Cheaper fibre internet could be on the way as CRTC finalizes wholesale rates
Good news & bad news on the Fibre Optic Wholesale Pricing set by CRTC. Good news: rates have been set nation-wide. Bad news: Teksavvy isn't happy with the rates, and they do seem high. Bell's flanker brand sells retail pricing lower than the wholesale pricing, for example. I'd been looking forward to this day, but I'm somewhat disappointed. It's good for furthering fibre deployments vs cable, but a bit costly. Wondering if rates will be reviewed in, say, 5 years? mobilesyrup.com Cheaper fibre internet could be on the way as CRTC finalizes wholesale rates <#> The CRTC has finalized the rates for wholesale fibre internet, which should provide more certainty for ISPs looking to offer fibre internet. ð https://mobilesyrup.com/2026/04/24/crtc-finalize-wholesale-fibre-rates/ <https://mobilesyrup.com/2026/04/24/crtc-finalize-wholesale-fibre-rates/>
/âCNOC is disappointed that the Commission did not test its rates against market costs. Incumbent flanker brands like Bellâs eBox already sell fibre Internet at retail prices nearly 40 per cent below what the CRTCâs final wholesale rate alone would cost an independent provider â before an independent provider adds a single dollar of its own costs.â/
On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 4:43â¯PM Ron via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Good news & bad news on the Fibre Optic Wholesale Pricing set by CRTC.
Good news: rates have been set nation-wide.
Bad news: Teksavvy isn't happy with the rates, and they do seem high. Bell's flanker brand sells retail pricing lower than the wholesale pricing, for example.
As someone who switched a few months ago from Teksavvy cable to EBOX fibre (the Bell flanker that was referenced) I shed no tears for the provider that I left. The reasons I moved were not price-related, though as a happy consequence I indeed am paying less for gigabit than I did for a slower service. Numerous Teksavvy corporate decisions -- most notably its choice to use unreliable cablemodems which it can't replace without forcing a week (or more) of downtime -- are why I switched. I used to be fiercely loyal but they exploited my trust. In the end Teksavvy added no value to my Internet service and actually diminished my experience substantially thanks to problems that were not price related. I'm not alone. See this Reddit thread <https://www.reddit.com/r/teksavvy/comments/1rgokee/absolutely_done_with_teksavvy/>, in which I participated with a more detailed story (I'm u/el56). The best customer service is the one you don't need. - Evan
From: Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
As someone who switched a few months ago from Teksavvy cable to EBOX fibre (the Bell flanker that was referenced) I shed no tears for the provider that I left.
The fact that there is no competition left is a very big problem for consumers. The CRTC decision is bad. Worse: the competition bureau has dropped the ball. Wires are a natural monopoly. The owneres of the wires should not be allowed to use vertical integration to make their monopolies dominant in so many allied businesses. Teksavvy and other ISPs ought to be viable. After all, that was the government policy.
Speaking of Bell, do they still pretend that IPv6 is a "work in progress" or did they just give up? On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 3:56â¯PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
From: Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
As someone who switched a few months ago from Teksavvy cable to EBOX fibre (the Bell flanker that was referenced) I shed no tears for the provider that I left.
The fact that there is no competition left is a very big problem for consumers.
The CRTC decision is bad. Worse: the competition bureau has dropped the ball.
Wires are a natural monopoly. The owneres of the wires should not be allowed to use vertical integration to make their monopolies dominant in so many allied businesses.
Teksavvy and other ISPs ought to be viable. After all, that was the government policy. ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/Q7HILAF...
On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 04:07:07PM +0000, Nick Accad via Talk wrote:
Speaking of Bell, do they still pretend that IPv6 is a "work in progress" or did they just give up?
Well they have it on mobile and business services, but not consumer. Seems all the other ISPs that run PPPoE on top of bell also have it. Just Bell can't be bothered for consumer connections for some reason. Seems all their competitors have it. I had someone come to the door suggesting I should switch to Bell fibre internet, and I told him "No chance until you have IPv6 and don't use PPPoE over your fibre. I never want to deal with that ever again". -- Len Sorensen
On 4/27/26 13:09, Lennart Sorensen via Talk wrote:
Well they have it on mobile and business services, but not consumer. Seems all the other ISPs that run PPPoE on top of bell also have it. Just Bell can't be bothered for consumer connections for some reason. Seems all their competitors have it.
IPv6 is mandatory for 4G & 5G cell phones, so that might be why they support it there. However, when I tried it a few years ago, it was pretty crappy, to use the technical term. I've had IPv6 since May 2010, at first with a 6in4 tunnel, but for the past 10 years or so as native from Rogers.
