without much argument though and I assume that this means 
that they are well aware of the problem (but not so much that they will 
scrap these crappy units altogether). Also there are many areas of the 
old (pre-amalgamation) city of Toronto where Bell did not adequately 
upgrade the local loop when they switched from pulse to tone dialing in 
the 1960's. If you live in one of those areas you will not get anywhere 
near the speed that Sympatico sells you on. Have a look at this video 
from CBC's Marketplace for further confirmation of Sympatico's lousy 
service:
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2007/11/21/speed_bumps/

If you look closely about half way through the video you will see that 
the large file that the Marketplace testers are downloading is an Ubuntu 
iso.

HTH

John
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