Big Cliff Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 OK, I have been with Xplornet for a couple of years now and to be honest I have been reasonably pleased with their service until just recently. When a letter to the office of the president goes unanswered for a week and on line referals don't get followed up on, I start to worry. Then to top it all off I get told that even though I have a contract "Unlimited up load, down load" they are implimenting a new "Fair Use policy" where if I exceed a specified number of GB, my speed will be cut. Not what I had signed up for! But the fine print says they can change it. I am now looking for a new internet provider but I also heard about a new phone system called Magic Jack (SP) and I am interested in finding out more about this also (I HATE Bell). So, I guess what I am looking for is some ideas. Cable Cable seems to have some very interesting packages but a call to them @ 3:00 pm today has gone unanswered. Not my Idea of good customer service! How long will it take to get a call back if I have a problem? Is Magic Jack any good? We tried VOIP here about two years ago, it was a disaster, am I heading down the same road? I know we have a lot of very smart people on this board, I need help! Opinions, suggestions very much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranks bait Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 I just moved my business at the beginning of the year. I was too slow in the thinking of changing providers. After a being raped by Bell again for more than $500.00 for the move, a $2000.00 plus dollar mistake on my part. I droped them. My number stayed the same, but my e-mail is what worries me. All of my print (cards, bottles, etc.) have the Bell addy on it. Plus my customers know that addy. They finally fed me enough crap that I was better off giving the money to get all this reprinted. I decided to go with Cogeco. Their customer service has been fantastic. I have internet (faster) and phone for less than just the phone at Bell. While there is a limit on the amount of downloads, I'm not worried, doubt if I even use half of it. Free calls anywhere in North America. I have Cogeco at home and have been really pleased with it there as well. We used to have Explornet at home, I think that's who it was? It was brutal. Always going down. They gave us every excuse in the book for it. It's windy, it's rainy. It was so bad even when it was calm and sunny it would go down. Glad to be rid of that provider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 I know some people that are very happy with magicjack along with paying for the local phone number, if you can get one and I know people who hate it, it echos your voice, noise and unstable.......so but if you didn't like VOIP then you will hate magicjack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddler Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 I think the Magic Jack was discussed on a thresd here a couple of weeks ago. It's not that new either, it's been available for about 4=-5 years now. I have been using it for over 4 years now as my land line. I don't have the super high speed iNternet so when I am downloading a large file the Magic Jack qualitity has some small gaps. I jus put the download on hold then and the quality returns to normal. I resume the download after the call is completed. It doesn't happen often so that is a minor nusance. I have a local number so my friends here can call me toll free. It cost an extra $10 for the change plus a $5 CTRC fee. What they say is true. Toll free anywhere in USA or Canada. I bought a secong Magicjack with a USA number. My Nephew just went to the Dominican Republic. Phone charges to Canada were very expensive (he said) so I sent an ASUS notepad, a small phone (bought at a fleemarket years ago) and the Magicjack. He get free wireless internet where he is staying, so he calls his workpalce, his parents and the fiance's parents everyday......free. They talk as long as they want. I got a Magicjack in the first place because I could get my Interenet service in less than a week and I had to wait almost a month and a half for a bell land line. I never did get a Bell land line, I just use the magicjack. If the computer is off, all messages go to my voice mail which is my email. I also bought MRecrder. It records all Magicjack calls. That was a one time $10 cost. I love it. Cheap($20 a year), efficient and it has some nice features like call display on my computer screen. muddler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lew Posted February 23, 2011 Report Share Posted February 23, 2011 Don't know if it's of any interest to you Cliff but we use a Rogers Rocket Hub over here for both the hi-speed and phone service and it's excellent without a single problem since we installed it a year ago. Hi-speed is $35 per month and the phones are an additional $15 if you want them. Initial cost for the Hub was $150 and you simply plug it in and then plug your computer and phone into it and your set to go. Every bit as fast as my Rogers hook-up when I was in the city. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Cliff Posted February 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Don't know if it's of any interest to you Cliff but we use a Rogers Rocket Hub over here for both the hi-speed and phone service and it's excellent without a single problem since we installed it a year ago. Hi-speed is $35 per month and the phones are an additional $15 if you want them. Initial cost for the Hub was $150 and you simply plug it in and then plug your computer and phone into it and your set to go. Every bit as fast as my Rogers hook-up when I was in the city. Thanks Lew, I will look into it! Might be a good alternative for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taper Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Cliff I also have Explornet and always call there 1-800 number when I need anything and have had great service.Check closely if changing providers to get away from the fair use policy, I have heard a lot of providers are