I swap constantly, you only get one chance to cut my service in error or treat me like crap, had over 5 isp's in past 5 years. I am 35 and married to a woman that owns a high tech ITish ad agency.

I'm just about to quit Bell. My DSL modem died suddenly and it took them almost a week to replace it.

"But can't I just go to a Bell store and exchange it?"

"No, you have to wait for us to mail you a new one in three to five business days."

Thanks.

Aside from that, I'm tired of paying for an "up to" speed that I have never come anywhere near. (Despite being within a few hundred metres of the junction box that I share with only a few dozen other houses.)

I switched from Shaw several years ago when they implemented their blackmail fee. Er, I mean, $10 per month QoS "so we can make sure other providers' VoIP will work on our system while we traffic-shape the crap out of your connection" fee. What a load of BS.

I recently switched from Bell for a couple of reasons. Bell regularily changed the price of my plan. After 5 changes (always charging more) in 5 months I just couldn't take it anymore. The other big problem that I experienced was lack of customer service. I frequently had a very hard time understanding the person I was speaking to and particularily when you need tech support this can be very frustrating. My new provider is a smaller company and seems to function much more efficiently.

Dialup provider (circa 1994?) SoftChoice
Shaw DSL (first highspeed available 1998ish)
Telus ADSL (because Shaw reliability sucked 1999)
Shaw business DSL (moved, Telus not available in new area 2001)
Telus Business ADSL (because Shaw reliability sucked 2003)

Reliability first, then speed. Especially when you work from home.

I recently switched to TekSavvy after flopping between Bell and Rogers for a while. Both companies had terrible customer service, constantly sent me spam trying to upgrade my service, perform throttling of P2P applications, and charge much more than the independent ISPs.

TekSavvyand I assume many other independent ISPshas excellent customer service, charges me about 2/3rd what Bell did for an identical service level, and I get 100% of the advertised speed instead of 25% on the exact same pair of copper wires.

Unfortunately, I'm still under Bell's throttling, but at least TekSavvy is actively trying to fight against it.

Went from Rogers to Bell to a small private local company, always for better prices, and better service. A small privately own company will always offer better service than dinosaurs such a bell and rogers.

I've been with MNSI.NET, a small company out of Windsor, for 15 years. The price is very competitive with other bigger companies. The speed is not limited like others and the service has been great with no down times. The price has not changed and in the last 5 years they have added free long distance for 200 minutes a month and for 5 buchs a 1000 minutes.
One time my speed went way down and they helped me step by step to do some diagnostics and concluded it was a problem with the Bell part of the line.
Here the problem starts when this local ISP provider sends a ticket to Bell for repair and Bell instantly refuses to admit a problem.
It took at least two weeks for Bell to look at it and within minutes Bell had fixed it.
At another time Bell took my high speed line away because I had changed my services with them. It took my ISP provider and myself calling Bell 3 weeks to get them to do a simple computer change to get my high speed line back.
In this case I would continue to stick with my local provider.

Switched from Bell to Acanac about a week ago. The service was crappy. I paid for an "up to" 5 Mbps but only got 500 Kbps despite living 20 minutes from downtown Montreal. The main reason was the 20 GB per month cap. I stream lots of video and play games online. That adds up. I'm not about to be counting GB. Switched to Acanac since they have unlimited bandwidth. I still have the same crappy connection since it's still on Bell's network, but it costs half the price.

I haven't switched yet, but plan to once I run out my current contract. Like many others before me, I've experienced stupefying lack of service and constantly rising pricing from Bell. It's obvious that a company like Bell follows no intelligent business plan. If they did, they would actually value my 10 years of loyalty, as opposed to ignoring and overcharging me.

I started with a local dial-up ISP with poor service as they were the only game in town. Then added Telus for when the first was down but had to dial long distance to connect because Telus wouldn't give a local number to use. Switched mostly to the Telus account when they came up with a local number after a couple of years. Now using a community wireless sometimes high speed system that we were forced into by Telus refusing to upgrade our phone lines to give us ADSL so they could get a lot of money from the government in subsidies under the rural broadband programs to provide fiber optic lines to communities. They didn't bother to tell anyone they already had the lines in place but were not letting anyone use them. ADSL would have been a much better solution as wireless is line of sight and many can not use it as trees, mountains,snow,rain and buildings block the signal. Our only other option is direct satellite link which is too expensive for most and also line of sight.