I'm curious... how do you actually use IPv6? I'm guessing, IPv6 will be for public IP, and IPv4 will be for internal NAT. No? On 2026-04-27 14:32, James Knott via Talk wrote:
I've had IPv6 since May 2010, at first with a 6in4 tunnel, but for the past 10 years or so as native from Rogers.
It all depends on what you want to do really. I have been using IPv6 since.. 2003 or so, first using Freenet6/Hexago/Viagenie (if anyone remembers those names) and then SixxS.net. I was fortunate to work briefly for Hexago and actually manage Freenet6 for a while. Right now, I have almost 50% of my homelab dual stacked, and the rest is IPv6 only. The dual stack stuff is NAT'ed, the IPv6 is behind a very simple firewall. The fact that I don't have to port-forward stuff is heaven. Of course the fact that 80% of the internal is still IPv4 only is annoying, but I live with it for now. There is a way to have your internal network wholly on IPv6 and then a piece of software will do IPv6->IPv4 routing, but I found it ugly, so I stopped using it. -nick On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 7:45â¯PM William Park via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
I'm curious... how do you actually use IPv6? I'm guessing, IPv6 will be for public IP, and IPv4 will be for internal NAT. No?
On 2026-04-27 14:32, James Knott via Talk wrote:
I've had IPv6 since May 2010, at first with a 6in4 tunnel, but for the past 10 years or so as native from Rogers.
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On 4/27/26 15:45, William Park via Talk wrote:
I'm curious... how do you actually use IPv6? I'm guessing, IPv6 will be for public IP, and IPv4 will be for internal NAT. No?
Many web sites run IPv6. My computer just uses IPv6 or IPv4 automagically as required. NAT is, of course, used for IPv4 but IPv6 has 18.4 billion, billion addresses per subnet and I have 256 of those available. Currently I'm using 5. So, no NAT needed.
On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 03:45:00PM -0400, William Park via Talk wrote:
I'm curious... how do you actually use IPv6? I'm guessing, IPv6 will be for public IP, and IPv4 will be for internal NAT. No?
Dual stack. You use both. If dns returns an ipv6 for a site (like google, facebook, and many other major sites) then you connect using ipv6, otherwise if dns returns only ipv4 you connect using ipv4. So outbound your route would do NAT for ipv4 connections, and not do NAT for ipv6 connections. At least usually. I have a plugin on firefox that shows if the conenction is all ipv4, all ipv6, or a mix (and what the primary connection is using in that case). -- Len Sorensen
On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 1:10â¯PM Lennart Sorensen via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 04:07:07PM +0000, Nick Accad via Talk wrote:
Speaking of Bell, do they still pretend that IPv6 is a "work in progress" or did they just give up?
Well they have it on mobile and business services, but not consumer. Seems all the other ISPs that run PPPoE on top of bell also have it. Just Bell can't be bothered for consumer connections for some reason. Seems all their competitors have it.
As mentioned before, I'm using fibre from EBOX (owned by Bell). Going to test-ipv6.com gives the attached result. I replaced the supplied (Nokia!) router with a TP-Link BE230, and I documented my router setup on Reddit. <https://www.reddit.com/r/ebox/comments/1rnyg0k/comment/ob344px/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button> Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56
On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 03:31:36 -0400 Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
As mentioned before, I'm using fibre from EBOX (owned by Bell). Going to test-ipv6.com gives the attached result.
I am using fibre from Primus.ca, which uses Bell lines. My connections to the internet are very fast. My connection to Curiosity Stream is still very slow. Bell's fibre lines are not the only bottleneck on the internet. -- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
Honestly, the lack of consumer options is frankly stunning. makes me wonder sometimes just how independent the cRTC actually is in practice. there is no way it is not crystal clear how little market exists in Canada. As for the competition bureau would not a consumer organization have to get their attention? All those little integration's likely happen so quietly that no one is aware. Until they want to shop for something better. Kare On Mon, 27 Apr 2026, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
From: Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
As someone who switched a few months ago from Teksavvy cable to EBOX fibre (the Bell flanker that was referenced) I shed no tears for the provider that I left.
The fact that there is no competition left is a very big problem for consumers.
The CRTC decision is bad. Worse: the competition bureau has dropped the ball.
Wires are a natural monopoly. The owneres of the wires should not be allowed to use vertical integration to make their monopolies dominant in so many allied businesses.
Teksavvy and other ISPs ought to be viable. After all, that was the government policy. ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/Q7HILAF...
On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 11:56â¯AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
From: Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
As someone who switched a few months ago from Teksavvy cable to EBOX fibre (the Bell flanker that was referenced) I shed no tears for the provider that I left.
