Are you surprised with the results! Over the last 5 to 7 years since I left sympatico I keep hearing horror stories not only concerning sympatico but Bell as a whole. What a shame to have so downgraded a previously model service company. Posted by: F Bélanger | Nov 21, 07 08:12 PM

I did the speed check online. I have bell and have full 7 megs. I am surprised that Bell did poorly. Were all the testers on the same street in Toronto? Would the distance from the office make a difference? Posted by: Leo | Nov 21, 07 08:14 PM

I can't say I'm surprised with your race results. We had to switch from Bell Sympatico largely because it was never working, never mind at what speed! But, I have a bigger issue. Did I not see your correspondent, Erica Johnson, driving and talking on her cell phone at the same time? Please tell me I did not see Erica Johnson driving and talking on her cell phone at the same time. And please tell me I won't see it again. Posted by: P. Morgan | Nov 21, 07 08:15 PM

Location is extremely important. From my experience Rogers suffers terribly in areas near universities, while Bell provides much faster and consistent speeds. Also, in these areas, Rogers makes use of bandwidth shaping technology to reduce peer-2-peer file sharing speeds - Bell does not do this. Posted by: John Smith | Nov 21, 07 08:15 PM

I had Bell Sympatico high speed for about 4 to 5 years. It was horrible. Always something wrong and nothing but BS from the company! As of last October I switched over to Cogeco high speed lite. Excellent speed and always great service on the phone. Posted by: Peter | Nov 21, 07 08:16 PM

I think you missed a couple of things. (These comments all apply to DSL.) First off, the very first test that should be done in order to eliminate anything on the customer side is to get yourself a 6' phone cord and hook your DSL connection up right at the demarc (Where the phone line comes into your house - most often in the basement) - with *nothing* else plugged into the phone jacks in the rest of the house. You'd be surprised at how many people's speeds will jump when doing that. Identifying that it is an issue with your household wiring and/or older/inefficient phones or equipment plugged into other jacks. If you notice your speed is really high at the demarc, but really slow where you normally jack in, it's time to get your in-house phone wiring re-done or throw out the old phones on your lines and replace them with something newer. Next, in addition to distance from the switching office, customers can be adversely affected by the condition of the telephone lines on the poles or under the ground themselves. As the owner of CanadianISP.com, I can't tell you how many stories I've heard from people who complained for months until Bell finally repaired or replaced the lines outside their homes, resulting in massive speed upgrades. Finally, one thing I didn't see on the show: One of the many variables is also the traffic on the 'net between the customer and the web server they're trying to reach: They may well be getting 7Mb/sec into their home, but if the computer they're downloading from or a router at an ISP somewhere in the middle of the connection is only putting through 56kilobits - guess what your download speed will be ? You guessed it - 56 kilobits / sec. Otherwise: A good show - Consumers *should* be aware that they have choice *and* a voice that should be heard. Posted by: Marc Bissonnette | Nov 21, 07 08:16 PM

Location is extremely important. From my experience Rogers suffers terribly in areas near universities, while Bell provides much faster and consistent speeds. Also, in these areas, Rogers makes use of bandwidth shaping technology to reduce peer-2-peer file sharing speeds - Bell does not do this. Posted by: John Silicon | Nov 21, 07 08:17 PM

Would have been a great informative piece except for one thing. My wife and I were thoroughly disgusted to see Erica driving her car and holding her cell phone in front of her face talking to the guys setting up this test. Makes it hard to tell our teenagers to always pull over before answering their cell phone. Posted by: Joe Finley | Nov 21, 07 08:18 PM

I found several sites to test my speed against. I did well on down load but up load was a fraction of the down load speed. Posted by: Bob Campbell | Nov 21, 07 08:23 PM

It doesn't surprise me at all that Bell Sympatico came in last on the high speed tests. I am a former frustrated Bell sympatico customer that finally told them what to do with their internet service. I believe the bad service they provide is also connected to the same quality of satellite service and I will not be renewing my contract with them. I am tired of spending countless hours on the phone with Bell getting nowhere just like I did with sympatico! Posted by: Wendy C | Nov 21, 07 08:25 PM

I watched this show and was not surprised at the results. I'm a fifteen year old from Saskatoon. I live just outside the city. Most people know that teenagers (me) spend A LOT of time on their computers, me included. I must use a dial-up connection because I live too far from the city for any of the highspeed providers to offer service. I noticed that the file you were downloading was just under 700MB in size. Your worst test result was 2 hours 40 minutes. On my dial-up connection that download would take around two days. TWO DAYS. I would gladly pay whatever those people are paying for the speed they are getting, even the Bell customer. If you really want to advocate for disadvantaged consumers, lobby the ISP's to provide access to us who don't live within city limits. Posted by: Nicholas Cowell | Nov 21, 07 08:26 PM

I believe the show is incredibly deceiving. It clearly states that most internet speeds are dependent on location yet only one location/city was tested. I have worked for both Rogers and Bell and have heard customers complain about speeds that are very near promised speed. I have also seen situations where the customer is not getting what they are paying for. In general a new urban subdivision will have very good speeds due to new cabling and equipment but this doesn't guarantee satisfaction as most people are not educated enough to understand their setup and the internet in general. I believe there is some responsibility in the customers part to read installation directions and what was given in their welcome kit. We should all remind ourselves that 5 years ago 1Meg was the target for high-speed. When someone states that they might as well get dialup and are downloading at 65kbps (such as what was said in the program), they are truly over dramatizing. A dialup connection will download at 8kbps at the best. I would suggest to give the filesize of the test file as saying it takes 2.5hrs to download something makes it sound like a long time, but if you say it took 2.5hours to download something that is 1Gig in size it doesn't look that bad. Why not try something like downloading a song from a legal mp3 site? Everybody can relate to the time it takes to download a song. This episode shows nothing for the customers to get a real sense of comparison with day to day Internet habits. We have all taken for granted the advancements of the internet. As the providers increase speed developers increase need for speed and this will always be the case. WE are now pushing to use the internet for TV, PHONES, Movies, etc... all things that the internet was not designed for. Posted by: Joel | Nov 21, 07 08:28 PM

Thouroughly enjoyed and agreed with your program on internet service providers. I have had the experience of being sold high speed by Bell (up to 7.0 M) service even when I had been told in past (by Bell) that they could only provide up to 1.5M. I even reminded the salesperson of my past experience with Bell high speed. She still insisted that they could provide 7.0M speed. -- After their non-provision of service, and my associated many service complaint calls,I was returned to 1.5M. I still have an outstanding repair order that has dragged on for almost a month. Most evenings I have no service from 5pm to 9 or 10pm. Hopefully your program will encourage Bell and other DSL ISP's to improve their service to their customers. Posted by: Frank Cuggy | Nov 21, 07 08:30 PM

I didn't think much about how you shot Bell and its services down. That's fantastic to do your speed tests and such and suggest to the consumer to downgrade their services because of speed issues, however you forgot to mention that along with speed the consumer is also paying into their plan for how much usage is acquired on the internet. A consumer could downgrade because of speeds, but then incur charges for going over their usage limits. Maybe next time Marketplace does an episode on internet services they should look at the big picture and review the full packages that are offered by internet providers. Posted by: Jenny | Nov 21, 07 08:33 PM

Not only does Sympatico's speed suck but now they are limiting the speed of certain downloads to try to recoup some of this speed. In Bell's world unlimited means very limited. Posted by: geoff hains | Nov 21, 07 08:36 PM

Hello, I took the speed test and my results were 4333 Kb/s download speed and 651 upload speed. I am surprised to see that I am faster then 78% of the population, I've complained many times to Bell about not receiving my 5Mb/s but they say that I am within range, I also recently changed my modem but they sent me the same one I already had so there was no improvement. Posted by: al bonomo | Nov 21, 07 08:47 PM

Without doubt, one of the most poorly researched programs I have seen. A full half-hour to cover only half the story that should have taken 15 minutes (with a couple of animated diagrams). 1. Cable vastly oversubscribes its equipment and many users share the line. The more users on a line, the less capacity each one gets. 2. Telcos provide a separate line to each subscriber from their CO (central office, where the signal is switched from the copper telephone wires to the Telco's INTERNAL internet system and on to the provider of the actual internet service. Here, it is the distance between the CO and the subscriber that limits the transmission speed. 3. It is the provider of the actual internet service (ISP) that determines the speed at which data flows to and from the last leg to the subscriber. For cable, they are one and the same; for Telcos, they are separate - Sympatico is a Bell company, but it is not Bell Telephone. There are many other ISP's that provide service using Bell's lines. 4. The first major item you failed to mention is that almost every ISP limits the total amount of data a subscriber can transmit/receive in a month, called a "cap". Even the so-called "Unlimited" accounts will be terminated if the provider decides the amount of traffic constitutes "abuse". 5. The second major item not covered is that most ISPs now (often secretly) severely 'throttle' certain types of data traffic to both ease the load on their resources and to dissuade the 'heavy users' from staying with them. Perhaps you could do a 'follow up' on some of these 'smaller' providers who do deliver on their promises (to the extent the Telcos don't sabotage them). Posted by: J. Brian Kelley | Nov 21, 07 08:51 PM

For more info and horror stories about Bell Sympatico please go here: http://www.dslreports.com/comments/412?filter=neg http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19239679-Marketplace-doing-an-episode-on-dsl-providers Find the truth behind Sympatico throttling, bandwidth caps and more... Posted by: Joe | Nov 21, 07 08:53 PM

We had Bell high speed and now have the BASIC package. Our original high speed was very very slow, and after many complaints we switched to the basic. The tech support department kept telling us that our computer was at fault. Then they tried to sell us higher speeds. But when we tested our computer at a friend's house with a different internet provider it was fine. We complained to the billing department at Bell, and they told us to switch to basic and this fixed our problem. Many of our neighbours with Bell have high speed and our basic package is just as fast. To this day approximately one year later we still receive phone calls from Bell marketing department trying to upgrade us to a high speed package. We often test our speed. Download 1007kb/s upload 541 kb/s Posted by: arnold | Nov 21, 07 08:57 PM

I used to have Aliant (Bell) for internet provider. The speed was great but the service was really bad. So I switch to Rogers, the speed is awesome 8mbps and yes I do hit the top speed from where I download. I also find the service is really good. To me your download will vary from where you download. Posted by: Daniel Boudreau | Nov 21, 07 08:59 PM

We have had Bell Sympatico problems for some time but were worried about switching to something worse. Posted by: Debra | Nov 21, 07 09:01 PM

I have Bell and nothing but good speed and service. Your online speed test shows 5.12 Megs which is what i am paying for. I had lots of problems with Rogers and would recommend Bell to anyone. Were all the testers on the same street? I looked into ISPs and Bell fares well compared to others in the industry. (Rogers has some good reviews too) BTW your host should not be taking on the phone and driving at the same time Posted by: P Jamieson | Nov 21, 07 09:01 PM

I pay Bell for 5 megs now but found out that i`m getting only half. I will be calling them tomorrow. Posted by: Alex | Nov 21, 07 09:03 PM

I think there is very simple solution for that problem. Government should introduce regulation that an Internet provider must not advertise on the “up to” basis but instead on “minimum speed”. You gave an example: a customer pays for “up to” 7 Mb/s service ($50/m), but in fact he receives only 1 Mb/s. In addition the provider technically limited his speed “up to” 5 Mb/s (which cost $45/m) – in fact provider is all right because 5 is still “up to” 7. I think that most of the people would agree to pay let say $50/m for a some minimum speed (e.g. 2 Mb/s or so) and if provider is unable to deliver it one should be entitled to a discount (10, 20% or so). If all Internet providers would use such strategy they would compete to deliver the higher minimum speed and there would be no room for such hoaxes. Posted by: Zbig | Nov 21, 07 09:03 PM

