Just wanted to let all Sympatico users here know that Bell recently upgraded their service plans to include higher speeds for the price of older and slower packages, but haven't upgraded any existing services.
My girlfriend was paying for 128kb service, when the new updated service is 500kbps for the same price.
I was paying for 5Mb Ultra service when the 10Mb service was being offered at that price.
So my girlfriend called, complained and got a free month's service and the 500kbps service at no extra charge.
I called, and had my service 'downgraded' from 5Mbps to 7Mbps, saving me $10/mo.
So if you're with sympatico, you best check your current service and check the bell site for their current speeds -- you could be paying too much, or not getting all the speed you're entitled to!
This has been a public service announcement.
Please note that changing 'updating' your service to a new plan may result in bandwidth caps .. as nefcanuck mentions below caveat emptor
Typical for Bell... but wait, don't try really downloading anything (Linux ISOs, etc.) or they'll throttle you for saturating their lines. :rolleyes:
Bittorrent? Throttle. Big FTP transfers? Throttle. HTTP downloads? Throttle.
Want a resolution? Buy a business level package with a SLA for bandwidth and availability. Isn't that grand?
That goes for Cogeco, too.
I've never been affected by their bandwidth throttling... and I've downloaded both Ubuntu and Redhat DVDs at the full speeds afforded to my line.
yet another buddy of mine had optimax 10 for $70/mo, and he just upgraded to the new service for $20 less per month, the same speed, and twice the download limit.
looks like everyone who's an existing customer of sympatico is getting the shaft in their recent upgrades.
Whoa there DP,
Major issue that long time Sympatico users (such as myself) have with these new "upgrades"
When you agree to take the speed increase or price decrease you will lose your unlimited bandwidth status and can never get it back (This has been confirmed multiple times over at dslreports.com)
So in your example of going from 5MBPS to 7MBPS I would end up getting slapped with a 60GB monthly limit and if I blew past that, it's $1/GB to a max of $30!
Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware
NefCanuck
well, the average user would never go over 60GB.
Even I, who downloads (legally) 4 and 5 gigs of stuff at a time have a hard time hitting 60GB in the course of a month.
and for the same cost I could have twice the speed with 100Gb of downloadable bandwidth.
Who the hell downloads 100GB in a month, and what do you do with it all?
I mean, my 700GB PVR drive took months to fill with porn...err.. movies.... and I don't know what to do with all of them...
that being said, it's a good catch for those that are concerned about the caps.
I could have sworn the last time I read my user agreement with Bell, they said they could impose bandwidth caps and limits at any time without a change to my service, so I doubt the old services unlimited services will remain unmolested for long.
darkpuppet,Dec 10 2008, 05:04 PM Wrote:well, the average user would never go over 60GB.
Even I, who downloads (legally) 4 and 5 gigs of stuff at a time have a hard time hitting 60GB in the course of a month.
and for the same cost I could have twice the speed with 100Gb of downloadable bandwidth.
Who the hell downloads 100GB in a month, and what do you do with it all?
I mean, my 700GB PVR drive took months to fill with porn...err.. movies.... and I don't know what to do with all of them...
[right][snapback]277990[/snapback][/right]
2 tenants: one downloads anime, other downloads pron. Add in a landlord (me) who downloads bout 5gigs a month and the result is:
OVER 300GB PER MONTH!
Oscar The Grouch,Dec 10 2008, 05:09 PM Wrote:darkpuppet,Dec 10 2008, 05:04 PM Wrote:well, the average user would never go over 60GB.
Even I, who downloads (legally) 4 and 5 gigs of stuff at a time have a hard time hitting 60GB in the course of a month.
and for the same cost I could haveÃÂ twice the speed with 100Gb of downloadable bandwidth.
Who the hell downloads 100GB in a month, and what do you do with it all?
I mean, my 700GB PVR drive took months to fill with porn...err.. movies.... and I don't know what to do with all of them...
[right][snapback]277990[/snapback][/right]
2 tenants: one downloads anime, other downloads pron. Add in a landlord (me) who downloads bout 5gigs a month and the result is:
OVER 300GB PER MONTH!
[right][snapback]277992[/snapback][/right]
your tennants should get their own internet, since you could be on the hook for pirating if they get caught.
I bought all my anime -- DVDs are so much easier to manage.
darkpuppet,Dec 10 2008, 04:12 PM Wrote:your tennants should get their own internet, since you could be on the hook for pirating if they get caught.
I bought all my anime -- DVDs are so much easier to manage.
[right][snapback]277993[/snapback][/right]
Not sure that would be the case DP, in effect he made the service available, he can't control how others use it (It'd be like me borrowing your 'Stang and booting along and getting caught gioing 40km/h over the posted limit, who gets busted? Me that's who, though you might be stuck with towing costs I suppose)
Buying the anime is the best way yeah, easy enough to rip a copy to your PC if you want to stream it elsewhere in the house (Though I never bother, my place is too small for that to be of any benefit :P)
NefCanuck
darkpuppet,Dec 10 2008, 12:59 PM Wrote:I've never been affected by their bandwidth throttling... [right][snapback]277958[/snapback][/right]
Either have I, but I try to spend my free time
away from the computer
Curious ....... what is your actual speed that you get on your 7 or 10mb service with bell ??
HOW ABOUT 0.7 MBPS IN STREETSVILLE.. THEY PROMISED US ALL 7MBPS OR HIGHER
paolo,Dec 10 2008, 07:35 PM Wrote:HOW ABOUT 0.7 MBPS IN STREETSVILLE.. THEY PROMISED US ALL 7MBPS OR HIGHER
[right][snapback]278008[/snapback][/right]
If you're actually having that problem, go to dslreports.com and go to the BEll Sympatico Direct forum and post there. It's how I went from 1.1MB/s to 5MB/s after getting my line moved to a different remote (and why I fear dropping Bell and going with another DSL ISP, no guarantees that I'll stay on the remote I'm on)
NefCanuck
Oscar The Grouch,Dec 10 2008, 05:09 PM Wrote:2 tenants: one downloads anime, other downloads pron. Add in a landlord (me) who downloads bout 5gigs a month and the result is:
OVER 300GB PER MONTH!
[right][snapback]277992[/snapback][/right]
We use about 400 GB/mo between our Rogers and Bell. ~320 GB of that is on Bell, the rest is on Rogers.
I refuse to change anything on my Bell because I have an unlimited account, and would rather not lose that.
Also, as for Bells throttling, I've never ever had it happen on FTP/HTTP. But it happens every day on Bittorrent, around the same times, usually late afternoon till midnightish. Rest of the time I get "full" speeds.
I put full in quotes because I never ever achieve my 5 Mbit speed, it could be the distance I am away, but I only ever get 2.5 Mbit. However it is reliable, extremely. Rogers cuts out so freaking often, Bell has never cut out yet. And with my Dual WAN router setup, I rarely lose internet now, bittorrent all thrown on Bell, everything else on Rogers, unless Rogers fails, then it throws everything on Bell. It's nice.
oh crap! So bell really screwed with me! A few months ago i was getting UNLIMITED bandwidth and paying $50 + taxes a month which came out to about $57. Bell customer rep calls me and tells me that I could get faster speeds and pay only 44.95 + tax a month. SO i thought he was giving me a better deal and i said sure.
Lo and behold i find out now that the catch was they put you on a 60GB monthly limit now (which i have gone over a few times already).
Damn bell.....they suck for manipulating and cheating on their own loyal customers.
Yup... that's why if I ever ditch Cogeco as an ISP, I'll go to one of the local "unlimited" DSL providers. I've gone over my cap with Cogeco a few times and since my service is an older service, they can't charge me for overages - they just send me nasty automated emails. :lol:
There's no reason why you can't have an unlimited Internet access plan (time-wise) with unlimited up and down consumption amounts these days. Sure, charge more for it, but then back the f*** off of what I am using it for.
Like Steveo says, you could be downloading 60GB+ a month of Linux distros. I've actually downloaded quite a few of them myself in the last few months. This is Canada and people aren't supposed to be guilty until proven innocent. We just fail at punishing the guilty. :rolleyes:
As far as I know, Rogers is almost semi-unlimited, in that, there's a cap on how much they'll charge for overage. Which I think is $25.
So $50/mo for 8 Mbit (10?) and 90 GB cap. And something like $1.50 for every GB you go over, to a max of $25. And they don't cut you off so far as I know. So $75/mo gets you unlimited internet via Rogers. They get their extra money out of you ($25) but you get your unlimited 'net.
Or have I interpreted this wrong?
Aka,Dec 11 2008, 10:32 AM Wrote:As far as I know, Rogers is almost semi-unlimited, in that, there's a cap on how much they'll charge for overage. Which I think is $25.
So $50/mo for 8 Mbit (10?) and 90 GB cap. And something like $1.50 for every GB you go over, to a max of $25. And they don't cut you off so far as I know. So $75/mo gets you unlimited internet via Rogers. They get their extra money out of you ($25) but you get your unlimited 'net.
Or have I interpreted this wrong?
[right][snapback]278053[/snapback][/right]
I'd have to see the Rogers Terms Of Service but I think even with the extra charges they could in fact probably cut you off for "
abusing" the system (and Rogers like Bell and any other ISP actually) is usually damn vague over what constitutes "
abuse"
NefCanuck
Well, I'm using my same provider of about four years (maybe 5 now) and have never had an increase in paiment, but I did have an increasein speed.
I had a 1.7Mbps line at first, then a few months later, they upped me to 3Mbps and about 2 1/2 years ago, got upgraded to a 5Mbps line.
My price, 29.95+ taxes. I have no bandwidth data limit and have stable speeds. Download is usually 530KB/s and max upload is 85KB/s.
Sure I'd like to get a 10Mbit line, but it's not available in my area... yet!
I'm not sure if I'm getting capped with my torrents, if I am, it does not realy bother me as I get my file either way.