The fact that there is no competition left is a very big problem for consumers.
There is competition, the question is how much? Right now we have had a duopoly of Rogers(cable) and Bell/Telus(fibre). Freedom Mobile, now part of Videotron, is moving into home Internet. It's the main reason prices are cheaper in Quebec. The documentation suggests that Bell and Telus are now encroaching on each others' turf. And now, of course, we have Starlink, now in Canada <https://starlink.com/ca/residential>. There are other specialty options. If you're in one of the apartment or condo buildings that has Beanfield availability, you have access to some of the best value Internet in the city. The CRTC decision is bad. Worse: the competition bureau has dropped the
ball.
Both true. Looking down the road there may be room for improvement. One of the truisms of telecom policy is that the Canadian south is expected to overpay for its Internet on the presumption that they are subsidizing access in the North. But i wonder if the newfound access to Starlink may change that paradigm in the medium term. Wires are a natural monopoly. Yes, but Internet access can come by DSL, by fibre, by coax and by satellite dish. With the exception of DSL each of those is offered by a different vendor. My house is wired for three of those four, plus I have a roof antenna.
The owneres of the wires should not be allowed to use vertical integration to make their monopolies dominant in so many allied businesses.
We used to be uncompetitive as a country in cell rates but of late that has come down, maybe partially by the expansion of Videotron beyond Quebec. That is only in its infancy and I wish it well.
Teksavvy and other ISPs ought to be viable. After all, that was the government policy.
I don't have experience with resellers beyond Teksavvy (and now EBOX). I repeat that my reasons for changing were non-monetary. Teksavvy is a reseller that is all-too-quick to blame its wholesale suppliers for its own bad actions. My major anti-competitive beef with Robellus is more focused on being both carriers and owning primary creators of content (CTV, CITY, Sportsnet, TSN, MLSE, Crave, etc). That's an awful conflict. - Evan
On 4/28/26 03:19, Evan Leibovitch via Talk wrote:
And now, of course, we have Starlink, now in Canada <https://starlink.com/ca/residential>.
The problem with Starlink is it's owned by Elon Musk!
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 10:44 James Knott via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote: And now, of course, we have Starlink, now in Canada
<https://starlink.com/ca/residential>.
The problem with Starlink is it's owned by Elon Musk!
So what? In an evil contest between Musk and Bell, to me that's a tossup. Maybe even leans a shred towards Musk's being slightly less evil because: Bell has not done anything as globally positive as cutting off service to the Russian war campaign in Ukraine and; Musk has not pleaded with the CRTC to screw consumers and reduce competition. I've long wanted Robellus to get some foreign competition. While I might have preferred conventional players such as Vodafone, Starlink is a good a start as any because it's accessible everywhere without having to build new physical infrastructure. What I think of the man-child at the top is of minor relevance so long as the Canadian operation plays by our rules. - Evan
Are we forgetting that he first turned it off for the Ukranians?? His excuse at the time is that he feared nuclear retaliation. Regardless, the problem with Starlink is that its service is at the mercy of one person, he just wakes up and decides stuff. For something as critical, as essential, as the internet, I believe that smaller, NON-integrated companies are the best options. Enough of this "get your phone, cell, internet, TV, security alarm, medical alarm, and soon your rented PC terminal in one big package from us". We need smaller, leaner options that focus on ONE product. On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 3:40â¯PM Evan Leibovitch via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 10:44 James Knott via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
And now, of course, we have Starlink, now in Canada.
The problem with Starlink is it's owned by Elon Musk!
So what?
In an evil contest between Musk and Bell, to me that's a tossup. Maybe even leans a shred towards Musk's being slightly less evil because:
Bell has not done anything as globally positive as cutting off service to the Russian war campaign in Ukraine and;
Musk has not pleaded with the CRTC to screw consumers and reduce competition.
I've long wanted Robellus to get some foreign competition. While I might have preferred conventional players such as Vodafone, Starlink is a good a start as any because it's accessible everywhere without having to build new physical infrastructure.
What I think of the man-child at the top is of minor relevance so long as the Canadian operation plays by our rules.
- Evan ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/66CRTAV...
As I've mentioned before on this platform, I'm very happy to pay $160 a month for my rather fast(!) Starlink connection because it allows my wife, my son, my daughter-in-law and myself to work remotely in northern Quebec. As for Musk, he is truly one of the great entrepreneurs in our lifetime. His companies, Tesla, Boring, X, xAI, SpaceX, Starlink and Neuralink are revolutionary. Almost nothing wrong with him as far as I'm concerned... Jon On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 12:03â¯PM Nick Accad via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Are we forgetting that he first turned it off for the Ukranians?? His excuse at the time is that he feared nuclear retaliation.