I recently switched from Bell because they were total incompetents. Their technical support is the worst I have ever used. After waiting on hold for 30 minutes, you have to talk to somebody with an incomprehensible accent who has extremely limited understanding of computers. Occasionally they tell you they have to call you back, but they NEVER do.

Every problem I ever had was something they changed on THEIR end - and their support people always denied that they ever made changes. Each time, I had to make multiple calls and talk to "the manager" before they finally admitted they made a change. (yeah, a different mail server address IS a change!)

They weren't supporting me - I was supporting them! (I should have charged them for that service...)

I have not switched companies in many years, mainly because I don't have any options. I am with Rogers and the customer service sucks, and I am constantly getting letters and phone calls from Bell offering ADSL, but when I actually query about it, the service is not offered in my area. I have had no real issues with Rogers, service is up about 90% of the time, and I am getting very close to the advertised speed. And after talking to friends, it seems that Bell can't even offer speeds close to what Rogers has, so I guess I am stuck with crappy customer service, and decent internet access.

Initially started out with a local ISP that had a set fee for set time, plus the ability to buy more time as you ran out each month (his was '94).

As I used the Internet more and more (anyone else remember Archie and Veronica?) I found the amount I was paying the ISP was becoming prohibitive.

It was at this time that our local Freenet opened up, and I immediately joined. "Low speed" for the first ten years or so, then when that became antique they found an ISP (just happens to be Teksavvy, mentioned above) that offered DSL.

I'm not saving any money using the Freenet DSL, but I am able to smile knowing that only Teksavvy lease rates are going to Bell, as opposed to having 100% of my payment going to them, or Rogers.

I switched my ISP (from Telus to Shaw) last year due to poor service, especially indifference regarding a technical problem with was impacting my work for the University. I have been happy since. At this point, I would be very reluctant to sign any contract, which I understand is becoming a standard in the industry.

I concur with Harris 100% , if you are currently with Bell run away quickly to an ISP that wants your business . I recommend Teksavvy , unbeatable customer service and price ....

I recently switched because my ISP (IGS) was recently bought by 3Web. The tech support went down hill as did the billing. My POP3 e-mail went down and at one point, 3Web admitted to me that they couldn't find the problem so I am now with Bell. This was my only switch in my 14 years of Internet service.

Switched last summer from 295 to Bell. 295 HS was ok for home use, but for working from home, it was inadequate (major office functionality not available - never did find out whether that was 295's fault or Bell's since 295 bought their service from Bell). But as a true Bell subscriber, I got full functionality, so I'm happy now.

295 badness: missed telling them that we weren't renewing by a few days (ok - our fault) and they charged our credit card for A WHOLE YEAR'S RENEWAL! Can you spell RIPPED OFF??? Think we'd ever recommend them to anyone? Yeah, right!!! Oh yeah, and their tech support sucked too - heavy accents via voice-over-tin-can, long waits and no weekend service. You get what you pay for!

Bell badness: their level of technical expertise SUCKS THE BIG ONE! As others have said, you frequently get someone with such a heavy accent that they're just about unintelligible, never mind technically incompetent. The one big problem we had was caused by another Bell service option (Ident-A-Call). Bell should have known there was a conflict and advised us against it. Instead their service rep actually *recommended* it as part of the bundle! We finally figured this one out on our own - no thanks to Bell! To anyone else who has Bell HS and Ident-A-Call and is wondering why you get disconnects all the time, this is why! Those extra lines are unfiltered and unfilterable and they're causing interference with the data stream. Get rid of that useless option and suddenly, magically no more disconnects! As a bonus, our nuisance telemarketing load dropped correspondingly when we dropped those extra lines - WIN!

