# which ISP service sucks less Rogers or Bell



## dru (Nov 17, 2003)

I have been struggling for the past week to just get my tiny little web site up through my bell account.. and it has been SUCH a pain in the ass. Mainly to do with tech problems on thier side of the fence....

is rogers as un-reliable.. or are they some sort of Oasis....

just looking for opinions...


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## sharkattack (Dec 7, 2005)

both suck in my opinion


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## tintin (Sep 19, 2005)

I don't know how good they are for setting up personal sites, but I use Rogers and prefer the Cable service over ADSL. Plus, Bell just plain sucks. I'd use anyone else before them.

There are other providers - www.trytel.com for one.


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## IronMac (Sep 22, 2003)

They're both fine in my opinion...and, yes, I've/I use(d) both.

What are the technical difficulties plaguing your website endeavours?


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## ender78 (Jan 23, 2005)

dru said:


> I have been struggling for the past week to just get my tiny little web site up through my bell account.. and it has been SUCH a pain in the ass. Mainly to do with tech problems on thier side of the fence....
> 
> is rogers as un-reliable.. or are they some sort of Oasis....
> 
> just looking for opinions...


Why not host elesewhere, you can get hosting for $5/month with gigs of space and terabytes of bandwidth.


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## guytoronto (Jun 25, 2005)

Rogers is easier for simple internet connection. Bell uses PPPoE, which can be frickin' difficult to configure properly through routers. Bell tech support is next to useless in their support of Macs. Rogers is usually as simple as plug it in, and it works.

For a personal website, don't rely on your ISP. Flaky at best. Spend a little money, and get yourself a real webhost. Why not .Mac?


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Reliability issues with both, seem to depend on where you live. It's a toss up. I've had better luck with Bell, but that does not mean anything.

I would agree with those that recommend a dedicated hosting service.

As always, YMMW.


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## okcomputer (Jul 18, 2005)

guytoronto said:


> Rogers is easier for simple internet connection. Bell uses PPPoE, which can be frickin' difficult to configure properly through routers.


I have never had a problem setting up a router for Aliant/Bell. I've probably done it 20 times for myself and others (you have to get a new modem every time you move, which is a lot when you're in university!).

All you need to know is your login and password for the PPoE connection. Enter those, click okay, and you're done.

I have had very few problems with Aliant. Speed is good and consistent. It also is not shared - it's a dedicated line. I am not sure how Bell/Rogers/etc. works in other provinces though. Rogers might be a-okay.


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## webwiz23 (Dec 10, 2005)

There are way better ISP in canada. If i had to choose between the two i'd say bell would be better for two reasons, 1. i've had no problems with DSL and tones with cable, 2. bell had a ok custemer support and rogers' sucks.


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## lreynolds (Dec 28, 2005)

I was with Bell with no problems for about 3 years, and then service was down for about a week and a half, and they didn't do anything, and couldn't give me any answers. They were "working on it".
That is when I switched to Rogers, and haven't had any problems.


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## harrytse (Nov 3, 2005)

didn't realise so many internet service providers adopted PPPoE


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## 8127972 (Sep 8, 2005)

> I was with Bell with no problems for about 3 years, and then service was down for about a week and a half, and they didn't do anything, and couldn't give me any answers. They were "working on it".
> That is when I switched to Rogers, and haven't had any problems.


I had the exact opposite experience in my area. Rogers worked fine (more or less) for years and then they started having issues. When I reported it to them, they said that they were working on it. I've switched to Bell and had no problems since.


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## vacuvox (Sep 5, 2003)

I have been with Sympatico since they introduced ADSL. It has been mostly good. When things got bad (twice) they were receptive. both times this has happened, my connection was faster after the fix than before things got dodgy. The most recent episode was this week. I called technical support and actually spoke to a human without having to wait on hold. He acknowledged there was a problem with the local server, that my line was fine (he didn't make me jump through any hoops) and said the server would be fixed as soon as possible. And now I'm back!


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## okcomputer (Jul 18, 2005)

vacuvox said:


>


Which speed test site did you use for that?