Regardless, the problem with Starlink is that its service is at the mercy of one person, he just wakes up and decides stuff.
For something as critical, as essential, as the internet, I believe that smaller, NON-integrated companies are the best options.
Enough of this "get your phone, cell, internet, TV, security alarm, medical alarm, and soon your rented PC terminal in one big package from us".
We need smaller, leaner options that focus on ONE product.
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 3:40â¯PM Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 10:44 James Knott via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
And now, of course, we have Starlink, now in Canada.
The problem with Starlink is it's owned by Elon Musk!
So what?
In an evil contest between Musk and Bell, to me that's a tossup. Maybe even leans a shred towards Musk's being slightly less evil because:
Bell has not done anything as globally positive as cutting off service to the Russian war campaign in Ukraine and;
Musk has not pleaded with the CRTC to screw consumers and reduce competition.
I've long wanted Robellus to get some foreign competition. While I might have preferred conventional players such as Vodafone, Starlink is a good a start as any because it's accessible everywhere without having to build new physical infrastructure.
What I think of the man-child at the top is of minor relevance so long as the Canadian operation plays by our rules.
- Evan ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/66CRTAV...
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On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 12:25:12PM -0400, Jon Thiele via Talk wrote:
As I've mentioned before on this platform, I'm very happy to pay $160 a month for my rather fast(!) Starlink connection because it allows my wife, my son, my daughter-in-law and myself to work remotely in northern Quebec.
As for Musk, he is truly one of the great entrepreneurs in our lifetime. His companies, Tesla, Boring, X, xAI, SpaceX, Starlink and Neuralink are revolutionary.
Almost nothing wrong with him as far as I'm concerned...
Tesla promises everything and delivers very little of it, and given Elon clearly does not understand the problems he claims to be solving, I doubt they will ever solve it. Boring is simply a very very stupid idea. Probably why you almost never hear about it. X is twitter decimated after having a well known brand destroyed using a stupid brand and then policies changed to make the worst parts of twitter worse and the good parts mostly gone. Given xAI makes grok, I think it is safe to say they are not doing a good job. What a joke. SpaceX seems to be mostly doing OK. Apparently management there is quote good at distracting Elon and keeping him out of the way of actually doing things. Starlink seems OK, other than the occational questionable policies. Neuralink seems like another stupid idea that will probably never work. As for Elon Musk himself, he seems to be clearly a horrible person. Most of his own kids despise him, people that have worked for him generally don't seem to like him (no wonder given he seems to have little respect for workers in general). The DOGE mess was a huge disaster that as usualy delivered none of what was promised and created waste rather than remove it, which was another one of his ideas. The nazi salute was definitely not a good look either. Only thing I think qualifies as revolutionary is spacex making much cheaper reusable rockets. -- Len Sorensen
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 2:06â¯PM Lennart Sorensen via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Tesla promises everything and delivers very little of it
The gap between promise and reality is quite large, but Tesla is hardly the only tech company guilty of that, indeed that quality seems rampant in the field. Boring is simply a very very stupid idea. Probably why you almost never hear
about it.
I had a good laugh seeing the joke Boring brought to Vegas <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvK2i9Jxy5c>. Not surprising, since Vegas already hosts a monorail. X is twitter decimated after having a well known brand destroyed using
a stupid brand and then policies changed to make the worst parts of
twitter worse and the good parts mostly gone.
It depends. If you want to use Xitter to conduct debate or express opinion, welcome to the cesspool and best of luck to ya. But it also has replaced the press release, a function not to be undervalued; if you use Xitter mainly to make or consume various kinds of announcements, it still serves that role extremely well. That "good part" remains intact and vital. Given xAI makes grok, I think it is safe to say they are not doing a good
job.
SpaceX seems to be mostly doing OK. Starlink seems OK, other than the occational questionable policies. Neuralink seems like another stupid idea that will probably never work.
So... we have some hits, some misses. Not out of character for entrepreneurship.
As for Elon Musk himself, he seems to be clearly a horrible person.
Sorry, but I have better things to do with my time than evaluate my purchases based on the morals of corporate leaders. If you like the results, or don't like others, vote with your wallet on whether they survive or not. I have affected purchase decisions based on the ethics a *company* has displayed (ie Bell), but care less about the bios of the stuffed shirts who execute the bad deeds. Most of his own kids despise him [...] I have little patience for the soap opera section of business news. I prefer to judge on the results. Frankly I think that all of the American tech oligarchs are big children who had some good ideas and are good pitchmen but haven't well handled the wealth and fame that followed. Following their histories and lifestyles teaches little about success or leadership ... so I don't. - Evan
On 4/28/26 12:25, Jon Thiele via Talk wrote:
As for Musk, he is truly one of the great entrepreneurs in our lifetime. His companies, Tesla, Boring, X, xAI, SpaceX, Starlink and Neuralink are revolutionary.