looking at this. It is meant to target the people streaming movies etc. where they are tying up large amounts of bandwidth for extended periods. I also got an email about this from explornet and when I called was told it is not in affect on my system. One last thing, explornet has a new much improved VOIP product that I hear is much better than the old system. I am looking at getting when and giving it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedimaster Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Check out teksavvy, they are fast and unlimited and cheap. Switching back to them at the end f the month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRIFTER_016 Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 I just moved my business at the beginning of the year. I was too slow in the thinking of changing providers. After a being raped by Bell again for more than $500.00 for the move, a $2000.00 plus dollar mistake on my part. I droped them. My number stayed the same, but my e-mail is what worries me. All of my print (cards, bottles, etc.) have the Bell addy on it. Plus my customers know that addy. They finally fed me enough crap that I was better off giving the money to get all this reprinted. I decided to go with Cogeco. Their customer service has been fantastic. I have internet (faster) and phone for less than just the phone at Bell. While there is a limit on the amount of downloads, I'm not worried, doubt if I even use half of it. Free calls anywhere in North America. I have Cogeco at home and have been really pleased with it there as well. We used to have Explornet at home, I think that's who it was? It was brutal. Always going down. They gave us every excuse in the book for it. It's windy, it's rainy. It was so bad even when it was calm and sunny it would go down. Glad to be rid of that provider. If you have a [email protected] email addy don't worry. Bell actually hosts it on Microsofts servers and the email accounts don't get deleted when you leave Bell. I have been using my sympatico acct. for over 10 years and haven't had a bell inet account for the last 6. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRIFTER_016 Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Voip over satellite takes quite a bit of getting used to. Remember you are transmitting through the air to a bird in the sky and back before your packets hit a terrestrial based hard line for transport to the provider, and then back to your computer. The time it takes to hit the sat and then the ground station adds about 3/4 of a second to the journey. The same journey over hard lines takes less than 100 milliseconds. The 3/4 second delay causes the two parties to talk over each other and cut each other off. I tried my vonage device on sat when I first moved to the NWT and now have cable inet for making my calls via my vonage device. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnF Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Before you get too excited about MagicJack make sure there are local numbers available. A lot of our friends and relatives ran into this in our local market. I'm not sure if they've been able to get local numbers yet. There are a number of retailers selling the MJ and I'm not sure if some might have numbers while others are out but I wouldn't think that situation would last long anywhere. JF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beans Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Don't know if it's of any interest to you Cliff but we use a Rogers Rocket Hub over here for both the hi-speed and phone service and it's excellent without a single problem since we installed it a year ago. Hi-speed is $35 per month and the phones are an additional $15 if you want them. Initial cost for the Hub was $150 and you simply plug it in and then plug your computer and phone into it and your set to go. Every bit as fast as my Rogers hook-up when I was in the city. What about your TV Lew ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Cliff Posted February 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 Well, if you are thinking of Cable Cable in the Kawarthas, you might as well forget it, 24 hours later and three phone calls and still no call back from them. Rogers were fantastic, one call, got to talk to a real live well informed person, turns out I can save a bundle (only draw back is that there is a cap on up loads which is a bit of a problem for me as a friend and I tend to send some fairly large files back and forth but I think we can work around that. I will going to see Rogers tomorrow and make sure I totally understand everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lew Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 What about your TV Lew ??? The TV's are on Bell satellite Norm. I would have stayed with Rogers for that too but it's not available here. The house already had an HD dish and the rooms were already wired for TV's so it was easy. So far I've been very happy with the Bell service, although it seems like many are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranks bait Posted February 24, 2011 Report Share Posted February 24, 2011 If you have a [email protected] email addy don't worry. Bell actually hosts it on Microsofts servers and the email accounts don't get deleted when you leave Bell. I have been using my sympatico acct. for over 10 years and haven't had a bell inet account for the last 6. Because it's a business line it doesn't work. It's @bellnet.ca and already doen't work. Although I still get to pay for another month because of their rip off schemes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grt1 Posted February 25, 2011 Report Share Posted February 25, 2011 after reading the post a while ago about magic jack, I ordered one and tried it on my explornet. it was ok when I recieved the voice from the far end of the call but my voice was broken up at the other end. I tried it from a hotel and it worked ok but they had land lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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