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My parents recently got an Apple TV and Netflix and finally realized how lovely Rogers' bandwidth caps are. My dad switched to Teksavvy and is paying pretty much the same price he paid for Rogers for more than twice the speed and 3x the bandwidth cap (they were getting 10 mbps on Rogers with a 95GB cap). All Rogers would offer him is a cap upgrade to 150GB.
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Mar 3, 2012 21:06
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Now I'm sort of sad I moved OUT of Shaw territory. I pay like 130-something for a 15mb/80GB + HD with extra channels. I would ditch Cogeco in a heartbeat if I could. Bell only has their weird under-10mb plans here, and I don't even remember what Rogers has but I doubt it's good judging by what I saw last time I checked. You know though, all said and done I've been pretty happy with Cogeco's service. Quick response to outages, good customer service. Terrible bitcap and average speeds at best, but I guess it could be a lot worse.
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Mar 3, 2012 21:13
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Cogeco just sold off their dead-weight Portuguese division, so hopefully they'll move some money into improving things on the home front.
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Mar 3, 2012 21:53
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Wondering if I can get some sage advice from the super-intelligent Canadian goons... We're looking to switch out of our current Rogers plan; to one offered by Techsavvy. (Tired of them dropping our Bandwidth cap). High Speed DSL 6 6Mb/800kb 300GB $34.99 TekSavvy Express Cable 12 12Mb/512kb 300GB $39.95 Those are the two we're currently looking at: We live in the South Ottawa area, and we do have a few criteria we are hoping to keep: My wife is adamant that we retain phone services, so that means either hooking up with Bell for a land line + regular DSL, Dry-loop DSL and a IP-based phone, or Cable with an IP-based phone. We're not running a VPN or secure server, or even any FTP sites, so upload speeds don't mean much. Wife watches shows online, I download my junk off Steam... In a nutshell, we're looking at the more cheaper methods available, without sacrificing poor service, etc... (I'm not all to familiar anymore with how the DSL services are in this region). [If we switch back to DSL, I'll have to extend the phone cable back into the house (that the Rogers Tech snipped when we switched). Much appreciated - -thanks!
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Mar 4, 2012 01:12
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Guigui posted:Wondering if I can get some sage advice from the super-intelligent Canadian goons... If you're happy with VoIP, I'd go with cable and get one of the TekTalk plans (http://teksavvy.com/en/res-homephone.asp). This avoids re-connection issues, and you'll get much better speeds on that cable plan (unless you're next to the Bell CO and you're currently not getting close to advertised speeds on cable).
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Mar 4, 2012 02:02
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Guigui posted:Wondering if I can get some sage advice from the super-intelligent Canadian goons... I'm in Ottawa and have Acanac cable. It's 24mbps unlimited for 35/month (you need a 12 month contract and pay in full in advance). I bought my own modem instead of getting one from them. They also give you free VoIP if you get the 12 month contract. It's way cheaper than teksavvy and as long as you never have to call them for support it's worth it.
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Mar 4, 2012 03:29
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Stanley Pain posted:MY 150GB Cap You guys seriously need to start rioting. I'm already writing letters to Congressmen. You don't gently caress with a man's internet.
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Mar 4, 2012 08:20
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Rand alPaul posted:You guys seriously need to start rioting. I'm already writing letters to Congressmen. You don't gently caress with a man's internet. I would seriously consider joining in an armed coup of Bell's board of directors and put their CEO's head on a stake in front of the CRTC's offices, with a note that said, "Do your loving jobs or else!" Bell built this huge infrastructure that is never anywhere near being close to 3/4 capacity with taxpayer's money, and somehow the Government forgot about that and thinks Bell has the right to dictate how much everyone in the Country has to pay to use it.  "Bell, remember those hundreds of millions we gave you to improve our communications infrastructure?" "No."I'm so happy I'm with Eastlink. Never had more than one outage a year (that I've noticed) and I have never once heard anything about my bandwidth usage.
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Mar 5, 2012 04:05
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Is cable theft of telco lines the only job that's available in Surrey? They seriously need to crack down on the scrapyards that buy "scrap" copper in the Vancouver area.
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Mar 6, 2012 19:46
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Last I heard they were going to pass a law that does just that but the scrap dealers were getting all pissy about it saying it would introduce unbearable documentation requirements on their part.
