Rogers vs. Look vs. StarChoice

[aclarke]

I've been a SageTV user for a couple years now, but I'm moving so I'm trying to figure out what TV service to go with. We were in the country before so satellite was the only game and we had Star Choice. Overall I've been happy with them.

Now I could go with Look (fixed wireless), Rogers, or stick with Star Choice. We also just bought an HDTV so I want to get more into that. I'll be taking a close look at the Hauppauge HD PVR when it comes out.

Does anybody have suggestions on why I'd want to use or avoid any of my options? I'll be living in New Hamburg, ON, which is just west of Kitchener Waterloo.

Thanks,
- Andrew.

[amac]

Don't know how many answers you'll get here. Perhaps many, perhaps few. Another site to check would be http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/.

Not sure why you haven't included ExpressVu as an option ... Each probably has strengths in packages, #HD channels, etc. Other things to consider are how long you plan to stay in the area, contract requirements, hardware purchase requirements ... good luck

[aclarke]

Originally Posted by amac

Don't know how many answers you'll get here. Perhaps many, perhaps few. Another site to check would be http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/.

Not sure why you haven't included ExpressVu as an option ... Each probably has strengths in packages, #HD channels, etc. Other things to consider are how long you plan to stay in the area, contract requirements, hardware purchase requirements ... good luck

Thanks for the response. I'll check out that forum.

I didn't include BEV as I really don't like either Bell or Rogers. My experience with Bell Sympatico and to a lesser extent their mobile phone division is that they hate their customers and would rather not have any. I get the feeling Rogers would be worse though, which is why I'm considering the alternatives.

- Andrew.

[gveres]

If you want to record HD and you are not close to a major city center (I think you have to be within 70 Kms of the broadcast antenna), then your only choice for recording HD is to get an R5000 mod to your starchoice or bell express vu receiver.

Greg

[aclarke]

Originally Posted by gveres

If you want to record HD and you are not close to a major city center (I think you have to be within 70 Kms of the broadcast antenna), then your only choice for recording HD is to get an R5000 mod to your starchoice or bell express vu receiver.
Greg

Hi. Thanks for the post. I don't like TV enough to spend the kind of money I'd need to spend for the R5000.

Since you're in Waterloo and I'm going to be just down the road in New Hamburg, do you have any experience with OTA? I've mostly written it off for now as I don't think my experience with it in New Hamburg is going to be very satisfactory.

After looking over the packages, and reading further about Rogers' compression of HD content, and overall having been happy with Star Choice for the last couple years, I think I'm just going to order Star Choice for our new home.

Thanks,
- Andrew.

[gveres]

I think we are too far away from the antennas. I looked a couple of years ago and we were too far for any of the major cities that had or would have put up broadcast stations.

That is why I went with the R5000.

Greg

[KandA]

Andrew,

As someone who recently switched from Rogers to Star Choice. I can personally vouch on the improvement in picture quality for HD content.

Stay with Star Choice and enjoy the better quality and cheaper prices.
K

[amac]

Regarding Bell, I would have to disagree, especially with Sympatico. What I've experienced with them is awful technical support to the point I now just call customer service instead. They are more than happy to help.

Originally Posted by aclarke

Thanks for the response. I'll check out that forum.

I didn't include BEV as I really don't like either Bell or Rogers. My experience with Bell Sympatico and to a lesser extent their mobile phone division is that they hate their customers and would rather not have any. I get the feeling Rogers would be worse though, which is why I'm considering the alternatives.

- Andrew.

[aclarke]

Originally Posted by amac

Regarding Bell, I would have to disagree, especially with Sympatico. What I've experienced with them is awful technical support to the point I now just call customer service instead. They are more than happy to help.

Oh man, where do I start? Let me start with their latest jewel, of shipping 2wire routers to their customers with a HUGE KNOWN SECURITY VULNERABILITY. And yes, that deserves to be in caps. From a remote web site, your router can have its default password changed, and from there unimportant little pages like your bank's web site can be easily diverted to a page in Kyrgistan and next thing you know all your money's gone. I was able to verify this myself and was able to change my password from the URL string without knowing my password. Brilliant. Known exploits are in the wild and Bell is still shipping these things, and has no firmware upgrade in place. You still like Sympatico?

How about throttling P2P traffic? If that's not bad enough, how about throttling their corporate clients' P2P traffic, like Teksavvy? I'd be surprised if I didn't see a lawsuit about that soon.

