A video posted to YouTube focuses on customer dissatisfaction with Bell Sympatico's throttling practices.
Bell Sympatico and Internet Throttling
Tags: bell / internet service providers / internet throttling / net neutrality / sympatico / traffic shaping
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Misleading
While it’s true that Bell throttles and it sucks, The contents of that video are still a bit misleading. (Well let’s be fair and assume the creator didn’t fully understand the technology…)
First, 16Mbps isn’t 16 Megabytes per second, it’s 16 megabits per second, that’s 8 times slower, or about 2 Megabytes per second.
Second, because of overhead and misconfigurations on the average PC, you could never get the full amount for payload. Yes, Bell isn’t clear on that, but neither is any other ISP, and it’s largely out of their control.
Third, the downloads that he shows at 14Kbps and 309KBps could be caused by slow/full links at the site, or any other ISP along the way, outside of Bell’s network.
In other words, although Bell may be dishonest in its advertising, these anecdotal tests don’t prove it…
I can confirm the speeds the video claims are typical.
All Accurate
nothing misleading about it. This is what people have been complaining about for a long time now.
Always slow:
-Torrents
-trackers
-Web page loading
-web page downloading dependant on sites that are fast with other providers, but not Bell.
-voip being affected
-Xbox Being affected
-online game pings in the thousands of milliseconds.
If anyone thinks many people complaining for months of the above is misleading, then the one calling the other misleading is truely the one misleading people.
Think about that.
Consistant
I feel sorry for the people paying bell 100$/month and getting 30kB/s or less.
I pay videotron less WITH phone and get 1200kB/s
Glad I switched provider.
I recommend everyone complain to the competition bureau about the misleading advertizing and to the Canadian Marketing Association. Then call Bell and demand your money back since you are not getting what you are paying for or what was implied you would get.
Then change provider to one who doesn’t lie consistanly, since the consistant lies is all you really get :/
So Michael, who’s going to spearhead a legal challenge? And what’s the most appropriate mechanism? Class-action? Provincial consumer’s affairs? Federal competition bureau? CIPPIC project? …???
The Competition Act makes false or misleading advertising potentially a criminal offense with jail time.
I’m sure the grassroots could use some pro bono legal help.
Bell Ownz
Bell has 3 out of the 5 members of the Competition Policy Review Panel on Bell payroll or \”retired\” from bell. Do you actualy think the Federal Competition Bureau will get you anywhere?
Seems fixed with no where to turn to.
Bunch of lies
There needs no conformation as Bell has admitted to throtteling your internet speeds at their discretion.
They also change your contract without the customer agreeing to it or even seeing the terms of the new contract.
They also try and charge the customer an extra $100.000 to cancel the service after BELL BROKE THEIR OWN CONTRACT.
Not to mention what the above said
“Bell has 3 out of the 5 members of the Competition Policy Review Panel on Bell payroll or \”retired\” from bell.”
Hopefully a lot of people will cancel their service and Bell will finally realize what they are doing is simply wrong.
@accurate, Andrew et al.
Those speeds may be accurate and typical, but that still doesn’t mean that they’re caused by throttling. It may just be that Bell’s network sucks! (Which it does, or they wouldn’t even need to throttle. All the more reason to switch I guess.)
I’m not denying Bell throttles, apparently they’ve admitted as much. It’s just that the shown download speeds aren’t what it takes to prove it, and they certainly don’t show that they are doing non net-neutral prioritization. Straight packet prioritization is a fact of life and OK in my book, as long as it’s net-neutral.
saga
people calling in to Sympatico support to ask why they have been throttled are now being told p2p is illegel and thats why its throttled.
and the lies continue…
It’s not the hardware, and it’s not the traffic that’s causing slow speeds, it’s Bell’s THROTTLING.
Once you switch to an ISP that just *resells* the Bell lines, without doing any “traffic-shaping”, you will see a HUGE jump in speeds (up to 100% in direct download speeds, and several 100% in torrent speeds). Same hardware. Same configuration. But no throttling. Try it…
BELL FULL THROTTLE
bunch of cow s*&t. i have bell for 4 yrs now. in 4 yrs i moved 3 times and had varying speeds at all 3 places.reason being it is dsl and the farther u are from base the slower it is. at least 70% of the time i would get full speed no problem. my torrents would always work and sometimes at ridiculus fast speeds and no problems. from where i am from bell works alot better than any other isp. to me all they are selling is a fully open connection period,
BTW i am in southern ont.
C B
I had Bell and numerous problems. Dropped them 2 years ago switched to Videotron – problems ended…
I also dropped their phone service since they got on my nerves with the internet issues.
Just after I renewed my Videotron contract for another year they made it 100GB from unlimited… time to switch again?
Sympatico Rip Off
Sympatico just keeps screwing people. They upgraded my internet service under false and misleading information and screwed me out of $40 and a termination fee of $100 dollars. They are ripping people off left right and centre and lying to people. I think a class action lawsuit is in order and I am looking into one. Was going to contact CTV and report there lies and deception but remembered they are owned by Bell, go figure!
Pissed Off
I\’m absolutely fed up with Bell and their Nazi practices I\’m all for a Class Action lawsuit!!! BTW I just spoke with Bell tech support today and asked them about the throttling issue and the said that for an extra $30 a month they\’d give me full range access. Forget it I\’m looking for a new provider and would appreciate a solid recommendation for the Toronto area
What Can I Do?
Like others on here I have been screwed by bell. My internet is slow and they tell me there is nothing they can do about it. If I want to switch providers I must pay the $100 fee. Has anyone been able to get away from bell without paying this fee? Is there anything i can do?
Sean
I’ve noticed an incredible slow down in P2P as well with sympatico – use to have some astonishingly fast downloads there, but now it creeps along.