I am one of the few people out there that knows what I am paying for and what I'm getting. Its a shame that more people don't fight for what they want, either getting more speed or paying less because they can't get a higher speed. When BS started switching people over to the 7mb capped plan (without telling people in many cases) I managed to get my unlimited back, a higher speed and a lower cost/month, but I had to fight for it. I also noticed the cell phone use and found it hard to believe that they would show that on TV, especially in traffic. I noticed another poster stated that BS doesn't throttle P2P, Quote: "Rogers makes use of bandwidth shaping technology to reduce peer-2-peer file sharing speeds - Bell does not do this." This couldn't be farther from the truth, as after about 2 months of people wondering if it WAS happening, BS actually admitted to it, while most other ISP providers in North America are still denying it. Posted by: Mike | Nov 21, 07 09:24 PM

I'm not surprised. The thing is that customers are getting duped if they aren't computer savvy or technological about things. It's true that DSL is limited by how far you are from the central server office (usually a 4 KM range), however, the story forgot to note that Bell also started installing remote servers, so anyone living too far from the central server office can actually get what they paid for! Though, Bell do not inform peoples about it. My area recently got one installed and I found out when I signed up for DSL with another service provider. My neighbour had to file a complaint and took a few weeks to actually move their line to this new remote to actually get the speed what they are paying for. However, as for the Bell part, for DSL, I'm not surprised that they were last. To be honest, services with Bell actually degraded and customer service have really became horrible. They recently even started to throttle BitTorrents and modified contract agreements without informing customers about the changes. Posted by: Ju Leon | Nov 21, 07 09:34 PM

I have had on and off problems using Sympatico High speed, paying $49 dollars and only getting 1Mbps service ($25). I complained nearly every other day to tech support, every time you call you go through the same routine – shut your modem, reboot your machine unplug your cable….blah blah, they sent me a new modem, checked my telephone line but got no where and then I get this email from Charlotte Burke (The lady from Bell you had on your show) saying that I should be getting ‘up to’ 16Mbps. That was the final straw. I wrote to her telling her what had happened and that I wanted to down grade and also I wanted compensation. The next day I had 5 calls from customer service/IT/Tech support all wanting to help and tech support told me that I was slow and found that I had been capped for some reason and he did not know why! After that my speed went up to 5Mbps (it did). You have to push back and get educated on checking your speed. Posted by: Mohammed | Nov 21, 07 09:38 PM

I call BULL on Marketplace. Here's another example of lopsided reporting. I have Bell's Ultimate Highspeed and I get great speeds when downloading and when browsing. Yet, when I had Rogers not only did their previous Unlimited Cable service actually have a limit which I happily reached the customer service was non-existent. And you're telling me that Telus DSL is going to be different... RIDICULOUS! In all honesty it's no different than your stupid Geek support report. The one where you insinuated that if a technical support person comes over and finds a simple issue that they shouldn't charge you the onsite fee for their time. What a crock. Posted by: Steve O | Nov 21, 07 09:41 PM

As they said on the show it is all about location. Here in Calgary I have Shaw Extreme which it "up to" 10Mbit. I downloaded iTunes and got it in about 26 seconds. I regularly get my full 10Mbit. On the show the test sample is way too small to prove anything. Also how can you compare different speed packages? Of course the 7Mbit guy is going to download it faster. A closer look at the screen showed both rogers and shaw getting their rated speeds. I think it's also unfair to pick on Bell because a couple of guys on the same street had poor performance. If you're not getting what you paid for call your ISP and get them to fix it. Posted by: Darren | Nov 21, 07 09:42 PM

This was an entertaining program for uneducated people, but anyone with limited knowledge of technical issues or statistical models shows this as a puff piece meant to entertain, not really to inform. The information was limited and certainly not statistical. Posted by: Ashley Taylor | Nov 21, 07 09:47 PM

We had lots of problems with Rogers in our area. As has been mentioned by others on this space, location plays a role. Bell has been an excellent service for us with no problems what so ever. We were always down in our area code with Rogers as with our neighbours. Posted by: Precilla Sankar-Heldt | Nov 21, 07 10:02 PM

I had swithched from Bell to Rogers a couple of months ago, and I can not tell what a difference I see in service and speed. With Bell I had nothing but problems with both the product and especially the customer service. When I finally did cancel, they kept on forgetting to actually cancel the service and continued to bill me even though I had sent back all the hardware. Funny how I always seemed to have cancellation numbers, names and dates, but the next customer service rep that I had to deal with never could see it on the screens. What I went through I do not wish upon anyone, but alas after doing my own investigation I do not seem to be the only one. It's suprising to me that the representative that was interviewed was "shocked" to see that there was a problem. I want to see her call in to a customer support line and try to do what I did. Maybe then she won't be "shocked" and more disgusted at how she will be treated.. I have since canceled everything (phone, internet) with Bell and am quite happy to never deal with them again. It's just not worth the stress. Posted by: Darryl Nelson | Nov 21, 07 10:09 PM

Per the test I tried communication from London, ON to Fenton, Colorado, and Nassau. All with excellent download times, but poor uploads. Surprised at the results in comparison to other comments. We have Sympatico going on 5 years and have had next to no problems at all - twice can I remember not being able to get service only to discover the servers were being serviced. I have 5 Mbps service and testing showed 4.2 Mbps download but a factional upload speed (0.6 Mbps). For our needs this suits us fine. Posted by: Rick Price | Nov 21, 07 10:10 PM

I'm sure all the companies have their good points and bad. We've had Bell since the beginning and never had a problem. We pay for 5M and get 5M. Other people I've talked to that have had problems say that their tech support stinks but are happy with their speed and the service from the techs in the field. Posted by: March | Nov 21, 07 10:15 PM

I congratulate you on your show about internet providers. A couple of years ago,we subscribed to sympatico. We were promised a speed of 3 mp but found out afterward that in our area it could only go half that speed. Luckily, my teenage son is computer savvy and informed us right away. After several phone calls and arguments Bell agreed to reduce the price. At no time before the purchase did they ever mention that their service may not function at full speed. These companies are deliberately trying to defraud consumers. The government should clamp down on them and force them to guarantee a minimum. We have since switched to Videotron and are receiving much better speed with them for a cheaper price. Posted by: cyndy spilberg | Nov 21, 07 10:18 PM

well I made the big mistake and signed with Bell Sympatico. Their initials are BS and for a very good reason. My 5meg line turned out to be 1.4megs after months of trying they sent someone out. He did minor inspection/fix, with no outside inspection/fix. Then they turned me up to 2.4megs, not even half of what i paid for. In the meantime my unlimited tuned limited, without even a how do you do, and throttling was initiated. The best I can do is get "we are looking into it" answers and no action. My complaint about my UNLIMITED account getting capped got a charge reimbursed but the 60gig cap is back again. I bought unlimited. Any fool can look up the meaning of the word. An infinite value can not be capped throttled or slowed in any way or it becomes limited a finite value. I bought unlimited. It's in the service manual. I seems Bell is happy to take my money for unlimited and then bend, twist corrupt unlimited into something it just can't be. Posted by: Pal | Nov 21, 07 10:21 PM

You know what? It isn't even about the speed sometimes. As long as you get 1.5 mbps and good ping, it's good enough for most of the users who only really sign on to check their email and maybe watch some youtube. The biggest issue at hand is that these guys are overselling and thus overcharging services that most people don't need. And to the people that do take advantage of these performance services, they manage to put in a ridiculously low cap. In an age when media is becoming more and more available "online" (ie. xbox live content, demos, youtube, itunes, bitorrent), the only services that can handle these are the fast ones. At the same time, the ISPs offering these services are capping and thus limiting our internet experience. In my opinion, if you are going to offer performance and extreme packages, don't cap. Because face it, these packages aren't geared for people who only surf and email. They don't need these. You might as well offer them a consistent 1 mbit connection for minimal cost. Honestly, a true 7 mbit package will obliterate a 30 GB cap in a little less than 10 hours. It's ridiculous how we are scaling back when every other country is moving forwards. Posted by: James | Nov 21, 07 10:49 PM

This was terrible reporting or at least it was presented very poorly. Since I work for a competitor, I'm the last person to ever defend Bell, but the Bell VP was 100% correct when she said that they couldn't control the end-to-end experience. Internet 101, CBC. Seeing reports like this make me question everything else I see on Marketplace. Posted by: Dave | Nov 21, 07 11:02 PM

OK. I was almost not going to write. But I can't continue to bite my tongue. I just saw Erica Johnson driving while talking on her cell phone, getting the high speed internet test started. So, I think some producer has had a brain fart, and this won't happen again. Now I see the preview for next week's show, and the trailer shows Erica driving, talking on her cell phone making an appointment at the vet's. CBC has presented programs in the past on the dangers of driving while talking on the phone. Practice what you preach, and set a higher standard. Posted by: Joerg | Nov 21, 07 11:17 PM

After using Shaw for many years, I finally had enough. I was only getting 10% of promised speeds. Because I live in small town I was told that the reason for my slow speed was outdated equipment owned by Shaw, that was not going to be replaced for a long time because the small number of users in my town did not warrant the expense. I switched to Primus last year. Speed promised 1.5Mb/s speed delivered consistently 1.2 -1.3Mb/s. Had a few problems initially and their customer service stinks, but for 24.95 / month I am paying half of what Shaw charged for a much slower service. Posted by: J.Noppers | Nov 21, 07 11:21 PM

My ISP is Shaw. I did the speed test a few times and found it varied as expected being on cable. It seems to me the large corporations continue to provide less and less and still expect a premium for the service (or more accurately the lack of service) Posted by: JPL | Nov 21, 07 11:24 PM

You should have tested Bell from my house. I pay for 5 meg service and get it. I have never had stability or speed problems. Too bad you did not do anything that would be considered scientific and testing a wide enough sample to produce some real results. It is good that there is some knowledge being pushed to the masses, but you have to educate, not sensationalize. PS: Get off the cell while driving. Posted by: John Dallas | Nov 21, 07 11:24 PM

The speed race was really just a novelty, although I found it amusing that they were using Ubuntu for the test, which is approximately a 700MB download. They really should have used proper speed tests (such as Broadband Reports http://www.broadbandreports.com/speedtest ) and done a few from different network locations. But, that would've been too technical for the general masses. The sad thing about Bell (and other DSL) providers is that they never, ever attempt to just make things work - they always make you the consumer fight for it before they'll even do a proper site survey and make sure the lines in your house and the lines to your house are even capable of the speeds in which they offer. Consumers should bite back on this, it's a bad business model and it needs to be fixed. Posted by: Darryl | Nov 21, 07 11:26 PM

I reported my test results on the other thread, miserable with Bell, but perhaps there is a solution for them or any company wishing to embrace it. When I applied for Bell Internet, they had to check my line whether or not the service was available to it and that was good enough for them. ISP's, why not go further and determine the condition of the signal going right to the primary connecting jack and recommend a package that would be optimum for line condition and then suggest a technician check the problem (as we eventually got), make the repairs and leave the new capabilities an appropriate upgrade? Posted by: John | Nov 21, 07 11:35 PM

That brought back my nightmare with Telus last month. I signed up for their three year high speed connection at the end of August. The free computer arrived and things were going well until the end of October. Suddenly the connection was down and remained down for five days at which time I canceled the service. For five days I called Telus constantly, each time going through the maddening phone tree, being put on hold for 20 minutes at a time and then usually being disconnected. The Telus call centre staff kept saying that Telus was working on the problem and didn't know when it would be solved. On one call I was connected to an office named "Loyalty and Retention" who made me want to quit any further dealings with Telus in my lifetime. They told me that I shouldn't expect to have reliable service, and then tried to sell me a more expensive corporate package which they said should be more reliable (than what? a system that doesn't work!). Finally, a Telus technician came out to the house and told me that my area was too far from the switch, and that my connection would continue to have reliability problems (so how would having a corporate package help?) On the fifth day with no Internet and email, and with no end to my problem in sight I called and quit the three year plan (after only two months). However, I am now paying for the "free gift". Posted by: Elizabeth Mitchell | Nov 21, 07 11:41 PM

