Bell Ultra High Speed ...

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Nov 13, 2005 Posts: 13

Essentially what it boils down to is you must pick your poison. You do have the alternative of going with a third-party, a lesser known company in the area, but you do run the risk of such a company going out of business.

Personally, and I say this with discontent, Bell and Rogers offer enough services that allow you to consolidate them and thus benefit from package deals or discounts. It's also a lot easier dealing with one company for all your services (cable, Internet, mobile). The service will not always be the greatest but I've come to learn that is the nature of the beast.

I'm slightly glad that there is SOME hint of competition recently with Bell and Rogers increasing their speeds.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 27, 2006 Posts: 2

i'm in ottawa myself, used to have bell as landline but then switched to voip (vonage) you can request for a dry loop, not naked dsl.. lol, it is called DRY LOOP!! ask for a dry loop, they will drop your landline and your dsl will still work! Its as easy as that!!!

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

I am using Cogeco and I get speeds up to 10 mbps. They do have a cap of 60 gigs per month, I heard they get sticky if the uploading is high. I am around 55 gigs this month, so I should be safe. Here is a speed test a did today:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 9622624 bps
Upload speed: 613272 bps
Quality of service: 99 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 26 ms
Average download pause: 3 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 53 ms
Average round trip time to server: 239 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 7.9 ms
Jitter: server --> you: off
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: off
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported VoIP lines: 10
Estimated MOS score: 3.9

I pay around $44 a month plus the taxes, there is an ulitmate highspeed, but it is around $60 a month.

I had Bell for my house phone and I dumped them a couple months back. I also had Sympatico and Primus for DSL but could never get good speeds out of them so I went back to Cogeco.

Posts: 92 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Aug 01, 2006 Posts: 92

Going back to the original question, I am fairly certain that Bell must provide you with a "Dry loop or naked DSL" if you request it.

I also agree that Cable is usually as good, if not better of an internet connection for use with VoIP.

There was a CRTC ruling stating that it is anti-competitive to provide DSL only if telephone service is also purchased. I believe Bell was also forced to lower the price of providing this service in a seperate ruling.

I suspect if you call again another agent will tell you a stand alone DSL connection is possible. Conversely you can always contact the CRTC and advise them that Bell is refusing this service.

- Kukk

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 09, 2007 Posts: 11

As a follow up, I have Bell Sympatico and I just called them to switch me to a Dry Loop. If you have the High Speed service, the Dry Loop is at no extra charge. Most other DSL providers will charge you between $6.95 to $12 per month for Dry Loop. Plus, if you sign a 1 year contract, Sympatico High Speed is $34.95/mo. Very comparable to other DSL providers.