OT: Bell Internet Performance Service - Up to 7 Mbps

[James Knott]

John McGregor wrote:
>
> 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/

I'm on Rogers and according to their speed test, I get very close to the
advertised 10 Mb down / 800K up.  If I go to www.speedtest.net, I get
rates just slightly less than what I see from the Rogers. test, so I am
getting what I pay for, though at some times, such as after school's
out, the service is slower.  Perhaps what the ADSL providers should do,
is set the rates according to what can be reliably obtained from their
own test sites.  If they can only deliver 1 Mb, then don't charge for 7
etc.  Since ADSL performance is not dependent on neighbourhood usage,
the results should be reasonably accurate.


-- 
Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org>
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists