Need a Good ISP

[HellblazerX]

I'm looking to go off campus next with a couple of other guys that I know (I'm currently first year at UWO), and I need some help finding a good ISP. The one provided by the landlord is from Rogers, but that's got a 60 gig limit, and 60 gigs between 5 university guys is not a lot at all.... Anyways, I'm looking for an ISP that's got unlimited bandwidth and pretty good speeds. I've been looking at Primus and MNSi right now, but I'm not sure if MNSi gives unlimited bandwidth or not.

[Dan]

Bell (sympatico) offers DSL in alot of places in sounther ontario so you may whont to check them out. I am not sure what they are like in terms of bandwidth right now.

Shaw cable is also a big ISP but they tend to be more in north Ontario and other provicences and have no cap from what i can tell. However there t.v. service sucks big time.

[Mackie]

Good ISP? Isn't that an oxymoron?

[md]

Even though rogers has a limit they are sometimes lax in enforcing it (I've never been subject to it) and even if they do decide to use it; they just charge $1.50 per gigabyte up to a maximum of $50. That's $10 more per person, not a whole lot.

[Skynet]

I use Teksavvy. No problems yet, though not as fast as my previous ISPs. (Rogers, Comcast) I hear they don't do packet shaping, but I don't know for certain. 200GB/mo for $30, unlimited for $40.

[fishtastic]

instead of trying to find good ISPs, first look at the Bad ISPs

[btiffin]

Hi,

I only have (recent) experience with Rogers. But I think for them, ISP is becoming a bit of a misnomer. I think Internet Connection Provider is more appropriate. They webspace they offer is just Yahoo. They dropped access to UseNet. For all the value-added, they assume Windows is your OS. ... That all said, I've had no trouble with speeds and the only outages (two) have been of the scheduled maintenance variety.

The contracts are somewhat restrictive; if you read some of the fine-print they disallow running servers, for instance, but as md points out enforcement of the rules seems lax. I see this as (almost) fair as it gives them some options for dealing with extreme cases. I've never been tagged with any limiters; and get a sense that they may only wield the big stick for the extreme cases.

I do like to support smaller shops, when possible, as we are quickly becoming a land of big-player only ISPs. I fear big-players are less likely to adhere to Net neutrality in the long run, so it may be up to brave (less lemming like) consumers to stem that tide.

Cheers,
Brian

[PaulButler]

Skynet @ Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:13 am wrote:

I use Teksavvy. No problems yet, though not as fast as my previous ISPs. (Rogers, Comcast) I hear they don't do packet shaping, but I don't know for certain. 200GB/mo for $30, unlimited for $40.

I am with Teksavvy as well. I have also had no problems so far, and the speeds seem pretty good. I haven't used Rogers so I don't know how the speeds compare though. I've been pretty happy with download speeds when I download files.

Also with Teksavvy the price doesn't include modem rental, but if you can get your hands on a free or cheap modem it's a pretty good deal.

[Dan]

@Teksavvy idea, it is my understanding that Teksavvy buys/rents there bandwith/network from bell so it uses the same lines sympatico does. Is there any advenatge over just using sympatico?

[Tony]

Dan @ Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:35 pm wrote:

Is there any advenatge over just using sympatico?

Different price model, could be cheaper. I think there's no bandwidth cap, and they don't shapeshift their traffic. Their support could also be better.

[HellblazerX]

Thanks a lot for the input guys. I think I'm gonna check out this TekSavvy company. Even if they do use Bell's network, there's a huge gap between their prices (unlimited with TekSavvy is 40 bucks, unlimited with Sympatico is around 75).

[Amailer]

TekSavvy is good, yes its even better than bell - since bell is just bad, their service and mainly their support.

TekSavvys premium cap is 200 GB, do you really need more than that? If your lucky they upgrade you for free to 6Mbps

[Dan]

Tony @ 31st January 2008, 1:20 pm wrote:

Dan @ Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:35 pm wrote:

Is there any advenatge over just using sympatico?

Different price model, could be cheaper. I think there's no bandwidth cap, and they don't shapeshift their traffic. Their support could also be better.

Bell does not shape traffic (if they did tecksavvys traffic whould be shpaed too any how). As for unlimited bandwith both do not give it unless you get a plan that speficly has that. As for price, it seems bell's low end packages are cheaper and faster however there high end ones are slightly more expesive but also faster. Also tecksavy tacks on fees that bell does not like $25 fee for moving in the first months, $25 fee for chaning your plan.

So i guse i don't get why peoleop go out of there way to get the same thing but costs more (for the basic plans) or the same thing but slower and a bit cheaper [about $10 for 2MBPs less].


@Amailer, that 6MPs thing is ADSL (acording to there site i think) and whould noramly cost $100/month well bells 7MBPs connection whould cost about $42/month. As for support, they whould have to go threw bell support them selves in alot of cases as they do not own the lines or much of the hardware since they are a reseller.

[Amailer]

Yeah thats the business plan your looking at. But yeah, as I said if your lucky you get it for free - some people get it, check the direct forum - they make requests.

The support in teksavvy is great

[Dan]

Amailer @ 31st January 2008, 7:16 pm wrote:

Yeah thats the business plan your looking at.

The business plan is to give away free things to your customers to keep them happy and not realzing they are being taken?

I am not sure how confident i whould be with an ISP that gives free stuff to peoleop they like from reading a fourm....