I was originally with Bell in Ottawa, then moved to Trenton and only dial up was available and the service sucked. Switched to Teksavvy. Good service. Move back to Ottawa, no problem, switched to DSL with Teksavvy, again no problem . Moved to Killaloe, back to dial up. Now in Renfrew and back on DSL. Throughout all these switches of location Teksavvy support has been truly marvellous. My wife has Bell dial up. I've never experienced such bad service!! Talking to India doesn't cut it IMO. Constant problems, constant hassle, mail service appalling. Just about everything that could go wrong has. She has now switched to Xplornet wireless. We'll see how that works out.

Upon moving to Toronto I began using Rogers Internet Service which was already hooked up in the apartment I was sharing with two roommates. With 3 Internet-savvy students sharing the same connection we immediately ran across the restrictions (capped downloads and speeds) that Rogers implements. We were reluctant to switch because Rogers modifies the phone jacks to deliver their telephone and internet services, however, after still having issues with Rogers using their Extreme Service at $53.00/month + modem rental we decided to switch to TekSavvy and without regret. $39.99 a month, unlimited downloads and fast-enough (although not as fast as Rogers Extreme) speeds are great. However, right now Bell, who owns the telephone infrastructure which 3rd party groups like Teksavvy utilize, are trying to cap the speeds and download amounts for everyone - an unfortunate ability that results when you have a monopoly. I plan to stick with Teksavvy and support their current case with CRTC against Bell and the other major Internet corps that after achieving monopolistic/oligarchic domination of the market have only increased Internet fees while decreasing or limiting services (ask yourself, didn't you pay less years ago for cable or high speed Internet just to see tierification [lite speed, high speed, extreme speed] added later and yourself demoted to the lowest of these categories)...

I also switched from Bell to TekSavvy. It was a huge relief to finally speak to customer service representatives that not only spoke proper English, but also resolved (and not pretend to "try" and resolve) any problems I had with my connection.

I was so happy with the home service that I got two lines for my business. I added a bit of wizardry to combine the lines together and bypass the Bell throttle, and am now enjoying 10.25/1.25 Mbps service in downtown Montreal for a whole lot less than the nearest competitors.

I spend 2 years with Velcom as internet provider, even bought their modem instead of paying for rent. Unfortunately, modem died, Bell technician told me that they sold me modem that is older than him (hi was 40 :)

Like the author of the article, I usually don't change providers unless they are sold, or I move to somewhere where they aren't available. The only provider I intentially left, due to both bad customer service, was Bell Sympatico. I've been surfing versions of cyberspace since the dial-up BBS days of the early 1980s. Here's a list that brings back memories.

1982: Compuserve (dial-up through Datapac) I lived outside of
Toronto, which at the time, was the only local phone number
to dial into in Eastern Canada.
1993: Internex Online (io.org) it was sold off. Dial-up
1995: Interlog it was sold and didn't offer ADSL. Dial-up
1998: Bell Sympatico left it after four years due to reliability,
customer service, and speed. ADSL
2002: Rogers High Speed Cable, left when I moved to a building that
yanked Rogers out of the building for Look Communications.
2004: Forced to use LOOK Communications ADSL. Bad service and
slow speed.Moved to another building.
2005 to present: Rogers High Speed Cable.

I loved Interlog in the early days of dial-up Internet. It was a good service, but it went downhill after it was sold. Bell simply sucked for so many reasons. Rogers has been very good, and at present, I will only leave if I move to an area that isn't serviced by them. I joined Rogers after the @Home fiasco, so I've never had any serious issues with the service, and it has always been faster then my old Bell "High Speed" line.

My first ISP was Interlog as well, but I switched to Sympatico before they did.

I stayed with Bell for a couple years. Then Local ISP's started cutting their services, teaming up with companies like Yahoo, Symantec and Net-Nanny and bundling for-profit extras like virus-protection and parent-filters.

Well I avoid buying name brand computers because of the hours it takes to uninstall the garbage software they pre-install, the last thing I wanted was more software I didn't ask for from my ISP...

...then the ultimate insult...