Just last night, as I noticed my puny 3.4 k/s dls, I was considering where I might switch to. The only other option I’m aware of locally is Rogers cable, and not sure if they throttle P2P as well or not. An above comment or two mentioned ‘Videotron’ – dunno if they’re available here or not (SE Ontario) but a scan of reviews on epinions.com reveals they have VERY crappy service.
Any suggestions/recommendations would be appreciated. And when I drop Sympatico internet, I’ll be sure to drop my Bell phone service as well… and will let them know why I’m leaving. >:)
…and to answer my own question (above)….
Some additional reading reveals a *potential* alternative to sympatico is teksavvy.com .
Their rates look very good and I’ve not YET seen any complaints that they’re throttling traffic.
Any comments about them is appreciated as well.
throttling
Well we never had good speeds till we clicked “use encryption” for torrents. Thats helped loads.
Do they ever throttle http connections? Or just torrents? How can they tell?
Sympatico Throttles Me
Bell Sympatico is Throttling everyone now, even encryption.
I shut off the modem for a minute, then turned it back on, it was unthrottled, fast speed, for only a couple of minutes, until it was throttled again.
Rogers is also blocking Torrent Encryption.
bell mgt comments
this is posted from dsl reposrts.com. A bell manager responds to a questoins with comments that the person asking the question has 6 year olds looking for porn on the internet
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed
Host:
Rogers
Bell Sympatico
reply to soldierdog
From everything I hear, I do believe that Sympatico have reduced the overall available bandwidth on the backhauls from the COs to the area routers.
This is where Sympatico pay Nexxia (in Bell Internal Funny Money) for the network services, so I suspect, that cost to Sympatico in Bell$ has increased, so they cut their costs by limiting bandwidth available.
That limited bandwidth is causing congestion from many COs, but some more than others.
By implementing torrent throttling, they reduce the impact of that limited bandwidth, BUT they still don’t have enough available bandwidth to service all the customers at the same time at the performance levels they were used to.
This would also explain why …
1) performance issues for ALL traffic started about the time throttling was implemented.
2) some areas seem worse impacted than others
3) non-torrent protocols are being impacted, particularly in the evenings … it’s not the torrent throttling causing the problem, but lack of network available bandwidth
This certainly explains why throttling was introduced!
to forum · permalink · · 2008-01-29 14:21:26 ·
theninjasqua
join:2007-09-26
Oakville, ON
In other words, this whole plan to improve things has in fact backfired and made it all worse. Your whole explanation there makes pretty good sense. Although I still suspect that the throttling is still causing some issues.
—
-theninjasquad
to forum · permalink · · 2008-01-29 14:24:05 ·
Deadpool
Go Sens Go
Premium
join:2001-03-29
Canada
I wouldn’t say it’s backfired. It’s not an overnight plan. It can sometimes take months to even buy new equipment and get it shipped from the US. Then you have to prep it, test it, install it, soak it, then launch it. That’s another few months. And you can’t do it across the network all at the same time – you can only do one piece at a time.
Just need to be patient (I know, easier said then done – lol)
—
Sens up 3-1 vs Leafs…GO SENS GO
to forum · permalink · · 2008-01-29 14:28:21 ·
soldierdog
join:2007-08-28 reply to theninjasqua
Agreed and I don’t really know what else to say except I have to move to a service that can fulfill my basic internet needs.
The current service isn’t even be able to satisfy my 6 year old daughter’s computer needs.
to forum · permalink · · 2008-01-29 14:29:37 ·
Deadpool
Go Sens Go
Premium
join:2001-03-29
Canada
Damn 6 year olds and their Barbie & Ken pr0n!
Just kidding!
—
Sens up 3-1 vs Leafs…GO SENS GO
For those looking for alternatives in SW Ontario, two top-notch services to try are LOOK Communications (look.ca) and MNSi (mnsi.net). I currently use MNSi and haven’t had any issues with it at all, and my uncle has used LOOK for years and hasn’t had any problems with them either…both have decent speeds, unlimited downloads, and no throttling!
Hope this helps!
dontask
every body here is insanely stupid if they think that complaining to any kind of bureau or organizations or anything of the sort will do any good since bell throtles speed for p2p programs only and they do that because its ILLEGAL YOU DUMB SHITS they can do whatever the hell they want with you p2p programs, and also the speeds are advertized as UP TO 7MBPS OR 5 OR 1 ETC..
you peaple need to make reasearch before you make accusations like that
class action
@dontask
You are a dumb ass – P2P is not only used to download illegal content. My WoW game gets updates using torrent… I get latest Ubuntu Linux images using p2p… there is tons of legal content now days that is explicitly delivered using p2p, and more will come.
What they are doing is DPI – Deep Packet Inspection (look it up) and this is how they are throttling connections, even encrypted ones, which is also a privacy issue because they actually have ability to see the data being passed between your PC and 3rd party. This is illegal as per Canadian Privacy Act – there should be a big class action lawsuit and this control over information should stop! I don’t want some Joe Shmoe working at Bell looking at what I’m purchasing over the net, my bank account balance and selling that info to highest bidder on black market.
This is Canada we live in… not China! We should not allow this.
there is hope!
in response to someone above asking if anyone got out of paying the early cancellation fee… I did 😀
I simply called 1-886-317-3382 first to be told that there was nothing they could do, and canceled my service with them (and got a confirmation number and her name) then called the general manager: 1-866-927-3656 and argued my case…
in a nutshell, I had a 5MB unlimited package about 50(ish) bucks a month \\\”ultra hi speed\\\”.
1. I said that they were traffic shaping and throttling my connection.
2. I pay extra for unlimited bandwidth, but I am not getting what I\\\’m paying for.
3. if bittorrent makes up 30 to 50% of internet traffic then I argue that bittorrent is at least 30 to 50% of the internet expierence. Limiting or throttling it is limiting my use of the internet.(I\\\’ve seen many things about this on the web, and not being sure of the exact number I gave it the widest range).