How about blocking outbound port 25? Not a problem for you maybe if you're happy using Sympatico's SMTP server for everything and I understand the rationale behind it, but the fact is that it's 100% trivial for malware writers to get around in about 15 seconds of extra programming, but it is a huge PITA for those of us relying on our DSL connections to make a living and/or take our laptop to different networks.

Still a Sympatico fan?

How about being one of the first ISPs in Canada to institute a bandwidth cap? My girlfriend/fiancée (now wife) had Sympatico and I managed to wring up some hefty extra charges on that account one month before realizing what was going on. Yeah, I could have read the fine print, but OH, she was in a contract (not necessary with Teksavvy, I might point out) so switching would have cost extra. What kind of business feels the need to lock customers in? Teksavvy doesn't need to, and neither does Star Choice. Somehow they must feel that giving customers what they want at a fair price should be enough to keep them on board. That's crazy talk.

During my last encounter with Bell just last week, I was trying to get them to install a demarcation box for our new house. I didn't want Bell for phone or DSL (can you guess why) but I still needed them to run the copper. Well, I get a guy who is obviously in India (besides the Indian accent, the phone line was terrible and there was significant lag). That's fine, I have nothing against Indians in India or in Canada, and nothing really against hiring Indian tech support. My problem was with the conversation. He said his name is Michael but everybody calls him Mike. Then he tells me he's a "specialist in bringing down prices". Good for him, he had a sense of humour. He tells me that everything nowadays is going up except his paycheque, thanks to McGinty and Harper. Look the guy's obviously not in Canada, so why is he pretending to be? My supposition: because his employer makes him. It's not "Mike's" fault. It's Bell's fault. If Bell's going to outsource tech support, at least be honest about it. But honesty is not Bell's way. This is why I say they hate their customers.

To carry that story on further, I was told that they would not install the demarc box on my house unless I agreed to either get DSL through them or pay at least $22/month for a phone line. This AFAIK is totally bogus and in fact runs completely against their contractual obligations that come with having a government-granted monopoly. So why are they trying to trick me into signing up for their services?

Let's contrast that to Teksavvy. I called them up to ask them what to do about this. I got a guy in Chatham, ON on a crystal clear phone line. I can communicate with him (good quality phone line) and another job stays in Ontario (the problem I DO have with outsourcing). The guy said to get a phone line through them, so that they could send a requisition to Bell and manage it themselves instead of me having to wade through it all. He said to cancel it after a month (his suggestion, note) and all would be well. I decided the phone was such a good deal that I decided to keep it. I threw in their long distance plan as well. Do you see the contrast between these two companies?

One company tries to lie to and cheat potential customers. They lose a customer. The other company tries to find ways to help out a customer, who appreciates it so much, and finds the services to be such a good deal that he actually spends more.

Those are just a "few" examples off the top of my head about why I will never use Bell Sympatico (at least until they change their ways, which I question the possibility of).

- Andrew.

[lcdguy]

i would have to agree with andrew on this. I too use teksavvy and of all the companies i have dealt with over the years they have had the best customer support. I would have starchoice as my TV if my apartment faced south.

[TorontoSage]

Originally Posted by aclarke

Oh man, where do I start? Let me start with their latest jewel, of shipping 2wire routers to their customers with a HUGE KNOWN SECURITY VULNERABILITY. And yes, that deserves to be in caps. From a remote web site, your router can have its default password changed, and from there unimportant little pages like your bank's web site can be easily diverted to a page in Kyrgistan and next thing you know all your money's gone. I was able to verify this myself and was able to change my password from the URL string without knowing my password. Brilliant. Known exploits are in the wild and Bell is still shipping these things, and has no firmware upgrade in place. You still like Sympatico?

I was one of the first 100 customers for Bell Sympatico DSL over 10 years ago. I called Bell and it turns out I have one of the old accounts that is grandfathered so I have unlimited download at 5 mpbs and upload, which I pay $50/month for. If I want to downgrade to a slower speed, which I do, I have to accept the download/upload limitations that come with it.

I have had the odd problem here and there and really want to wring the necks fo the guys on the end of the tech support line sometimes. It was fine when tech support was located in Canada as the service level was high, but once it moved overseas, it went down drastically.

I didn't know all of that about the 2Wire Gateway 2701HG-G wireless router that they sent me. