[euro_zx5]

Canadian ST,Aug 9 2008, 10:25 AM Wrote:

OAC_Sparky,Aug 9 2008, 01:03 AM Wrote:I wouldn't have noticed. I dumped Bell last week, now my phone's through my cable company.
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Good choice sparky, I had my phone through the cable company in Burlington. It was a third the price and the same service.
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Same here... way better so far.

[NOS2Go4Me]

paolo,Aug 8 2008, 08:24 PM Wrote:

NOS2Go4Me,Aug 8 2008, 03:24 PM Wrote:I used to think you were alright, man... but seriously, grow up just a tad?
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I used to think you were aight too, till you started to act like you were my parents.
Sure I will grow up a tad bit, when you pull that CDMA phone out of your ass ;)
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I have no idea what network my Sony Ericsson W580i runs on. All I know is that the left main action button is forked and thankfully the centre OK button does everything the left button does for some reason. If not for the fact I've found my cell to be fairly useful since I got it I'd cancel it outright and save the 60/mo.

And my previos comment stands ;)

[Drivesthebeast]

I already cancelled my Cogego digital cable, and soon I'm going to call up Bell and cancel my home phone, Sympatico, and perhaps Mobility too...see what they think of that.

Oh yeah, I couldn't stand the beaver ad campaign either...I rarely found them funny, and they spent more time (and money) talking about new handsets bell wants everyone to buy that will do everything but make you a vodka martini, than they did on improving the CELLULAR PHONE service networks...

I'm going to give the Rogers "MyHomeAdvantage" a try...Home Phone, Express Cable net, and HD Digital Cable with PVR...all on ONE bill, and actually for less money per month then I spent for all the seperate stuff with Bell and Cogego...

[Scorpion]

What should be more important than the design, is the likely chance that they paid someone $$$$$$$$$$ to come up with the logo!

[NefCanuck]

The fact that they dumbed down the logo and got rid of the beaver buddies just tells me all I need to know about Bell...

Out of ideas, out of innovation and soon out of luck <_<

NefCanuck

[darkpuppet]

I dunno why all the hate for bell.. they're no worse than any other telco/cable company out there.

My landline and internet was flawless for 10 years, and it only took Rogers 3 months to screw it up for me (and then another month and a half to get it working again)...

life gets difficult when you have no working phone for 1.5 months.

Of course everyone's mileage will vary, and bell runs a monopoly on the network it has, but news flash everyone -- the cable companies are just as big a monopoly -- there's no competition in this country, and no matter who you go with, you end up getting screwed.

[NOS2Go4Me]

I've had VoIP for over 3 years now... hard to believe, eh?

I'll never go back to Bell and if I ever gave up "TV" as a paid service and got into FTA HDTV, I wouldn't shed a tear for any carrier in Canada. Puppet's right, we're all getting taken for a ride.

Look at Toothless Jim Prentice the other day, saying he won't interfere with the muddled way Bellus users have to deal with incoming spam text charges on their bill. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that (yet) with Rogers. If I ever do, they better be in a happy place cause I'll give 'em reason to need therapy.

If I could lower my Internet charges, lower my VoIP charges and stop paying for TV, I would. Truth is, I COULD, but I'm too lazy to bring any of that into effect.

[NefCanuck]

Thing is that with Bell, when there's a screw up and you call them on it when it clearly is their fault, they have no process to expidite a resolution, leaving you hanging like a leaf in the wind...

Last major screw up was Bell disconnecting my line when they meant to disconnect someone else and when I dioscovered it (when the idiot Bell tech who disconnected me was still parked outside my building yet) their response on 611 yet was "48 hours and nothing we can do about it"

I quietly flipped out at that, 48 hours without a phone line when it wasn't even my fault?

Needless to say the truck "magically" stuck around (after the 611 rep kept insisting on the rep having another urgent call... on a Sunday <_<)

If I wasn't so distrusting of Rogers after the cable billing fiasco I would have switched to them. As it is, I sit & stew until I get angry enough to take my DSL/Phone business to a different reseller...

