As anyone who lives here knows, the internet options are limited and frankly, not nearly as impressive as our cousins down south. Having gone through the search myself, I've decided to go through and rate the ISPs I've had experience with, so hopefully things are a little easier for the rest of you! Providers:Log InLog InLog InLog InLog In Rogers 7/10 They have good, consistent speeds and a lot of options available. In fact they probably have the widest array of options with the highest quality of networks out of every provider I've experienced. However they also experience a LOT of downtime, even compared to smaller companies. This is inexcusable in my opinion and drops them down from what could have been a really high score. Bell 6/10 Bell is a lot like the kid brother of Rogers. A bit slower, a bit less consistent, a few less options. Honestly the two services are nearly identical, with Rogers edging out Bell only because when it is working properly, I found it worked better. Telnet 2/10 For a smaller company you don't expect perfection, you usually expect something affordable that works. Unfortunately it just doesn't work. When I was with them I routinely lost internet access for at least a day (it often lasted as long as a week) every month or two. If that wasn't enough, any efforts to contact customer service simply gave me the typical "restart your router" response. I'm no IT expert, but I know my way around computers fairly well and when both the router and modem are telling the problem with my network is that it isn't being sent data from the ISP, I tend to believe them over the service rep who's treating me like an idiot. Avoid this company. Shaw 8/10 Admittedly I don't have a lot of experience with Shaw. I used their service for about a month while on vacation in Vancouver. However during that time I had no complaints at all. I got the speeds I was supposed to and didn't experience any downtime. I believe they only offer services on the west coast, however. TekSavvy 10/10 My current provider and I couldn't be happier. I've had their service for about half a year now after finally getting fed-up with the terrible service Telnet was giving me. They don't have an exhaustive list of plans, but don't need one either. They're services are all affordable, very high quality and their customer reps are very easy to deal with. Great company all around. There are MANY more ISPs in Canada that may be better than any on this list (though if you write a review for them I'll gladly add it to the first post), and, of course, enjoy! Disclaimer: All views expressed here are based on personal experience from their services in the Toronto Ontario area (except Shaw) and are entirely my own opinion.
This is very thoughtful of you and might be of great help to the people living in Canada. From your source (since I don't believe that you have a personal experience with the all listed ISPs) is it possible to find such simple and objective comparisons for other countries?
I do have personal experience with all the ISPs listed. I don't believe in giving things a personal review based on a source as I would not have experienced it. I have not purchased each ISPs service myself, but I have extensively used networks running on each ISP to an extent I feel comfortable making a comment. As such I don't have a source. Your best bet would be to simply try googling up a review site for your region OR go by companies that own the local phone services. THese tend to also offer internet packages that you can then compare.
While you might give tech savy a 10/10 I called them recently about DSL and they could offer 2 mps tops service in my area. So at least they are upfront about it. I would be better off with an atari playing defender with that kind of speed. I guess they are good if you near their home base but out in the sticks it would be worthless.
Well like you said, at least they told you what you'd be receiving upfront. No company has global service in this market, so rating a company based on their speeds out of district really wouldn't make much sense. That said, I received 2-3 mbps DSL from Telnet for many months prior to switching (despite paying for 6mbps) and honestly for basic web-browsing and gaming it's acceptable. Clearly not optimal and I'd never go back, but it's something that the average home owner wouldn't have many issues with, I imagine.