Except he bought them, not created. They were all someone else's idea. The problem is his money, made largely from the U.S. government makes him think he has the right to force his stupidity on others. One example was that thing called DOGE, which ruined parts of the U.S. government through incompetence or malice!
I agree with James, He buys the work of other people, fires those people, then destroys those items. Distracting him, by making him feel important while keeping him away from the controls for certain. My understanding too is That he is rude, and rather likely to throw a tantrum if he does not get his way. There is an article on line discussing how he treated the SNL staff when invited to host. On Tue, 28 Apr 2026, James Knott via Talk wrote:
On 4/28/26 12:25, Jon Thiele via Talk wrote:
As for Musk, he is truly one of the great entrepreneurs in our lifetime. His companies, Tesla, Boring, X, xAI, SpaceX, Starlink and Neuralink are revolutionary.
Except he bought them, not created. They were all someone else's idea. The problem is his money, made largely from the U.S. government makes him think he has the right to force his stupidity on others. One example was that thing called DOGE, which ruined parts of the U.S. government through incompetence or malice! ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/OOCSL4F...
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 3:02â¯PM James Knott via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote: On 4/28/26 12:25, Jon Thiele via Talk wrote:
As for Musk, he is truly one of the great entrepreneurs in our lifetime. His companies, Tesla, Boring, X, xAI, SpaceX, Starlink and Neuralink are revolutionary.
Except he bought them, not created. They were all someone else's idea.
That makes him by far the world's best hype man, which has a value all its own. A great idea remains in the shadows without decent marketing. In any case, whether you love Elon, hate him or (like me) have moments of both, open source fans should be cheering him on in his current lawsuit with OpenAI. In part his goals are to revert the ChatGPT creator to its nonprofit roots; society and especially champions of openness and transparency will win if he succeeds. - Evan
On 5/3/26 12:27 PM, Evan Leibovitch via Talk wrote:
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 3:02â¯PM James Knott via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
On 4/28/26 12:25, Jon Thiele via Talk wrote:
As for Musk, he is truly one of the great entrepreneurs in our lifetime. His companies, Tesla, Boring, X, xAI, SpaceX, Starlink and Neuralink are revolutionary.
Except he bought them, not created. They were all someone else's idea.
That makes him by far the world's best hype man, which has a value all its own. A great idea remains in the shadows without decent marketing.
In any case, whether you love Elon, hate him or (like me) have moments of both, open source fans should be cheering him on in his current lawsuit with OpenAI. In part his goals are to revert the ChatGPT creator to its nonprofit roots; society and especially champions of openness and transparency will win if he succeeds.
Sadly the issue with OpenAI shifting from a "not for profit" to a "for profit" has nothing to do with openness or transparency or lack of both. Forcing OpenAI to go back to a not for profit will mean that they cannot get money from selling stocks to fund its expansion. This is more about tripping a competitor than any desire to make anything at OpenAI "open". -- Alvin Starr || land: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
I am a consumer. All I care about is, price! My needs are modest, so all I need is low-end Internet. * Carrytel (my current ISP) gives me 100Mbit at $55. * Freedom Mobile is selling 30Mbit at $45 (promo $39). If Fibre can play at the low-end, I'll consider. On 2026-04-28 10:44, James Knott via Talk wrote:
The problem with Starlink is it's owned by Elon Musk!
From: Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 11:56â¯AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
From: Evan Leibovitch via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
The fact that there is no competition left is a very big problem for consumers.
There is competition, the question is how much? Right now we have had a duopoly of Rogers(cable) and Bell/Telus(fibre).
The duopoly is an historical accident: Cable TV and copper telephone didn't compete in any way, so big monopolies were allowed to form in each. That didn't have to happen. Originally, many communities had their own provider (Cable was originally called CATV: Community Antenna TV). Then each service went vertical, creating virtually unbreakable monopolies. Then cable and phone fought it out for internet. Each leapfrogged the other. But they've both ended up with fibre. Where each has provided fibre, they are trying to rip out their old wires so that they don't have to maintain them and they prevent competitors using them. Example: I was using Vybe Networks for ADSL on Bell's copper. A trunk got cut, probably by a home construction. Bell refused to fix it. So I had to ditch Vybe (they cannot afford to resell optical). Possibly worse: Bell and Rogers seem to have divided up my area. My area is much more naturally serviced by one provider. I infer collusion was involved. Half is only serviced by fibre from Bell, half only by fibre from Rogers. I think that where Rogers has fibre, Bell still has copper and where Bell has fibre, Rogers has co-ax cable. Teksavvy offers a static IP address on service over Bell fibre. Bell will not. Teksavvy's price isn't competitive BECAUSE OF THE CRTC.