NefCanuck

[FocusGuy7476]

I feel good that I use Sasktel for internet, home/cell phone. Probably the best service you can ask for and you expect it when the company only serves 1 million customers. I'd just about cancel Bell satellite if it wasn't cheaper and has more HD channels than Sasktel.

[darkpuppet]

NefCanuck,Aug 11 2008, 11:02 AM Wrote:Thing is that with Bell, when there's a screw up and you call them on it when it clearly is their fault, they have no process to expidite a resolution, leaving you hanging like a leaf in the wind...

Last major screw up was Bell disconnecting my line when they meant to disconnect someone else and when I dioscovered it (when the idiot Bell tech who disconnected me was still parked outside my building yet) their response on 611 yet was "48 hours and nothing we can do about it"

I quietly flipped out at that, 48 hours without a phone line when it wasn't even my fault?

Needless to say the truck "magically" stuck around (after the 611 rep kept insisting on the rep having another urgent call... on a Sunday <_<)

If I wasn't so distrusting of Rogers after the cable billing fiasco I would have switched to them.  As it is, I sit & stew until I get angry enough to take my DSL/Phone business to a different reseller...

NefCanuck
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Rogers did the same thing to me when they cancelled all of my services on a whim... you folks may recall that post that I made when it happened (about this time last year).

I wouldn't be so quick to switch DSL resellers either. Because the network is all Bell, not only do you have to put up with your reseller's quirks, but you have to put up with Bell's as well.

Which means regardless of who you go with, if they hit a bell network, your P2P will get throttled, etc etc.

Not to mention that Bell is going to implement bandwidth usage fees, so they're not going to stop at just charging for the size of the pipe (and allowing resellers to sell however they wish) and start charing for the amount of data going through that pipe.

In the end, if you're going with a land-based network, you have to deal with Rogers and Bell's infrastructure. If you're going to the airwaves.. well, good luck I guess.. because even they have to pipe into bell or rogers eventually.

[DD1]

2 tin cans and some string easy and effective

[NefCanuck]

darkpuppet,Aug 11 2008, 01:20 PM Wrote:Rogers did the same thing to me when they cancelled all of my services on a whim... you folks may recall that post that I made when it happened (about this time last year).

Not to mention that Bell is going to implement bandwidth usage fees, so they're not going to stop at just charging for the size of the pipe (and allowing resellers to sell however they wish) and start charing for the amount of data going through that pipe.   
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Oh yeah I remember your Rogers fiasco.... My major beef with Rogers is constantly having to threaten to leave to "magically" get a better deal after the last "deal" dissapears after a year <_<

Ah that's where if I stay with Bell I'm golden, I'm on the old unlimited High Speed back when it was truly unlimited (Oh they've tried numerous times to switch me to a monthly BW limit acct)

I politely tell them to blow it out their ear and that would be enough to get me to switch all of my services

NefCanuck

[Flofocus]

darkpuppet,Aug 11 2008, 09:33 AM Wrote:I dunno why all the hate for bell.. they're no worse than any other telco/cable company out there.

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Nobody ever says they've never lost landline service in there 20+ years with Bell, nobody says how fast & reliable their internet is, or that their mobility network is thee largest in Canada, even if its on older tech. Bell has been making a lot of changes to billing platforms, customers service centers, networks and Bell Stores for the pass 5 years to be more competitive...some (a lot) things went wrong, and Bell lost some customers. I work there, get an employee discount, but still refuse to get Bell Express Vu (now Bell TV) because of the service I got when moving into the house. And its not like I didnt give them a second and 3rd chance... I've been told it's much better now, but I signed for 3 years with videotron.

All my other services are with Bell though. I've had a 'Home phone' account with them for almost 10 years now. My internet, phone, and wireless services have never disappointed me it terms of availability, service and price (employee discount helps :P )

Bell is laying off 15% of their managers to get 'closer to the customer'. The total number is around 2500 managers, all from different levels; VP's to Business Analysts. My department (IT) has been told to expect layoffs, about 30% of our management staff (I'm management :( ) will be having discussions with HR in the next 2 weeks. A few of our General Managers have already been given their severance packages. :unsure:

This is good for Bell, but obviously stressfull for its current managers. I can totally understand why they want to do this, its been a long time coming, & I have too many bosses. ;) :lol:

I'm sure once the transaction between the teachers union and Bell's lawyers is finalized, they're will even be more changes. 1 thing for sure is there is a new Bell here, and its future products and services will show that. I can't wait for IP TV!