4. they (Bell) have two kinds of accounts, limited and unlimited. Nowhere in their contract or service aggreement does it say anything about unlimited having any sort of cap… look up \\\”unlimited in the dictionary… unlimited: limitless, without bounderies…
5. if I am paying for high speed, but getting less then dial up speeds, I shouldn\\\’t be charged for high speeds.
6. limiting p2p is a clear case of restricting my internet access, and p2p / bittorrent IS NOT illegal here in Canada.
7. in part 10 of the service aggreement, quote:
\\\”your service provider will notify you of any material amendment to this service aggreement or any change to the service in advance.\\\”
8. then in part 4 of the same service agreement quote:
\\\”if you cancel the service prior to the end of the initial service period as a resault of a material change in the service, the termination charge will be waived by your service provider.\\\”
if throttling my speeds is not a material change of the service I don\\\’t know what is. other then that, I kept insisting that they had broken the contract, not me. much of it was phone hell, but finally after calling the general manager, (he sets up a person to look over your case) it went smoother… and this person HAS TO call you back within 24 hours.
although in the end, they didn\\\’t admit that they were in any way wrong, but! they let me out of my contract, and even waived the 30 day notice.
Sympatico was a top notch service for me for the last 9 years, but this last thing just set me off.
I\\\’m now waiting for my new modem from Acanac, and look forward to the speeds I had just a few months back!
cheers,
snuggles
My ex is a director at Bell and I have it on good authority that Bell’s network does *not* “suck”. In fact, Bell Canada owns the backbone on which other providers ride; *ALL* other providers in eastern Canada.
Regardless, Sympatico is horrible.
bell sucks ass. logging about about 2-3kbps from different servers. no i am not torrenting. the internet is so slow that irc and instant messenging fails
With respect to 2P2 Bell has admit that they are using DPI to limit rates to 30 kB/s which is ridiculous. I’m paying for a 7000/1000 connection and I certainly expect at least 200-300 kB/s and should be getting higher than that. Even without Bell’s admission there is plenty of proof of this.
Peak Hours are never defined. They are whenever the network gets busy which based on my tests has included 2am on a Monday. As I post this at 1am Sunday the network in Ottawa is experiencing enough use to be classified as a “peak hour”. This leads to a question of when is it not a peak hour?
Since what constitutes a peak hour is automatically triggered by network use as the network gets busier a larger percentage of the day will be considered peak. Bell should not be selling 7M and 12M connections if their infrastructure can’t handle it. Remember Sympatico is DSL.
Bell markets the connection as 7M. Obviously they know users who choose faster packages are looking to use the connection for 2P2. There is no advantage to having a 7M connection over a 2M for normal web browsing. They know that anyone getting any of the faster packages are doing so because they intend to use the service for 2P2. Their marketing specifically stresses that their service delivers “consistent speed”. At no point do they mention that 2P2 is throttled nor can I find any mention of it on their website (outside the forums). Further they actually sell a unlimited package add-on for $25 extra which uses language in the marketing that actually implies the opposite.
I entered into a two year contract with Bell a few weeks ago. I’m calling to cancel my service on Monday. As far as I’m concerned Bell has violated the terms of the contract by making several material changes to the service. They are throttling 2P2 and they have migrated my e-mail from a Canadian server to a server in the United States subjecting me to US law. The last one actually doesn’t bother me but I’ll add just for the sake of completeness.
Michael Geist: I have an LLB and a BSc in CompSci. I also live a few blocks from your campus and I have plenty of free time. If you choose to pursue this and need any help I’d be willing to do whatever I can. Just let me know here and I’ll send you my contact info.
Everyone else should cancel their Sympatico service and move over to Teksavvy. No throttling and the service is actually considerably less expensive than Bell.
3:00AM Sunday. Bell obviously stops throttling p2p connection. I have been downloading at between 14-31 kB/s since 7pm. At 3am on the dot the rate started to increase rapidly. The same torrents started downloading were at 206 kB/s by 3:05. By 3:10 I\’m up to 336 kB/s.
As far as I\’m concerned this is the service I paid for (I actually expect closer to 450-500 kB/s but I\’d be happy to settle for this) and Bell is choosing to not provide it at all time. As far as I\’m concerned they are in breach of their contract.
I tested my connection at 7pm and 10pm as well as at 3:12am getting results that were basically the same all 3 times. The only explanation for the sudden change is due to 2P2 throttling. It also doesn\’t help Bell\’s cause that the change was exactly at 3:00am. It is pretty indicative of a trigger to have something change so drastically exactly on the hour.
A further point I forgot to make before. Bell claims that the reason they need to throttle 2P2 is because 2P2 is responsible for 50-75% of internet usage. How can someone claim that a particular activity represents the large a percentage of internet use yet at the same time maintain that they are providing internet service while preventing what is by their own admission the most substantial use?
The last few weeks my Bellnet “Hi Speed” seems to be running slower than my old phone line connection that I had years ago. How can I check what speed it is downloading at?
If you want to check the speed generally you can google “speakeasy speed test” and then follow the instructions. It is pretty simple.
That though does not measure the issue discussed in this thread. If you are using anything based on P2P technology then even if you get a high speed from Speakeasy your connection will still be very slow.
For example. I get results in the 6500-6800 range for downloads on Speakeasy but between 4pm and 3am my P2P will never go above 30kB/s.
Partial Throttling
I to have the Sympatico unlimited ultra high speed and i do get throttled from 5pm-2am est. As soon as 2:01am hits i’m back up to full speed. It sucks but i’ll have to put up with it until someone comes up with a way around it.
