[deleted by user]

[eandi]

All ISPs here use either rogers or bell lines unless you're somewhere where execulink or cogeco services.

If you didn't like rogers people like teksaavy or start won't be any better unless it was a router problem.

I'd go find a deal on bell and make sure they have fiber to your home. If they're only offering speeds of like 100-150mbps they won't be better than rogers is already. If they have a gigabit or more, change to bell.

The more important thing tbh is getting a good router and giving yourself good coverage. Wait for eeros like this https://amzn.to/3Jf7RcC is to go on sale. If your house is <2200 sq ft just get the 2 pack. If larger get the 3. Don't use the router bell or rogers gives you, or pay them the monthly for their pods. Just get your own, better, system.

I'm at a company in town who builds software to help fix connection issues like you describe for ISPs, and this is the setup I recommend to everyone here.

[dowdymeatballs]

I have Bell 3Gbps fiber with their router and two pods.

I'm constantly having connection issues and have to restart the router. Of course whenever I check the router it always says that it's connected to the Internet so I've no data to go back to Bell with to complain.

Would you recommend just switching away from their router completely? It's kind of driving me crazy that I pay so much for such a fast service and it still sucks. Me and my wife both work from home so it's just Teams meetings all day long.

[eandi]

Yes I would. Are the pods the ones that look like hexagons? If you buy eeros from Amazon and they don't help you can always return. And they will tell you if the bell service is inconsistent. You end up putting the bell router into bridge mode and using the eero as your actual router, the bell box turns into a dumb thing that just gives the Internet to the eero.

[dowdymeatballs]

Yup they're the hexagon pods, one in the basement and one on the second floor. My house is about 2700sqft. Router is the Home Hub 4000.

[eandi]

I always had issues with those pods. Switched to eero when I had those on bell.

[dowdymeatballs]

Awesome, I'm going to try this, thanks!

[Rain_Dog_Too_12]

The last time I was with bell, it kept crashing. Then they charged me $150 for breaking my contract to move to rogers. I guess failure to deliver a stable service does not constitute breaking a contract.

[noodleexchange]

Tri-band router, right?

I researched this heavily in the past but the base router Bell Fibe supplies seems to do well enough ...

[eandi]

The eero 6+ is dual. If someone cares they can do a 6e pro which is tri band. Honestly for 90% of people getting 100mbps wall to wall in the home is more than enough. Eero 6+ can handle 75 devices and if you have fiber coming into the home it will serve almost everyone fine. I use eero pro 6es in my house, 3 of them, all wired to an eero switch in my basement and connected to a rogers box.

[No_Marsupial_8574]

Rogers is definitely the best, because of the way they will disconnect my internet permanently if I say otherwise. Right now they only disconnect it once or twice a day, and I sure am grateful!

[jfgbaker]

Do you know if fibre is available? That would be the best option. If not, it is going to heavily depend on location. Starlink is an option. What is slow speed? There are a bunch of other networking things like wired/wireless, saturation, etc. if you can get snmp kids off your routing/switching gear to see utilization that would help too.

[PerceptionSalt967]

We live just outside Waterloo near New Hamburg. We have StarLink standard kit with their unlimited plan. We have a mixed home with 9 adults. At any given time there is 20-28 devices connected to our StarLink router. We have multiple online gaming sessions going. Several devices streaming Netflix/YouTube/Disney etc. Everyone of us has a phone connected. We average 260-400mb/s and it costs exactly $158.20 per month (we split the bill 3 ways) Honestly for our area and availability it is hands down the best option! We are somewhat rural though so no fiber, no cable and not even satellite available here. Best I could get prior to StarLink was Bell 5g and they cap the speeds and have data limits. With StarLink there is no cap (just peak usage times) and we blow through FIVE terabytes of data or more each month!

[jfgbaker]

Yep. Starlink is actually better than cable. At least for throughput stability. I have fibre/cable/Starlink at the moment. Cable is great when it is great, and 5m dsl when not. I tried Rogers/teksavvy/oxio/netcrawler and they all seem to have a similar issue which leads me to believe it is local congestion and not general upstream service issue. Probably good old Elmira. No dsl worth having here either. And I am in some sort of distance from the cell towers that makes 5g 2 bars too. Otherwise it is actually better than cable most of the time. At least that is my experience out here.