Remember that your download and upload speed is proportional to the bandwidth you're receiving. I'm with Sympatico and currently have a 5Mbps line. You take the speedtest at speedtest.net, and say you get the full 5000kb/s. 5000/8=625kb/s. Now say your upload speed from the test is 640kb/s. 640/8=80kb/s. Now when Sympatico starts throttling speeds at peak hours down to 30/30, that's different. Hopefully this will help people understand the ratio's between your top speeds and your ACTUAL speed. Download: 4325kb/s - 4325/8=541kb/s (600+ has been seen) Upload: 672kb/s - 672/8=84kb/s (85-90 has been seen) Posted by: Drew | Nov 21, 07 11:56 PM

I was a frustrated Bell Sympatico customer for years. I complained about slow speeds many times, and each time tech support had me go through the same routine: unplug all other phones, move the modem to another phone jack, reboot the computer, try another computer, dance a jig. Nothing helped. I finally got a techie to admit that, given the distance of my house to their switching station was greater than X kilometres, they could not possibly provide more that 900 kbs (I was on an "up to" 6 mbs package). I then spoke with their customer service people, and using the argument that while I was paying for "high speed" for years, they were only delivering the speed equivalent of a "lite" package. I insisted on a refund of the difference in cost between the two packages for as long as I had been a customer. Bell eventually refunded over $400 (they would only cover 24 months). I suggest that everyone experiencing similar download speed problems do as I did, and demand a refund. I am now a Rogers customer (unfortunately with the time-of-day speed problem mentioned in the Marketplace story). I still yet to deal with that problem. Posted by: Jeff | Nov 22, 07 12:41 AM

To the teen outside Saskatoon: I live outside Regina and have the same problem. If you have $$$ try Image Wireless, they do tv as well as highspeed. Or at least go to their site. I don't use them now because my kids are gone and I'm on dialup but it was good for them while they were here. Was about $50/month for internet. No I don't work for them! Posted by: L W | Nov 22, 07 12:45 AM

The show seemed to oversimplify things a bit. I doubt Bell is as bad as that for most of its customers, and I am sure there are horror stories for all the companies somewhere. I must say that Shaw is quite good here in Prince George, and the technician who came when I had a problem (neighbor nicked the line when digging in his lawn) was very good. I check my speed regularly (5.1Mbps down, 514kbps up) which is very close to what they promise. It can slow down at certain times of the day (cable modems slow down if there are many users) but generally very good with little down time. Posted by: Erik | Nov 22, 07 12:53 AM

The show was interesting, although I don't think it was a fair comparison. You tested from one street. To test fairly, the test should have taken place at multiple sites. Comparing these results would change the outcome. Other factors come into play as well. I had many issues with Sympatico, paying for 5MB and receiving roughly 1.5MB download speed. Upon consultation with Bell, I changed my telephone lines within the house to a newer line and my speeds tripled to 4.5MB. I think if you wish to report on something like this you should take a little more time and effort to set up a fair comparison. Posted by: Andrew | Nov 22, 07 01:04 AM

I think you should spend more time researching how DSL/Cable works. Internet is dependent on many other factors past the ISP's control. What about the server your 4 guys are downloading from? Are you all downloading at the same time choking that server's bandwidth? You’re at the mercy of the internet as far as download speeds go once you leave your ISP. I think if you spent more time researching and perhaps educating the average consumer on how the internet works the story would have been better. Posted by: Shane | Nov 22, 07 01:58 AM

This episode was nothing more than ISP bashing. Anybody who knows anything about speed tests would never recommend a site like speedtest.net to calculate speed as it is an inaccurate way of testing speed. If you try the test 3 times you never get the same result. I even get better results when using one of the un-recommended servers. I think you should have also given out the links and filenames of what you downloaded so people could test this as well. I waited for the article to show up on the website so I could watch the video pause it and see what you were downloading. Here are my results itunes 56 seconds and ubuntu in 15 minutes. Here is something else that bothered me about the show. When you went knocking to people’s houses you never mentioned what plans they are on and what speeds are advertised. The other thing that really bothered me was that on the “20 minute” test you used a “up-to 5” connection when bell offers up to 7. You should have used their current offered connection to run the test. Plus at no time during this show was there any mention of any of these connections working properly. I mean if you want to compare ISPs, do it properly with fully functional connections. I think it is sad when a show this misleading is aired I think it is an abuse of power and responsibility. I thought Marketplace did was there to help the consumer, not to confuse it more. I mean really why didn’t you just take 5 minutes at the end to explain how to properly check a connection and what steps to take to fix it if needed. Posted by: Davide | Nov 22, 07 03:25 AM

Whatever happened to the shows you used to have comparing products and letting people know what were the better or best buys? I think over the years you have gotten away from what the program was intended for, and turned it into a weekly witch hunt. How about getting back to the old format once in a while? Posted by: Bob Martin | Nov 22, 07 07:06 AM

I have trouble feeling sorry for the time it takes your city people to download on a highspeed connection. I live in rural Ontario, where not only is highspeed not available, but dial-up speed runs on average about 7 1/2 minutes per megabyte. Your file would take me well over 80 hours to download which is impossible. It would be nice if you would do a show on what happened to the upgrading of the telephone system in this country that was supposed to have been done. We are still operating on 1957 Bell technology as are a lot of people in this country and even things like Microsoft monthly updates take hours to do. Posted by: Robert Kosowan | Nov 22, 07 09:17 AM

A lot of great comments on these pages. What I found the most interesting was the fact that, even if you have a perfect connection going with none of the reported problems, you are not likely to get the 7Mbs you are paying for (because of that imposed 5Mbs cap). I think THAT is a case of false advertisement. You can't say "up to 7Mbs" and then force a stop at 5. Posted by: Steven | Nov 22, 07 09:27 AM

The story certainly confirmed what I saw happening when I deserted Sympatico 3 years ago. What was not mentioned in the piece was the number of services which were originally standard features of an ISP account that are now non existent even though monthly fees are higher. For example, there was a time that dedicated SMTP servers were used for email accounts, now both Bell and Rogers simply offer web based mail through Hotmail or Yahoo respectively. Hardly a "feature" when these services are available to anyone with an internet connection. Additionally both Bell and Rogers have stopped offering usenet access. These ISP provided newsgroups were always substandard access, but now they are simply non-existent! Yet, as these features were discontinued, no one's monthly fees were adjusted accordingly! What do you get now? Antivirus protection with a company that the ISP is making a commission from, and that the end user eventually has to pay separately for updates. I'll stick with my insanely reliable Primus Canada - dedicated mail servers, premium usenet access, great customer service and consistently high speeds (about double the speed I was getting over the same lines from Bell). And even though I am a heavy-duty bandwidth user, with multiple computers, game consoles and wireless multimedia devices, I've never seen a cap or a throttle-back. I was quite dissapointed that Primus, available through most of the GTA (and a major ISP in western provinces) was not given an opportunity to compete with the other DSL providers. I would have been surprised if they wouldn't have won the DSL crown (falling behind cable but mopping the floor with the closest phoneline based provider) Posted by: PeBo | Nov 22, 07 09:37 AM

The "big" download test, consisting of downloading an ISO of the Ubuntu Linux distribution is quite irrelevant considering each mirrors you download from will be subject to variation ie. number of users downloading at the same moment, speed of the connection (some will have 100mbits, 1000mbits or more), disk activity on the servers, infrastructure of the internal network. We're not even talking of your testers' side (see Peter's comment). Setup some graphing tools to measure network input/output. Put a big download from CBC's server and then let one tester at a time download the file, this would be an OK test. Posted by: Eric | Nov 22, 07 09:40 AM

My teenage son downloads a lot of online games and the videos that go with some of these games and he starts the downloads about 12:30pm and sometimes by 10am the next day when I need to get on the computer to do job searches the downloads are still going. I Defrag alot as Defragging can make the computer run faster and yet the downloads still take a long time. We have Bell Sympatico and personally for me and my small downloads of news items it's fast enough but for him and all the graphics etc on these online games it takes time. I bought the Internet for him to do his homework with and if he complains about the download of online games time well the that's just too bad as the Internet was just bought for his homework and my job searches. So to be honest with you I'm fine with the Bell Internet. We have a Yearly Contract of $34.75 per month for the High Speed and to me that's the cheapest I could find with Bell that's ideal for me. Personally I'm having a hard time with the Rogers company and buying anything from them. That includes their home phone system that doesn't work when there's a power outage etc. Bell I find has been reliable for me over the years and if they come out with a Phone Line Cable system I'd look into that if it's cheap for the Basic Cable. I live in the Sherbourne/Dundas area so all of my Bell items phone/Internet have been working fine. I won't get their T.V. Satellite as I live on the 2nd floor and in my area you never know when they are going to steal things right off your balcony. So in conclusion for me myself and not my son I'm fine with my Bell Internet Speed. Posted by: Linda Makarchuk | Nov 22, 07 09:43 AM

Wow, was this ever one of the most lop-sided, poorly researched pieces of drivel I've ever watched on CBC. I've lost all faith in Marketplace over the last few months with its famous editing and attack-like interviewing. First of all you claim to test 4 different providers in 'one neighbourhood'. This is frankly impossible as Shaw and Telus aren't even available in Toronto. So, I can easily deduce that the test would have some irregularities right off the bat. Secondly, the head-to-head, real-time test was not physically possible given the fact that you were popping in on these people at their 'nearby' locations as you drove around (while talking on a cell phone no less). I hardly doubt that each test was performed at the same time. The Telus customer appeared to be in Vancouver. To test fairly, you needed to test 4 customers that are at similar lengths from their serving equipment, in similar neighbourhoods and vintage of home (not the 100 year old home the Bell customer was in, which probably had old copper lines), at the exact same time of day (in each location), etc. I for one have a Bell Sympatico line and get nearly 100% of my advertised speed. I know some who don't, but they're far from their service equipment. This happens. An ISP can't put equipment on everyone's doorstep. What you also failed to note is that Bell is rectifying these issues by placing equipment closer to all of their homes with their FTTN program. Some research into the company woud've shown this. I found it on the BCE website, why couldn't you? What's next for your program? A story on why some grass seeds under perform? You could look at a patch of grass in rural ontario, one in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, and then, to be fair, a test in the Sahari desert? Get real! Posted by: Aaron | Nov 22, 07 09:47 AM

While interesting, this whole piece was really only a very superficial look at much larger issues. It also paints entire industries with a very broad brush that is inaccurate and misleading. The real problem with Bell isn't poor speeds, as that is largely dependent on location - it's their incredibly poor customer service. Suggesting that cable suffers because of oversubscribed neighbourhoods is straight out of Bell's 2001 marketing playbook. It's wrong and vastly over-simplified and far too general a statement to make. Network architecture varies by company - some are good, some are bad, but you can't paint all cable companies with the same brush. Posted by: Travis Campbell | Nov 22, 07 09:52 AM

I have been both a Bell & Rogers user and both have problems. I found Rogers particularly bad, a 5Mb service barely broke 1Mb in my area. But I found the shaping of traffic like Skype to be more anti completive. Rogers has its own VOIP product so as a result a competitor service on their network is pretty much crippled. Instead of complaining I found the solution is to use one of the many other DSL providers. I use one with no limits, no throttling and no caps for a fraction of Bell or Rogers fee. The more people who take this route will force the big two to change. Posted by: Jason | Nov 22, 07 10:02 AM