Freedom Mobile, now part of Videotron, is moving into home Internet. It's the main reason prices are cheaper in Quebec. The documentation suggests that Bell and Telus are now encroaching on each other's turf. And now, of course, we have Starlink, now in Canada <https://starlink.com/ca/residential>.
I've not heard that any majors are competing on actually installing fibre. They just resell, like Teksavvy.
There are other specialty options. If you're in one of the apartment or condo buildings that has Beanfield availability, you have access to some of the best value Internet in the city.
Nibbling at the edges. I have no idea if Beanfield provides fibre trunks or just consolidates a multi-unit building's traffic.
The CRTC decision is bad. Worse: the competition bureau has dropped the ball.
Both true.
Looking down the road there may be room for improvement. One of the truisms of telecom policy is that the Canadian south is expected to overpay for its Internet on the presumption that they are subsidizing access in the North. But i wonder if the newfound access to Starlink may change that paradigm in the medium term.
CRTC accounting is involved. I don't trust that it is actually doing what they say.
Wires are a natural monopoly.
Yes, but Internet access can come by DSL, by fibre, by coax and by satellite dish. With the exception of DSL each of those is offered by a different vendor. My house is wired for three of those four, plus I have a roof antenna.
Surely you don't have internet access via roof antenna. Long ago Look made a good attempt, but it failed. If you have Bell fibre, your DSL days are over or soon will be. The cable situation is probably similar.
The owners of the wires should not be allowed to use vertical integration to make their monopolies dominant in so many allied businesses.
We used to be uncompetitive as a country in cell rates but of late that has come down, maybe partially by the expansion of Videotron beyond Quebec. That is only in its infancy and I wish it well.
I went to Freedom just before the take-over. My needs are modest. The mobile phone monopoly has fewer walls: hardly any added value (coverage and roaming still matters a bit). Hardly any vertical component, as much as they try. The CRTC has been hacking at phone lock-in: number mobility, phone purchase lock-in. They have not attacked bundling, which is a serious issue: linked monopolies are stronger that separate ones.
I don't have experience with resellers beyond Teksavvy (and now EBOX). I repeat that my reasons for changing were non-monetary. Teksavvy is a reseller that is all-too-quick to blame its wholesale suppliers for its own bad actions.
I've used a sequence of DSL providers this century. Each has been taken out by mergers or CRTC pricing squeezes. Each user has their own horrible experiences. I've had a lot with Bell copper and a little with Bell fibre. Not so with Teksavvy. The community feeling is that Bell tries to make servicing worse for third party customers. I cannot verify this. Support is a bucket brigade: only the ISP can talk with Bell. My latest Bell fibre problem took a month to fix. For this service, I'm a direct Bell customer. Several appointments were skipped, involving me waiting half a day for a no-show. My mother had a problem for 30 years that Bell would not fix. The trunk on the road leaked and gave bad service when the weather was wet for a while. They refused to fix the trunk; they just swapped copper pairs. But those pairs went through the same trunk. We suspect that eventually my mother was the only customer on the trunk. Fiber wasn't available nor was cable. Twenty years ago, Bell offered DSL (not ADSL) on the line but they would not supply it 5 years ago.
My major anti-competitive beef with Robellus is more focused on being both carriers and owning primary creators of content (CTV, CITY, Sportsnet, TSN, MLSE, Crave, etc). That's an awful conflict.
Yeah, vertical integration. Funnily enough, the US Supreme Court decided that vertical integration was not relevant to anti-trust analysis. If I remember correctly, this was in the 1970s. I was so hopeful when Biden appointed Lina Khan to head the FTC. Oh well. She's now head of Columbia University's new Center for Law and the Economy. Someone to watch. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Khan>
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 11:06â¯AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote: If you have Bell fibre, your DSL days are over or soon will be.
