# Torrent Speed just not there this weekend



## shoe (Apr 6, 2005)

Anyone notice their Torrent speed just dropped this weekend?

Im on Rogers, and my transfers are encripted.


Last time this happened Rogers had capped speeds on Torrents. 

Ecripted transfers fixed this, has rogers found a way to cap ecripted file transfers now?

Shoe


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## martman (May 5, 2005)

Change your bit torrent port number.


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2007)

Rogers has stomped on tons of BT traffic, which encryption no longer helps with (well it helps but not much), nor does changing your port number used. Sounds like they just rolled that out in your area ... in my area has been pretty much useless for a while now. Downloading completely legal torrents for me I was connecting to hundreds of peers and seeds and getting 20k/sec max download speed, even though I was seeing swarm speeds of megabits/second.

Rogers sucks for this. I've complaiined to them numerous times and all they do is point out that they are simply shaping the bandwidth to provide best results for everyone (everyone except people using BT apparently). Having to download 3-4 gigs of stuff for a linux distro through BT is so painful it's not funny now.

Not only that, but when they are "filtering" me as mentioned above ALL of my access crawls almost to a halt. When I mentioned this to them they simply said "then don't use bit torrent" ... and this came from someone much higher up than teir 1 (or 2) tech support.

To me this is like Bell saying "you can't talk about _____, and when you do your conversations will suddenly cut out or sound very poor. If you don't want to experience this, don't talk about _____."


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## martman (May 5, 2005)

Change ISP!
I did this when Bell throttled bandwidth and so did enough people that they changed their practice. If you don't punish ISPs they won't change.


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## The Great Waka (Nov 26, 2002)

Yeah, same deal here. Not fun.


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## ron_g (Jan 5, 2003)

The same has been happening here (Waterloo, ON). Using Azureus, with encryption, BT speeds have gone down the crapper. Rogers service of late has been dismal. First major DNS issue, then today our entire neighbourhood lost service. Amen I'm a renting student and will be back with Bell come spring. Apparently Teksavvy is pretty sweet from what friends have been telling me. No port blocking, filtering, shaping, etc.

http://www.teksavvy.com/


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

Bell doesn't cap or throttle bandwidth for current customers, although they introduced a cap for new customers around 6 months ago.




martman said:


> Change ISP!
> I did this when Bell throttled bandwidth and so did enough people that they changed their practice. If you don't punish ISPs they won't change.


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## Puccasaurus (Dec 28, 2003)

Aw, so that's the reason. I've noticed it lately too, even with encryption on in Azureus. Now at least I know it's not my computer.

EDIT: Bell throttles bandwidth too? I thought they had avoided that.


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## idesign (Aug 19, 2005)

For the K-W area, go with execulink. I'm really thinking of switching from Bell. $10.00 less a month for the same speeds and no current threat of a cap.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

I noticed a 20KB cap on a torrent I downloaded over the weekend. It would upload at 40KB but wouldn't download any faster.

Used to get 200+KB all the time on healthy torrents.


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## TripleX (Nov 6, 2002)

If there are any lawyers on the forums, maybe they could advice Rogers customers, on how to launch a possible class action. If it is not against the law, it should be!


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## martman (May 5, 2005)

HowEver said:


> Bell doesn't cap or throttle bandwidth for current customers, although they introduced a cap for new customers around 6 months ago.


YIKES! Is there more info available about this However?


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## jonmon (Feb 15, 2002)

my regular browsing speeds have dropped way down.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

Apparently December 2006 was six months ago, for some of us...


http://www.supportcommunity.sympati...read?rootPostID=10121986&returnExpertiseCode=

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=370912

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sympat

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=390985

and so on...



martman said:


> YIKES! Is there more info available about this However?


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## martman (May 5, 2005)

wow!
I wonder what my usage is!
LOL
Being a Dead Head is not easy on the bandwith!


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## guytoronto (Jun 25, 2005)

TripleX said:


> If there are any lawyers on the forums, maybe they could advice Rogers customers, on how to launch a possible class action. If it is not against the law, it should be!