Wow. You had 4 individuals download the file "edubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso" from the same target "us.releases.ubuntu.com" at the same time and compared the results. This has got to be the most misleading and inaccurate means of comparing the overall performance of these 4 ISPs. You did not take into account that while this mirrored site (located in the state of Illinois) is well connected into the backbone of the Internet, the condition of its upstream links (in terms of congestion, QoS controls, etc...) may be different relative to IP traffic flows from the site towards the ISPs... resulting in favorable or non-favorable download-results depending on which Transit providers these ISPs use for pulling traffic (from this specific site) towards their subscribers, and a multitude of other Independent variables that play havoc with Download results you can obtain by transfering content to your PC... Overall you sucessfully managed to BlackBall Bell Canada as being the worst. Yet, should a different download site and different content had been selected where the multitude of independent variables relating to overall download performance actually favor Bell Canada vs. the rest of the ISPs, the whole show's end effect to the people watching the show would have been drastically different. There are too many independent variables relating to the transfer of data from one point to another over the Internet to acurately depict Internet performance when doing side-by-side downloads. Posted by: Techie | Nov 22, 07 10:22 AM

Can you share how you managed to get Sympatico to revert you to your previous plan? I also switched to a new plan and only discovered I would soon be charged $25 per month for unlimited usage -- something that was included in my previous plan. I was told that I wouldn't be able to switch back. Seems like that is not consistent with your experience. Posted by: Peter | Nov 22, 07 11:03 AM

I've read these comments and see that the people are talking mostly about Bell. Well I live very remote and can only have Satellite internet. The advertising is indeed enticing until you get signed up and then you discover that speed is not as was advertised as well as you have a time limit, something that was never mentioned at all. I have been hooked up since mid April and have done speed tests since mid May but Xplornet has not arrived at a solution as yet. They only to try and get more money out of me for a higher package. Posted by: Judy Petherick | Nov 22, 07 11:16 AM

Can anyone tell me if everyone on the Ubuntu download test was using the same mirror server? - And what mirror was it? I get vastly different speeds using different servers... If a mirror is on a Rogers supplied backbone then it will be much faster for Rogers customers Bell - and vice versa... This really needed more than 4 customers on one or two downloads to be of any real use... Posted by: Gordo | Nov 22, 07 11:35 AM

I watched this episode last night and found that my Bell Sympatico is working at 95% of the 5mg I have paid for. I don't see why this interview has to target one particular company when there are so many factors that cound be determining your speed. I had Rogers Extreme and found them to be so slow that I had to change. I have no complaints with Bell. Perhaps, CBC should state that factors such as location, distance etc. are the key to receiving the speed you pay for. Posted by: Susan | Nov 22, 07 11:35 AM

Too bad you did not test the Firefox browser and the add-on called DownloadThemAll If anyone is having problem getting files to download fast I'd recommend that combination. It just works. But you are right they are ripping us off. The one guy there should pay up to 10% of his bill. The cost has remained pretty much the same in the last 10 years but the speed now is exactly half of what they used to sell. Progress? When I asked they said nobody was interested in very high speed. Only less than 1% of there users. I beg to differ. If you have "Lite" high speed you are totally getting ripped off. Might as well use a modem cause it will be faster and cheaper. Posted by: Pete | Nov 22, 07 11:46 AM

I am supposed to have high speed and wireless. I think I have been duped. Bell will be getting a call. Bell's technicans are offshore, don't speak understandable English, will not pass you to a supervisor or technican in Canada. They really do not know how to fix your internet. I will be looking around for another server. Posted by: Diane Dennison | Nov 22, 07 12:13 PM

Part One I have tried Shaw, Bell, Rogers, and am currently with Cybersurf or 3web. I was happy with Shaw (very customer oriented), and then they swapped territories with Rogers. Had great speeds with Shaw, and then Rogers - until some problem occurred and my dial up connection became faster than my so called "high speed" connection. Never got an answer from Rogers or a fix. That was the beginning of the end for Rogers with me - forever - HORRIBLE customer service. In the end I canceled my cable service as well, after the way I was treated. Moving on to Bell I found the speeds were consistent but not as fast as Rogers was (in the beginning). The price was reasonable, but over time the big providers started raising their prices, or inventing the "light" plans. I felt they were overcharging for what they provided so I started looking for alternatives and found 3web by Cybersurf. For the purchase of a modem and some DSL filters (from 3web), I was getting better than Bell for half the price. I have had this provider for years, and have been very happy - no problems at all. My speeds are from anywhere between 2500 - 4400 on downloads and 500 to 600 on uploads, depending on all the variables. I tried to get my sister on this service just recently and she could not connect because she was too far away from the equipment. Posted by: Steve Anker | Nov 22, 07 12:20 PM

This test is crap. In a some instances its dark outside and in others its light. Time of day is huge factor-in particular for cable (shared) internet. Posted by: Liz | Nov 22, 07 12:52 PM

I must say I am terribly disappointed with the "National Enquirer" tabloidesque reporting on this issue. It was quite obvious your interest lay more in trying to cause a stir rather than actually reporting on facts. For a show called "Market Place" I would have expected a little market research be done instead of test that compare apples to oranges. I actually had a good chuckle when you ran a 7 meg service vs. a 5 meg service. It's like having a race where one car drives at 50 km/hr and the other at 70 km/hr for the same distance. Who would you think would win? Aside from this, I would strongly suggest you do your research before going out on a smear campaign against internet service providers. Read some of your viewer comments, the ones in the know clearly don't support your findings. As a cable internet subscriber currently and a DSL subscriber in the past I can tell you they each have their ups and downs. Posted by: John Radcliff | Nov 22, 07 12:55 PM

Look, we all know that BELL is not perfect and I think even the VP's of BELL would agree. That said, not one VP has ever sat back and stated BELL has no work to do, or anything of that sort. You tell me one company that sits back and believes they have no room for improvement. I would suggest that whoever thought they could speak about high speed internet services and capture the entire episode in a mere half hour should start sweeping the floors. This was a disgusting display of the media taking things too far. What was also disgusting was the interview with BELL. ms. Marketplace didn't get the answers she wanted to it was twisted to again what? Ensure BELL looked bad in the eyes of the consumers. Oh, just one more thing for Marketplace, telling everyone to downgrade instead of having Technical Support look at their issue, please be aware that you may have in fact caused many customers to incur serious charges due to bandwidth caps, and Marketplace, yes, ALL ISP's have bandwidth caps. Posted by: No Name | Nov 22, 07 02:20 PM

This story is completely exaggerated. What they conveniently leave out is that you can only download as fast as the other server can send to you. iTunes download servers DO NOT upload at 5 MBps. Posted by: Chris Dundas | Nov 22, 07 02:28 PM

haven't yet been able to see the show from the web page on my high speed rural 1.5 MB package from xplornet.. cause it wont download fast enough lol.. but for you city folks bitching about "only" getting 1 mb service.. try being on the fringes of towns where bell/rogers/telus don't service. Us wireless or satellite folks get sold on high speed packages that advertise 1.5/3 or 5 meg packages and get 256k most of the time. Yes, better tham 22k dial up speeds for sure, but when promised that elusive 1mb package or higher and paying double or triple ( or for satellite users $1k upfront for the hardware!!!! plus $100 a month) do a search on xplornet, a major canadian company providing "high speed" for us rural folks and see where the real rip off is happening... city folks have a choice of their providers, us rural folks have less and are getting gouged as a result! Posted by: Mike Banton | Nov 22, 07 02:33 PM

I think personally that what CBC news is doing is great. I am thankful that there are people that go after these sort of companies and present them with real data from the other side of the world and question them why would people get these poor results when you promise them more. I mean these companies get the internet and they provide it to us in lesser quantity making more money out of it behind our backs and on top of that they have caps. I think CBC news is telling us that it is about time to raise questions and investigate and they are doing it on our behalf. We are not sitting everyday on our computers testing our bandwidth and that makes me question whether we are getting what they promised us at first. When I try to do a speed test with my cable ISP Cogeco, they direct me to their own speed test as they tell me it is more accurate than the others. But really it is a direct connection to their server which will give you the results that will satisfy you but when you test other servers it is not the same which makes sense since it is not their server. I think this is a scam and that is what the rest of the companies do and I am happy CBC is doing this. Posted by: danny | Nov 22, 07 05:46 PM

I was wondering where the comments from the service providers are? I think this is important information in regards to your report. Consumers need to hear from both sides to make an informed decision. Posted by: Andrea | Nov 22, 07 07:03 PM

I purchased the wireless internet from Bell because they do not have high speed in my old subdivision in Mississauga. I was shown a map and told it works in most areas across the country and will give internet service. I took it to my sister's house outside Parry Sound.... no internet. I took it to my daughter's trailer in Orillia.... no internet. I took it to my house in Lions Bay BC....no internet. I can get it downtown Toronto and downtown Vancouver but very bad signals everywhere else. Posted by: Eileen Wilke | Nov 22, 07 07:31 PM

In the past few years, I had Bell high speed internet but finally canceled my account with them this year. In March, I notified Bell that I was going to move to another address in April and asked them to transfer my service to the new address; however, my internet did not work at my new address. It could load the google main page but could NOT go anywhere else. I called them and they told me that they would fix the problem in 2 days. After a week, the problem still wasn't fixed and I requested them to send out a technician. They told me that the technician would arrive between 5 -9pm on that Friday but the technician NEVER came and I NEVER got a call. I called them and they just kept apologizing. I was very frustrated but I wanted to fix the problem so I asked them to send another technician out. The reply was, "No, we will not send another technician out because the problem with your internet is that your location is too far from where we send out the central office. Therefore, we cannot provide you with highspeed internet." Another staff also told me that a technician visit would cost me $90. First, I paid Bell's bill on time every month and they were SUPPOSED to fix anything that goes wrong with their service WITHOUT charging me extra. Second, why couldn't they have told me that they can't provide me with high speed internet service earlier if I advised them of my move date a WHOLE month before my move? Plus, they were charging me the whole time I didn't get internet service after I moved. After I realized that Bell could not provide me high speed internet, I called them to ask them to 1. Cancel my service, and 2. Refund me money for the days that Bell was not able to provide me with internet. Posted by: Chrissy | Nov 22, 07 08:39 PM

This report is so deceiving I feel bad for the consumers who watched the report. Considering your 4 testers, not only were they not on the same street, they were not even in the same province so I ask, what was the speed/download test supposed to tell consumers? While one tester may be sitting on top of the ISP, the other may be kilometers away. Another tester could be on a cable run that he/she is the only one on when the other is sharing their speeds with other people connected to the same cable. So many issues contribute to the effects of speed over a network that this episode should be looked at more in depth, reproduced and aired again to provide true and accurate information to the Canadian Consumer. In defense of the companies you slandered with this deceiving report, these tests should be more carefully planned with all parameters equivalent for each company. Posted by: Craig Russell | Nov 22, 07 08:49 PM

I did enjoy your report on Internet Speed, however, one thing you failed to say is that most people now use wireless access to the Internet. Your tests on the show all showed hard wired connections to either a hub or directly to the ISP Modem. But if you want to slow down even more... do the same using the wireless card on most laptops which is what most people with laptops do today... I use Videotron basic high speed access, I am totally wireless and their minimum and cheapest offering is good enough for me... I am one of the lucky ones that never got suckered into getting even higher speed offering, but like all the other, Videotron tries to sell me faster speed all the time... Like fishing for another sucker. Posted by: Robert Cossette | Nov 22, 07 09:43 PM

