Canadian internet access gets shittier

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Canadian internet access gets shittier

Wistful of Dollars: Aug 25, 2009

slidebite posted:

I have been on Teksavvy 25/2 DSL unlimited in Alberta (Telus land) for going on a year now, ever since Telus made good about shrinking the caps.

Other than a couple of hiccups on install, I have been very satisfied with their service. Even if they were to give an increase out here, I'd happily pay it just for the sake of having unlimited. Pretty much everything on Netflix is now SuperHD and we watch a lot of it. That and with video games becoming truly monstrous both on PCs but now on consoles too (I've heard 41GB downloads on the PS4!), I'd always be wondering when Telus would try to gently caress me over if I had a cap, so I don't even worry about it.

Amusing anecdote: when I ordered my Telus service a few weeks ago the sales guy informed me that it had 300 or 400gb per month (I can't remember which) but added 'Don't worry about it too much, as long as you're not two or three times over that no one is going to bother to take a look.'

# ? Nov 22, 2013 14:34

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# ? May 13, 2024 19:35

DirtyRobot: Dec 15, 2003; it was a normally happy sunny day... but Dirty Robot was dirty

slidebite posted:

Yeah, a lot of the posters are complete tools but I'll give Teksavvy credit, they respond there and are pretty prompt and active on their forum.

The amount of credit Tek Savvy deserves is directly correlated to how much of a tool and how totally unreasonable some posters can be.

That is to say, Tek Savvy deserves a lot of credit.

edit: Actually one of the reasons I'm still with Tek Savvy, and I don't really consider shopping around for a cheaper option, is they still seem more transparent than many others (especially the big guys, obviously). I've had fantastic service from them in the past, though admittedly I haven't had real issues in the past year or two.

DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Nov 22, 2013

# ? Nov 22, 2013 15:02

Evis: Feb 28, 2007; Flying Spaghetti Monster

AmbassadorTaxicab posted:

I really don't like the wording on the opt-out page. The options for opting out are "Relevant targeted ads" or "Unfiltered random ads".

They'll still collect your data either way. It seems they've been doing that for a while already.

# ? Nov 22, 2013 16:37

Zigmidge: May 12, 2002; Exsqueeze me, why the sour face? I'm here to lemon aid you. Let's juice it.

Let's not forget the tools are here too. There was a teksavvy hating fad for no reason at all in here a short while ago.

# ? Nov 23, 2013 02:49

ZShakespeare: Jul 20, 2003; The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!

AmbassadorTaxicab posted:

I really don't like the wording on the opt-out page. The options for opting out are "Relevant targeted ads" or "Unfiltered random ads".

They are going to show you ads period. All opting out of tracking does is make it so they can't target ads at you that you are more likely to click through on. It's common for ad vendors to use that terminology to sell you on tracking; for example, google uses almost the exact same verbage if you disable tracking (web history) in your dashboard.

Basically it's up to you to decide if you want to be shown ads that might interest you, or if you don't want some ambiguous entities knowing your habits.

# ? Nov 23, 2013 07:46

less than three: Aug 9, 2007; Fallen Rib

ZShakespeare posted:

Basically it's up to you to decide if you want to be shown ads that might interest you, or if you don't want some ambiguous entities knowing your habits.

They're collecting your usage habits regardless of which option you pick. The opt out is solely to say "don't use the data you're collecting to personalize my ads."

They'll still use it in the aggregate to sell to people/tailor their offerings.

# ? Nov 23, 2013 11:35

Wistful of Dollars: Aug 25, 2009

My Telus 50 was hooked up this morning in downtown Calgary:

I am pleased. Nice upgrade from 7.

# ? Nov 23, 2013 17:55

dc3k: Feb 18, 2003; what.

Anyone with Telus in Toronto get horrible constant packet loss? It doesn't really seem to affect downloads or anything, but I have started gaming again and it's pretty annoying. I don't think it's any of my hardware because it happens with or without my router on both of my computers.

# ? Nov 23, 2013 21:36

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

My Telus 50 in Vancouver area has gone to complete poo poo, with huge pings and lovely down/upload speeds according to speedtest.

What is up with Telus.

edit: hm I picked another server on speedtest and the ping/rates are fine. But all my battlefield servers have terrible ping now. Is there some internet wide issue happening?

priznat fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Nov 24, 2013

# ? Nov 24, 2013 05:02

less than three: Aug 9, 2007; Fallen Rib

priznat posted:

My Telus 50 in Vancouver area has gone to complete poo poo, with huge pings and lovely down/upload speeds according to speedtest.