Are you serious? Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it should be against the law. It's doing you no harm. Sheesh. What an American style attitude.

Maybe we should sue the Ontario government for the crappy 100kph speed limit on the 401.

If you don't like the service, change providers. Rogers is within their rights to shape their bandwidth (no matter how sucky it is).


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## Dukenukem (Nov 2, 2006)

ron_g said:


> Apparently Teksavvy is pretty sweet from what friends have been telling me. No port blocking, filtering, shaping, etc.


Yup, that's the deal with Teksavvy. I ditched Rogers for the reasons described above and moved to a Dry loop DSL.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

TripleX said:


> If there are any lawyers on the forums, maybe they could advice Rogers customers, on how to launch a possible class action. If it is not against the law, it should be!


The law that applies is the Commercial Code -- tell me, what are the terms and conditions of your Rogers contract?

-- I'll wait --

OK, got it? 
Great, now tell me, where in the contract do they *guarantee* bandwidth? Or *guarantee* unlimited Gb / Mo.? Or *guarantee* uninterrupted connection to every IP address on the internet? 

-- didn't think so -- 

OTOH, do you see where the terms and conditions of this contract can be changed by them by posting notice on the Rogers website? And where they disclaim the universal availability of each and every possible IP service? And where they reserve the right to block certain services at their discretion?

(I don't have a Roger's contract here but I am betting that every ISP contract has this language in it) 

Alright then, call off the lawyers, you don't have a leg to stand on.


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## sushii (Apr 16, 2005)

guytoronto said:


> Are you serious? Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean it should be against the law. It's doing you no harm. Sheesh. What an American style attitude.
> 
> Maybe we should sue the Ontario government for the crappy 100kph speed limit on the 401.



A better analogy would be: the posted limit on the 401 is 100km/h (like the advertised speed of Rogers internet), but anyone trying to go faster than 20km/h will be ticketed (like the automatic throttling for using bittorrent).

Incidentally, when you have one or more torrents running, your entire connection seems to slow down. Try browing some web pages while trying to download torrents at the same time.


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## Iwantamac (Sep 25, 2006)

Rogers is doing this why? Fear that we might get entertainment from a source other than Rogers? I used to be able to run a couple of Torrents and a VPN connection and surf. Now, if I use BT, ALL response times suck and my VPN is up and down like a toilet seat at a mixed party.

Other than not using BT, are there alternatives? Changing ISP's is like jumping from the Frying Pan into Boiling Oil!


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## Garry (Jan 27, 2002)

so, you suck up bandwidth downloading torrents, and you get mad when they don't let you download as fast as you want to? That seems... stupid to me. 

I've always thought that ISPs should charge you for the bandwidth you use.. something like "$39.95/month for the first 2.5 gbs, then $10-$15 for each additional half gb used thereafter", or should be like the power company.. bandwidth is monitored, and you pay a per 10 megabyte charge over a certain amount.

That way, people that just use email or go to sites that are light on content pay the $40, and the people that suck up the bandwidth pay $50 - $70 month to pay for their share of the costs.

After all, why should someone who pays $40/month to surf have to pay the same as someone who downloads torrents and sucks up bandwidth?


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## martman (May 5, 2005)

Garry said:


> so, you suck up bandwidth downloading torrents, and you get mad when they don't let you download as fast as you want to? That seems... stupid to me.
> 
> I've always thought that ISPs should charge you for the bandwidth you use.. something like "$39.95/month for the first 2.5 gbs, then $10-$15 for each additional half gb used thereafter", or should be like the power company.. bandwidth is monitored, and you pay a per 10 megabyte charge over a certain amount.
> 
> ...


Rubbish. ISPs already have this. DSL lite. Don't download it's $14.95 
regular $30 $60 for Ultra.
How many more times extra are people supposed to pay?


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## TripleX (Nov 6, 2002)

I cannot believe the sanctimonious crap I am seeing on this subject. I have a friend who lives in Seoul and she pays the equivalent of $40 Canadian a month for 100mb download speeds with no limits on downloads. We are getting royally ripped off by Canadian ISPs' and unfortunately it seems a lot of us are enjoying it.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

That comment solved everything! Thanks for weighing in. Now you can turn to dealing with global warming and sad puppies.