Although I know Bell provides the best speeds and stability, I ran your test to be certain. Result - I pay Bell for 5mbs and get 5mbs. Good job Bell! If I didn't receive the top speed, I would certainly not think Bell was lying to me. It has always been clear that it is an 'up to' speed...no white lies in my opinion. Posted by: Mark | Nov 22, 07 09:50 PM

I moved into my own place and became a Bell customer for the first time in August 2007. I was initially quite displeased with the service: the internet cut in and out - which meant that I often had to start downloading all over again - and even the phone service was crummy. Even after all the complaints I made, I had a Bell service representative mistakenly call me to ask if I would like to switch to Bell Internet Service... ("I didn't realize that Bell and Service went together, but if you've got enough, some service would be great...") Anyways, my internet seems to somehow be improving (ie no longer cuts in and out) and given that I live in a student area, I would not switch at this time. I will, however, not be renewing my contract with them. And despite that the testing was not done perfectly on the show, I think it speaks a lot about the honesty of the company when it comes to advertising. Kudos to the bell employee on the phone who had the guts to speak honestly about the marketing practices of his own company! Posted by: Sarah | Nov 22, 07 09:54 PM

Cable companies began with TV & since they transmitted the same TV signals to everyone, only one cable was needed to feed all the houses along the street. Today, that same cable also has to carry Internet and telephone signals. Despite this, I have no doubt that during the day, cable customers' speeds are up; because the kids are in school & adults at work. In the evening however, their speeds will be mostly down. Many download libraries of movies and music. If one person on your street does this, the others suffer. This is where throttling comes in. Nobody wants to lose good customers to keep just one. So they quietly throttle back that one. An x-customer of EastLink (a cableco) was thrilled that he had 10Mbps. Skeptic, I did a test. He was getting 1.2Mbps off a local server. I met up with him a few weeks later. His speed was much improved, but still only 4.5Mbps. Another x-EastLink customer would sometimes get 5Mbps but average below 1Mbps. What gets me with Rogers is their "high speed ultra lite". First of all, it’s not high speed. You don't see Bell advertising their dial up as high speed. And the 'Ultra'? Understand it once and for all, Rogers High Speed Ultra Lite really means "Ultra Slowwwwwww"! Telcos on the other hand began with telephones. They had to transmit multiple signals in both directions. There are as many cables as there are phones & their Internet runs on those same cables. There is no need of throttling anyone because everyone is no their own line. On another note, you can’t advertise a min speed because the min speed is zero. You can have the fastest ISP in the world but if you download a file from an over saturated server in Vladivostok, you will have no speed! ISPs can only control speeds within their own networks. A start would be for ISPs to guarantee a speed within their network. But cablecos can't do this because multiple customers share the line. Telcos can do this, because customers are on their own line. Posted by: Guy | Nov 22, 07 10:47 PM

I have Telus DSL in BC and no problems. But I also have knowledge on my speeds from my dialup days. Tried satellite and what a major joke. Thanks government for allowing those people to exist. Posted by: Dave | Nov 23, 07 12:43 AM

I am a long time Bell customer and shareholder. I would be satisfied with their service and support if they would just get rid of Emily & the woodchucks. Both are an irritation and a waste of resources. Posted by: Dave | Nov 23, 07 09:35 AM

In my experience Bell (in all it's permutations) provides the worst customer service of any organization I have dealt with. My dissatisfaction relates more (but not exclusively) to Bell Tel, but Sympatico was no great shakes, either. How about a bill for the first month of $968 for regular dial-up and the response was "tough"? Or a phone wire on your front lawn for 6 months, and at least 20 promises of "next week"? I finally gave up on all Bell I could, sold my shares, and lowered my blood pressure. Maybe we should agree to pay "up to $49" for "up to 5MB", etc. Would we buy a case of beer that held "up to 24 bottles"? Posted by: Mike Batty | Nov 23, 07 10:06 AM

I found it much more disturbing to see Erica Johnson driving while talking on her cell phone. People won't die from slow internet connections. Posted by: Constance Dean | Nov 23, 07 10:37 AM

Bell service has always been great for me. I get consistently fast speeds. Posted by: Mark | Nov 23, 07 10:59 AM

I've had Rogers off and on for years now and usually get good speed. Right now I consistently get 6.1 Mb/s. I'm in the Danforth area of Toronto. Obviously, "sharing" my internet connection with my neighbours isn't the problem Bell purports. BTW, I've tried Bell and Primus; they were very bad to utterly pathetic. Don't even bother with DSL for highspeed; too may variables to slow you down, especially things like line noise and distance from the server. In the end, you can't beat that fat pipe Rogers uses to get data to your computer: the coax cable. Posted by: Chris | Nov 23, 07 11:44 AM

I would be interested in seeing CBC redo the test using a well known speed test site like chi.speakeasy.net Using a stopwatch to time a download, how novel! All in all a very unscientific test. Posted by: Jordan B. | Nov 23, 07 12:23 PM

Any government that ignores consumers’ interests using the excuse of supporting business as long as they create jobs and pay tax is wrong. A such policy eventually will lead to dead end; losing the public trust, creating low quality performance, declining GDP, failing competition with foreign companies. The public trust and its best interest is the sole key to any success in any aspect. When a company does not give you what you pay for, it just cheats on you, and push you to cheat in return and eventually we all will become bunch of cheaters. A corrupted society will collapse sooner or later. Posted by: Kevin Jahangir | Nov 23, 07 12:45 PM

I really enjoyed the episode on the "Speed Test". I have Persona as my high speed Internet provider and I am to experiencing the same SLOW speeds. I noticed the real slow sped when I was trying to watch CBC local News here on the internet. It was always buffering ever minute or 2 just as dial up would do. I then went to the speed test web site and found I am only getting 128 kbs download speed despite my paying "up to" 1 mbps dowmload speed. This is just over 10% of the speed I am paying for. I have contacted Person about this. They arranged to have a technician come in, only for them to show up on another day when no one was around home. I really think this is to get Persona off the hook. They have tried to get in to investigate but it was not the time we had agreed on. Worst is I signed a 2 yr contract with them for the 1 mbps plan. Posted by: Greg Taylor | Nov 23, 07 01:39 PM

I would like to see some test done on other isp. I have a satellite that says up to 500kbp/s but I have never seen it . I was watching the show and saying "gee I wish I had that sped for downloading." I have never got into the triple digits. I am just waiting for my contract to expire in April to get wireless. Is there any recourse after jumping through hoops and still not getting anything? Posted by: Margaaret Hazelwood | Nov 23, 07 01:45 PM

The "UP TO" world is in part an industrial flaw but even more a technological one. As with all network delivery products, they are all affected by distance and signal strength. Cable examples: Cat 5 – 100 Meters Fibre - 3KM At the edge of these lengths, if a repeater isn't added you get signal degradation and increased problems as a result. Bell suffers from being first in the ground... The red tape needed to upgrade things alone is a mountain of a task. The internet experience, as Dali has hinted to, is absolutely an oversold idea... People are being fed "super-size me" type marketing strategies to one up one another without thinking of the overall impact of their own actions. If the TELCOS/CABLECOS were forced to deliver a type of service level agreement of sorts, guaranteeing a certain level of quality it would change things enormously, but until this happens we're nowhere near any kind of solution. Additionally, there are major issues of late with the cost of data, as some may have seen in a P2Pnet discussion of late. The increase in speeds are causing collateral damage, to the point where the larger companies, such as Sympatico/Rogers/others find themselves having to make a compromising decision... "quality of service" vs. "bottom line". As a result the Telcos/Cablecos are finding themselves selling a service they can't deliver on as the bottom line didn't allow proper back-end support... Lastly; a chronic problem that seems to pop-up throughout the ISP world is customer service and tech support... There's a very big disconnect with the client in our industry at the moment, which in turn is causing customers to not receive proper attention when technical problems occur. It's likely many of the slow speed issues can be both handled and fixed if a little TLC is given! Posted by: Rocky Gaudrault | Nov 23, 07 04:16 PM

I'm with a company called bell simpatico reseller company called Teksavvy. I'm getting about 900/500. The advertised speed is 5000/800. I've never been able to get the full speeds. When I contacted Teksavvy about the slow download speeds, I was told that I live more than 5km away from Bell remote. Also they said they can't initiate a line transfer because there is no other close Bell remote available. So I was really disappointed and called up Bell symaptico to find out what is going on. When I called in the sales rep was saying that Teksavvy is giving me false information and offered me a total performance package for $49 plus tax. I was not convinced, so I told him I need a confirmation from a technician. Once he put me through to a bell tech, he tells me the same old story I was told by Teksavvy. The only option available for me to get high speed in my neighbourhood is to go with Rogers. Bell needs to step in and solve these distance issues as soon as possible. The neighbourhood I live in is Grandravine Dr. and Sentinel Rd. (North York) Posted by: Tulie A. | Nov 23, 07 04:55 PM

Tisk Tisk! Erica!!!! Driving while on the phone! Even my 9 year old daughter who LOVES the show was appalled. If I am not mistaken there was a feature on Driving distracted. You should all know better.... Posted by: LGirl | Nov 23, 07 06:07 PM

One thing CBC should have done...Review Teksavvy. I get 4.3Down/.8 Up and yet only pay $30 a month for it. Posted by: John | Nov 23, 07 06:50 PM

It's somewhat coincidental Marketplace would have internet speed on the agenda the same day we received our phone and internet bill. Alas, internet prices are going up three dollars per month as of this month.(26.95 to 29.95) I get the impression we are getting the same download speed as the slow ratings in the test. Mts Allstream is an exclusive provider in Manitoba in competition with Shaw. Posted by: George Langelier | Nov 23, 07 08:09 PM

Most Cable providers are reasonably reliable in their speeds unless you live in a neighborhood with high volume traffic. Bad/old cable installations can play a role as well. However Rogers in my experience is shaping traffic. So although you'll get a reasonable speed downloading a common piece of software, p2p traffic will come to a standstill at most times. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on where you live, only some areas are suffering from shaping. DSL speed's first factor is location. How far are you from the hardware that connects your neighbourhood to Bell's end (known as a CO). If you are lucky or sneaky enough to get at a high enough level of tech support at bell and converse with real technicians rather than drones, you'll find there may be some hope if there is an active 'remote' close-by. The next most important factor is line quality, especially for the smaller phone line that's got to handle phone conversations on top of DSL, the quality of your line, your filters, your modem are all factors that can affect your speed. (continued) Posted by: EM | Nov 23, 07 08:32 PM

(continued) Some good news for DSL customers as opposed to Cable customers is that they have more choice in the company they deal with. There are many third party DSL providers that although use Bell's lines, run their own servers, and have English and French speaking Canadian customer support that doesn't give you the runaround. Don't get your hopes up in that all of them must use the Bell/Telus phone line, and if that's truly the problem Bell is holding your Internet hostage, but if there is a chance problems can be fixed on the provider end, some of the third party providers may be much more willing and accommodating to help (most of them won’t tie you to a contract either) Having said all that, as opposed to Cable, DSL speeds tend to be more clingy to the "up to" idea. Whereas a 5Mbit line on Rogers should produce real world results in the 4800Kbit range, the same from Bell is more likely to give 4300Kbit (each type of connection requires some overhead space). People should get used to seeing upload speeds in the 280Kbit (for 300 Kbit upload advertisement) and anywhere from 680-780Kbit for an 800 Kbit upload advertised line. Most lines are advertised as 5Mbit/800Kbit or 5Mbit/300Kbit. Also don't lose yourself in the numbers. Speed tests talk in bits, whereas most download applications talk in bytes (1 byte=8bits) So if you have 4300 KBit download expect max 537 Kbytes/sec etc... I am glad to see CBC catch on to what happens when the "two happy beavers" aren't around, but would've appreciated a less diluted program mentioning the third party options out there beside the Big Guys The DSL repots forums are an excellent place to start your research if you are feeling gouged http://www.dslreports.com/forums/23 Posted by: EM | Nov 23, 07 08:34 PM

