Teksavvy Nightmare

Thu Apr 11 14:36:15 UTC 2013

On 2013-04-11 09:05, Thomas Milne wrote:
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:06 PM, John Moniz <john.moniz-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org
> <mailto:john.moniz-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 04/10/2013 07:22 PM, Anthony Verevkin wrote:
>
>             From: "Thomas Milne" <thomas.bruce.milne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
>             <mailto: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
>
>     Thomas, just to add to the above, I've been happy with my DSL
>     service in general (good consistent speeds) but am getting a bit
>     annoyed with the number of lost connections I've been having lately.
>     Unfortunately, I don't yet know if it's a problem within my walls or
>     outside. For example, today my wife complained that the internet
>     wasn't working. After resetting the modem and two switches (twice),
>     I got a connection. But it took two resets. I don't know what to
>     make of it as yet, still have some testing to do.
>
>
> You know, that's the one thing that stands out for me with Teksavvy, and
> the one reason I am being more patient with them now. I realized that in
> the past 5 years, I have never had more than a brief hiccup, nothing
> that required more than restarting the modem. Their customer service
> might be horrifyingly incompetent, but it appears that technically they
> remain 'on the ball'.
>
> I really appreciate everyone's input, even though it got a bit silly
> here and there. Setting aside the complaints about specific companies, I
> don't think any Canadian would disagree that sometimes it seems like we
> are living in a technological backwater. It is a shame.
>
> I'll stop before I say something communist and upset William P.
>
> Have an awesome day!
>
> --
> Thomas Milne

I'm on Teksavvy and I like them a lot, but I do note the occasional 
problem.  I test the dsl link every hour and reset ppp if its down. I 
have had two or three such logs in the 14 months I've been with them.

Note that these are outages that persist for more than 60 minutes, or I 
wouldn't detect and log them.

And yes, I have seen occasions where nudging ppp restores the link.

-- 
Michael Galea
--
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