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Mar 6, 2012 19:53
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Scaramouche posted:Last I heard they were going to pass a law that does just that but the scrap dealers were getting all pissy about it saying it would introduce unbearable documentation requirements on their part. They are just introducing a law like this in the UK, after stealing the cables from rail lines became popular, leading to delays across the country and I believe some accidents. Yes, the scrap merchants don't want the law because it's bad for their business, but people are stealing drain covers, phone lines, roofing etc. For $50 of scrap they are causing $16000 of damage.
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Mar 7, 2012 04:00
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Scarboy posted:I'm in Ottawa and have Acanac cable. It's 24mbps unlimited for 35/month (you need a 12 month contract and pay in full in advance). I bought my own modem instead of getting one from them. They also give you free VoIP if you get the 12 month contract. It's way cheaper than teksavvy and as long as you never have to call them for support it's worth it. You wouldn't happen to recommend what sort of VOIP modem best sorted for this use? I'm thinking of getting a DOCSIS 3.0 modem (Thomson DCM475) - would be nice if I could get a Motorola SBV6220 but apparently they are only offered to the cable companies themselves...
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Mar 7, 2012 04:30
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Just a quick note to all Teksavvy cable users: Rogers has bumped their 24mbit plan to 28mbit and are upgrading the third party ISP plans as well. I got the speed bump a day ago automatically.
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Mar 7, 2012 05:34
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Guigui posted:You wouldn't happen to recommend what sort of VOIP modem best sorted for this use? I'm thinking of getting a DOCSIS 3.0 modem (Thomson DCM475) - would be nice if I could get a Motorola SBV6220 but apparently they are only offered to the cable companies themselves... Not really sure because I don't use the service myself. People I know who use it just bought a separate sip ata. Also, I think I've received the 28mbps update as well. I've been getting constant speeds of ~3.4mb/sec.
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Mar 9, 2012 04:36
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Reading this thread is depressing the hell out of me as an American student at an university run by morons. All the lines are capped at 1.5mb (megabit) down and something like .5mb up. It takes over an hour to download 300 megs, and about, or more than, 18 hours for 9 gigs running overnight.
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Mar 9, 2012 07:56
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Start.ca looks to be doing Cogeco TPIA for all territories in Ontario starting on March 21st. The 20/1.5 300GB package looks pretty good at $49.95 a month. Anyone used them for DSL or know what their reputation is like? The webpage is a bit generic and I've never heard of them before. I'm a bit worried about these guys getting slammed by signups looking to get away from low caps and high congestion in the evenings, that's what Teksavvy is currently going through on many POIs with Rogers.
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Mar 9, 2012 16:13
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They claim to have 1Gbps lit up from Cogeco (and Rogers) on 10Gbps links, so hopefully things will be okay. I'm going to wait for a few months to see how it goes and if any other providers get on the TPIA train.
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Mar 10, 2012 17:24
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Seems that there might be some good news on the horizon.quote:Wireless market in Canada opens to new carriers Rest of the article here: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1146186--wireless-market-in-canada-opens-to-new-carriers?bn=1 It's not tearing down the 3-way monopoly we have going on here, but it's a start.
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Mar 15, 2012 03:05
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Blistex posted:Seems that there might be some good news on the horizon. It's actually a really lovely deal for the new entrants and helps the Big 3 more than anything. The new carriers can now acquire as much foreign capital as they want, however there is no explicit reserved spectrum for them in the auction. While this guarantees a single 5mhz block for one of them (which isn't great in start,) they will now have to play the bidding game with Bell/Telus/Rogers for that block who are sure to make it expensive as gently caress for them. For example in the last auction (where there was an explicit reservation) 20Mhz in Toronto alone cost Bell $311 million. Wind got all of Southern Ontario for $275m. It sums up to "You're going to have to go up against the large carriers on a level playing field in the auction, but you're more than welcome to raise the money to counter the 3 billion they spent in the last auction (and are surely going to do again!)" I made a more effort post here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3147767&pagenumber=136#post401561725 less than three fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Mar 15, 2012 |