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## shoe (Apr 6, 2005)

I use rogers but Im not voting for them never used bell only on an old gfs mac but that was here and there, now Im having issues with rogers and this new technology where they ;imit your peer to peer bandwidth to dial up speeds, So Im slowly but activly looking for an alternative and it might not be bell.

shoe ( would vote undecided in this case)


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## vacuvox (Sep 5, 2003)

okcomputer said:


> Which speed test site did you use for that?


I used dslreports.com to do multiple tests and produce the graphic. Surprised at the result, I also used bandwidthplace and others to confirm the result. At this moment the same tests are indicating 1600 down and 650 up.


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## dru (Nov 17, 2003)

*A Dead Heat!!*

man.. i would have never thought that everyone was in such a "divided mind" over ontarios ISP queens......

well... I guess there is no easy answer


or maybe the answer is..... dare i say it.... LOVE?

why doesn't ehmac start its own ISP?.... how about it.... I would sign up for it...


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## Howard2k (Feb 9, 2005)

harrytse said:


> didn't realise so many internet service providers adopted PPPoE



Almost all of the DSL providers do. In fact I don't know any Canadian ones that don't.


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## g5tony (Jan 19, 2006)

Get Rogers....trust me on this one.


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## IronMac (Sep 22, 2003)

As I noted before on another thread...in the dozen or so calls to Bell's tech support, I have almost never had to wait...maybe once...to get someone immediately on the line.


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## Digital_Gary (Sep 18, 2003)

While I am definitely not a fan of Bell support, I am a fan of the Highspeed Basic Lite. It has been very stable for me over the last 6 months. Much faster than I expected and hasn't gone down once (except the time the Bell tech cut my phone line).

Problem with Bell is, if you do have a problem, they are not very helpful and I don't seem to have as much luck as IronMac does getting someone useful on the line quickly


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## harrytse (Nov 3, 2005)

Howard2k said:


> Almost all of the DSL providers do. In fact I don't know any Canadian ones that don't.


apparently not west of Manitoba, neither TELUS or SaskTel employ PPPoE. TELUS requires MAC registration though


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## Howard2k (Feb 9, 2005)

harrytse said:


> apparently not west of Manitoba, neither TELUS or SaskTel employ PPPoE



TELUS does. I don't know about Manitobatel or Sasktel. Do they even HAVE DSL? 



EDIT: Just did some digging, looks like they don't use it for their consumer services. Is that a recent change?


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## harrytse (Nov 3, 2005)

Howard2k said:


> TELUS does. I don't know about Manitobatel or Sasktel. Do they even HAVE DSL?
> 
> EDIT: Just did some digging, looks like they don't use it for their consumer services. Is that a recent change?


i've never had to configure for PPPoE on TELUS High Speed Enhanced, it's always been MAC registration, and I double-checked if the setup was different for their "lite" packages, but it looks to be the same OCA MAC Registration. Which service requires PPPoE/

SaskTel has had ADSL for several of years, and it offers all the way up to 7Mbps, and as far as I'm aware, they don't employ PPPoE. 

If Bell uses PPPoE, it wouldn't be surprising to find MTS following suit, which it does.


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## Apple101 (Jan 22, 2006)

Bell Ultra High Speed kicks ass! Its fast, very reliable, and I love their email service that is enhanced by MSN. My friend who lives just a couple of houses down from me has Rogers and it is not even nearly as fast as by Bell Sympatico.


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## Howard2k (Feb 9, 2005)

harrytse said:


> i've never had to configure for PPPoE on TELUS High Speed Enhanced, it's always been MAC registration, and I double-checked if the setup was different for their "lite" packages, but it looks to be the same OCA MAC Registration. Which service requires PPPoE/
> 
> SaskTel has had ADSL for several of years, and it offers all the way up to 7Mbps, and as far as I'm aware, they don't employ PPPoE.
> 
> If Bell uses PPPoE, it wouldn't be surprising to find MTS following suit, which it does.



Some of their bottom end business grade services used PPPoE. The mid range and higher doesn't.