I consider myself fortunate. I still have CTTH (copper to the house) alongside the recently-installed fibre, because I refuse to get rid of the POTS service that I've had since moving into my house in the mid-2000s. (Heh. For *that* I maintain a relationship with Teksavvy.) I've been told repeatedly that if I cancel the POTS service I will never get it back. I heed that advice. I have had phone service during power outages and never had problems with faxing (which I'm told can have issues with VOIP). I get an amazing amount of Chinese phone spam on the POTS line which is easily ignored. The mobile phone monopoly has fewer walls: hardly any added value (coverage
and roaming still matters a bit).
It has mattered to me quite a bit. Being able to call to the US and roam in the US using my existing plan's allocations have been very helpful. The Freedom "Roam Beyond <https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/network-coverage/international-roaming>" plan became invaluable during a recent multi-country cruise. Hardly any vertical component, as much as they try.
Because they own sources of content, Rogers and Bell have the ability to bundle such content with plans that resellers can't match. This is the part I find most anticompetitive. The community feeling is that Bell tries to make servicing worse for third party
customers. I cannot verify this. Support is a bucket brigade: only the ISP can talk with Bell.
I can confirm this to be accurate in my instance. My problem with Teksavvy is that they exploit this situation to deflect attention from their own defects. On three separate occasions they have blamed Bell and Rogers for problems that were really caused by their shitty choices in modems. In one case, after Teksavvy denied blame and forced a Bell service call to my house (and all the cat-and-mouse involved in scheduling THAT), the Bell tech tested my line (just fine) but looked at the DSL modem they'd given me and laughed out loud. That model was evaluated by Bell and rejected immediately, he said, yet Teksavvy decided it was good enough. Not one of the devices Teksavvy supplied me, either for cable or DSL, gave steady service for more than a year. Also, f*ck Sagemcom. Compounding the problem with shitty equipment are the policies on exchanging it. Teksavvy has no brick-and-mortar presence outside Chatham so no way to just go to a GTA location and swap the device. If your equipment goes wonky any time after Friday noon (or even sooner if it takes time to diagnose the problem), you're down till Tuesday at the earliest. They can't be bothered to partner with a GTA location to provide a swap depot. After the third time this happened to me I'd had enough. - Evan
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 01:25:35PM -0400, Evan Leibovitch via Talk wrote:
I can confirm this to be accurate in my instance. My problem with Teksavvy is that they exploit this situation to deflect attention from their own defects. On three separate occasions they have blamed Bell and Rogers for problems that were really caused by their shitty choices in modems. In one case, after Teksavvy denied blame and forced a Bell service call to my house (and all the cat-and-mouse involved in scheduling THAT), the Bell tech tested my line (just fine) but looked at the DSL modem they'd given me and laughed out loud. That model was evaluated by Bell and rejected immediately, he said, yet Teksavvy decided it was good enough. Not one of the devices Teksavvy supplied me, either for cable or DSL, gave steady service for more than a year. Also, f*ck Sagemcom.
Compounding the problem with shitty equipment are the policies on exchanging it. Teksavvy has no brick-and-mortar presence outside Chatham so no way to just go to a GTA location and swap the device. If your equipment goes wonky any time after Friday noon (or even sooner if it takes time to diagnose the problem), you're down till Tuesday at the earliest. They can't be bothered to partner with a GTA location to provide a swap depot. After the third time this happened to me I'd had enough.
I think I mainly used a SmargRG VDSL2 modem on my service. The Bell provided cellpipe was incredibly unreliable. I don't think I have ever used anything from sagemcom. Can they actually be worse than the cellpipe was? Certainly from what I have read, you don't want either of cellpipe or sagemcom modems. -- Len Sorensen
On 4/28/26 11:05, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
The duopoly is an historical accident: Cable TV and copper telephone didn't compete in any way, so big monopolies were allowed to form in each. That didn't have to happen.
Originally, each cable company had a franchise for a specific area. Toronto had multiple companies that wound up owned by Rogers.
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 03:19:45AM -0400, Evan Leibovitch via Talk wrote:
Yes, but Internet access can come by DSL, by fibre, by coax and by satellite dish. With the exception of DSL each of those is offered by a different vendor. My house is wired for three of those four, plus I have a roof antenna.
My house only has the choice of fibre from Bell or fibre from Rogers. The one from Bell can be used by some other ISPs. I don't think Rogers shares their fibre. No copper wires for phone or cable. I don't even think the power to the house uses copper, pretty sure the main feed is aluminum. -- Len Sorensen
On 4/28/26 13:53, Lennart Sorensen via Talk wrote:
I don't think Rogers shares their fibre.
Years ago, I did some work for Allstream, some of which used Rogers fibre.
I don't even think the power to the house uses copper, pretty sure the main feed is aluminum.
Some utilities are switching from copper to aluminum due to copper thefts. The high voltage stuff is usually aluminum over steel.