Bah...I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune if I'm part of that 30%! :blink:

[darkpuppet]

Flofocus,Aug 11 2008, 11:52 PM Wrote:...

I can't wait for IP TV!

Bah...I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune if I'm part of that 30%!  :blink:
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whatever happened to the IP TV pilot? I still remember seeing the bus shelter ads for their IP TV 3 years ago...

My brother in winnipeg has had IP TV for nearly 5 years. It's amazing how agile teleco's can be when they have less infrastructure, and I know Bell's been scrambling to catch up (I know a few buddies have their FIOS service and love it), but changes are coming -- they're about to drop analog cell service soon too...

[focusracer]

I've had Rogers and Telus cell phone plans in the past and about 8 months ago switched over to Bell. I've had zero problems in dealing with them except that they can't get my address right. Best reception I've ever had, never have dropped calls, basically I'm a happy Bell customer. :D

[NefCanuck]

darkpuppet,Aug 12 2008, 09:13 AM Wrote:Funny you should mention that as they just installed the "Bell Expressvu for Condos" in my building last year (after a two year delay)

HDTV and up to 16MB/s transfer rates, but the sales people were a little sketchy about whether there would be a GB limit per month (One even went so far as to tell me that ATM they couldn't even seperate TV data from Internet data, wasn't sure I bought that <_<)

Should have told them that their P2P throttling seems to have no issues with separating internet packets from other packets. Of course Internet and TV traffic is separated. If not, they couldn't do the QOS filtering for the TV connection.

yeesh.

Their FIOS is pretty mint tho... 120mb/s + to each door. Plenty of bandwidth for TV, P2P and videogaming

[NOS2Go4Me]

I'd shell out for FIOS if it wasn't throttled at all. Otherwise, what's the point? If I pay for 120Mbit, I expect 120Mbit on all ports, for all data flows. If I don't get that, I'll walk.

On a related note, seriously (and this coming from "an IT guy") - what's so great about IP TV? Everything I've ever used was sorely limited by either codecs or available bandwidth per connection (Joost, etc). If the telcos/commcos are going to throttle data flows, what's the guarantee it'll be any better than what we have now?

Oh, and not to sound completely anti-Bellus:

When I asked Cogeco if they've resolved their single-route-to-failure for VoIP in my area, they had no answer. When I asked them if they would be improving the power delivery to their switching offices /cabinets to avoid the fiasco we had a couple of months ago, they had no answer.

So long as your primary line of communication can be taken down in a single stroke, your "landline" fails. That's my only other real reason I keep my cell - in case of moronic heavy equipment operators who cut cables.

Of course, it's a wonderful world for Rogers when I have a cell to act as a backup for what should be perfectly reliable Cogeco services (considering even the modem has a Li-Ion battery pack).

[darkpuppet]

NOS2Go4Me,Aug 13 2008, 01:22 PM Wrote:On a related note, seriously (and this coming from "an IT guy") - what's so great about IP TV? Everything I've ever used was sorely limited by either codecs or available bandwidth per connection (Joost, etc). If the telcos/commcos are going to throttle data flows, what's the guarantee it'll be any better than what we have now?

IP TV is indeed bandwidth limited. SDTV requires 1.5 - 3 Mbps of bandwidth per channel, and HDTV clocks in around 7-8Mbps so if you include PVR capabilities and multiple receivers, ADSL lines run out of bandwidth pretty quickly.

IP TV has some interesting features in being able to display caller ID on the TV when a call comes in (or automatically muting the TV if you so wish).. handy features, but maybe not deal makers for some users.

In smaller networks, IPTV is just as good, if not better than cable....

Where IP TV will come into it's own is when the digital networks start expanding. FIOS service offers plenty of bandwidth for IPTV, and new FCC standards are paving the way for standardized network interfaces (ie, all new set-top boxes must include ethernet support)...

In the grand scheme of things, there's a very good likelyhood that future broadband services are all going to be handled via RJ45 connections... it'll just take a long time to get there.