Liars. Cheats and Fraudsters. Not a doubt in my mind. I can tell you for sure about every aspect of this conversation/thread. What I would like to point out , is that they are using Call service centers in OTHER COUNTRIES!!! This can lead to SERIOUS problems with IDENTITY THEFT. How hard would it be having computer access to your account and information to sell that and have someone come over here and impersonate you??? F *&ing Bell dingaling morons……what we really need to do is find the president of their communications branch and scare the crap out of him/her/it!!! Maybe if we had a good old fashioned beating laid on them, they might think about what they’re doing? Sound extreme? I don’t think so! Seems to me that my hard earned dollars got them where they are @ now!?……Liars, Cheats, Fraudsters…….plain and simple!
Mr.
I have noticed throttling during the hours of 4pm and 3am. I’m an avid gamer. At exactly 3am my latency drops from 215ms on the usual server i play on to a rather nice 26ms constant. this has been every day for the last 6 or so months. I notice that normal web browsing in those hours has become more of a pain, it frequently ‘hangs’ or literally stops loading pages for 5 to 10 min. The only P2P i do is My Linux Distros, and the updates for WoW. While in my games it is the same thing; i can suffer a ‘hang’ or a stop in play because my link with the server is delayed. I for one do not agree with this practice. As a customer who is paying for the ‘advertised’ speeds and uptime i also do not see how this is fair!
Bell Blows
Speed now down to 18kb/s …MAX. Paying for high-speed and getting Dial-up. Now Tekksavvy getting throttled huge too, leaving no competition for the big players.
My voip is now screwed, with a delay in voice traffic. I guess they don’t want the phone competition either.
We have to unite against this garbage, and threaten to cancel and/or sue. Already told my overseas “technicians” they have 2 days to fix or I’m done with them. Someone will emerge to pick up the big boys disgruntled customers….then I guess they will beg us to return with ridiculous deals to switch.
“MONOPOLY!… Not just a game with coloured money!”
I think everybody who is getting ripped-off should sue Bell through the Smal Claim court. I t is alot more financialy damageable then a class action. With every small claim case, an attorney (or an executive) must represent them and that would create havoc
Just dropping them isn’t enough. You’ll go to another ISP and you will get %?%#%?? by them too. Had the same experience with Videotron in Quebec
Cuba North
Canada has been abusing some really shady laws in recent years. Taking the rights of it’s citizens away for the sake of money and power.
Another really big deal about the internet in Canada is the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the abuse of the system by ‘men’ like Richard Warman.
I would even say that Warman and his pals at the CHRC are more of a concern for Canadians. Why aren’t people blogging about that?
well the difference is, i’ll be downloading constantly now, beacaue files take longer to download. instead of downloading/uploading a movie for 4 hours, and it will take ten times as long, which means i’ll be using BW at any given time of the day. Thanks alot bell, now i’ll have to over to videotron.
Try 3Web – CIA
I’ll be trying Teksavvy for my parents when they move to Kitchener. We’ll see how that goes..but i’ve been using another independent company like Teksavvy called 3Web — recently renamed CIA. They’re pretty good but you’ll need to check up on availability and speeds before getting on a plan since they’re a smaller company and doesn’t cover as much area as some of the others. They have three plans Silver, Gold and Platinum which are 1.0mbs, 5.0mbs and 10.0mbs respectively. 3web.com.
So this explains it all. All this time I’ve been in the dark, deceived by all these tech guys who were pretty much telling me the same shit over and over again. Trying to get me to reboot my modem and everything. I’ve had 3 different modems sent to me, little plastic box that looked exactly identical as the ones being replaced, but whatever, I thought that would solve the problem but it doesn’t! I’m so fed up right now, at this moment this site is still trying to load fully. I’m paying $50 a month for something slower than dial-up? i’m through, I’m through with calling Bell all the time. “Thanks for you Bell” — um no, no more.
Sue Bell
SUE BELL: [ link ]
Optimax
I seen earlier that bell should not be selling 5/7 meg service. I myself have business optimax, which up until last week I have not seen throttled. Now with a 16/1 meg service (or which I can only sync at 10 due to the building I’m in), I’m seeing torrents being to 25kB until 2am, of which they finish quickly, so i’ve not seen the start of their ‘peak’ time for my area. Really starting to reconsider this connection now ($160/mo), and move to a wholesaler as there is no benefit to the service offered by Bell Business to me at this point. I can grab two local loops with 5/1 meg service, bond them on my edge router and have basically the same down stream minus the tunnel overhead, and higher upstream.
all out Thrtottle!!!
THATS IT I AM FED UP!
Im going to give their execuritve office a call and cancel the service… Rogers is no better but Bell is horrible!
The tech support is STUPID! and the managers don’t want you to talk! Good Damn It! I’m going to tell them to give me the ultra speed and see if that makes any difference… or else 3rd party isp here i come!
enough is enough
Ok, now it has gone WAY too far! I really wish for this problem to go away and Bell SHOULD GET SUED, CLASS-ACTION STYLE!!! The sad thing is that I’m way too young to be able to legally sue them or anything of the matter (my parents pay for the internet) and yet this is affecting me seriously. Everyone is being affected by Bell’s throttling practices and the online experiences are now horrible! My dsl connection crashes every half-hour or so and when working, I get speeds slower than dial-up. My parents know very little of this problem and we always have to go through the same BS of customer support. I’ve had enough with talking to a person who knows nothing about my problem in INDIA!!!! As a teenager, I’m a HEAVY gamer… Now thanks to Bell, I can’t even get connected online with my PS3. My parents were paying for unlimited bandwidth and it got deducted to 60GB (which is NOTHING), also our internet speeds are not even close to 7Mbps (I know there are 8 bits in a byte). I might as well wait it out until Google or some other big giant sues their arses to kingdom come. **This is how the young generation is feeling**
throttlin
Every branch of the government has been growing more and more corrupt. Even though throttling is illegal, nothings going to be done about it.
not proud to be canadian
this is what happens when conservative gov’t has the helm. how stupid was everyone in this country to let harper become prime minister after he stated “the bush administration is a real inspiration” during his campaign in 2005, what the hell is wrong with people!
bell
what can I say Bell Sympatico has to be the worst at just about everything, when you call to find out why your internet slows down I was told I was turning on my stove so that is why my internet slowed down at 4:30 everyday, it is responses like that is why everyone should go elsewhere why would bell even consider changing there practises when they still gain more and more clients. good luck to everyone who wants to give bell chance after chance.
ps trust me it won’t make any difference.