From: D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
Teksavvy and other ISPs ought to be viable. After all, that was the government policy.
Here's a 2009 US Supreme court decision that goes against an ISP in its fight against unfair competition from their supplier. They are talking about a "price squeeze" between the wholesale and retail prices. <https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/555/438/> As I understand it, the court's idea (which sounds goofy to me) is that from an anti-trust standpoint, the incumbent (PacBell) had no obligation to deal with the plaintiff (LinkLine Communications). The fact that the FCC mandated such an obligation (no doubt for anti-trust reasons) didn't count. In anti-trust terms, since they weren't obligated to deal, they weren't obligated to be fair. This feels typical of the author of the opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts. In Canada, we clearly have a "price squeeze": the CRTC mandated wholesale price is not much below retail price offered by the flanker brands or specials of the incumbents.
Evan Leibovitch via Talk wrote on 2026-04-26 18:04:
See this Reddit thread <https://www.reddit.com/r/teksavvy/comments/1rgokee/absolutely_done_with_teksavvy/>, in which I participated with a more detailed stor
Fortunately my experience over the past 15 years has been pretty good.
The best customer service is the one you don't need.
True, and they've been both pleasant to deal with and promptly dealt with the very few issues encountered. Sounds like things are slipping somewhat. They are not alone, however - an increase across the board in consumer complaints:
 The CCTS released its annual review in January <https://mobilesyrup.com/2026/01/14/rogers-led-record-number-canadian-telecom-complaints-2024-25/>
Rogers saw the biggest share of complaints among all national groups, with 6,485 accepted complaints. This was a 15 per cent increase compared to the previous year. Telus received 4,904 complaints, which is a 78 per cent increase from the previous year. Lastly, Bell saw 3,966 complaints, a 16 per cent increase from the last year.
mobilesyrup.com Customer service is getting worse at Rogers, Bell, and Telus <#> Telecom complaints are getting worse in Canada as customer service degrades. ð https://mobilesyrup.com/2026/03/20/canada-telecom-customer-service-issues/ <https://mobilesyrup.com/2026/03/20/canada-telecom-customer-service-issues/> On the other hand, one comment from that thread sums up my feelings:
Bell technicians have done a successful job at making you hate 3rd party ISPs as planned.
And this has proven TekSavvy's point: wholesale prices are too high. Bell can spin up a flanker brand and sell for less, at a profit (presumably). I refuse to let the bastards win like that. I haven't experienced the issue of crap hardware - do not know how I'd handle it - but I'm willing to forgive a fair amount of incompetence if the alternative is pure malevolence. And this made me laugh:
And they only have ever used that one short, awful piece of hand-clap music that keeps looping while on on hold. I never thought I would fondly recall the Canada Revenue Agency hold music by comparison I experienced it this week. Hand-clap music with ... a slight country twang? Blasphemy.
There's only been one time in my life where I asked what the hold music was, and when they didn't know, I asked to be placed back on hold at end of the call so I could write down some lyrics. It took extensive effort to find out which artist's music I was exposed to so I could download it, it was so good. My notes from 10+ years ago documenting the search and attempts to capture lyrics while on hold indicate it's either Tim McMorris "Life is Beautiful" www.youtube.com Life Is Beautiful <#> Provided to YouTube by TuneCoreLife Is Beautiful · Tim McMorrisAliveâ 2014 King's Crown ProductionsReleased on: 2014-10-22Auto-generated by YouTube. ð https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcKgXpToOUI <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcKgXpToOUI> ...or... Tim McMorris "On Top Of The World" www.youtube.com On Top Of The World - Tim McMorris <#> Composed & performed by Tim McMorris© Tim McMorrisâ King's Crown Productions Where to get my music (Listening) Spotify: https://goo.gl/ms9NIEiTunes: https://go... ð https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NLWJCOpe3U <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NLWJCOpe3U> Your description is spot-on in some ways, but I regret nothing.
On Sat, May 9, 2026 at 4:39â¯AM Ron via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote: And this has proven TekSavvy's point: wholesale prices are too high. Bell
can spin up a flanker brand and sell for less, at a profit (presumably).
I refuse to let the bastards win like that. I haven't experienced the issue of crap hardware - do not know how I'd handle it - but I'm willing to forgive a fair amount of incompetence if the alternative is pure malevolence.
Thank you for this, Ron. I'm with you. Mike
participants (12)
-
Alvin Starr -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Evan Leibovitch -
Howard Gibson -
James Knott -
Jon Thiele -
Karen Lewellen -
Lennart Sorensen -
Michael Hill -
Nick Accad -
Ron -
William Park