Hacker News Reader

Comment by xethos | Hacker News Reader

Noting that TekSavvy (and only TekSavvy) fought the block, I looked into being one of their customers again. It was a good experience in the last city I lived in, and I was a customer for a year in my current location.

They still lose on price by ~$30CAD monthly, but I could forgive that. Paying for objectively better customer support and an ethical ISP (even if just a reseller) is something I can work with. What really kills me is the upload topping out at 100Mbps (even with gigabit down), and that one I'm not willing to work around.

View on HN

Years ago in a different city I had a TekSavvy DSL connection.

There was some issue, and I called tech support. The initial conversation included some hints that I, too, was ... Tek Savvy. (sorry)

The agent ditched the script and we dove into a live debug collaboration between peers. I have no idea whether the same spirit endures, but it was an amazing positive experience, unlike anything I've seen before or since. Recommended.

>What really kills me is the upload topping out at 100Mbps

Teksavvy resells Bell Fibe, its upload does not top out at 100 Mbps.

Send me an email (in my profile) and I'll drop you my address to plug into their availability page. Their claims may be low-balling it, but they state upload tops out at 100Mbps in my area

I believe you. Your wording just made it seem like the top speed from Teksavvy was 100 Mbps, period; not just in your neighbourhood.

Same. I was willing to use TekSavvy, but their internet service is just not there. I want symmetrical speed, I use upload extensively (and need unlimited data). Unfortunately, that's not their priority.

Their website is also completely down right now, which is weird.

They run their own fiber infrastructure in Chatham, Ontario. Resell on Bell in Ontario and Quebec. Telus, Aliant and SaskTel have until Feb 2025 to open up wholesale on their Fiber networks which I’d expect TekSavvy to tap that for Western/Maritime Canada.

Oh cool, so there is hope! I'm with Novus which is a local ISP in BC, Telus was jacking up prices for no reason, like they do for mobile

Can you share what you need symmetrical speeds with unlimited bandwidth from home for?

I work from home and I self host various apps from my home server. I also can stream videogames from my home. The major upload need is work (database files) and serving the apps from my home rapidly (videos/photos).

The cool thing about 1gbit symmeyrical is that I don't have to think about it anymore.

Almost forgot, I backup all my important data on the cloud too from my NAS, so it has to upload often videos and photos.

not the OP, but I'm a data engineer. I'm downloading and uploading data all day long. Even subsets are large and after combining data from multiple datasets, it grows.

That's not including backups I run to external services.

I’m not the OP, but have a vastly over spec connection. For about $70 US per month I get 2 gigabit symmetric. I could get something like 300mbps symmetric for about $40 US but love the extra. I don’t notice the difference every day, but it makes me very happy when I do.

Same! It's extremely cheap in my case, so why not? One great thing about being in a city in Spain is the prices...Five euros a month extra to go from 1 gigabit symmetrical to 10 gigabit. I don't have anything that can even come close to using that (I can get about 1.2gbps over wifi, and have a 2.5gb ethernet adapter I never plug in) but... 5 euros a month!

For $70 a month? Holy guacamole! Where are you, that you get such good rates? We’re lucky to have fiber, but we pay $60 for 100 mbps. (Edited to correct cost of fiber as part of telecom bill.)

This is in New Zealand.

I can get the same speed for cheaper, $US50-60 but the static IP, and great service from Voyager keep me with them.

It’s not a load more for 4 or even 8gb. What a time to be alive.

Not sure about the original poster, but in my case it's because I'm running a NAS/rsync at home. Symmetrical speeds are really handy for that.

Not that person, but its needed if you're a live streamer. Even video chats with small groups take quite a bit of bandwidth.

>Their website is also completely down right now, which is weird.

Seems up: https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/teksavvy.com.html

It's up but returns 403 for requests to the homepage

>They still lose on price by ~$30CAD monthly, but I could forgive that. Paying for objectively better customer support and an ethical ISP (even if just a reseller) is something I can work with.

Surely you'd be better off taking the $30 and donating it to EFF (or Canadian equivalent)? Spending extra money on an ISP that occasionally engages in activism but has higher cost structure is less efficient for everyone involved.

Because giving money to an organization that fights to protect your interests vs paying a company providing a service that is also aligned with you in your interests is not that same thing.

The business itself is less efficient but that may be because they are doing things to protect your mutual interests.

An equivalent would be "Why don't I buy everything off of Ali Express/Temu/etc and just donate the extra money I save to Amnesty International/Greenpeace/WWF/etc"

Edit add:

We as members of society create a standard that we want to apply: Clean air, clean water, safe working conditions. These standards come at a cost and it is unethical to ask for these things and then decide that we do not want to pay the costs associated with the standards we have put in place.

If we desire these things, we have to pay for them. If the cost is too high for us, then we should stop demanding those around us continue to pay while we take shortcuts.

There's also the competition angle, lobbying efforts from the big 3 (Bell, Telus and Rogers) weakens it. Teksavvy periodically makes it into the newscycle pushing for changes with the CRTC. Undermining the oligopoly is in the consumer's interest.

Quebecor has been branching out Canada-wide at least and they're not just a MVNO.

As a Quebecker, I'm always surprised to hear Quebecor mentioned as a challenger to the incumbent oligopoly. It's always been my perception they are well among them. A quick internet search suggests that Telus ($5B) has half the total assets than Quebecor ($10B) albeit a 1/7 of those of Rogers ($70B). Those numbers might be wrong though, I got them all from secondary sources.

They are huge no doubt, but until very recently their ISP services were not available outside of QC.

Of course realistically it's just a marginally expanded oligopoly, but 4 players is better than 3 as competition is concerned.

Was a very happy TekSavvy customer for years, then we moved to a neighborhood where they don't have coverage :-(

Went with Ebox, which was promptly bought up by Bell

Yeah, no rental fee on modems though after you purchase one outright.

I've used TekSavvy for nearly a decade and they've been great, but be sure to use another DNS provider. Performance is terrible even if they do use CIRA, ostensibly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com