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Mar 15, 2012 03:19
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I did four years at uni in Quebec and I can say the internet in Canada is garbage. The speeds suck and the prices and packages offered by the two providers were basically the same and terrible (bell and videotron). I think we had a 60gb monthly cap for 3 people in my apt (people would literally wait to go to campus to do any heavy downloading). Not only that, but the customer service was some of the worst I've seen in any company; bell especially. I literally had to start yelling to get people to come out and fix our connection. They would never admit something was seriously wrong despite us living in an apt the had seen hell and hadnt been renovated since the 60s. Of course it took their tech three hours to fix. Also we had Bell drop the "change our address please" order twice in a row delaying us getting internet for about three weeks. Lastly in Quebec you have to go through the crappy Indian call center and when youve finally convinced them youre not an idiot and you need real help you get patched over to the Quebec office. At the Quebec office people are even harder to understand. English is a secondary language in Quebec but I would wager close to 1 million people in the Metro Montreal area (where I was) speak it as a primary language so all firms worth a poo poo have well-spoken fluent speakers. Side note we had an observation in Montreal, the less you needed someone's help the better their english was (girl making your subway sandwich, friendly person on the street, bartender) the more the person should know English the worse it is (police, woman selling bus tickets to the United States (I still can't get over that one she didn't know "wednesday". I butchered French while pointing at a calendar to get the point across), and call center help). I'm not trying to get on a high-horse here and demand people speak english in a place where it's a second language, but english language education in Montreal is excellent and 85% of people there speak it very well to flawlessly so when someone whos job it is is to handle English inquiries and they can't do it it becomes frustrating. To give my self an alibi for not learning better French, I took 6 years of spanish in school and was taking Korean at Uni on a whim at the time so my plate was full. Rant over. Anyways the internet in the States is so much less painful despite all the privacy, throttling, et al.
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Mar 15, 2012 20:09
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If anyone is wondering how stupid they think Canadian consumers are, I just got a BestBuy.ca email flyer that, I poo poo you not, has the words "Upgrade your home network for speedy online tax filing" above a pic of a D-Link and Linksys router. 
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Mar 15, 2012 23:26
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Quodio Stotes posted:internet in Canada is garbage. This is plain and simple why people want more competition. If the few companies providing Internet weren't the biggest assholes in any industry in the country (if Rogers and Bell went bankrupt I'd shed no tears) nobody would complain. Internet here is marginally better than the worst country (New Zealand). Sorry, not good enough.
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Mar 16, 2012 00:20
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Um did you all not see that Rogers study that definitively proved for once and for all that Canada's internet is amazing? 
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Mar 16, 2012 00:47
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Martytoof posted:Um did you all not see that Rogers study that definitively proved for once and for all that Canada's internet is amazing? Oh I did. It hurt my head with how badly they had to skew things.
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Mar 16, 2012 00:52
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Its not the worst here anyways you can have some pretty amazing internet in the lower mainland of bc but it'll cost you. http://shaw.ca/Internet/Compare-Plans/ http://teksavvy.com/en/res-internet.asp http://www.telus.com/content/internet/high-speed/compare-high-speed-plans.jsp Choose BC as the province as that matters for telus and teksavvy It would be nice if its cheaper but thems the breaks.
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Mar 16, 2012 01:10
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It's ok, Bell is buying is Astral Media now. Get ready for more bullshit commercial and ads about how great Bell is and how awesome the internet in Canada really is.
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Mar 16, 2012 17:44
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But wait! The CRTC has to approve this acquisition! 
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Mar 16, 2012 20:59
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Septimus posted:But wait! The CRTC has to approve this acquisition! One time they forced Canwest to sell off CFCF-TV when they would have owned every English-language commercial station in Montreal. Surely they'd be wary of media concentration today, too. 
