You may remember my experiment a few weeks back with the worlds most desperate way to increase broadband speed while sticking with an indie ISP. (Previously: In Which Tom attempts to bond two DSL lines into single home internet pipe of great power like Voltron).
Well the folks fighting the good fight at Teksavvy (thanks Rocky) have finally been able to offer speeds faster than 5MBit in Ontario thanks to introducing a cable option. (Bell, fighting tooth and nail against regulations requiring them to share their network, has for years ghetoized Teksavvy and others to 5down 1up DSL service even while offering much faster speeds to their own retail customers).
For me the upside was to get 10Mb down, 1Mb up (with a healthy 200GB cap) service with ONE pipe, and ditch one extra dsm modem, one extra phone line, a whole mess of cabling and save about $30 a month.
So far I can say it’s a big success. In fact the connection is not even 10MBit, it’s faster!
Craziest thing I’ve ever heard of, an ISP that actually delivers faster than advertised speeds. We’ve come a long way.
Anyway, I thought you all should know this. And Teksavvy is cheap, $42/month for the 10/1/200GB plan. It’s also un-throttled or filtered.
Highly recommended. If you are currently on Teksavvy DSL, or any other basic broadband service, I’d recommend switching.
The only fatal flaw is the anemic 1MBit upload speed. I really wish more ISPs (looking at you Rogers) would get that shit sorted out so applications like cloud-based based storage, media sharing and computing would be vastly more practical. Right now your only decent option is Bells tempting but tightly capped and bracingly expensive fiber with the missing “r” service.
Thanks Tom! I've heard the same from a friend and am thinking of switching. I know I'm paying about $10 extra for “band rate” to Teksavvy for dry loop line which I'm assuming goes directly to Bell. I'm wondering if what kind of a bite, if any, Rogers if taking from the $42/month.
Nice! I've been thinking about switching to TekSavvy for a while, but hadn't considered the cable option. This might be a dumb question, but do you need to be a cable subscriber (e.g., Rogers) first?
Nice! I've been thinking about switching to TekSavvy for a while, but hadn't considered the cable option. This might be a dumb question, but do you need to be a cable subscriber (e.g., Rogers) first?
I just made the switch based on your recommendation Tom. We’ll see how long the transition takes.
SpeedTest.net is useless with TekSavvy. It is testing the line connection speed, which is the speed of Rogers. On my 15mb connection in Toronto I test at 45mb. But when I actually download anything it runs fast for a few seconds then gets limited to my rated speed.
The real answer it turns out is that a week or two after I bought the service, Teksavvy upped the speed cap to 15MB for all users. If you look at their site now that is what they are advertising. I didn’t realize they had changed the offer when I wrote this post, but it’s still pretty cool that they upgraded all their existing customers speeds by 50% for free.
i love the content on this site
I have been with them for over 6 months. The connection is great and yes the speed is more than what they advertise. I was more than happy until last couple of months when congestion finally hit me. Now evening speed (5pm-2am) is between 2mb and 1.6mb at its best. They have told me that they will be getting new servers and what not. I have feeling that rogers have a hand in it cause I hit the congestion suddenly. It was not gradual at all. anyways. I live in toronto downtown near gerrard and broadview.
well lets see what do i get in few weeks. maybe it will get better.
You are right about teksavvy. I’m on the 15Mbit p/s plan and get speeds more than twice that. Upgrade to a docsis 3 modem and maybe i can get even more as a docsis 2 modem caps out at 30.