So many people posting crap here. Facts are simple, ADSL depends on line quality, distance, and the technology itself is slower then Cable. Yes Cable is shared but I've been on cable for years at different locations and even at the slowest speed during the night, it's still faster then every ADSL connection I have used. I always tell my clients, co-workers and friends to use Shaw over Telus. And if you look up world stats on speedtest.net you will see Telus isn't even on the top 10 list with the slowest company on the top 10 still being a 1000kb faster then Telus in BC stats. If you want to see Telus speeds you need to look up small towns where it's only Shaw and Telus to compare the speeds. Shaw averages over twice the speed of Telus. I think the stats on speedtest.net show for itself. Also people saying this isn't a fair test, I saw nothing wrong with the test. They were doing real world tests of a standard setup. Who the hell is going to plug the computer in the basement with a 6 inch cord plugged directly into the phone line with nothing else in the house plugged in? Posted by: Huzur | Nov 23, 07 11:01 PM

I had no problems watching the video with my extreme connection. Regarding the test though, since the same file was being downloaded from the same location it would be slower than if it was a file of the same size file downloaded from 4 different web locations. Posted by: Roger Bell | Nov 23, 07 11:17 PM

I am not surprised by any of the content of this story. However, I am ecstatic that the CBC has brought this years old issue to the attention of Canadians. An angle that could have also been included is the upload speed of the internet. I am getting my 5Mbps download rate but only a .5 upload rate. Why are we not getting the same upload rates? In today's online environment people want to share videos, pictures, and even music. It is nice to be able to consume that fast, but it is difficult when you are the one who wants to share. Another topic for another time maybe. Posted by: Christopher Mercer | Nov 24, 07 12:13 AM

My speed has been steady for about 6 months now after some line repairs. I have regular High Speed with Aliant (Bell). In fairness they are upgrading our system as I speak and instead of being 4.5 km from the Bell office, I will be less than a few hundred feet away. So things are looking up. I hear both pro and con about all isp's. Location, line or cable condition, consumers on a run (cable) ultimately dictate one's speed. Hey! Its better than dial-up. Posted by: B Grozik | Nov 24, 07 06:46 AM

You treated the problem too lightly, giving the impression that "someone", i.e., the CBC, has it under control. You failed to bring out the anxiety that the poor service and the incredible difficulty subscribers have trying to contact any of the servers has on them. People are fed up with the fake automated voices but have no place to go. And it's going to be a while now before the CBC tackles it again - I can hear it already, Oh, didn't we do a program on that, when, last year sometime? If you're our last line of defence, then for heaven's sake, be more aggressive. Posted by: Bert Deveaux | Nov 24, 07 09:10 AM

I spent a year from hell with Rogers. They limited my bandwidth and would not admit to it for a year. I bought a new computer, modem and changed all the wires and still spent many frustrating evenings trying to get into my favourite sites. When I was finally told about the reduced bandwicth they informed me they could do whatever they liked. I threatened to go to another server, their answer was "go right ahead". I am stuck in a package deal but I will continue to look elsewhere and when my chance comes I will escape Rogers. Posted by: peter gallantry | Nov 24, 07 09:20 AM

I was a very long time customer of Sympatico until this past summer. I started to lose service past 7PM and couldn't recover until the morning with service all day being fine. No one at Bell could fix things. I finally spoke with a high level tech person, which took 3 weeks, to find out that I lived the furthest point allowed for connection service, that was 5.2km and there was nothing they could do to fix it. I immediately hooked up with Rogers and have been flying high ever since. Downloads are fast and service is really good. I'm sorry that I waited so long to switch. I was paying for 5mb service and getting 1mb and my Rogers service is 5mb up to 7mb at any time I test the speed. I finally made the right decision. And don't forget to hit Bell up for a rebate for all of the poor service that you've paid big bucks for. Posted by: Ray | Nov 24, 07 09:55 AM

Hello. I watched the video on the internet companies and I tried the test for the apple itunes 7.5 software. I have Rogers Yahoo! Highspeed Internet Express. With the download speed reading approx 850kb/s behind an ethernet router boosting up to 100Mbps. I am very happy with the results. Equipment and the other factors are a significant impact. I have a 4 year old computer and the "new" modem given by rogers with the package. I also have a new computer with dual core technology and the speed of the downloads is a lot higher than my older computer. Posted by: Eric | Nov 24, 07 10:13 AM

I've got rogers portable in Muskoka. The link is 32 kM through the air. Download is supposed to be 1.5 mBs. I get that or above. In Toronto, their speed is about the same so I buy their pkg for that speed. Posted by: bcarnegie | Nov 24, 07 10:53 AM

I just downloaded itunes ( 51MB ) in 1 minute, 5 seconds while I was watching the marketplace story online at 512kb feed. That is pretty remarkable and downright excellent. I am on rogers extreme. As an IT person who has helped many people get connected to the internet, I recommend cable 100% over DSL just for the same reasons you have demonstrated. What I have found repeatedly is that Rogers is responsive and reacts to problem areas and improves services just on a single complaint. On the flip side, Bell seems to do just the opposite. They make you do all kinds of trouble shooting on the user end that doesn't even make sense to the problem. Both companies are not perfect but if I had to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 I would give Rogers a solid 9 whereas Bell easily deserves no more than a 2. As such, I have become a 100% Rogers customer for all of my communication services ( internet, cable tv, mobile phones and home phone ) and I couldn't be happier. Is it the cheapest?, NO, and I am perfectly ok with that?, YES, totally based on the service and response I have experienced REPEATEDLY from Rogers. Posted by: Scott Johnston | Nov 24, 07 10:59 AM

I just tested my speed. I have Rogers Express which offers UP TO 7.0 mbps download and UP TO 512 kbps upload. I tested at 8522 kbps download and 486 kbps upload. I feel good about that. For the record I recently switched from another provider due to connectivity and speed issues. I was sold a high speed package. After 7 months of slow speeds and outtages, I was finally told that my "area" doesn't have the capacity for the high speed package I purchased. I switched the next day. Posted by: M Hill | Nov 24, 07 11:05 AM

A long term Bell customer, I discovered earlier this year that I was not getting the high speed service contracted for. Maximum downloads were about 400 to 500 kb/s. Sufficient for my purposes, but not as expected. After much messing about with off-shore help I finally wrote to the head of residential services and not longer after that, technicians began to appear. The house was rewired at no cost, but this made little difference due to my distance from the C.O. They eventually downgraded me to basic service and while my speeds are the same, I'm paying less. They should have told me when I signed up that true high speed was not available in my area of South Etobicoke. I did however, get a refund for the years of excess payments. The latest irritation is the unrequested "enhancements" to the mail service which resulted in no access to the e-mail until I discovered what changes had been made. They had sent me an e-mail to enlighten me, but this wasn't available because I couldn't access the e-mail because of the changes. I'm fed up and will research alternatives. Posted by: John Karsai | Nov 24, 07 12:29 PM

I have had Bell Sympatico for several years and have had the usual problems. But mostly the service has been OK. I am fairly close to my local CO (Pharmacy and Eglinton in Scarborough). I get consistent speed of 4.3 Megs/sec. iTunes downloads in just over one and half minutes. I thought the show was a bit misleading in that the Sympatico test was not fair since the speed is dependent on how far you are from the local CO and the condition of the phone lines. I would also like to know the source of the big file they were downloading and how to test it myself. Posted by: David McLay | Nov 24, 07 12:45 PM

They should have run this test during peak and off hours. Download the same file at 8am, noon and then at 5pm. You will see different results at different times for certain ISP. Posted by: luc blanchard | Nov 24, 07 12:53 PM

I've tried Rogers, but it's not very consistent. Sometimes it's very fast though. I now have Cogeco and it is very reliable! I just downloaded the new 90mb Mac update in just over a minute. Extremely fast. Posted by: Geoff | Nov 24, 07 01:53 PM

I would just like to comment on cable in my area. It hasn't been upgraded and yet the price is the same as for those with the high speeds. When too many are on the net, it does slow down considerably as well. Posted by: Erika | Nov 24, 07 02:29 PM

If you want to judge Sympatico against any other ISP, go to www.complaints.com and search for Sympatico. You should also search for Rogers, Shaw, etc., obviously. The number of complaints posted about Sympatico's service makes you wonder why anyone would actually believe they are getting any kind of service from them. Posted by: Rick Rheaume | Nov 24, 07 04:05 PM

Not a bad story but I feel there could have been a much larger picture painted for the viewer. In particular I have to say that having navigated the Ubuntu mirrors last week i wonder how you were able to determine which mirror had the potential for the fastest speed. Remember there is much more to consider than geographical location. What is the load on the particular mirror you are using? how much bandwidth is available to the downloader? My Ubuntu download finally maxed out my connection after choosing about the 10th mirror to use. This saved me >2 hrs in selecting a fast mirror... going from ~30K/s at roughly 10 mirrors to >500K/s on the 11th mirror. The location? I can't remember but it might have been nighttime there or the moons were aligned in a particular way but that truly is the nature of the internet. Having learned a great deal about data networks at school I fully understand what variables affect the outcome of your segment. I wonder if you do? Perhaps delve into traffic shaping practices of ISP's, or touch on the idea of net neutrality and tie it into something concrete. I understand this is a story of the little guy v. the big guy and business practice but it feel these issues might be a logical extension of this principle. I think you misrepresent all isp vendors in your breakdown of this issue. Posted by: Tim W. | Nov 24, 07 04:10 PM

I recently changed over to a local phone&internet; company on Nov 23,2007 from Bell. Wightmans Telephone is now supplying 4.864 mbps to me using the same lines that Bell was providing..but all Bell could supply at their "up to" 7.0 mbps package was 2.8 mbps.. Wonder why Bell was slower? Could it be the number of users? Posted by: Geoff Ramalho | Nov 24, 07 04:29 PM

This video is really exaggerated. I got Bell Sympatico at home and I'm getting my full 6 MB just like a lot of my buddies do. Posted by: No Name | Nov 24, 07 05:22 PM

Not Surprised anymore. I was with Bell for years paying for most expensive package and supposedly the fastest speed. Well after finally running tests they determined that I had speeds not much faster than dial up. What did they offer to compensate? Nothing! Well until I canceled and went to Rogers, then they wanted to give me 6 months free. Too Late Bell. Posted by: Al | Nov 24, 07 05:22 PM

I am paying for "high speed extreme" from Rogers yet I am lucky if I am getting speeds less than dial-up. So I did a speed check, (there are many different sites to check you speed at) and I found I am generally getting less than 1000 Kbs/s. (less than 1 mb/s – Rogers told me I would be getting around 7 to 8 mb/s. Rogers then has this nifty little scam where they tell you to check it on THEIR speed check site. Lo and behold it says my speed is just fine! But I know differently. So then they tell me to check it on the “speakeasy” website out of New York - again the speed is looking better5 mb/s. Sound suspicious? Those are the only two sites Rogers will respond to and yet no one else in the industry uses them. I was disturbed watching the program the other night that the journalist didn’t connect the fact that Rogers had them check the speed on Rogers own speed check site. Try toast.net or speedtest.net or broadband-help.com/tools/speed-test/ I set up Real Player yesterday and am trying to establish speeds for the radio and broadband services they offer. They ask you to tell them what your connection is and they perform a test as it sets up your system. I clicked on “cable – 7 mb/s” but Real Player replies after they check that my speed is actually much, much less and sets up my system for a speed that will make broadband useless because it has to stop and “rebuffer” constantly. Rogers has no response to this and ends our phone call with “is there anything else I can help you with?”. Apparently not! Posted by: John Scharrer | Nov 24, 07 05:23 PM