Usenet, for which access had been included as part of every ISP's monthy fee, was no longer a part of anyone's package. First Sympatico, and then Rogers dropped free access. Now, no discount was offered for having a key partof the internet dropped even though the ISP's were realizing a massive drop in bandwidth usage as a result. So I shopped around and finally found Primus, who not only continued to offer free access to Usenet, but offered the BEST retention (over 200 days with near 100% header completion) anywhere - even better than for-fee services.

Switching to Primus was my last change. That was about 8 years ago. Acceptable DSL speeds, no bundled software, and the best Usenet in the industry. Win win win.

You're lucky if you have the choice! I switched from Bell DSL to Rogers cable when I last moved, but Rogers is literally the only broadband ISP I can get service from.

Which is unfortunate, because with their level of service I would have switched to a 3rd party DSL provider long ago.

I have tried Telus a few times with disastrous results each time. I was forced to used their service with a former job and got paid for about 1 hour each day for nothing because it would go down for that on average, every day.

With Shaw for a few years now and I have had one real oddball problem and it did take a few weeks to figure it out. Turns out my signal strength was abnormally high and the modem couldn't take it, from there a quick fix.

For me I'll stick to Shaw, any problems have always been taken care of in a professional manner and they act like they truely WANT my business. Also their techs seem to have actually been trained in how modems, transmission lines and computers work.

I was with Playground.net (Former Nortel employee ISP), then Magma (DSL), who were excellent, they then got bought by PRIMUS. Still the service wasn't bad. But I decided to switch to VoIP phone service (with Primus). I thought I'll use PRIMUS VoIP and their highspeed...unfortunatly for some reason you can't really do that!
You see for high speed DSL you need Bell's phone line..there is a way around that called DryLoop copper (phone line with no phone service). For some strange reason Primus doesn't offer that...so I switched ISPs to National Capital Freenet (@ 29.95) for full highspeed 200Gb cap, it would be great..however Bell tacks on $10+ for the Dryloop option...so $40+ a month. I stuck with that for a while, but with Bell now shaping the NCF service..it didn't make sense anymore (which I think is exactly WHY Bell did that to put the small guys out of business)...so I just switched to Rogers Cable..for a little more than $40 (less with the discounts) I get double the speed 10Mb..higher cap would be nice, but so far I've managed to stay under it.

I have tried Bell & Rogers service. I tend to like Dsl more, but prefer smaller independent companies. I switched to one of these independent ISP's awhile back, and had nothing but problems for over a year. After doing some research, I found a company called Megastream internet. I emailed and asked if their service would be any better, and was told that my address did qualify for top speed service, and unless my inside lines were bad, I should be having no problem. Since my current ISP wasn't doing anything to help me, I went with Megastream and low and behold, they did something, and my service has been just fine. My advice, do some research, and take the plunge.

Was with Bell Sympatico since 1999 then they started lying and changing their services, always to my disadvantage and for more money, so last year I switched to Teksavvy and although they are very good we are all stuck with Bell lines and their uncompetitive throttling of everyone in Canada.

Does the Harper government realize that by helping this selfish unethical monopoly (Bell) cheat us they are causing everyone to hate them also.

Switched from Bell to Teksavvy never looked back. Good support, and not just out to make Money. they care about each customer. Once Bell imposed Throttling I took the Home Phone away from Bell and everyone in my Family followed. If Bell only could realize thes etypes of move smake them lose customers.

Been with Sympatico for as long as I can remember, but recently switched to National Capital Freenet (NCF). First Bell dropped usenet service, then imposed the bandwidth cap, then upped my pricing structure. NCF gives me 3X the cap, 2/3 the cost, and no contract. Now if only Bell would stop throttling...