TripleX said:


> I cannot believe the sanctimonious crap I am seeing on this subject. I have a friend who lives in Seoul and she pays the equivalent of $40 Canadian a month for 100mb download speeds with no limits on downloads. We are getting royally ripped off by Canadian ISPs' and unfortunately it seems a lot of us are enjoying it.


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## steveohan (Jun 25, 2004)

im also in korea and pay about 30 bucks a month for 100megabit fibre...

but im coming back to Toronto next week to suffer with canadian internet speeds 

steve.


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## Abysmal (Mar 14, 2005)

A friend of mine is in Florida and has 16 Meg fibre to his house 16meg down 2meg upload for 29 a month.. no bandwith limits, and his company picks up his tab.. now that just sucks..

3web.com may be your option..


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

HowEver said:


> That comment solved everything! Thanks for weighing in. Now you can turn to dealing with global warming and sad puppies.


I don't think the comment solved everything, but at least it helps opening our eyes on the fact that there may be other viable ways of doing things.

I don't buy in so much into the recent fare increase of my internet bill from Rogers, arguing that they haven't made any increase in the past x years (which I clearly doubt, as they are changing their plans quite often and take advantage to increase the price without telling it), and I don't see any improvements to the service at all, as we're stuck with 5 or 6Mb downloads, 800K upload, and more and more limitations for the sake of sharing bandwidth, such as the 100Gb cap which was introduced or the BT throttling, or removing access to newservers...

Seriously, I don't know where my money is going with Rogers, how can they increase the price of my subscription and reduce the service, while the cost of their infrastructure is certainly decreasing as they don't invest in better technology to provide me with a better service? Maybe I'm just paying for remote people to get on the high speed internet? Or maybe I'm just paying for their increased profitability and benefits?

Anyway, I think that point was a valid one, as in many countries outside Canada, 20Mb to 100Mb download without monthly cap for premium accounts (at the same or lower price than what I pay for a premium account with Rogers) are now common, one could expect that at least in populated urban areas in Canada we could get such offer too, but I guess there is not enough competition there.
As pointed earlier, there are cheaper plans for someone only using email, and the premium accounts at premium price should offer everything internet can offer.

I don't believe that there should be a distinction based on customer's usage (like "you use BT so you are stealing other's bandwidth"), especially when you're paying a premium account.
And I don't even speak for me, as I don't use BT, and I never reached the 100Gb limit  

I hope this will change one day though, and that there will be a true competition in Canada for high speed internet... Just my opinion, worth 2 cents


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2007)

Wow lots of discussion on this one. 

The thing that chokes me up about Rogers throttling and traffic shaping is that they don't make any kind of distinction about how they do it or who they do it to. They shape the users who are not maxing out their bandwidth 24/7 along with the users that are, with no consideration to your usage patterns, and which results in degraded access for everyone. Kind of reminds me a bit of all the debate going on currently about DRM.

I don't think they should be sued, but I really do wish there was some sort of geverning agency that kept their "practices" in order by monitoring/regulating them. As of right now they can pretty much do whatever they want as there is no governing body that has any jurisdiction over them in these matters.

The really odd part about all of this, is that in Canada the CRTC is _very_ strict about most things like this both in efforts to protect consumers and other businesses (their competition) ... except for ISP's who have free reign to do mostly whatever they please at this point in time.

As for the people who are saying "just change ISPs" .. that's a horrible option for me at the very least. Rogers is the _only_ ISP in my area that can supply what I need... -- unless I want to massively downgrade to basic DSL -- which my neighbors have major issues with and Bell won't even guarantee that I can get 1.5MB/sec with -- they say just under 1MB is more "typical" in my area (crappy phone lines). That along with the fact that it's 1/5th the speed and flaky at the best of times in my area don't make it a very appealing option. And given the nature of the issue no other DSL provider will do any better.