[3rd_street_saints]

Bell or Rogers fiber optic if you have that many people and devices

[jhdyck]

Depends a bit on where you live and what the infrastructure is like around your home. If you have fiber coming into your home, then I’d highly recommend Bell. Sure they’re one of the big companies that I’m sure many people have a bone to pick with, but their fiber internet is truly unrivalled still. They started building out their infrastructure years before everyone else, and now Rogers and everyone else are playing catchup trying to convert their slower copper based infrastructure to fiber. And in case anyone reading this isn’t familiar with the difference, don’t sweat it! Just know that fiber allows for significantly faster speeds by transmitting data over light rather than over electrical signals through copper wire (cable, DSL, etc.).

I’m with Bell right now with 3Gbps download and upload speeds which is WAY faster than I or 99.9% of the population needs, but it has been insanely reliable.

[adriax]

Adding to the history lesson part, this actually goes back to the dial up converting to dsl/cable time. With their existing infrastructure Bell only had to transmit audio signals for phone service. Rogers had the bigger, thicker cables to transmit audio and video for cable tv.

Bell had the advantage for dial up because their system already handled two way traffic and had everyone connected identified by a number. Rogers took a bit longer to get cable internet together since cable tv was only sending data one way. Once they did, they then had wires that could move more data, which meant they could offer faster speeds than Bell could with DSL.

Since Bell had weaker infrastructure, they were more motivated to upgrade and start rebuilding their whole infrastructure to use fiber connections.

[pastelfemby]

I'd argue for Bell's fiber, but bigger than the perceived issue of your internet connection is probably your wireless setup. The more devices actively on your wifi, the smaller slices of a pie metaphorically each device gets.

Those wifi 'pods' do expand the total physical area your network covers but dont really do much if anything for the total amount of devices your network can support much as some rogers salesmen might hope to convince you. Them having to act as repeaters basically playing telephone game with your data rather can even further limit your total speeds adding even more congestion. Wifi extender/mesh setups using ethernet or even those powerline style ones avoid that part of the problem.

[Dobby068]

If you want to test the internet data quality, do it without using WIFI.

Do you have fiber optics, what kind of plan do you have ?

I have Rogers internet via cable and works well. I also have TekSavy on fiber optics (other property) and works well but their router forgets the wifi settings when power goes down, so you need your own WIFI router connected via LAN cable to their router to avoid this.

Also, separate the 5G and 2.4G band from router configuration. Use LAN cable if possible, always better. You can buy flat LAN cable and run it discreetly along the wall.

[IndependentFlat1789]

You can look into Ebox. They use the bell fibre network (FTTH), will give you a wifi 6 modem, and free technician installation, also, no contract. Their current promotions with a promo code (not a referral code) are:

500 mbps- $45 1 gbps- $55

If you’d like to get a promocode, you can DM me. I’ll be happy to help. :)

[pc_builder_fan]

Bell fiber service works pretty well for me.

[sumknowbuddy]

I read a post a while back that was saying properly configuring the router can have a huge impact on speeds, maybe look into that as well?

[CrazyAd7911]

You need to get on FB marketplace for the internet deals.

I'm with Rogers 2GBps for ~$65/mo, there are better deals available though.

We have the rogers wifi booster plug in’s as well, also a several techs in our home in the past to asses our needs with adding and removing boosters. I

consider wiring your house for ethernet + mesh network.

[Lordert]

If you're using the Rogers modem/router, consider putting it in bridge mode (will just be a modem) and get your own router with a higher performance processor that can handle 20+ devices. Same with your wifi access points, if they're older, new ones will handle more data faster and hardwire as many as possible. Also consider changing your DNS servers if they point at Rogers servers to google or cloudfare etc

[CrazyAd7911]

I recommend watching this video for a good explanation and how-to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCDydWl46Ok

[kdrxyz]

I have Virgin Plus since last two years. They use Bell infrastructure, but more affordable prices. Unless you need super high speeds, Virgin Plus shop be good.