It seems that Shaw has blocked the test. Posted by: M. HIGHFIELD | Nov 24, 07 05:24 PM

I ran into the same problem 3 years ago with Bell. After long talks and "arguing" they decided not to charge me for high speed because I was only getting slightly over dial up speed.They only conceded when I said I wanted to cancel and go to Rogers. Posted by: Brian | Nov 24, 07 05:44 PM

For all the people confused about speed... 1000 Kbs = 125 KBytes /s Also in my opinion, the Canadian ISPs are all kind of crap, ripping us off. In some European countries, you can get 25mbs for the same price as we get our 'break neck' 5mbs. In the US they have a new fiber optic internet called FIOS, and they give you 20 to 40mbs for similar prices. Not to mention our ISPs are fairly unreliable. The service will deteriorate depending on where you live. You won't get good speeds if everyone is using it. Posted by: Rob | Nov 24, 07 06:01 PM

I have watched many of the "Marketplace" shows only to find that in most cases the information is biased and not well researched. I work for one of the leading DSL internet providers in Western Canada. In most slow speed cases it is because of the phone cord that connects the modem to the wall jack. In 90% of cases the customer has a cord longer than 10 feet which greatly degrades the signal causing slower speed issues. Get a phone cord less than five feet and you should be good to go. Other things that cause your speeds to slow down would be cordless phones, alarm systems, satellite systems, lifelines and anything else that runs on your phone line that could possibly be running on the same frequency as your DSL modem. We as providers can't control what happens once the signal hits the consumers home. I am appalled that this show constantly shows a one sided version of the story. Posted by: Brooke | Nov 24, 07 06:10 PM

Looks good on Bell. Roast them; they have burned consumers for years. The service has consistently gone down the tubes you would think with the competitive nature of the business they would do their homework. But alas they take your money and waste your time on the complaint phone queue. I have Rogers at home and at work we pay double and get half with the Bell business service and we have a couple big IT companies on the street where they put fiber optics on the street a few years ago before the IT companies showed up. So the location is not the problem. Oh and BTW I live near a University where I am sure they all Youtube and file share and have experienced no real slow downs. I measured the bandwith with Rogers and I get about 6Mbps consistently. So much for Bell's "don't share your bandwidth with neighbours" hype. Posted by: Neil | Nov 24, 07 06:45 PM

Good show, very entertaining even if very light on content! Yes I love being on Rogers, and had not a so great relationship with Sympatico, prior... but this is not my point! I am reacting to all of YOU who seem so offended because Erica is driving while using a cell phone! The cell was used in the walkee talkee mode, where one only has to depress one button and talk just like you would with a CB radio. Every single trucker on this country, and most around the planet use their CB while trucking. Talking on the phone keeps me alert! Posted by: Denis B | Nov 24, 07 06:54 PM

I have been with Rogers ever since it became available and sure there are minor problems here and there but that's to be expected, nothing that would ever make me want to switch to another provider. With their high speed extreme I am able to download files at a top speed of 932 Kb/s which is amazingly fast in my books. Posted by: Gabriel | Nov 24, 07 07:38 PM

Remember with Sympatico high speed you have to take into account certain factors when calculating what your speed will be. First is the distance you are from the "Central Office" (where the other end of your modem is, called a "Line Card"). You have to be within 4.5KM from the Central Office in order for you to be able to have DSL and at the upper limit of that, yo will see a noticeable speed drop from someone closer to the Central Office. Another is the Line Noise on the phone line that you are using. Most people do not realize that in some older areas the phone lines out on the street have not been upgraded and the older lines will cause line noise or crosstalk causing a performance loss. Remember that DSL is possible because using your phone for Analog Voice calls only uses about 10% of the overall bandwidth capabilities of the phone lines. The other, roughly, 90% can be used for Digital Data. A few things you can do is make sure that the phone lines outside your house are upgraded, and that the phone lines inside your house are properly filtered. Then if you live at the outer limits of the service (about 4KM or so) do not fall for the Extreme High Speed Service, just go for the Regular High Speed and save some money. Posted by: MrVermin | Nov 24, 07 08:02 PM

I live in North York west end and I can't get high speed service from Bell, they don't have that service available in my area. It been 6 years now I been trying to get, but now after viewing your story about the companies, I will never get Bell I really hate Bell and Rogers. We as consumers shouldn't have to take this BS. Posted by: Mike | Nov 24, 07 08:05 PM

As another-proclaimed tech guru, I'll back up what Marc B. said up above. In the case of the Bell connections here I would have hooked up the modem directly to the demarc and tested from there. Chances are that the speeds would have increased significantly. At least in my experience. Canada generally has pretty good infrastructure at the local level, and line quality usually isn't a problem. It's usually local interference (meaning within the home). Making sure that all non-DSL lines have proper working filters as well is very important. To be honest, DSL technology is a pain compared to cable (although problems happen there as well) Posted by: Glenn | Nov 24, 07 08:05 PM

Bell Canada has the monopoly North of 60. They own Northwestel which also has the monopoly on phone service. All three territories have no choice of high speed internet providers. We pay $59.99 per month for a download speed of 361 and an upload speed of 120. Posted by: Roberta | Nov 24, 07 08:10 PM

There are SO many reasons that things can be slow, that a few simple tests don't really show anything. Here's an explanation of some possibilities for slowness. http://www.ccs.uottawa.ca/connect/why-internet-slow.html Posted by: Pete Hickey | Nov 24, 07 08:10 PM

I have been with Sympatico for over four years. About a year ago, I noticed the charge was steadily increasing for ADSL, but my speed did not increase. I was maxed out by the old Nortel modem I had been renting. Of course, Sympatico knew what kind of modem I had, and did absolutely nothing to advise me that I could obtain a faster modem at no extra cost! When I finally figured out I was getting ripped, I should have bailed, but instead I insisted on the modem upgrade, which apparently had already been available for over a year. My speed maybe doubled, but is nowhere near the promised rate, the rate I am paying for. In addition, I can't recall ever having to reset my Nortel modem. The current SpeedStream modem seems to need frequent resets, and response at the ISP end has really badly dropped off to a snail's pace at odd times. A call to technical support at the call centre doesn't help, since they are located off in Mumbai, and don't seem to have a clue what is happening with Sympatico hardware back in Canada. It's time to switch ISPs, now that Sympatico is trying to charge for bandwidth usage too. Posted by: Rob | Nov 24, 07 08:14 PM

Quite frankly Bell in general performs poorly at every level from service to customer service to basic knowledge of their products. From their sales people at retail who usually have no idea what they are selling to their so called technicians. Every single time I have had to deal with people at Bell, it leaves me mystified as to how a company of this size can be so bad at what they do at every single point of contact with customers. Their operating licence should be suspended. They are misleading people at every chance they get to make a quick buck. And then let you deal with all the bad service and technology they sell you on top of having to deal with their arrogance. Frank and Gordon can go to hell! Posted by: John | Nov 24, 07 08:16 PM

In defense of Bell I have had nothing but expert service. My line is located within 3km of the CO (Dslam banks used to connect users to the main servers). So when I saw your show I thought maybe there might be something I might find out. Well I did, there are some providers that throttle connections from outside their provinces to a specific amount and it is plainly obvious during speed tests, the needle rockets up to 4990 then slams into a brick wall and sticks there... My ISP claims my line to 5Mbs or 5920 Kb/s so every test I do to outside the network is 4990+ or throttled to 3000. I have had engineers at my home and my maximum throughput on my line ERROR FREE is 10.3 MB/s. Go figure. My beef is with ISP's that claim speeds of 5MB/s or more and do not deliver that to both sets of clients inhouse and clients connecting to the network from outside... In a perfect world if they all got together and created a standard which all providers must adhere to when claiming internet speeds then the whole industry would profit substantially from it. Posted by: Tom MacDonald | Nov 24, 07 08:28 PM

I enjoyed the show but found the testing in one neighborhood to be skewed - given the different factors affecting DSL (distance to switch) and cable (intensity of use) any particular location will skew to one or two of the services, while another will skew differently. I've been using Bell in midtown Toronto for years, recently "upgraded" from High Speed (5mb max) to Total (7mb max) since it actually cost me a few bucks less per month (about $40/mo.) when I told the phone rep I didn't need Bell's security software. However, there was no difference in actual received speed. My average Speedtest is about 2500/600 kps, but all in all browsing is satisfactorily snappy, and I recently downloaded a 1/2 gigabyte audiobook file within half an hour, which I thought was pretty good. The one mystery to me is that I get substantially slower speeds over wireless than over ethernet, surprising since the 54mps and 100mps are both much faster than the DSL speed, and I'd appreciate any informed explanation of that. Posted by: Forone | Nov 24, 07 08:40 PM

you have got to be kidding me? do you have any idea what it costs to make a tier 1 internet service? by tier 1 I mean the major backbones of the internet in Canada. Shaw and Rogers would be tier 2 as they buy their backbone off of the two telco's. would you guess maybe several hundred thousand dollars? maybe several million? 100 million? Why don't you try more than a billion dollars! Name another company that you pay a service for that costs less than $50 a month that spent more than a billion dollars to give it to you. if you are a business and you want internet access like you get at home you are talking $600 to $1000 per month for a T1 line (1.544 Mbps symetrical). If you want something faster like ethernet (10 Mbps) you are near $2K per month. So you pay $45 for something a business would pay nearly $2000 for on a network that cost maybe 3 or 4 billion dollars to build. What a crime. Maybe the CBC should ask what people are getting for their money watching them? It's pretty easy to criticize when the tax payer subsidizes your business. If I sound like an insider that's because I am, but I am also a consumer. Canada has some of the best technology in the world at some of the cheapest rates. If you are complaining its because you don't know what you are talking about, or like the CBC, you are simply looking at a way to find fault in private business on the tax payers dime. Posted by: Pipesnake | Nov 24, 07 11:37 PM

We just relocated our home to the "country-side" (between Cambridge and Hamilton) and we are stuck with Bell Sympatico. Having been used to Rogers High-Speed, Bell's service is incredibly poor. We have tried several times to get a different connection, but were unsuccessful. We even were willing to pay over the reasonable, just to get a considerable speed, but was told that there was absolutely NO service other than dial-up where we live. In all we were NOT surprised with the results we saw tonight. Posted by: Alycia | Nov 24, 07 11:47 PM

It is our experience that the only thing which performs worse than Bell technology is Bell representatives we took all four of our services (cell, inet, telephone, & televison) business from bell and switched to rogers and wish we had done so sooner. the difference between amateurs and professionals is not whether there are problems, it is how the problems are handled. Posted by: marvin | Nov 25, 07 12:28 AM

Good post, Drew. Like a few people have posted on here, the real problem is not the speed but the new caps that have been put in place. BS tried this in 2002 and subscribers left in droves. I really thought that we wouldn't see it again and have often compared the sales strategy to the "New Coke" of the 80's. Throttling bandwidth is another negative sell feature. There are many ISP's out there who use Bell's lines and offer no caps and no throttling. I just hope the consumers are as savvy as they were 5 years ago and force BS' hand again. Posted by: Brian | Nov 25, 07 01:41 AM

Canada's government could mandate a fair billing system, just as we have fair, repeatable, uniform ways of weighing meat. If service does not live up to advertised, your bill would be proportionately reduced, integrated over the month. Similarly you would get a rebate for outages. Further, like electricity you would also pay for use, $X a gigabyte to discourage frivolous or inefficient use. There also needs to be an ombudsman to force an ISP to provide at least a minimum level of service, or get out of the business. That way you could fairly compare ISPs. Further ISPs should not be allowed to advertise only teaser startup rates. They should be forced to disclose the normal rate. This reminds me of the days where manufacturers used to adulterate flour with chalk and get away with it. Posted by: Roedy Green | Nov 25, 07 03:58 AM