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## IronMac (Sep 22, 2003)

Digital_Gary said:


> Problem with Bell is, if you do have a problem, they are not very helpful and I don't seem to have as much luck as IronMac does getting someone useful on the line quickly


Hey, I never said that they were helpful. :lmao:


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## greensuperman32 (Mar 28, 2005)

Go here if you wanna compare ISP prices in Canada: http://canadianisp.ca/


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## Cerebus (Sep 9, 2003)

I had Sympatico for years and it was usually pretty solid, but the speed was never great. I don't think I got even 1Meg speed out of them despite that I was paying for a 1.5Meg account originally that was 'upgraded' to 3Meg. Numerous phonecalls over the years netted free months ocassionally, but never any speedup. 

I finally gave up this year and switched to 3Web who are a Rogers reseller. My speed has been a full 3Meg ever since, and I'm only paying $24.95/mo (plus $5/mo for the modem rental)! In fact I pre-paid $9.95/mo for the first 3 months, so I'm ecstatic! 3Web has no contracts and you can buy the modem after 6mo for $50.

So I'm paying half what I was paying for slow DSL before and half what 'real' Rogers clients are paying for the exact same service. A rogers installer even came out to do the hook-up!

If anyone's interested in 3Web, you can check out their website at http://www.get3web.com . And if you decide to sign up, send me a PM though ehMac with your email address and I'll give you a referral which will get us each a free month! 

C


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## greensuperman32 (Mar 28, 2005)

bell will do price matching btw, they did for me. I'm with bell and only pay $24.99/month for 3Meg service.


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## ramsesm (Jan 29, 2005)

I think it really depends where you are. My service with Rogers was very good until the end of this year. latency and other problems started affecting performance. I have been with Rogers for 9 years and just swtiched to Bell. Latency problems whent away. It really depends on the load and the traffic your area produces.


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## adb_ii (Jan 10, 2005)

this thread is awesome...
awesome in the fact that i just got hired as an internet tech support agent for bell...
i will admit, when they go through basic training mac's are hardly touched upon, but they are very easy to configure with the pppoe connection as well as xp machines...when i got hired they told me mac calls would be handled by a separate queue but alas they are not, so hiring me based on the fact that i had extensive mac experience seems to be untrue...
the adsl that bell provides is faster during peak times because you're not sharing the connection with the people in your neighbourhood...but when rogers is fast, it is fast...
no lies, i am on rogers right now, but everything else i have is bell...i'm waiting for high speed ultra to be available in my area then i'm switching back to bell...
i guess it's all personal experience...one bad experience with a tech support agent, billing office, service cutting out, etc. will change your opinion but they're both large companies, so this is bound to happen...

that aside, if anyone is having problems setting up or configuring their sympatico service on a mac or pc, feel free to shoot me a pm


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## wholeness (Oct 8, 2009)

It has been my experience that Bell Technicians are too incompetent to phone you 15 minutes before they arrive on site as they are supposed to to and too incompetent to knock on the door when they arrive. Instead they arrive without phoning or knocking and leave a note on your door saying they could not access the unit (while you were sitting on a couch in front of the door waiting for them to knock or call you). It is also my experience that they are incapable of showing up during the time they are supposed to show up, sometimes they don't show up the entire day, one time they showed up 8 hours after their scheduled time slot (without calling to let me know they'd be late). It took them over a month to get my Internet working reasonably too. 

For these reasons, I highly recommend you go with Rogers over Bell or a Bell DSL reseller, even though Rogers is pricey and has stupid limits on how much you can use the Internet without being charged extra now (the monthy usage limits from Rogers were why I switched to DSL). I miss my old Rogers account with unlimited monthly Internet access. I is my experience that Rogers is a very reliable service provider, it is rare for the Internet to be down with them but when it is is usually is fixed a couple of minutes later. If your Internet is down with Bell it can take them days or weeks to fix it due to their incompetent technicians.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Even though this thread is three and a half years old - Bell and Rogers still both suck large...


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## pwstoneman (Feb 12, 2009)

Funny this is an old thread but the same debate still rages!

I was with Bell for years upon years, thought they were the best ever. Moved to the east end and couldn't get Bell in my area, reluctantly switched to Rogers. They have been GREAT, quick responses to my customer service calls, excellent reliable service (as compared to Bell) and now wish I'd switched sooner.