The Dark One fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Mar 16, 2012 |
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Mar 16, 2012 22:54
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So I sent an e-mail to the Minister of Industry, Christian Paradis, regarding the broadband internet prices. Here is the response. For those that like a TL;DR before even seeing the text, the Minister believes that Canadians are offered a very good service in "a competitive marketplace" and that we have "a variety of choice in terms of both price and quality". That's the TL;DR of only the first paragraph but it's enough to make you hate everything. My main point, the rampant profiteering over a virtually infinite resource, went apparently unnoticed. "The Office of the Prime Minister forwarded to the Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Industry, a copy of your email regarding broadband Internet prices. I was asked to reply on behalf of the Minister. Canadian consumers can choose their Internet service provider in a competitive marketplace where retail prices and terms of service are not regulated. The competition between telephone and cable networks, as well as suppliers of satellite, wireless and other telecommunications services, has given Canadians a variety of choice in terms of both price and quality. Provisions in both the Telecommunications Act and the Competition Act ensure that the competitive marketplace operates effectively. As part of a broader strategy to foster competition, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulates wholesale access to certain services offered by the large telephone and cable companies. As you note, these large companies are required to lease portions of their networks to competitors at regulated rates and terms, enabling them to provide retail Internet services to consumers. The resulting increased competition in the marketplace ultimately has a positive effect on the consumer, who will benefit from greater choice and improved products and services. Consumers have the freedom to explore offerings from competing Internet service providers should they be dissatisfied with the quality of their current service. The government’s goal is to maintain a competitive marketplace that delivers high quality services to all Canadians at affordable prices. Industry Canada continues to monitor domestic and international developments to ensure that our legislative and regulatory frameworks remain effective. Thank you for taking the time to write on this important issue. Yours very truly," Bolded is the best part. Pr0phecy fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Mar 27, 2012 |
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Mar 27, 2012 04:59
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I, too, would love a job where I can just copy and paste form responses to people who email me, without actually reading what they wrote. Vote Martytoof 2016
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Mar 27, 2012 14:03
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Anyone use unblock-us? I was looking around for a VPN solution for accessing the US version of netflix, hulu, etc and this looks like a great service although it's not a real VPN, more of a DNS redirector. Pros/cons?
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Mar 27, 2012 20:01
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priznat posted:Anyone use unblock-us? I was looking around for a VPN solution for accessing the US version of netflix, hulu, etc and this looks like a great service although it's not a real VPN, more of a DNS redirector. i've used it for a while, you do sometimes run into issues with streaming and connection but it does work most of the time. A real vpn would work better but its basically impossible to setup on things like a ps3 and other content viewing devices and un-block us works fine.
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Mar 27, 2012 20:04
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I just set it up and it's working fine for my parents. Also, moving to Vancouver, yay. Good internet here I come.
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Mar 27, 2012 20:08
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priznat posted:Anyone use unblock-us? I was looking around for a VPN solution for accessing the US version of netflix, hulu, etc and this looks like a great service although it's not a real VPN, more of a DNS redirector. I have it setup at the router level and its like magic. I just download the netflix/hulu/whatever apps, visit the websites, whatever and it just works. Its really really nice. As an example I wanted to watch a BBC show the other night so I just visited the UK iplayer site and it worked great.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:28
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Awesome. I will have to figure out how to set it up on my Airport Extreme which is behind the Telus ActionTec V1000H now (it doesn't let you muck with DNS settings, sadly).
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Mar 28, 2012 00:19
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Sprawl posted:i've used it for a while, you do sometimes run into issues with streaming and connection but it does work most of the time. How does it work? I see that they use custom DNS servers, does it redirect you to a caching proxy they run or something when you hit a supported URL?
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Mar 28, 2012 01:59
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DuckConference posted:How does it work? I have been very impressed with the service they offer. For the most part it is seamless, as it does not always redirect, and when they do it is only when you connect from a different IP to confirm who you are. I have been using it from multiple locations, on multiple devices, without a hitch for some time. If you want to try it I think they have a 7 day trial period, which is enough to answer any questions you have.
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Mar 28, 2012 02:18
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8ender posted:I have it setup at the router level and its like magic. I just download the netflix/hulu/whatever apps, visit the websites, whatever and it just works. Its really really nice. Been using unblock-us at router level as well for acouple of months and it's been pretty flawless. It's "set it and forget it" type of magic.
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Mar 28, 2012 02:28
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DuckConference posted:How does it work? I see that they use custom DNS servers, does it redirect you to a caching proxy they run or something when you hit a supported URL? I believe they run a custom geo-location database to always identify their customers to the targeted zone of the website. Since the geolocation reports a valid acepted location, you don't get locked out. I'd kill for a reasonable internet service with decent upload speeds in canada that is also not stupidly capped for bw. iLikeMidgets posted:Been using unblock-us at router level as well for acouple of months and it's been pretty flawless. It's "set it and forget it" type of magic. Same, though I had some issues with one of their dns servers, for some reason. I requested a different set and since then its worked fine 99% of the time. The wii seems to be a bit bugged, but I'm guessing that is the wii netflix app, and not so much their service.
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Mar 28, 2012 02:30
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What are my options, other than Bell or Rogers, in Cambridge, ON? I currently have TechSavvy DSL but it can't go any faster then 5mb because of old phones lines. I don't want to move to TS cable yet because they seem to have many, many issues and Kitchener is currently in a stop sell. I don't play any games but I do download and stream quite a bit.
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Mar 28, 2012 15:28
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