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## Boomcha (Jan 29, 2004)

Checkout Teksavy.com .. seems decent to me but I don't know anyone who has it personally. Was thinking of dropping Rogers if I can get good speeds with these guys.

Jorge


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2007)

Teksavvy.com (note the extra v!) only provides dry loop and DLS services .. none of this is any good for me due to the crappy phone lines in my area, which Bell has confirmed on several occasions. I'm also a bit suspicious as that Teksavvy site just told me they could provide 5MB service with no problems when I gave it my phone number, which I know for a fact is not possible, neither is a dry loop/copper pair to my house.


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## martman (May 5, 2005)

not so savy eh?


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## Boomcha (Jan 29, 2004)

Teksavvy.com with 2 V's for sure. Oops.. I just called them and was suprised to get a human on the 2nd ring. The guy answered my questions regarding guaranteed speed. He told me that its up to that speed but that DSL is ultimately controlled by how far you are from the bell box and if your lines are good. This was the primary reason why I didn't want to go with Sympatico but I've never had my new living space tested for this and wouldn't mind giving them a shot.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

The fastest way to find out how far you are from the central station for this is to call Bell Sympatico (310-SURF) and ask them for a test.



Boomcha said:


> Teksavvy.com with 2 V's for sure. Oops.. I just called them and was suprised to get a human on the 2nd ring. The guy answered my questions regarding guaranteed speed. He told me that its up to that speed but that DSL is ultimately controlled by how far you are from the bell box and if your lines are good. This was the primary reason why I didn't want to go with Sympatico but I've never had my new living space tested for this and wouldn't mind giving them a shot.


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2007)

HowEver said:


> The fastest way to find out how far you are from the central station for this is to call Bell Sympatico (310-SURF) and ask them for a test.


Yep you're right ... they are the ones that told me that they "might" be able to get me up to speed with their standard 1.5MB service, but it was more likely it would come in around 1MB if I was lucky.


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## Carl (Jun 7, 2003)

Why do you guys have encryption on? It just slows you down and doesn't encrypt your identity anyway. Not until TOR works with higher bandwidths will anonymity work. I would use SafePeer with Azureus to block IP's, but that's all.
Plus, what port are you using? The ISP's are surely blocking 6881-6889, but not all of them, so if you can get full speed using HTTP or FTP, then no one is capping you. I don't see how they could do that.
I have Sympatico DSL, but I am near the end of the line. It is a 3 MB connection, and I have seen 280 k/sec downloads, but pretty rare. Even a good connect to an Apple server usually never tops 175. If I see 40 on a torrent, I am happy. Most people don't know how to setup their NAT, so that usually causes most of the slowdowns.
On my blog I have a link to a speed test. Big orange button on the right side. Not plugging my blog, just cant remember the link. It works better than the DSLreports links (for me anyway).
Cheers.


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## Jacklar (Jul 23, 2005)

The funny thing is we have tons of threads on how slow sympatico is, and people wanting to move to rogers. The reason for the slow speed is because sympatico doesn't shape traffic. Rogers shapes it, torrents are slow but http is always fast. I don't pay for a 5meg connection only get 2megs. 

They cut down on the majority of illegal bittorrent to keep up regular internet speeds, unfortunately that hurts the minority who use torrents legally. Sad fact of life.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

Encryption has no purpose? I don't think so.

btw there are many threads which extoll the virtures of speakeasy.net and other such measurement sites.

http://www.ehmac.ca/showpost.php?p=465496&postcount=26

Try speedtest.net too.



Carl said:


> Why do you guys have encryption on? It just slows you down and doesn't encrypt your identity anyway. Not until TOR works with higher bandwidths will anonymity work. I would use SafePeer with Azureus to block IP's, but that's all.
> Plus, what port are you using? The ISP's are surely blocking 6881-6889, but not all of them, so if you can get full speed using HTTP or FTP, then no one is capping you. I don't see how they could do that.
> I have Sympatico DSL, but I am near the end of the line. It is a 3 MB connection, and I have seen 280 k/sec downloads, but pretty rare. Even a good connect to an Apple server usually never tops 175. If I see 40 on a torrent, I am happy. Most people don't know how to setup their NAT, so that usually causes most of the slowdowns.
> On my blog I have a link to a speed test. Big orange button on the right side. Not plugging my blog, just cant remember the link. It works better than the DSLreports links (for me anyway).
> Cheers.