What is up with Telus.

edit: hm I picked another server on speedtest and the ping/rates are fine. But all my battlefield servers have terrible ping now. Is there some internet wide issue happening?

Mine is fine at the moment.

# ? Nov 24, 2013 08:28

Verviticus: Mar 13, 2006; I'm just a total piece of shit and I'm not sure why I keep posting on this site. Christ, I have spent years with idiots giving me bad advice about online dating and haven't noticed that the thread I'm in selects for people that can't talk to people worth a damn.

priznat posted:

My Telus 50 in Vancouver area has gone to complete poo poo, with huge pings and lovely down/upload speeds according to speedtest.

What is up with Telus.

edit: hm I picked another server on speedtest and the ping/rates are fine. But all my battlefield servers have terrible ping now. Is there some internet wide issue happening?

At least with league of legends, sometimes it starts routing through random poo poo in california for an extra 100ms. Everything else is fine, but cogent takes packets from telus and just fucks them before passing them off to the final server.

# ? Nov 25, 2013 05:42

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

Hmm, interesting. It seemed to go away after about an hour so who knows what it was. Overall my service has been very solid.

# ? Nov 25, 2013 05:47

Schmerm: Sep 1, 2000; College Slice

I just switched to Distributel cable in North York. It's supposed to be 6M down but I only get 1.2. The cable install guy used his tester thingy and said the cable quality was good, so what other factors are there? Is it just IP congestion or is there something in the way cable internet works itself?

# ? Nov 26, 2013 05:46

Methanar: Sep 26, 2013; by the sex ghost

Schmerm posted:

I just switched to Distributel cable in North York. It's supposed to be 6M down but I only get 1.2. The cable install guy used his tester thingy and said the cable quality was good, so what other factors are there? Is it just IP congestion or is there something in the way cable internet works itself?

Do you have megabyte and megabit confused?

6Mb/s is only 0.75MB/s

# ? Nov 26, 2013 23:46

A c E: Jun 18, 2007; Is this weird? Is this too weird? Do you need to sit down?

DirtyRobot posted:

The amount of credit Tek Savvy deserves is directly correlated to how much of a tool and how totally unreasonable some posters can be.

That is to say, Tek Savvy deserves a lot of credit.

edit: Actually one of the reasons I'm still with Tek Savvy, and I don't really consider shopping around for a cheaper option, is they still seem more transparent than many others (especially the big guys, obviously). I've had fantastic service from them in the past, though admittedly I haven't had real issues in the past year or two.

While a lot of it is undeserved and they usually do a bang up job, back in September when things were at its worse, it was a nightmare. It would take hours to get a hold of support, regardless of when you called them. People were down for weeks, no status updates in certain areas unless you called in or got a response on dslreports. The only reason I knew it was a DHCP issue in my area was because of Twitter reports from other TSI customers. As it took me 3 hours to get through to phone support.

I get that it was Rogers fault we were down but trying to wait on the drat phone when you don't get reception in the house and your voip line is down because the internet is down is a bitch when it takes 3 hours to get through. I got hung up on after a few minutes because the reception cut out briefly, he didn't give me a decent chance. Their call back feature was down, so you actually had to wait too.

It took them over 48 hours to respond to my "ticket" on dslreports. The response was just a cut and paste fill questionnaire asking me for all the crap they usually have to do.

Orders were also not being put into their system, as in towards the end of Sept I upgraded my package using the online portal and didn't hear anything from TSI for a week, so I called in and they told me they could see the order but it was left in limbo and if I hadn't of contacted them, nothing would have been done which is pretty crazy to me.

That said, I am happy with their service, but I can understand why people exploded back then. Basically, the service is great and I have no reason to switch, but I always keep in mind that any slight change to my service will result in at least a day of downtime because Rogers seems to use it as an excuse to try and gain customers. At least TSI don't knowingly lie to me, not thatI've caught them on anyways.

RE: TSI Bandwidth, I'm surprised they are allowed to have a cap when they offer no way to check if you are on cable. I know they are working on adding it, but that just seems unfair, as not all routers can track it.
If they are just warning like Cogeco used to (every month I'd get my "first warning", with my record being 900% over my limit of 100GB) then its not a big issue. Doesn't effect me either way because I went with unlimited.

