Canadian internet access gets shittier

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

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Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Given what Bell has been capable of as a conglomerate (traffic shaping, anticompetitive pricing, demanding favourable coverage in their own(ed) news networks, CraveTV denying us HBO Go) I'm willing to put more than a token effort into giving them as little information as possible. Not to mention the security on my building's fibre closet is a complete and utter joke.

The way I see it this optimizes my peace of mind and bandwidth at no extra cost other than what I've already sunk. Plus, this whole setup would conceivably still work if I ever got Fibe TV.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 00:18

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 21:17

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

NCIX really has the market cornered in Canada, they even provide their own "competition".

Not really; Canada Computers have a much better retail presence (aside from the one they closed near me :argh:

) and there's always NewEgg Canada.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2015 17:28

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Same here - CC opened a shop near my old place that is in a standing fight with a Futureshop turned Bestbuy that must rent for 5x what their lease is. The one that closed in my new location was much smaller than the other two stores whose main fault is being comparatively in the rear end end of nowhere.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2015 18:40

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Yeah, but their whole business model has seemed quasi-sketchy since they started. It's been a while since I've been in one, but the last time I visited one of their stores about 10 years ago, the whole place had a "No officer, all these products just fell off the back of a truck." vibe.

Someone never went to Factory Direct.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2015 22:37

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Fibrestream is available in my building but I've heard all kinds of crap about them traffic shaping p2p. Anyone have some info? I could get their 500/500 service and IPTV for about the same amount I'm paying Bell for 950/150.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2016 17:03

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

If your building has Fibrestream switch right goddamn now. I got my 500/500 service this weekend. When Bell tried to buy me back with 1000/100 service and free TV for $100/mo I told them to get lost. The Fibrestream tech even briefly tried to sync me at 1000/1000 before realizing my building couldn't handle it.

Chris Knight posted:

Bell guy came today, took about 3 hours start to finish. I'm liking this insanity:

Just prepare for some disappointment when not even Steam or your Usenet provider can feed that downstream reliably.

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 03:37 on May 3, 2017

# ¿ May 3, 2017 03:28

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Imagine my disappointment that my postal code came up positive in Beanfield only for the sales lady to say that was incorrect.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2021 22:42

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Finding out Beanfield made a mistake and cancelling Bell after less than a week :awesomelon:

The poor lady who had to call me and offer a lower yet still not-matching price, though....

# ¿ Mar 9, 2021 02:42

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

I joined Freedom because Rogers jacked up the 60 for 10 price so fast... now I might end up a Bell customer :vomarine:

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 15:14

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

When they roll out the sweet deals after you've already cancelled, I ask if they'll credit me the discount retroactively since I was clearly being overcharged.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 20:50

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Martytoof posted:

Quick check -- anyone here use Bell Fibe with a Ubiquity UDM-PRO as the router?

Have one coming in the mail but just now seeing that there is/was a bug where bypassing your HH3K by inputting PPPoE credentials into the UDM resulted in a non-insignificant decrease in speeds, forcing you to either double-nat behind the HH3000 or .. i don't know what. Recent forum posts elsewhere say the problem may be fixed for some people but others are still complaining about slow speeds. Just wondering if anyone here has that specific setup:

- Bell Fibe w/HH3000
- Ubiquity UDM-PRO
- PPPoE creds on your UDM WAN port hooked to the HH3K

I had nearly the same setup when I last used Bell, except replace the Ubiquity with a Netgear Nighthawk, and it would cut the speeds in half if I left PPPoE up to the router. I used a double NAT with the Nighthawk as the DMZ and it worked fine until I got condo fibre over a year later. I also had a managed switch for a while to do the VLAN splitting to keep TV available if I ever wanted it, but that was more than I wanted to stuff in the patch panel.

I'm not sure what it is about PPPoE but the HH3k likely has dedicated hardware for it while consumer routers all do it in software. My experiences with Ubiquity tell me they won't do much better than a Netgear from 2015, but I hope I'm wrong.

Whoops, I was using a dedicated media converter in front of a HH2k back then and plugged the Nighthawk directly in with PPPoE creds. That was slow enough to require double NAT, though I suspect not much has improved.

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jan 6, 2022

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 20:51

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Nitr0 posted:

Best product???

umm hello the ads literally said "the best internet" until presumably they were told to knock it off

Subtitle this thread "dad needs his sports".

