The last year has seen unprecedented public visibility regarding 3rd party ISP's such as Teksavvy due to the CRTC's UBB hearings. While public outcry was initially misdirected as a cry against retail UBB, something that had been in place for a year, it shone a spotlight on wholesale UBB and the place of 3rd party ISP's.
UBB has been placed on the CRTC's back-burner as the 4 major ISP's (Bell, Rogers, Telus,Shaw) re-allign their retail offerings to mask or incentivise consumers to place less weight on UBB concerns. Teksavvy, my current ISP, continues to offer unlimited or near unlimited data plans for less than the unbundled services offered by Telus or Shaw. As I learned over the last week, this gain comes at a cost and is likely the hurdle that limits 3rd party ISP's customer base to less than 10% of the market.
TECH SUPPORT
Having recently purchased a house, I placed a service change request with Teksavvy well over a month before the move. Having moved twice prior, I fully expected the service to be unavailable and require troubleshooting after we took possession, as that had been the status quo.
I was delighted that on the day, service was live and functioning. For a full 45 days my dsl was uninterrupted.
On the 46th day, not only was service interrupted but it disappeared entirely. Normally a dry loop ADSL line has 50 volts DC and 0 volts AC as there is no dial tone. Not only was signal gone, but the line had no voltage as well. I placed a ticket with Teksavvy.
Two days later Telus sent out a contractor to check the demark on the outside of the house.During the initial support call Teksavvy went to great lengths to remind me that if the issue was INSIDE the house and a support call was made, Telus would charge me at least $100.
Given the near decade long partnership I have had with Teksavvy I am more than familiar at this point with the technical issues that can beseige a connection. The average consumer is likely not and a stern warning about overage charges is unsettling at best.
NOT UNCOMMON
Telus called to advise they were 10 minutes from the house the next day. Over an hour and half later they called to confirm signal was present that the demark. I can only assume there were issues on their side that needed to be addressed. It has happened to me more than once, that both Bell and Telus contractors have been working in the neighbourhood, and by choice or accident, pulled the card for my service. It only happens once, but the inference is clear, either the contractors have little or no knowledge of wholesale ISP's or they have a mandate to interrupt service.
What was uncommon in this instance is that I checked the line for voltage and found none. Knowing that Telus would have had to confirm service at the demark, I opened it up and checked. 50 volts DC present. What was missing was the other end of the line I had been using for service. I can only assume several lines had been fed into the house from the demark, and they picked the newest one, then cut the other(s).
ANTI-COMPETIVE PRACTICES
Another common issue is the questionable practice both cable and dsl providers have of completing an installation by entirely removing or hiding access to the other's service. In this case, the previous owner's used Shaw for home phone, and the installer had not only re-routed the house phone lines to a distribution strip, they had severed and coiled multiple service lines for phone as far up and inside the basement ceiling as they could reach. Literally armed with a flashlight and a knowledge of what to look for I was able to extricate the service line but the average consumer would require a costly interior service call by the incumbant, seperate from their ISP, to resolve this issue.
With a the (new) service line in hand I was able to confirm signal inside the house and attach it to the distribution strip. Theoretically I should be able to install my modem at any jack and receive service.
NO ALTERNATIVE
With signal and a modem able to sync, I was enormously frustrated to find an inability to authenticate. Simply put, my user-name and password was not being passed from Telus to Teksavvy. As a wholsesale customer, my service is supposed to be handed entirely off Telus's network, using them as a conduit to Teksavvy. I can only speculate but not only was my service cut off by Telus physically, the profile allowing me access to my ISP had been removed as well. 4 days into the outage I started checking other options and found them to be slim. I could have gone with Telus, cancelled Teksavvy and had service within a day, but at greater expense and more intrusive network management practices and low data caps. Shaw was unable to provide service as a tech appointment was needed for hookup on-site. Their lowest unbundled service was the same price as Teksavvy but 1 Mb download vs 6 Mb and again plagued by caps and intrusive network management.
Placing an escalated ticket finally resolved the issue the night of the 5th day, but left me deeply unsatisfied.
To escape retail UBB, the alternative is a wild west where the service provider is not responsible for maintaining the service. Without accountability and responsibilty wholesale ISP's are literally reliant on their competitors goodwill to maintain service, and seemingly unwilling or unable to hold the incumbants responsible.
*UPDATE* Teksavvy just called to confirm service and also confirmed that Telus had in fact moved my service from Teksavvy's ports to their own, leaving me authenticate unsuccessfully against Telus servers. Though it has now been corrected, this outage is an example of how a mistake on the part of the line-holders can cause a cascading failure, interrupting service for nearly a week. Daunting and expensive at best for non technical customers.
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