Of course that could be, as others mentioned, related to the load in my area but Rogers has consistently delivered bandwidth as promised with zero issues. I'm a surprisingly happy Rogers customers.

Cheers,
Paul


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## JCCanuck (Apr 17, 2005)

*Sympatico a real disappointment the last few months!*

Great! High speed connection is terrible the last few weeks through Bell. Tried getting help through chat but it got disconnected a few times (then had to redo the whole info process). Every response to my question was text book (geez, copy and paste responses?). Sooooo frustrating. I'd go to Rogers for a try but I have cancelled cable service a few months back due to poor cable quality esp. HD.


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## treif (Jul 12, 2004)

*Bell? Rogers? No thank you.*



wholeness said:


> It has been my experience that Bell Technicians are too incompetent to phone you 15 minutes before they arrive on site as they are supposed to to and too incompetent to knock on the door when they arrive. Instead they arrive without phoning or knocking and leave a note on your door saying they could not access the unit (while you were sitting on a couch in front of the door waiting for them to knock or call you). It is also my experience that they are incapable of showing up during the time they are supposed to show up, sometimes they don't show up the entire day, one time they showed up 8 hours after their scheduled time slot (without calling to let me know they'd be late). It took them over a month to get my Internet working reasonably too.
> 
> For these reasons, I highly recommend you go with Rogers over Bell or a Bell DSL reseller, even though Rogers is pricey and has stupid limits on how much you can use the Internet without being charged extra now (the monthy usage limits from Rogers were why I switched to DSL). I miss my old Rogers account with unlimited monthly Internet access. I is my experience that Rogers is a very reliable service provider, it is rare for the Internet to be down with them but when it is is usually is fixed a couple of minutes later. If your Internet is down with Bell it can take them days or weeks to fix it due to their incompetent technicians.


See, this is what happens when employees don't give a hoot about the company they work for. It's supremely ironic that a Bell employee is incapable of calling the customer to apprise them of any scheduling changes. They are a phone company, see?! As for the "lite" services offered by both, they are simply loss-leaders. Their bandwidth restrictions are so low, you'll have to watch your usage like a hawk. Try telling Bell support that TCP/IP is platform agnostic, and they think you're talking about a new religion.
In my experience, Teksavvy, at $30 monthly with a 200 gig allowance, has been wholly satisfactory. Good to check dslreports.com for info. I look forward to both those lumbering behemoths getting some cell competition-let them eat cake and choke on the crumbs.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

They are both seriously bad, but Rogers is by far the worst in Canada, no contest.

IMO, MTS is the best, followed closely by Telus.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Rogers might be the worst - well, until you have the experience of phoning Bell for some problem, where you will be trivialized and belittled like no tomorrow. Any possible quality with Bell's service is entirely chucked out the door by their terrible customer service, and the insultingly inane billings they send. I think their Internet service simply looks bad because for too long, they allied themselves with Micro$lop and really have a Windoze only perspective - which is where other ISPs are much better, like Teksavvy, who actually supports and knows Macs.

I think Rogers generally does not advertise what it can't do - unlike Bell, who spent years lying to people, like telling them they can entirely watch movies online, but then throttling and capping their customers so that doing such things is impossible. Now their main ads simply show some dopey technician doing the whole installation because no one at Bell can write easy to read and understand instructions on how to connect to them - stuff that most ISPs make available in easy to use PDFs...


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## vfr (Jul 22, 2009)

There is no "None Of The Above" option...

Using Teksavvy unlimited (over Bell copper & network).


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
The defects of polling...

I don't think anyone that really uses or needs the Internet for anything critical would bother with Bell at all, since one could not effectively use VPN, and the low caps would clobber practical use.

Rogers, on the other hand, is more business oriented and has the appropriate options - though they are still inferior when compared to real ISPs...


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## greydoggie (Apr 21, 2009)

We've had sympatico since sometime around 2000 or 2001 and never had anything to complain about. Any time we had to call them it was also never a problem altho it was only once or twice and I don't even know when the last time was. We've never had anything but problems with Rogers. They can't even keep cable TV working right.


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