Bell Blows
my bf and I have been with Bell for 5 years. At first they rocked. Fast service, reasonable price(we were with Rogers and we couldn’t both play online games at the same time, he drops, i drop, he drops, i drop) Ever since he got this new game which runs P2P updates, we have to call tech support every time he gets a patch. We go through the dance of unplugging/resetting/unkinking everything and it’s still slow. Then they tell us there’s a problem on their end and someone will be in the area within a week to look at ‘it’. Then they tell us where we are, the cable ‘weren’t meant to handle what it’s doing’. But by that logic we should have had problems since we got the service in the first place. Sry for the inconvenience and so forth. Hang up. 15 mins later our service is 100x faster, until we have a new game update. This happens every week or so.
I hate Rogers/yahoo and really don’t want to have to pay $100 for changing providers. What am I to do? I’m CCing this to all the papers in the city.
FTA
BELL FUCKING SUCKS. NUFF SAID.
Bell….uh huh
Lately, my bell sympatico dsl connection disconnects for no apparent reason.
When I call tech. support, the vast majority of time I’m speaking with some foreigner that doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Now, I’ll simply tell them that I don’t understand their version of english and to transfer the call to someone else. Sometimes this works, other times I get another thick accent.
As you can tell, I’m completely pissed off @ companies that hire foreign tech. support. There’s absolutely no excuse for employing people that do not have a solid grasp of the english language. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told the tech. support to repeat his instructions because I couldn’t understand him. Many times, they would simply repeat their tech.instructions due to the language barrier.
I don’t have to waste my time talking to Mabojabbi from India, if he cannot clearly pronounce basic words.
So, what are reliable alternative ISPs for either dsl or cable?
Bell is pissing me off.
I think the best thing for most people to do is just leave Bell – in droves. I’m here because my speeds lower drastically – exactly 30 kb every evening, without fail. This has been going on about 2 or 3 weeks. MOrning and middle of day seem fine, but boom, evenings, forget it. This is obvious and there’s really no arguing it, since I’m on the same setup that I’ve been on for 2 years. The class action thing makes me WANT to do it, but I’m afraid no one will listen. I think people WOULD listen if Bell’s customers took the hell off and migrated elsewhere. And the $100 cancellation fee – if they ask me – I’ll just flat out tell them I’m not paying it, list the reasons, and I won’t even bother calling any manager. I just won’t pay it. Why would that bother me? And agreed – I have nothing against foreigners whatsoever, but calling tech is always a nightmarre because I just can’t understand what they’re saying. Ridiculous. And yes, right now, downloading is NOT illegal in Canada. And there ARE many torrents out there and uses for torrents that aren’t at all pirating.
Bell is soooo slow
Been having slow download/upload speeds with Bell. I have the Bell Internet Max 10 and my download speeds keep on fluxuating? No idea. Why is it cause of the throttling? Also is Rogers Internet a better choice?
NOne just concerned…
I too agree in full with the above statements that bell is crooked.
two weeks ago i recieved a call from a bell sales idiot. They offered me a 7MB conection for 3 months free. I got everything hooked up and wala, i only get a max of 2.5mb/s. I spent over an hour on the phone with a tech that keept making me change settings in IE7 (makes no sence) I do not use p2p at all. “you will recieve a call in 24-48hrs” lol who wants to wait for that.
I than went onto the bell forum and posted my complaints there and was asked for some stats from within my modem, after that i was told that my line would never reach the 7mb/s that i was told i would get but instead i can only achieve 3mb/s max.
Isn’t that ilegal, maby even theft. telling me i would get 7mb/s and only setting my profile to 3mb/s, there has to be some kind of law or loophole that can bring all of the customers that are beiing lied to and robbed justice.
I also have a rogers account which i cannot even complain about. I am on a 10mb profile and i get 1.25megabytes/s download anytime i download. i have been with them for years now and althopugh the company itself is not much different than bell i do believe that the internet is top notch.
bell throttle confirmed……
Hi,
I have not read all the complaints about this issue, nor will I. But, However, I am currently involved with this issue big time ( Mar 2009). My speeds get capped at 30kbs when I have am supposed to have speeds at 500kbs download and unlimited at that.
I have currently been calling and complaining about this issue for the past couple of weeks because I have unlimited downloads and am paying for high speed ( my contract since 2001 does not give them the right to cap my speed).
I have been recording my phone calls to bell and caught them in a lie earilier this week when they told me they did not know about any throttle, but, 5 supervisors later, they admit to it and tell me everything.
I threatened legal action because this is a violation of my contract (unlimited downloads at high speed 500 kbs).
At this point, I was told that I can be bypassed and have normal speeds when using my torrent program. All they had to do was change the channel I was on. ?????? I was told to give it 30 hours and it would be fine. Well, 30 hours went by and I still was capped.
I called back (several more supervisors latter) and this time I was told that I would recieve a new modem with pre configured settings that would bypass the throttle and I would be fine. I was told to test it, and guess what,,,,,,still capped. The tech even switched me to the fast channel and still no change.
So, the cap is real, they even violate contracts, so WHAT CAN A PERSON LIKE ME DO IN THIS CASE?
I have some recorded conversations (not all). To put in simply, I pay for high speed. I get high speed everywhere except for torrents. I have a contract since 2001 before the cap was even considered or thought off. I was told it started oct 07. So, what gives them the right to break a contract and limit my speed, when I pay for high speed?