# ¿ Jan 13, 2022 22:08

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

shadow puppet of a posted:

They should make a new Canadian heritage moment about the recent grad from Herzing college that managed to shut down half of [Canada]

# ¿ Jul 9, 2022 06:48

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Tippecanoe posted:

Any advice on getting a good deal on bell fibre? I'm thinking I'm gonna switch over pretty soon. My internet's still down and my connection's been flakey enough lately that I already wanted to switch

They would only go as low as $80/mo for 1Gbps when my condo fibre is $50. They made some argument about it being a dedicated line as if they're not doing carrier-grade NAT for every tower too. Of course I was going to have to call in and renew that bargain every year.

Just say you have a current plan / competing offer and they can make $X or they can make $0.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2022 16:10

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

ToxicFrog posted:

IIRC individual terminals use whatever ISP the host business does but the actual Interac servers are hosted in a Rogers datacentre somewhere, so

See, this confuses and infuriates me -- my internet went down, ok, I'm not on Rogers but they own the last mile here so that's no surprise. But usually when that happens I can tether to my phone and keep on going. Instead the Freedom Mobile network was so hosed I couldn't even get phone calls through, let alone IP traffic.

One of the reasons I signed on with them back when they were WIND is that they had their own towers and backbone infrastructure independent of Bell and Rogers, and weren't just a Rogers reseller. If they're now dependent on Rogers infrastructure why the gently caress am I still paying them rather than signing on with loving Bell so there's at least a chance they won't both be offline at once?

I'm with Freedom too, and I got my best service in the subway where it's 100% their towers with no Rogers roaming.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2022 18:09

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Thanks Tara; though I submitted a much shorter comment I believe it got the point across.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2022 01:08

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Volguus posted:

I'm in Europe right now and I just bought a prepaid SIM that has 80GB of data, 2000 min of talk (unlimited with numbers on Vodaphone) good for 28 days, for 5 euros.

What we have in Canada is god drat robbery.
Unbelievable.

I was getting comparatively great deals in London ten years ago but the network ran like absolute poo poo. Texts would arrive out of order, phone calls would break down, and the only thing that behaved consistently was BBM. Sure they have a geographical advantage but they way over-sold.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2022 02:23

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

teethgrinder posted:

On Cyber Monday I got my Freedom bill down to $30/mth. I've never paid remotely so little for solid cell service. Not looking forward to any changes

How did you do that? I�m still on their $50+tax plan and don�t even use half of it. The service in the subway rules pretty hard and I don�t think I could ever switch off. Given the way I quit Rogers for them and how Fizz turned out, I�m not looking forward to either new owner.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2023 19:47

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

I'm really not looking forward to becoming a Bell customer, but after seeing how Videotron handled Fizz I have zero confidence in Freedom's pricing and service staying at acceptable levels. Their web security is already dubious so maybe that will improve.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2023 00:15

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Multiple usenet providers in tandem won�t even saturate 1Gbps these days.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2023 01:02

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Perplx posted:

The gpon is soldered on. You buy this thing Azores 1x 10GbE 1x 2.5GbE Intel Based XGSPON ONT and telnet in to configure it. They are currently figuring out how to get vlan 36 working for iptv and phone. There is a discord but I don't know how you join it now. I might hold out until they figure out an sfp solution.

Why do this when you can double-NAT and DMZ anything that isn�t an IPTV or phone?

# ¿ Apr 6, 2023 17:21

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

infernal machines posted:

Most new installs get the HomeHub 4k or whatever the latest gen is, and you cannot bypass these without buying your own ONT*. You can just set up your own equipment to dial the PPPoE session though, and it will pass through the HomeHub and you probably won't notice any performance limitations.

I did that eight years ago when Bell used a separate media converter ahead of a HH2/3 and the PPPoE performance on a high-end Netgear was bad enough that I ended up doing double NAT + DMZ.

I�ve been on condo fibre in two locations since, and while I rarely hit my advertised 1Gbps I also haven�t had to call support in two years or haggle my price in seven. Even the support I did contact was one guy who promptly answered his e-mails and would entertain any weird debug request I asked of him.