Speaking of crazy internet prices, if I remember when I get home I'll post the "awesome deals" we were offered by a technician that came out to service my workplace's crappy internet last week.

Schmerm posted:

I just switched to Distributel cable in North York. It's supposed to be 6M down but I only get 1.2. The cable install guy used his tester thingy and said the cable quality was good, so what other factors are there? Is it just IP congestion or is there something in the way cable internet works itself?

I assume you are testing with speedtest.net or something? And you've tried multiple servers?

# ? Nov 26, 2013 23:52

EngineerJoe: Aug 8, 2004; -=whore=-

TSi has a cap but isn't enforcing it yet. They will start in February and they'll have a reporting tool ready when they do.

# ? Nov 27, 2013 17:01

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

Bell is accused of anticompetitive internet fuckery. Again.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dashboard/bell-accused-charging-canadians-more-competitor-services-215517128.html

quote:

It�s shaping up to be a tough winter for Bell�s media division, what with Rogers� announcement Tuesday of a blockbuster agreement that will give the rival company rights to all national NHL games for the next 12 years. But before that kicks in next season, it�s looking like Bell is going to have to deal with a complaint that its mobile television service is violating Internet fairness rules.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is currently taking comments from the public on the complaint, filed last week by University of Manitoba student Ben Klass. The application, which is known as a Part 1 Proceeding requesting a full CRTC investigation, accuses Bell of unfairly selling access to its own television content at a lower cost than regular Internet video options such as Netflix or YouTube.

Bell is offering wireless customers 10 hours of viewing for $5 a month that doesn�t count against monthly data usage caps. According to the filing, that amount of regular Internet video would use up the equivalent of $40 of data, meaning that the company is charging subscribers eight times more for using services others than its own.

Klass says this is a violation of the CRTC�s net neutrality rules, established in 2009, which prohibit Internet providers from favouring one type of traffic over another for reasons other than preventing network congestion.

�This is not fair. There are other services and apps that customers may prefer and they�re essentially being charged way more for them,� Klass says. �If they can make money offering you their Bell TV for $5 a month, why can�t they sell you the other stuff for $5 a month too? This whole thing kind of stinks.�

Under CRTC rules, all members of the public � including Bell � have until Jan. 9 to submit comments to the application, after which there will be a 10-day response period. The commission will then decide whether or not to launch a full investigation into the matter.

Bell isn�t saying much about the complaint as of yet and is not indicating whether it will comment on it. �We�d be happy to respond to any CRTC inquiries on Bell's mobile media products,� a spokesperson says.

Klass�s filing has already attracted support from the Ottawa-based Public Interest Advocacy Centre consumer advocacy group. PIAC is looking to both expand and reduce the application�s scope � the investigation should include the likes of Rogers and Videotron, which are similarly selling mobile video that is exempt from data caps, PIAC says, but also not delve into some of the larger media and network issues that Klass brings up.

�We don�t want to go wandering off into the fields of whether the whole broadcasting system can support the model that Bell is using and whether it�s the right way to solve the �Netflix problem,�� says PIAC executive director John Lawford. �This is a very specific thing. He did an okay job, but it�s best to be laser focused.�

While the inevitable showdown has all the trappings of a David-versus-Goliath fight � a university student who says he sacrificed a lot of sleep over the month it took to prepare his filing, versus the wealthy corporate behemoth � it actually highlights a problem with the CRTC�s net neutrality rules, some observers say. When the regulator enacted its framework four years ago, it opted to put the onus on consumers to point out misdeeds rather than taking on that responsibility itself.

�The commission isn�t really set up to be a policeman, they are more like a judge in a dispute,� writes York University professor David Ellis on his blog. �Thus it�s the role of people like Ben and others to raise issues when they believe the rules have been broken, and then it�s the role of the CRTC to reach a finding on the alleged violation.�

Klass doesn�t necessarily mind that set-up. �It�s somewhat unfortunate that it�s not institutional, but it does show there�s a human element to all of it,� he says. �They need this input from people. There�s the political interest from the top, but for this sort of thing to function there really needs to be interest from the bottom as well.�

Net neutrality has been a hotly debated topic in both Canada and the United States in recent years. Proponents have argued that Internet providers must be prevented from unfairly interfering with traffic in order to preserve competition and innovation. Network owners, however, have argued that traffic needs to be managed in order to keep everything working smoothly.