So, to recap:
1. I was told it was a problem with my phone lines……I ran all new lines in my house. They had a tech come to my house and test my lines. I was told it was the best he had ever seen. 20 MBs…..”WOW” was what he said.
2. This time I found out it was a problem with my old modem. They sent me a new 2wire which increased my speed a little. I HAD TO FIND THIS OUT ON MY OWN.
3. I had my modem replaced with a new 2wire modem, still same issue.
4. I was told that they would put me on a new channel and the download speeds would be fine with torrents, NO THEY ARE NOT.
5. I was told I would recieve a new 2wire modem with pre configured specs to rerute the throttle, still, same 30Kbs [NOTE: same modem, model number and everything, but, the only diference was the way BELL was spelled on the front on it].
6. A new tech put me on a new FAST channel ( instead off the channel “Interleaving” which everyone else is on) and still, 30kbs.
SO, Right now I have a recorded BELL LIE and a violation of my contract of 500kbs downoad rate. SO, should I or do I have the right to PRESS LEGAL ACRON against BELL and straighten all this issue out for every coustomer that is affected by this THROTTLE. Right now its about the princeable. We (as a customer) are promised a certain download rate), if BELL cannot provide this rate, they should reconstruct there network to only handle the bandwidth they can instead of SHOOTING ALOAD OF SH**. If BELL cannot handle the donwload rate at which they promise, then people like me who pay alot of money to donwload (WHATEVER FROM THE INTERNET VIA WHATEVER PROGRAM) should get what we are promised or BELL should limit how many customers they have so that they can upheld there contract. I know right now with my recorded conversations that they violated my contract and I have legal grounds to sue (I have nothing to loose). However, how would you go about this?
I leave this disscussion in your hands. I am still battling this issue and will now continue to record conversations with BELL after the crappy load I was feed tonight because my speeds are still capped.
LATER
Montreal slow connection
hi,
I’ve been with sympatico for a few years now. We have 2 computers; the connection is splitted and we both use P2P programs. The internet connection is very slow since a few months ago. We can’t use P2P programs while surfing the web. It gets slow to the point pages won’t load and MSN messenger will simply not work properly. When I check my connection(speed test) everything looks ”fine” but I get 30kb(thats generous) worth of P2P download. My upload speed is faster than my download with P2P. It’s as if I had a 56k modem. Strangely enough, the download speed goes up in the middle of the night. We complained to bell and they sent us a newer router. The new router is installed, and I’m hooked to it via ethernet cable, there are still problems with the connection. I read all of your comments and I understand. There really is nothing to do. I’ll switch to its competitor, Videotron. I knew Bell was a shady company, but alas, the customer I am is now fed up. Bye bye internet and bye bye phone line. That’s 1200$/year you won’t get anymore dear Bell company, not to mention the 30 people I will tell about my bad experience with you and your call center in India.
Does Techsavy throttle?
I’m with bell for past 5 years now and now that they started throttling, i’m looking to cancel all my bell services. I was actually without internet for almost a whole week because something happened on their end and my line was having problems. Guess what? no refund! They actually expects the average consumer to expect 1 week downtimes? Now that they are throttling without telling me and charging me for “extra” bandwidth I’m looking for an alternative. Even if techsavy throttle at least it’s cheaper than stupid bell.
Feeling Powerless
I’ve been a Bell customer for over 6 years. They have tried numerous times to increase my rate, force me to sign a contract and cahnge service to a cap all this because they can. 40$ a month for 5 mbs was what I started paying. Then without notice 45$ a month , same service. did not notice for a few months. Do not feel I should have to scrutinize my bill every time I get one in case a company tries to F$^K me up. By the time I notice 50$ a month. Called to complained and threaten to leave phone and all. They reduced it back to 45$ and credited me the 5$ increase for the last 6 month only after 4 hours on the phone and numerous demands to escalate the call to supervisors. Then 6 moth later 55$ a month but a 10$ credit. So it appear they are doing me a favor and could revoke the 10$ credit at anytime. Which they did last Febuary. I called and said that they had some nerve to throttle my downloads and increase my rate . I again threatened to take my phone, web hosting and High speed somewhere else at which they replied: ” we don’t care”. They are willing to lose the 140$ a month for my service because I have been fighting to be grandfathered from my original service agreement (no contract 5 mbs unlimited) instead of allowing them to heard me onto their little manipulative vrappy service. I am tired of having a company who is selling me a service them telling me how I should use it. Seems to me they must have a lot of politicians in their pokets. Tehy seemed more concerned with pleasing their shareholders( large american fatcats who also have interest in the movie and music industry ) then providing service to their clients as promised on their contracts and sells pitch. I need an internet connection and If i give this up I’m concerned that I cannot get as good a deal in Ottawa. Micheal Geist: i will join any class action law suit you believe can stop this
is it illegal?
Is it illegal to throttle our connection? because it seems as though they sell you something and then change it after u buy it ive had new internet come and be happy with it for about 3 days thenit gets so crappy i cant even watch videos
bell scams us, plain and simple
I noticed throughout the day BT speeds are capped at max 20-50kbps. but as soon as its 2am, it goes full speed up to about 10am. WTF IS THAT? I FUCKING PAID for a “high speed” service why do i only get this high speed for 8 hours out of the day.
Its ridiculous, theres no other alternative here either near Toronto, what else ROGERS? bastards
The Solution
The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission) has apparently already reviewed this issue. The only thing we can do is continuously send in complaints about the company Bell Canada Inc. It is clear that there are many people who are enraged by the scams Bell seem to be pulling. Keep in mind that not only does the mentioned company falsely advertise speeds which you will never consistently achieve despite there slogan stating that they offer “Constant High Speeds” but the method used for limiting speeds is done by monitoring packets. Both “Encrypted” and “Unencrypted” packets. In other words their method used to limit speed (Which is known as Deep Packet Inspection) allows them to see personal information. This personal information can contain names, addresses, telephone numbers, web mail, account information to all sites used by you (as the customer) and even credit card information. Regardless of if this information is not being personally monitored the fact of the matter is, is that the company mentioned has this information which is a violation of Canadian privacy laws. Consider if some person were to get this information, they could use it for fraudulent activities such as credit card scams.