I was surprised, but I have Aliant highspeed and the technology thing (that thing that they have on the telephone pole for the high speed) is right outside our house, so this might not be a problem for us. Posted by: emily | Nov 25, 07 11:35 AM

I would like to have seen more numbers given during the program, instead of reading the download rates off of the computer screens within the show. At one point they showed Bell getting 74Kbps, and then it was stated they were only getting 10% of their promised 7Mbps. Well, mathematically speaking, that's only 1%, which really made me question what was going on in the show. Was I misunderstanding, or were the producers? Btw, I completely agree with Ashley Taylor's comments; it really puts this whole thing in perspective. Posted by: Christian LeBlanc | Nov 25, 07 11:47 AM

So it's not a scientific study - it's virtually impossible to compare apples to apples in the telecommunications industry. However, the results are relative and to point to obvious conclusions. the marketing departments of the major ISPs get away with making huge unsubstantiated claims and the problem for most of us is that in most small to medium sized communities there is not enough competition to hold poor performance to task. If I am paying the same rate for the same service I should get comparable performance regardless of distance because technology can solve that issue. Too many unsuspecting people are getting ripped off by this industry and the 'regulators' should be both watching and acting. Posted by: Bill Burden | Nov 25, 07 01:23 PM

Well I've had both services, Bell and Rogers. First of all, we rent access to the internet from these companies, those networks belong to them and they have the deciding power on traffic shaping. Rogers in particular is trying to make the internet usable for everyone not just the few techno-crats who load their bit torrents to max and let it rip for weeks at a stretch. What are they responsible for? Preventing people from breaking intellectual property law? Do you really need every season of every star trek franchise so badly you can't go and pay for it? Honestly I think ISPs in Canada have provided a fair and reasonable service. Its the lack of education in most end users who try to send gigabytes of email and complain at end about the one insignificant application they are running to who ever will listen. Posted by: Mark Halberstram | Nov 25, 07 06:24 PM

I love these kind of shows. I use Rogers Yahoo and have no problems at all. Been with Rogers Yahoo since 2000 and there is no issues. I download programs at very fast speed...great. Posted by: David | Nov 25, 07 06:25 PM

Interesting enough show - but we couldn't concentrate on what Erica was saying because we were alarmed about her talking on the phone and driving in heavy traffic - not once, but twice including the promo for next week's show. Come on! Posted by: Tigger | Nov 25, 07 11:34 PM

I don't know why the CRTC agency that approves licences can't force the companies to test the customer circuit after installation to determine the max data transfer rate and charge the customer according to the limit instead of an (UP TO) speed that may never be reached. The onus should be on the provider to prove they can deliver the goods. That is the way it works for everybody else. Posted by: Andre Langlois | Nov 25, 07 11:39 PM

You give a pretty good argument to not pay for service. If the service is not to your satisfaction try to withhold payment and see what happens. Firstly everyone pays for internet service on a prepaid basis unlike a utility which is paid for after the fact. WE don't have to prepay for utilities by law. If you refuse to pay for the internet service you will not get service no matter how bad that service may be. It's about time for the government to look into the monopolistic attitudes of internet services as they are with telephone services. The days of internet being a luxury is long past. No one can operate without it as a business or as a home owner. Write your MP. The internet is as valuable as the gas or electric service to our way of life. Oh yeah they privatized those too to no great benefit. Last time I looked my gas bill had $37.00 in non-fuel related charges and that was in the month of July when I used little or no gas as was not home for the month overseas. Posted by: james Ayres | Nov 25, 07 11:48 PM

Interesting program and quite factual for the most part. I am on the SHAW network since Telus was unable to commit to getting a good signal to my home. I appreciate their honesty. Perhaps Bell should think about that. Although I actually do not like SHAW as a company and the family that runs it, they do provide a reasonably stable service. It is unavailable about 6 times a year and about 6-12 times a year it gets unbearably slow. Hence the reason why I would never consider a VoIP phone service since it uses the same infrastructure. Marketplace should consider running a segment on that new offering which carries with it far more sever consequences than slow download speeds. The other aspect of internet service that Marketplace should consider doing a segment on is eMail. Personally I will have a hard time moving away from SHAW because of my eMail address that is now embedded into a significant portion of my live dealing. Like a bank account, once it is intertwined into everything you do, it becomes quite painful to undo and redo everything. Something most people never begin to think about. Posted by: Marc | Nov 26, 07 12:11 AM

Hmmm. Funny how the big test consisted of downloading one of the most popular Linux distributions out there yet the video in your page is not easily played by those of us who use Linux. Earlier this year the BBC faced lots of criticism for launching a video service that was Windows only should the CBC not learn from their mistake. Bell sells wholesale to companies like TekSavvy and others which you can both receive better rates and better support, this report should have discussed these alternatives some as competition usually brings with it improved service. Overall a great report and glad to see you bring it to the masses. Posted by: TundraMan | Nov 26, 07 10:36 AM

Location is extremely important. From my experience Rogers suffers terribly in areas near universities, while Bell provides much faster and consistent speeds. Also, in these areas, Rogers makes use of bandwidth shaping technology to reduce peer-2-peer file sharing speeds - Bell does not do this. Posted by: John Silicon | Nov 21, 07 08:17 PM ummm yes they DO!!! Posted by: Don Smith | Nov 26, 07 10:55 AM

We watched your program with interest. We have a dial-up service with Telus - the only one we can get. the dial up operates at about 2 kbts (!!!) not at 44kbt that the physical connection is made. For five years we have tried to get Telus to extend 1.2 km their high speed service but they have refused to do this - not enough customers to justify, Shaw Cable is also 1 km from our home. First time we called they said they would not bring the cable across railway tracks. That was a big issue. By talking to one of the residents on our side of the railway tracks we discovered that they had Shaw cable. We called Shaw again. This time they quoted a figure of over $10,000 plus additional charges to extend cable 1 km. We wrote to CRTC and our local MP. No response from the MP. We requested that CRTC should make it compulsory for telephone companies to provide high speed internet service just as they must provide basic telephone service. CRTC informed us that the telephone companies are doing that with the 100's of millions dollars they overcharged their customers and that money was set aside to extend high speed to all communities. The loop hole is that it is to "communities" - libraries. Not residents !!! In our opinion, high speed internet is as essential in 2007 as the basic telephone service was few decades ago. So if CBC want to focus on a significant issue in the "age of internet" you could not do better than focus on the 100,000's canadians who CANNOT get it even at the degraded speed. Posted by: kris | Nov 26, 07 03:08 PM

I was very disappointed with this episode of Marketplace. I have come to expect the staff of the show to be professional and competent when researching and reporting relevant facts on the show. Being a network and telecom professional I need to bring to light the several blunders of the show. I believe the hundreds of people before me have covered many technical and logistical flaws in your testing/reporting. I would like to bring up the fact that your so called “IT expert” was not a very experienced or ethical source for information. Secondly, why you would place such little responsibility on the “End Users” who are ultimately responsible for knowing what they are paying for, reading the fine print and lastly getting off their computer chairs to do something regarding their internet service if they are not happy with it. We live in a competitive area where you can choose from a number of Internet Service Providers. Bell, Rogers, Primus, etc … If consumers are unhappy with their service, and have done the research to understand the limitations and capabilities of the technologies they could make well informed decisions. Clearly this was not discussed at all. I suggest that you re-visit this topic and clarify your short comings in reporting. Posted by: Zerfka | Nov 26, 07 09:19 PM

For Kris and other just beyond the range of wired high speed Internet. Have you considered Bell Unplugged or Rogers Mobile Internet options? They are based on pre-WIMAX radio technology. The antennas are co-located with cell towers and can range up to 20 miles. Both Rogers and Bell share towers to increase coverage under the Inukshuk program. Speed are available from 1 to 5 Mbps and cost is similar to wired service. Finally for $75/mo you can explore satellite Internet access. Posted by: Claude | Nov 27, 07 12:28 PM

An interesting thing I discovered was that if the power cables are loose for your router or modem you'll still get internet access just slower. It's interesting how it was tested only at the end user level but no input elsewhere. Posted by: kay | Nov 27, 07 04:34 PM

I have complained to friends for months about how slow my highspeed is. I did the test after your show aired and found out how bad it really was: 138kbps down and 78kbps up. I did the phone call; after 4 calls and 41/2 hours I was told they had the wrong card in place so it must have been there for over 2 years. Contacted customer service to ask for a refund. All I was offered was 1 month free because I never complained about it until after your show aired. Tell me there is more out there besides Bell. Posted by: Paul Anderson | Nov 27, 07 10:12 PM

I hated the poor customer service from Bell and left behind a 5mb service for internet that usually got about 2 in reality. Unfortunately I moved my business to a locked in package for a year with Primus, who gives me a range of less than 1mb to a max of 2.1, at most 42% of what they sold me. They said I was almost 5km from their equipment and I am maxed out. They also said I fell within their 'acceptable' range since at times I can hit 2 mb. Bell so sad. Primus so sad. Used to have Rogers in my old place and it was the best. Posted by: Shark | Nov 28, 07 06:00 PM

I have to laugh. I can see the calls now from people demanding to downgrade their service because they are only getting 2 mbps service only to learn that that is still considered high speed. Then a majority of these people will then realize they are on contracts and will incur a penalty to downgrade or cancel their service. Then after they finally downgrade they get their first bill on their new slower service, only to realize their bandwidth cap is a lot lower on the lower tier as well. Their anger starts to mount, then it hits them, like a slap in the face, you used your service so much you incurred an additional bandwidth charge on your bill. Now seething mad you realize, you just screwed yourself. You paid a penalty to downgrade your speed, you are now paying for extra bandwidth and combined your bill is now larger than it used to be. Sadly, this is an area where this show did not investigate for the consumer. Sometimes it's better to live with what you got, before shooting yourself in the foot. Posted by: Gord | Nov 28, 07 11:18 PM

I did the speed test after the show. What I learned was that I get my rated speed out of Rogers. What I discovered though (and no one has an answer yet) is that my speed is throttled back to about 1800 kbs on an XP based notebook when using wireless. My Mac OS/X does not do this on wireless. Both laptops clock in around 6500 kbs when plugged into with an ethernet cable. The Mac seems to have no issues whether wired or not. Whats up with Windows XP and wireless? I even tried a wireless PC card as opposed to the built in, and still get throttled back under windows. Before I got the Mac, I was always using wireless and never realized that my two PC's could only get 1800 kbs out of an 7000 kbs rated service. All these tests were done with only one PC on, so I was not sharing my bandwidth at home. Any answers? Others should also understand that the purpose of the show was to expose the marketing more than the speed. We all know speed varies with service, location, and type of PC. But Bell/Aliant have issues. My speed issue was also observed by another person I know with aliant/bell on wireless with Windows XP (throttling). Further, when I called about slow service for my mother's line, I got a tech rep who was constantly checking with someone else. Not much of a tech rep. Finally, after verifying my phone number twice during the call, we got disconnected after about 30 minutes. I assumed she would call back. Nope. I had to call back and get someone else, who gave me a completely different song and dance. Rogers on the other hand has always given me excellent tech support when I call. Posted by: YM | Nov 29, 07 06:54 AM

It's nice to see a show that's trying to educate people about High speed and what it really means. Although as someone who works in the internet field I don't always agree with what marketing departments do, I do understand why they do it. It only takes one advert and they all have to do the "UP TO", otherwise nobody would call. It would be nice to see marketplace go a bit further on this one and also include the many wireless and satellite isp's. Posted by: Leo | Dec 9, 07 09:53 PM