# ? Nov 27, 2013 18:48

Schmerm: Sep 1, 2000; College Slice

Methanar posted:

Do you have megabyte and megabit confused?

6Mb/s is only 0.75MB/s

Sadly, no, I don't have them confused. 6Mbits down / 256 kbits up is the plan. I'm getting 130kiloBYTES per second (about 1.2ish MBits).

# ? Nov 27, 2013 18:55

DariusLikewise: Oct 4, 2008; You wore that on Halloween?

Schmerm posted:

Sadly, no, I don't have them confused. 6Mbits down / 256 kbits up is the plan. I'm getting 130kiloBYTES per second (about 1.2ish MBits).

Are you doing speedtests on Wifi?
Have you tested during different times of day?
What website are you using for speedtests?
Tried direct to your modem with only one computer on to rule out 3rd party equipment?

All the standard tech support questions.

# ? Nov 27, 2013 19:29

The Dark One: Aug 19, 2005; I'm your friend and I'm not going to just stand by and let you do this!

I tried to use Bell's CTV livestream, but it blocked me based on my ISP (Rogers). It claimed that any ISP can qualify for the live streaming if they meet certain requirements, but does anyone know which providers have actually been accepted?

# ? Nov 27, 2013 20:18

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

This is probably old news to people here, but I just noticed how much my wifi shits the bed with the microwave is on.

Downloading some steam games and noticed I was only pulling about 500kb/sec, then I could hear my wife heating up lunch. As soon as the microwave was off it went back up to 2.9MB/sec

# ? Dec 1, 2013 21:01

ZShakespeare: Jul 20, 2003; The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!

Using a 5GHz wifi radio generally fixes that. I had it happen a long time ago before the smartphone thing started and fixed it with a power drill and a spool of Cat5.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 21:03

DariusLikewise: Oct 4, 2008; You wore that on Halloween?

slidebite posted:

This is probably old news to people here, but I just noticed how much my wifi shits the bed with the microwave is on.

Downloading some steam games and noticed I was only pulling about 500kb/sec, then I could hear my wife heating up lunch. As soon as the microwave was off it went back up to 2.9MB/sec

Wifi is pretty much a tech support nightmare. The 2.4ghz bandwith is so oversaturated now and running wifi say through a piece of furniture can cut the speed in half. Won't be long until the 5.0ghz band runs into the same problems.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 21:32

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

Yeah I am planning on eventually getting most rooms wired up so they can have their own wireless access point, having one in the middle of the house sucks poo poo.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 21:34

Kachunkachunk: Jun 6, 2011

I think 5GHz is even more prone to degradation from obstructions than even 2.4GHz, isn't it?
Also I don't know if it has hit anyone else yet, but an unlimited bandwidth add-on from Bell for $30 on top of your bill (at most - $10 for someone that's fully packaged): is this a sign of everything getting better for us finally?

# ? Dec 3, 2013 04:46

Wistful of Dollars: Aug 25, 2009

Speaking anecdotally my building is completely saturated at 2.4. When the internet man came we ran the tests and found that at best I was getting 18Mbps over the wireless, on a 50Mbps connection. When we moved to 5 gigawiggles it jumped back up to 50Mbps over the wireless. Let's hope it stays that way here for a good long time.

# ? Dec 3, 2013 05:29

ZShakespeare: Jul 20, 2003; The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!

Almost certainly going to switch to Telus as I'm facing my second multiday outage in as many months. Any pitfalls I need to worry about? Do I need to get them to do anything to make the modem not terrible, assuming I have my own really great router that I'd like to use?

# ? Dec 12, 2013 22:54

Sprawl: Nov 21, 2005; I'm a huge retarded sperglord who can't spell, but Starfleet Dental would still take me and I love them for it!

ZShakespeare posted:

Almost certainly going to switch to Telus as I'm facing my second multiday outage in as many months. Any pitfalls I need to worry about? Do I need to get them to do anything to make the modem not terrible, assuming I have my own really great router that I'd like to use?

Ah turn off their wireless and never use it i've always found it to be poo poo on their modem that they use for the optik service.

# ? Dec 12, 2013 23:03

ZShakespeare: Jul 20, 2003; The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose!