The only thing we as the customers can do is send in as many complaints to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as possible. You can conveniently make complaints online at http://www.crtc.gc.ca
Let’s just hope that with the mass amount of complaints that are being submitted that a case will be made to stop the wrong that Bell Canada Inc. is doing.
Throttling; How it’s done
I just figured out how Bell is trottling me. I did an IP lookup and found out my CO or ISP hub is in Mississauga. I live in Brampton, Brampton has two COs that I found. I rebooted my modem and cheecked again, this time it says I am in Oakville and then Milton. Go figure.
I have complained to Bell support when they had a support website, and they cept saying I was too far from the CO to get any more speed or bandwidth. I used to get 6mb download and they had me down to 2mb and recently I can’t get over 1mb no matter what time of the day it is.
If they got me wired to Mississauga, no wonder they say I am too far away from the CO.
So anybody complaining about Bells speed, this how they do it. They got you wired the longest route possible. but as a custermer I don’t see how to fix this. Even changing ISP could get me the same results.
Bell is corrupt
I’ve been with Bell for several years, through phone and internet. I’ve had Bell High-speed 3M service with a 60Gig cap on contract for about 25.99 a month for 1 year (I think) and I had no problems so I decided to renew my contract. Everything was fine and just about 6 months ago, I receive a bill in the mail for an astonishing price of around 39.99. I immediately called Bell and had told them they had made a mistake with my bill, they replied that the 3M service is an old service and isn’t covered anymore by my contract so they upgraded me to 5M service without any notice! I demanded my money back and my old speed, they agreed to keep the old speed (keep in mind they “don’t offer it anymore”). They told me that they couldn’t give me the same price as last year because it was a ‘promotional’ price, and they would have to change it to 29.99 and reduce my cap to 20Gigs from 60Gigs! I still didn’t care because I rarely used all the 60Gigs anyways.
Another issue I have with bell is I always have to call them for their stupid mistakes on the bill. EVERY month I get charged an extra $5.00 because some idiot can’t do their math correctly. Do you notice they never make a mistake by decreasing your bill by $5.00? Why is this? They do this purposely, for anyone that doesn’t check their bills I urge you to do so and never pay through direct billing. They WILL suck the money out of your account.
Thirdly, I used to have the old Speed-Stream modem model, few months ago, my father purchased a laptop and wanted a wireless model to go along with it so we all can enjoy the internet (3 PC’s.) NOW GET THIS..
They first told me that they cannot do the upgrade unless I paid an extra $25.00 I think it was + shipping fees, then after bargaining with the agent I managed to get him to no charge for the modem and only a shipping fee of $10.00. After at least a half-hour on the phone I give up. I called right back to speak with a supervisor and told them the situation, I told them I don’t want the modem shipped and that I could go pick it up from a local Bell store. She agreed and told me a close location that I could pick it up from, so I get to the store and ask someone at the desk if I could get a wireless modem, blah blah blah and he answers that they don’t carry them there.
At this point I’m pissed, not only did I waste my time on the phone but I had to waste gas going to the location where there was no modem pickups, bunch of idiots. I get back home and talk to Bell again, (and exaggerated) told them HOLY SHIT, I called you over 15 times about this situation, I went to you damn Bell store, I just want a fucking modem and you can’t even help me, I’ve been with this company for over 5 years is this how you treat your customers? He gave up and said that a modem will be on the way within 3-5 business days. (FINALLY HOPE.)
Wireless modem comes in the mail or UPS or something… AND ITS NOT EVEN WIRELESS, in fact it’s the same piece of shit I already fucking had. I was so mad, I called back and told them that they just sent me the exact same modem I had and that if they didn’t send me a wireless one within 5 days I’m canceling my contract.
Within 5 days my new 2Wire Wireless modem appears. So I test it out, and start trying to download everything I can. It turns out with all the bitching I gave them I guess they were upset and turned my high speed downloads down to 260kb/s (with the other modem it was 330kb/s)
LESSON: Bell is complete and utter shit.
AND HERE WE GO AGAIN.
Interesting
Bell Sympatico user: old school corporate high speed account: unlimited band | 6Mbps/1Mbps (nothing too fancy)
Background: I run two routers off of the same modem (2 wire modem/router – 2701HG-G running 3rd party fireware and a DLINK DIR-625 router). The reason for this was that I have them connect in succession (allowing each to get it’s own IP) because I run a web server from one router/IP and use the other for Internet use (security reasons).
I often switch my office laptop from router to router while watching megavideo (have to love my job – lol), and came up with an interesting idea recently. I had to download a series of torrents for my gf’s father, and was averaging around 700 kB/s download speeds for a little while. I’ve known of the torrent throttling for awhile and sure enough my speeds dropped to around 6-20 kB/s, while continuing to support 100-125 kB/s upload rates. Another trend I noticed was that each morning (been around a week I’ve been working on his long list) the torrents left running were completed (and once noticed that during the night they all jumped back up to normal speeds – possibly supporting and observation someone made a while back in regards to this).
About an hour ago, I thought about trying something out. I switched from one router (the one I had been using to download torrents, and was currently using to do so) to the other router – same torrents – but no longer throttled. It only lasted so long, but I was surprised by this.
The worse part (aside from not even having available speeds compared to places like Korea and Japan) – looking down a peer list – seeing download rates averaging 1.5 – 2 MB/s and glancing up to my 10.. 15.. 20 kB/s torrent rates – JUST A SHAME!
Mr.