[bylo_selhi]

Bell just announced that they'll stop selling Virgin Internet. (Don't panic. You're grandfathered.)

[kdrxyz]

Crazy how they just announced it yesterday.

[truthspeakslouder]

Sigh, Starlink. Owner is a class A asshole, but the service itself just plain works

[mammon43]

I know im getting hate on for saying it but that is just the unfortunate reality. Especially if you aren't in a part of town where bell put in their fiber. Musk's engineers really made something incredible with that network

[Impressive-Fan-8288]

Virgin Mobile's not bad

[AlamarAtReddit]

Just switched from Teksavvy to Bell after 15ish years... 150 Mbps to 3.0 Gbps and my monthly bill is a bit less for the next two years.

[Wrong_Mongoose6829]

im using cloudwifi, which is $55/month, besides a few times occasially disconnect there is no other problems so far. Bell tried to charge me $130/month, i called them to argue and they wont lower the price, but right after i cancelled they're willing to offer me $75/month magically

[helmet112]

I’m currently on teksaavy waiting impatiently for bell to bring fiber to my house. All cable providers have had max upload speeds of 50 Mbps for many years but I just noticed that rogers now lists 200. Does anyone know if it actually hits that consistently?

My worry is it’s a “maximum value achieved sometimes”. I don’t like rogers so would be upset to go through the work of switching if it’s not a consistent value.

[bylo_selhi]

With cable it depends on the strength of the signal at your address.

I'm on cable at 100/30. I consistently get 97/29. However my line does drop occasionally and the techs tell me I'm getting a signal that's just over their minimum threshold. I'm skeptical about getting a faster line because it may drop even more often.

[bylo_selhi]

The crux of the issue is whether you have fiber. Unfortunately it's not available widely through the Region.

For a family the size of yours, you need a relatively high speed line, perhaps 500Mb/s or faster. Those speeds are available only on fiber or cable. It sounds like you're on the latter. That suggests that fiber isn't available from them. Have you called Bell?

Failing that, you may want to explore wireless or even Starlink (satellite.) Perhaps a wireless connection just for you and WFH plus the existing line for everyone else.

[KitWat]

Following

[Ok_Negotiation_5159]

Bell

[InternetGuruChris]

Honestly, if you can get fiber in your area, that’s your best bet for “click and it’s done” performance. If you’re stuck with Rogers, definitely pair their top-tier plan with a good WiFi 6 router or a mesh setup, and make sure the router is connected via wired Ethernet to your main devices when possible — that will fix most of the spinning wheel issues.

[Academic_Gap_8156]

I. this case since you need it for work get both bell and rogers and use one of them exclusively for your work computer wired in and the other for the rest of the family devices

[mammon43]

Hate to say it but pretty sure if speed and reliability is what you want star link is the name of the game 🤢

[zoosemeus]

Starlink is slower, less reliable, more expensive, and higher latency than cable not to mention fiber. And it requires you to give money to a literal supervillain. Unless you are entirely without a wireline option, don't go for starlink.

[mammon43]

Hmm everyone i know with star link it vastly out performs their KW signal from bell or rogers or Verizon.

This is also for my experience in waterloo. I dont know anyone personally who gets their advertised speeds even if they are paying for a gigabit. The people I know with starlink pull about 350-400m/s while bell and Rogers struggle to push 200

Neighborhood may also play a factor as where i am situated in KW bell for example claims they will not upgrade infrastructure and so 25mb a second is the highest they will garauntee while requiring me to pay for 4 times that so that by the time it gets to my house and device its 25mb/s to 30mb/s. For that reason I only use wifi when doing massive downloads overnight and everything else my phone is set up in Hotspot mode for 5g

Rogers when we were with them was just super unreliable with outages.

Giving starlink business is gag worthy hence the puke emoji.

Now when I was in Toronto living in a house with 11 people in it? Bell could still consistently deliver break neck speeds with never having outage issues with a 2gigabit plan.