I switched from Cogeco to Teksavvy
Mostly because of Cogeco's low download caps and throttling, also price was much better

Unfortunately many people have limited choices in high speed service provider

well heres my history might not know the year exactly

1990s - Freenet - text IF ( Niagara Region )
1992-5 - Vaxxine Dialup ( Niagara Region )
1997 - Beta Tested Cogeco in Niagara Region
( it was awesome for the first high speed Internet )
2000+ - (Ottawa) lived renting rooms in different houses, some people had rogers or bell but didnt matter because they didnt throttle then and i didnt take care of the CS.
2007-2008 - lanlord had Rogers, which was awesome getting 800-900kb/s i thought it was a fluke at first, but then after a few months because of another roomate who had a trojan or probably nothing serious, Rogers suspended the account ( while I was doing online school work ) . The first time they do it for a day, 2nd time for a week, then the 3rd time for a month.

Well once it was the 3rd time, i couldnt take that I needed to be online, and nothing you can do will make Rogers reverse that I tried calling them. they said ( its automatic we cant change it on the computer )

anyway, then a few months later they started to throttle so forget that bullshit, my lanlord was paying around 60$/month. I told him at this point why bother with this crap, when we can get another service that will be just as good , and for 30$/month, it was a no brainer .. so yeah

2008 + present = TEKSAVVY ( no throttling, no caps, no contracts, no bullshit, no problems )

btw: i have never and would never want to be with bell, even before the throttling, ive always known how crappy their service is. I use to always stick to cable. but now with throttling, it makes you simply just find the alternative no matter what, that would not be doing these shady business practices.

also fighting to the CRTC with CAIP to free us all from this bullshit. ( if you dont understand enough about this stuff, NOW you should be searching on google to UNDERSTAND what is truly happening. It is bigger than you think it is . )

My ISP is supposed to provide a service, to me the customer who pays for it.

I should be able to do whatever I want with my service and it should not be throttled or capped.

I hate the thought of always having to keep in mind my bandwidth cap, and I am activly looking for a better provider in my area.

What is going to happen when we are allowed to purchase High Def content on the internet and I am only able to download 5 movies a month because of the small 60Gigs a month cap that is imposed on my service.

I would buy the "unlimited" service but guess what? It doesn't exist with my provider.

Sigh... it's time these big providers get with the future.... The content is there... waiting for me to download it. But my provider say's, sorry you're only allowed to have so much per month.

As a consumer of knowlegde and data I feel ripped off and held back by my ISP.

Get with the future you guys and let the downloading begin.

- Chris

I dumped Bell for Teksavvy about 2-months ago when Bell decided to raise the price of their rental router. How is it possible that Bell is able to force all their customers to rent a 2Wire modem/router, and then Bell is able to raise the price? Thanks Bell!

And what exactly is the purpose of the CRTC if Bell is able to simply ignore any rulings the company does not agree with? Bell even advertises that they are waiting on the Conservative Cabinet to over rule the CRTC - How blatant is that! No corruption here.

I switched from Videotron to TekSavvy about 1 1/2 year when Videotron decided to cancel our unlimited contracts without our consents and put ridiculous caps. I cut my internet costs by 50% with this move. TekSavvy is amazing and is fighting for our rights. No throttling, no ridiculous caps and no stupid usage billing.

The CRTC should wake up and see that what those big ISPs are doing is outrageous....

My 2 friends switched from shaw to telus after they moved a while ago. We're going to switch soon, since downtime started around friday night until now, monday.

The first problem with shaw is they lie about their bandwidth cap; and, by going over their secret cap, they will switch you to a really unreliable connection (on 5 seconds, off 30s etc,) which even a dial-up is preferable. Back in early 2000, we asked for a cap number, so we won't go over, but they wouldn't give us a number.

Second, the connection is very unreliable. I needed to download a 450MB file, and I keep getting disconnected. The site doesn't support resume, and I have to restart every ~100MB. Trying to FTP to the local university, I keep getting connection stalled for minutes. The funny thing is ping to hop #1 to shaw yields timed out, when the connection is unreliable.

Last but not least, tech support will lead you in circles. Moreover, they don't like you having a router to share your connection among household members, and they filter through using easily changeable MAC addresses.

I can barely go to google now as I type. This message might be posted more than once.

i was whit rogers for 5 years and cancel like 2 years ago and move to tekssavy and never look back, i hate rogers and bell and hope that i never have to use they server again

i also cancel my cable TV whit rogers 5 years ago i use OTA for 5 years big big save

I have been online since mid 90's beginning with dial-up from local company (it was ok) and then Cogeco cable modem.

