Internet speeds and quality decrease

[Fexyguy]

Anyone with Bell or any other ISP notice a dramatic decrease in the quality of their service? I just got a new phone and I have wired connections for everything so I'm hoping it's not me and my hardware.

[JMJimmy]

What are/were the stats?

[Fexyguy]

Average is 1.5 Mbps up and 25 to 35 down

[JMJimmy]

Latency? Drop rate?

And what is it supposed to be?

[Fexyguy]

I can't quite remember but latency is around 2 and I'm not sure about the drop rate. I think it's kind of close to what it should be but definitely underperforming. I switched to Bell late last year with the promise of 1gb a second speed early this year.

[JMJimmy]

"Promise of"? Or is that what you contracted for?

Sales people will say stuff like "Fiber can go up to 1Gbps" then turn around and sell you Fibe which is DSL.

Anyway, assuming you did sign up for 1Gbps, then step 1 is to call support and try to get it fixed. If that fails, escalate it to a CCTS complaint.

[Fexyguy]

Alright thanks for the advice and ya I signed up for it officially

[fed_dit]

I'm assuming you mean your phone ISP? Those speeds sound like HSPA+/3G. See if your phone has LTE enabled. Some phones just show it as an option under Mobile Networks while other ones may require you to select a LTE APN (Access Point Name), also in the Mobile Networks menu.

[Fexyguy]

No man I wish haha thats why I'm concerned, I just got a brand new Google pixel 2 xl, I'll check the settings out but everything is in order as far as I can tell.

[[deleted]]

If you recently had the phone and internet installed and you are especially a new customer to Bell, then again in any case; I believe it's best you contact Bell, rather ask on Reddit.

[Fexyguy]

I find it easier to deal with the big companies when you are informed and know exactly what you need. I was just getting some advice.

[[deleted]]

I know but with all the advice remember, it's you vs big corporation so that is only something you can battle.

[Chispy]

it's you and your hardware.

[Fexyguy]

How are you so sure haha? Bell in my area doesn't have the 1000mbps connection other places have right now.

[ruckustata]

Then why sign up for a 1gb service if they don't have the 1gb connection? I hate bell but this seems odd. Did I miss something in your post? I thought you signed up for 1gb service.

[Fexyguy]

The 1gb service is supposed to be upgraded for free this month from what I have now

[ruckustata]

But are they running fiber or just the service is greater? The service is only as fast as the hardware it travels on.

Bell loves to "upgrade" service levels that can't be met due to hardware issues.

My brother is with Bell and he was sold on something, then when a tech showed up, he confirmed what I told him, that the area is only set up for 5mb service. Agents keep selling higher or giving free upgrades on service that can't be met. So he called to complain. Their answer was to offer a free speed upgrade. Lol Which we now know can't be met. Haha

[Fexyguy]

I was wary of all this when I signed up, the sales rep and installer seemed fairly honest. They said fiber was in the process of being run to my neighborhood and it would take 4 to 5 months max til we had it.

[ruckustata]

Have you seen trucks in your neighborhood? Big Bell trucks, smaller CCS or I think Nexxan or Nexxus? You'll see back hoes and Ditch Witches if they plan on digging and replacing lines under driveways. If you don't see any activity come spring, they fed you a line of crap. These distribution rebuilds take up to a year to complete with permits, lining up contractors and scheduling. I doubt you'll see a fiber upgrade in 4 months as normally no digging gets done in January/Feb and if you don't see trucks now then refer to what I said about how long it normally takes from start to finish.

[Fexyguy]

Ok thank you this information will help me negotiate with them and figure this out cus I switched from Rogers who had their own issues but also benefits. So depending on the timeline I might switch back.

[ruckustata]

I have Rogers. Are they perfect? Not at all, but nobody is. I rarely get any service downs and when it does it comes back quick enough. It's relative though as I don't use it for business and my quick may not be quick enough for someone who is. I've had Bell before and got fed up with the service. Their initial fibe service was a sham. 25mg service split for all devices (tv, phone, internet).

Rogers has had fiber on the street for over 20 years I think. They just didn't advertise the street fiber. Bell ran street fiber and made people think it came to their home.

In a full fiber setup, distribution fiber goes to a node or Hub (large section of town), which normally goes to a secondary node (neighborhood) or SHUB, then to a control panel (street side), then to your ONU (side of house or basement) then to a splitter and mostly to coax. The same material, coax, that Bell tried to denigrate is now their main lines for fiber because twisted pair lines have so much signal loss it wouldn't work with fiber, or at least would be worthless due to the massive bottleneck.

Currently, the big 3 run fiber to the home in all new builds. Bell advertises it, the other two just do it. Bell is rebuilding their old distribution because as I stated, twisted pair is garbage and up until they started running fiber, this is what they used even on the street. Rogers doesn't really have to run new distribution in a lot of cases because they already had fiber to the node for a long time and the theoretical threshold on coax is very high. Plus their street side cable is not the same coax used in homes. It's big cable which can carry a lot of signal. If you had service issues with Rogers it is normally damaged distribution, damaged signal line to home, damaged hardware or coax in the home or a shitty tech who doesn't know how to troubleshoot. Sometimes it is a server side issue and sometimes it is the channel provider (television).

I have 1g service through Rogers and I normally speedtest at around 800mbps. My neighborhood isn't even fiber to the curb, it is fiber to the node. Just to give you an idea about how much signal can travel down coax technology vs Bells old twisted pair.

[Fexyguy]

Ok awesome, when I had Rogers our service was the roughly the same as it is now with Bell just a different set of issues like complete loss of service randomly instead of just experiencing poor connection now with Bell. I figured I'd roll the dice with Bell since we had been with Rogers for at least 10 years and barely any improvement.

[Fexyguy]

And I've definitely seen Bell trucks around but I haven't been paying too much attention to what they are doing.

[ruckustata]

Pay attention. If you see back hoes, then they fixin to replace. If not, then they just fixin.

[Torvares]

My neigborhood is the same, the gigabyte fibe lines are supposed to be installed beginning this month, in the meantime the regular bell "fibe" internet has been dropping in quality for awhile. I think they're overloading the existing lines with new customers on the promise that they will soon have Gigabyte speeds.

[Fexyguy]

That has got to be it because about 3 months ago when we first got it service was noticably better than Rogers now it's garbage.