I guess what I'm asking is if their modem is configurable enough that I can just disable the wireless and have it forward all traffic to my router with no filtering. Can I set static routes? Better yet, what model are they using currently? I can probably look this up.

# ? Dec 12, 2013 23:17

Sprawl: Nov 21, 2005; I'm a huge retarded sperglord who can't spell, but Starfleet Dental would still take me and I love them for it!

ZShakespeare posted:

I guess what I'm asking is if their modem is configurable enough that I can just disable the wireless and have it forward all traffic to my router with no filtering. Can I set static routes? Better yet, what model are they using currently? I can probably look this up.

Its configurable like a normal dlink/linksys where you can turn it off/on and do some static ips dunno about static routes but I know you can setup a dmz so if you have a proper router already you can set it up halfway decent.

# ? Dec 12, 2013 23:33

less than three: Aug 9, 2007; Fallen Rib

ZShakespeare posted:

I guess what I'm asking is if their modem is configurable enough that I can just disable the wireless and have it forward all traffic to my router with no filtering. Can I set static routes? Better yet, what model are they using currently? I can probably look this up.

It's an Actiontec V1000H. You can disable the wireless and place your router's IP in the DMZ for untouched access. You're performing double-NAT, but it works pretty well. There is no bridge mode available without jumping through some unsupported hoops (if the firmware on your device is old enough)

# ? Dec 13, 2013 04:29

Evis: Feb 28, 2007; Flying Spaghetti Monster

The double NAT might cause issues with UPnP, no?

# ? Dec 13, 2013 04:41

less than three: Aug 9, 2007; Fallen Rib

Evis posted:

The double NAT might cause issues with UPnP, no?

Yeah, it might.

# ? Dec 13, 2013 05:37

Sprawl: Nov 21, 2005; I'm a huge retarded sperglord who can't spell, but Starfleet Dental would still take me and I love them for it!

I swtiched to Teksavvy again on a shaw connection in the lower mainland and i'm getting all the bandwidth i'm paying for 25/2.5/unlimited for $45/month. Shaw was charging me $50 for 10/.5 100 gig/month and in the new year they were going to start charging for bandwidth overages which would have made my bill over $100.

# ? Dec 19, 2013 21:28

Mister Facetious: Apr 21, 2007; I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

It took me ten days, but I'm on TekSavvy, and couldn't be happier.
I can actually complete speedtests, and vids on the Arirang TV app for my Samsung no longer randomly stop playing. Also, 300gb limit vs. 120gb for only two-thirds the price. :pwn:

gently caress you Rogers, you lazy, anti-competitive, corrupt, overpriced, piece of poo poo.

# ? Dec 21, 2013 05:34

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

Mister Macys posted:

It took me ten days, but I'm on TekSavvy, and couldn't be happier.
I can actually complete speedtests, and vids on the Arirang TV app for my Samsung no longer randomly stop playing. Also, 300gb limit vs. 120gb for only two-thirds the price.

gently caress you Rogers, you lazy, anti-competitive, corrupt, overpriced, piece of poo poo.

Speaking of, looks like Rogers is snapping up all sorts of streaming licenses for Canada.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/10/rogers-online-streaming_n_4570780.html

# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:01

priznat: Jul 7, 2009; Let's get drunk and kiss each other all night.

Odds on Rogers' streaming service being a giant lump of crap? I'd say pretty good.

# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:26

EngineerJoe: Aug 8, 2004; -=whore=-

slidebite posted:

Speaking of, looks like Rogers is snapping up all sorts of streaming licenses for Canada.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/10/rogers-online-streaming_n_4570780.html

For a Netflix competitor that will no doubt be tied to a Rogers cable sub or at least be heavily discounted with one.

# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:28

A c E: Jun 18, 2007; Is this weird? Is this too weird? Do you need to sit down?

EngineerJoe posted:

For a Netflix competitor that will no doubt be tied to a Rogers cable sub or at least be heavily discounted with one.

And of course, bandwidth for this service won't count against your cap.

Either way, I'm expecting it to be a huge flop because Rogers can't do anything right.

# ? Jan 14, 2014 23:34

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# ? May 13, 2024 19:35

Zigmidge: May 12, 2002; Exsqueeze me, why the sour face? I'm here to lemon aid you. Let's juice it.

Is that where all my Star Trek went?

# ? Jan 15, 2014 00:42

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