Cogeco has been having issues for the past couple of years around Peterborough which I could live with, but then they started capping my connection.

Switched to Nexicom DSL and not only is it twice as fast as Cogeco but no caps, no limits and they include unlimited Giganews!! Customer service is "ok", their connection is AWESOME.... speedtests show 20 Meg down by 1 meg up.

I work for an ISP, and we track churn across all our products including Internet. We take a lot of interest in the numbers, and do what we can to keep them low. That being said, Internet subscriber churn is definitely lower than any other product.

I was with B3ll for 5 years. they had many 'good' stuff to drive you away, e.g. keep over billing me (but never under billing), off shore tech support who were "willing" to spend hours with you and couldn't fix anything, a contracted 'good' deal that even a grade 2 student can figure it out it's a rip-off.

Finally, my contract with B3ll expired and I drop all services from them, phone and internet.

Right now I'm with TekSavvy (phone and internet), I rate their customer service 9.9 out of 10 (only god is perfect :) I did call them once when I needed help to set up my internet, within 5 min, I was online.

Right now, I advised all my friends to switch to TekSavvy.

I was at one point with Netcom Canada for dial-up and was getting a little upset when I got bumped to low priority for connections on the "unlimited service" having exceeded 100 hours a month, but I stuck it out for a few years.

When Bell Sympatico HSE ADSL came to my area I quickly jumped ship. I guess that was 1999, I eventually left them in 2002 when they changed their rules and I could not run a mail server on my account, something I needed for work at that time.

I then went to ODYNET for my ADSL service, a small responsive ISP, that allowed me the flexibility I needed on my connection. I've been with them ever since, going on for 7 years now.

There are other slightly cheaper offerings out there that are tempting, but for the few bucks difference, I'd rather stay where I am with their very reliable operation.

Now if someone ran a fibre optic cable to my porch and offered me speeds and little or no bandwidth restrictions such as found in less technologically restrained countries, I'd be very tempted.

I agree with yea peoples. Bell is the worst service internet in the world. The modem always loses connection every 15 seconds and i'm serious. I am gonig to change to Yak

I currently have Rogers High Speed Extreme. Unfortunately, as motcho and price goudging and uncaring as they are of their customers, they are the faster of the two duoppolies (Robbers and Bell). I had Bell back in 2001, and switched after a year of 1 megabit per second down by 128 kilobits upload speeds. I got Robbers just after the @home switch, speeds were ok, then they got worse, and worse. Then, finally with 1.5 megabits down by 192 kilobits up, and I was about to jump ship again, they introduced High Speed Extreme in 2004, and I immediately signed up. Now, with their latests antics of price goudging (uping the price by 10% per year without any service improvements), and upgrading all service levels accept Extreme just recently, I may be looking towards a switch yet again. Probably will choose Tek Savvy or NCF.

I wouldn't even dream of ever going back to Rogers or Bell. They are for suckers. I am with MegaStream Internet for my home service, business service, and now their Voip service.

It's amazing how you feel when everything just WORKS! Good & fast internet and clear Voip calling for what I consider proper pricing for this stuff.

Great article here and postings.

Nobody has commented on AOL so far. I have been with AOL for several years and have been satisfied on the whole. In recent months I have been having no end of grief with my Skype and am starting to come to the conclusion that the AOL conection is to blame. Any suggestions?

I have a contract with Videotron for more then 15 months Now, I want to get rid of these expensive provider but they are charging 360 CAD + taxes. In my opinion it's a robbery. I can accept the fact they have same expenses connecting new users, but in these 15 month... giving them each month more then 100 cad... I have the feeling I'm living in a jungle. No one are defending the citizens against these companies... I'm alone in the jungle ... and I don't have a gun... surrounded by greedy snakes.

I have been with aol for almost 10 years and am starting to get very disillusioned with their service. I am looking for another ISP (other than Rogers and Bell). Any suggestions or comments?