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## ron_g (Jan 5, 2003)

Carl said:


> Why do you guys have encryption on? It just slows you down and doesn't encrypt your identity anyway.


Until Rogers recent wave of torrent throttling, encryption was designed to disguise the torrent packets – giving them immunity from Rogers shaping software. This worked very well until recently, where they have seem to overcome this, or simply implemented mass traffic shaping. Encryption was never meant to protect your identity.


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## Carl (Jun 7, 2003)

I did not know that. I guess since I have never had a problem, I just assumed it was for concealing identity.


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## wooglin (Mar 26, 2005)

ron_g said:


> Until Rogers recent wave of torrent throttling, encryption was designed to disguise the torrent packets – giving them immunity from Rogers shaping software. This worked very well until recently, where they have seem to overcome this, or simply implemented mass traffic shaping. Encryption was never meant to protect your identity.


A year and a half ago when they started traffic shaping, they'd hit any download was being piped from multiple servers (the internet is a bunch of pipes don't 'cha know?). Then they got a bit smarter and managed to allow programs like iTunes to work properly. Since then the programs got smarter (with encryption) and Rogers got smarter...

I think it will likely continue like this either until Rogers reverses their policy, or customers just start leaving and going to the competition.

Has a rating thread for local "TRUE-UNLIMITED" ISP's been started? I'm going to be moving in a couple months, so it's prime-time to dump Rogers.


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## Puccasaurus (Dec 28, 2003)

wooglin said:


> A year and a half ago when they started traffic shaping, they'd hit any download was being piped from multiple servers (the internet is a bunch of pipes don't 'cha know?). Then they got a bit smarter and managed to allow programs like iTunes to work properly. Since then the programs got smarter (with encryption) and Rogers got smarter...
> 
> I think it will likely continue like this either until Rogers reverses their policy, or customers just start leaving and going to the competition.
> 
> Has a rating thread for local "TRUE-UNLIMITED" ISP's been started? I'm going to be moving in a couple months, so it's prime-time to dump Rogers.


Interesting post. I'm moving soon too and it would be the perfect moment to switch, even though I get a nice discount for Rogers.


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## seetobylive (Aug 4, 2004)

Shaw cable out here in the west seems to be fine with Torrents. I live in Vancouver and have had no issues with DL speeds.... they even offer a 25mbs package for $93 a month or a 10 mbs for $40. Not sure if Shaw is out West but may be worth a shot if it is.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

Tried to download a "Top Gear" episode the other day and gave up because it was too slow.
I just don't have 17 days to waste downloading a single episode.

Dave


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## Boomcha (Jan 29, 2004)

A little update on my situation. I decided to give Teksavvy a shot so I called them up and set myself up with their DSL modem, and Unlimited DSL. I received the modem as promised in 2 days and then Bell activated the line the day that Teksavvy said. 

This is where it gets funky, the speed I was getting was horrible 500mB/s where with Robbers I get 5000Mb/s. I called them up and they got Bell to look into it, Bell comes back and tells them that I'm too far from the Central Office and that nothing that can be done.

So much for dumping Rogers. I tried but its ridiculous that Bell doesn't provide the infrastructure for its clients to deliver good speeds. 

So I cancel the service and Teksavvy gives me a call and tells me that I can send them the modem and they will refund me all the costs except for shipping. 

Sounds good to me. I have to say that dealing with Teksavvy was a pretty darn good and things went pretty smooth. Getting a live person on the 2nd ring was fantastic and they weren't just someone reading a script, someone that actually knows what they were talking about and cared. 

So my point is.. if you have good DSL lines now (meaning you get good speeds) switch to these people if you are not happy with your crappy Bell service and they will for sure bend backwards to accomodate you.