I just cancelled my bell phone service this week but kept the internet service..low and behold my internet speed is now cut in half of what it was. I check my speeds with toast.net. but I am paying the same price for my “high speed” internet maybe they know I am using magic jack and that is why they are screwing with my speeds so my voip wont work well…bastards!
We should make a website, lawsuitagaintsbell.com
We should make a website, lawsuitagaintsbell.com
And we make members until we are like 100000 and fill a lawsuit so that we can all have our money back!!!
Big company always get away because they know customers are sisi’s and don’t organise themselve.
Bell / sympatico 100 dollar fee
When we moved, we were canceled simpatico high speed. They told us that you can not cancel half way through a month….I was not happy but had bigger things on my mind so i paid the additional month. After paying our remaining bill from bell, we did not expect to hear back with them. Our new telephone/internet provider was Nexicom. We received a bill from bell for 100 dollars. What? what is this from? I called bell and they said that it was for breaking our contract? what contract? We were with simpatico for about a year and a half. We always paid our bill on time. And now this? What is this charge all about? I called up bell and they said that we signed up for a 2 year contract. I told then no we didn’t. They said that we agreed to this because we clicked on something on the computer? what???? We did no do this. I think that bell is very misleading and sneaky…Not a great way to do business. I called bell to get things straightened out. They said that they could not change anything as this 100 charge is their policy. I plan on taking this matter to small clims court. Im not sure if i will win, but i wish to go on principal alone, bell does not practise moral business. They must be stoped.
I just switched from Bell to Primus Canada and what a difference. Like the others, I am not torrenting ( once in a while), and my internet connection was slow that I was in tears , since I rely heavily on internet coz I am an online student. My instant messenger would fail, as well as skype, and I have called them many times, I have complained about throttling, about connection, speed, and they said there is nothing they could do about it. I was so frustrated with them, and I am with Primus now, and there is a HUGE difference in speed, and it is also cheaper. I am never going back to them, oh yes, and I was so frustrated with them, I’ve also switched my home phone….Hahaha…I really hate them.
What Mass Confusion… Most people haven’t a clue
This is going to be scrambled and thrown together… its just a quick post cuz I’m so tired of so many people who are the “do’er of all but the Master of noneâ€!. You know what I mean.
First of all just because your 500m – 1km from the CO (central Office) or Node (for Fiber to the Node areas) doesn’t mean you will have a good connection… even in a brand new house with all new wires you speed may be sitting around 16m to the demarcation point but as soon as it hits the ISW (inside wires) the echo effects and endless hassles of ISW will have your connection down 2-3-5 meg… sitting at 100 Capacity levels… meaning yes your connection will be shit… you wont know any better, phone sounds fine… line must be fine… in fact what you need a potts splitter… a way to split the frequencies of the line so that your DSL is dedicated to one jack (this is mandatory for all new bell installations for Highspeed users)… this is just one of the hundreds of reasons your internet can be shit… also your ever faithful resellers DO NOT install Potts splitters… they use the same lines (ISW) you had before you switched to them… for the most part they use the same CO equip and Out side plant… they do not service your Inside wires (without charging you a fortune) and they don’t install Potts splitting devises which fix 80-90% of all speed/intermittent sync issues caused by ISW, I could go on and on… I have been at this 10+ years and am one of maybe 200 *Certified HS techs in Ontario… Do yourself a favour… If you speed sucks… call and get a service from a Technician… It’s probably the line…. and High Speed service calls never get billed… Also if you’re thinking of switching to another provider like Techsavy, Acanac and the rest… We (Bell techs) service their lines… its called Local Comp work… they hire us to fix it… but we only fix it to the outside (demarcation Point)… we cant go inside… again where 90% of the troubles lie… so if your ISW sucks… and your with the competition… Good Luck……… 🙂 now if you stayed with bell… Id be happy to go in a fix the Inside wires. any who I love reading these posts… Throttling sucks… they all do it… your think techsaavy and acanac dont throttle… lol who’s Slams and Ports do you think they are using…. also… Bell is re-skinning boxes all over Ontario… those boxes are called fiber to the Node… Re-sellers… aka local comp CANNOT run through those boxes… so instead of getting a connection down the street you still have to be fed by copper up to 7km away… I see this all time, re seller next door is getting a 2m service… my cust is sitting at 24M … sucks to be them, distance can be a B**CH! I don’t blame so many of you for being upset… our customer service sucks, they don’t have a clue… they really don’t… some of the stories they tell the customers is amazing… I just wish all our retired technicians were now working in the call centers lol… The long and short of it is… get a tech out to inspect the line… 9/10 there is a problem somewhere…. And sometimes… you’re just in a bad area and yeah… you may need to switch to Rogers etc… if they have newer plant in the area… I’ll tell you that. But for general area I deal in… bell lines and speeds are superior to the comp. dedicated lines no *dumb Pipe… assuming the metallic’s are good.
Also this whole 5m 7m 12m 16m 24m… what it comes down to… is this, each Meg represents about a 100kb/s download… so a 6m service should net you *Max 600kb/s on your downloads (proving who your getting it from can push it to you at that rate) this again is throttled down on torrents during peak hours.
Circut operator
I just dropped Bell today.I went to their http://www.2wire.com site to check my speed,and at that time I got 96 kps.Which is slower than when I had dial-up.CRTC maybe in their corner allowing them to throttle their internet speeds to customers ,but the problem is there may be no customers to thottle.Hopefuly Bell Canada goes out of business.
Speedtest
The last place to make a speedtest is http://www.2mire.net and it does not belong to Bell at all. The best place to go is http://internet.bell.ca/index.cfm?method=content.view&content_id=15561 you could go to http://internet.bell.ca/index.cfm?method=content.view&content_id=15561 wich is probably one of the best place to go… also http://www.speedtest.net for all over the world speedtests… all those test places are made possible by Ookla. I hope that it will be usefull to all of you.