Teksavvy Nightmare

[Anthony Verevkin]

> From: "Thomas Milne" <thomas.bruce.milne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

> I noticed that you are sending from Sympatico. Maybe you can answer
> my actual question, which was about technical drawbacks to their
> service. I see Bell adds things like anti-virus and so on on top of
> the service. Those things can sometimes have some unforeseen
> negative consequences.

> Do you find it generally fast and so on?

Thomas, I think I could answer your question. I have moved to the new
apartment a month ago and found that Bell might actually be an ok choice
for me. I like having fast Internet but I do not download much. So I
took the Bell 15/10 package with 60GB included for $43/mo promotional, $53
afterwards. Provided 60GB is enough for me that price was actually better
than Teksavvy who would also have to charge for the Dry-loop (I don't pay
that with Bell) and modem rental (Bell gave me the modem for free and
because they mentioned it is a $100 value deal I am sure I own it now).
And there is no contract here, just a 30-day notice.

I checked the speed with iperf towards my Blink connection at work and
I had a no-loss exchange at the speeds of 14.9/9.9 which is the way it
should be.

Bell security was also something I was afraid of but the modem itself
does not have any more features than what a stock router would have.
Also like with all other Bell routers you can use it in a pass-through
bridging mode and that's what I am doing, running a full scale Linux
router in a virtual machine which establishes pppoe session and runs
all the firewalling, VPNs, QoS and IPv6 encapsulation and serves DHCP
back into the router (which is acting as a LAN switch + AP at this
stage).

There was also an email from Bell with a link where I could have
downloaded their security software for my PC, which I didn't even check
cause I don't need it.

I cannot say if they throttle the torrent traffic as I don't do much
torrents - the only movie I have downloaded since went through overnight
and I can't say if it was fast or not cause I was sleeping :)

Overall I am fully satisfied with me going with Bell now and if you are
not going over 60GB/mo (which is a sum of upload and download), then
Bell might actually be cheaper than the "independent" ISPs.

Regards,
Anthony
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