# ¿ May 12, 2023 04:09

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

mediaphage posted:

loving the high quality installs that bells doing these days, comes with a new ornamental display in the middle of my front yard

I've seen two separate blocks with Rogers-tagged cable strung along trees and eventually snaking to the side of a house.

Nitr0 posted:

100%. Basically all smaller independent ISP's have gone. You have maybe 12 left scattered throughout the country, but nothing super large. Now it's the Rogers, Telus and Bell show. You can guarantee the fuckery will be huge.

Condo dwellers might be lucky enough to have Beanfield or Fibrestream, but with the former my advertised speeds are absolutely not consistent. I've got a ticket in, but would probably put up with them regardless for not needing to haggle. Bell keeps sending me flyers due to the one week I was a customer here, and they explicitly state the discounts expire after two years. That alone should be evidence that their normal pricing is not representative of their true costs and they're just price gouging.

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jun 25, 2023

# ¿ Jun 25, 2023 15:19

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Does double NAT and DMZ still work with the HomeHub? Not that I�m eager to ditch Beanfield for Bell, but it crosses my mind every time I see sustained sub-gigabit speed.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2023 02:44

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

In my condo with Beanfield available, Bell offers 1Gbps for exactly the same price despite refusing to go lower than $75/mo when I cancelled my service. I�m sure that jumps up to full retail after exactly two years.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2023 00:54

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

IPv6 has been profoundly unappealing for 20 years.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2023 02:55

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

I guess I should caveat that with 27 years ago I didn�t know how IPv4 worked either.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2023 03:56

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

zergstain posted:

If I ended up behind a CGNAT, I'd probably want to find a new ISP.

How can you even tell? I'm in one of the densest parts of the country so I doubt I have a choice.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2023 02:59

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Right but I mean what does carrier NAT harm if the routing is done correctly?

# ¿ Oct 10, 2023 02:27

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

shadow puppet of a posted:

just fill the house with power line Ethernet adapters.

Plugging those all into a big line and dumping them when I got my parents on mesh WiFi 6 was my greatest day in network engineering.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2023 00:33

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Everyone remember a month back when the Feds mandated cell service for all carriers in the Toronto subway? My best guess is that the big three just turned on their connections to the existing femtocells without introducing any new capacity. It�s gone from everything being great for Freedom customers to lovely service for everyone.

Maybe I need a 5G phone / plan? Even loading this page to complain about it under Wellesley was a struggle.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2023 19:16

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

So what would explain Freedom�s service in the tunnels going from full bars to total poo poo / 3G only?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2023 20:04

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

I called Freedom 611 to report the lovely data service in the subway, and of course they wanted me to be in the subway to troubleshoot the issue instead of at home. Then the call disconnected.

e2: Finally got a tech who knew what the gently caress she was doing. We're resetting my SIM profile, but I suspect when the other carriers turned on 5G Freedom just went "hell yeah we'll use those cells, gently caress 4G/LTE" and turned poo poo off. That would instantly gently caress everyone with an iPhone 11 and down.

e3: It's that, but dumber. The Rogers base stations have much stronger signal, but when my phone tries to negotiate a connection they only offer 5G data frequencies and I get to starve on 3G.

For what it's worth, the Freedom tech who helped me was in Vancouver. Whomever was covering EST until 22:00 was one of the worst outsourcing shops since iGate.

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Oct 17, 2023

# ¿ Oct 17, 2023 02:41

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Bell whining that they're going to pull a billion dollars in capital spending over having to allow resellers onto Ontario and Quebec fibre is the best case yet for re-nationalizing their network. Rename them to Nortel 2 while we're at it.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2023 01:10

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

EoRaptor posted:

Federal government should claw back the tax breaks they gave Bell to expand,

from the copper landline days, with interest

# ¿ Nov 8, 2023 13:44

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Beanfield started offering 2Gbps down / 1Gbps up over two hard links for $50. How about you just drop the price of my single line to $25 :thunk:

# ¿ Nov 22, 2023 02:04

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Fine print timed price increases should be illegal, but with the Liberal party and CRTC firmly in several telco pockets I doubt we�ll see anything on the level of Clement vs the UBB campaign.

# ¿ May 7, 2024 21:25

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 21:17

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

The amount of poo poo in this thread that I simply don�t have to deal with by being a Fibrestream / Beanfield customer is incredible.

# ¿ May 9, 2024 03:05

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

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