Good to hear that companies like this still exist. I wish that I could've stayed with them.

Jorge


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

Boomcha, that's good advice for anybody considering DSL: find out how far you are from the central station. It isn't always an indicator, but it often is (for example, I'm 3 out of 4 away, so they say, but still get decent speeds). It also makes a difference if you've signed up for basic, high speed or ultra, or whatever your service is called where you are.


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## Boomcha (Jan 29, 2004)

I have a further update on this with some good results. I posted a rant about how DSL can't really compare to cable due to the speed results that are possible with cable but not DSL due to bad Bell lines on DSLREPORTS.COM and a fellow member sent me an IM asking if I wanted help with the situation.

I said "Sure" and gave him my phone number because he knows someone who works at Bell. He then proceed to transfer my line to a new Remote DSLAM in my street and I'm now capable of 5000MB/800k which are better than my Rogers speeds. 
Needless to say I'm dumping Rogers, I've called 3 times but can't get it done because their machines are down due to weather today.

The thing is that this guy made sure that I got my speed up and kept going back and forth over a couple days absolutely free and out of his good will.

Jorge


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## mcdermij (Oct 13, 2006)

Wow certainly don't see that everyday. I've had nothing but bad experiences with bell support. My favorite story includes spending hours trying to set up my wireless router/modem combo they told me was amazing. Of course the wireless isn't working, and support "isn't trained" on how to set up the wireless network. 

In the end it is a dud router, but i had to figure that out on my own, after spending hours on support boards trying to figure where i had gone wrong.


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## guytoronto (Jun 25, 2005)

I had to reload my Torrent software (on my PC) due to a glitch (power failure last night).

Now I'm getting fantastic speeds with my torrents. Normally I see 100-200k max. Now I'm upwards of 500k.


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## telecomm (Nov 16, 2005)

Ugh... I'll probably be moving back to Canada this summer, and this is really bad news. (Previously I had used encryption to avoid their traffic shaping.) 

It's really unfortunate that these policies are being adopted, particularly as legal (media) bittorrent downloads are about to take off. Have a look at Zudeo, for example, where you can download a few free and legal movies (check out _The Corporation_ if you haven't seen it yet). (The official bittorrent client equivalent currently offers only windows-DRMed content as far as I know.)

Like it or not bittorrent users are ahead of the curve here, and the average user will gradually use more and more bandwidth, especially as legal video content becomes more widely available. Bittorrent is a good distribution technology, and it's legal uses are on the rise. Torrent users might be the first to suffer here, but it'll be bad for everyone if people become accustomed to paying ridiculous fees for content, or, as in the Rogers case, if you can't use torrent clients properly at any price.


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## NetMinder (Dec 15, 2003)

I have just downloaded this torrent application and it is working like a charm. It works on Tiger and perhaps someone more technically conversant than I can explain why it works so well for us beleaguered Rogers subscribers.

Transmission

I would be interested in hearing from others how it works for them


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## Katsmeow (Feb 11, 2007)

Boomcha said:


> ...................
> 
> This is where it gets funky, the speed I was getting was horrible 500mB/s where with Robbers I get 5000Mb/s. I called them up and they got Bell to look into it, Bell comes back and tells them that I'm too far from the Central Office and that nothing that can be done........................
> 
> Jorge


Jorge, how far are you from your CO? I'm 2.5 km or 8200 feet. I'm changing to Teksavvy as well.


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## Boomcha (Jan 29, 2004)

Katsmeow said:


> Jorge, how far are you from your CO? I'm 2.5 km or 8200 feet. I'm changing to Teksavvy as well.


I was pretty far away from my CO. I think around 4-5KM but they have since moved me to a remote DSLAM and I'm about 100meters from that so its really fast.


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## Katsmeow (Feb 11, 2007)

100 meters......... color me envious!


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## The Great Waka (Nov 26, 2002)

Well, within the last week my speeds with Rogers have gone back to normal. Perhaps they stopped their shaping? Or at least in my area? Either way, I'm not complaining.


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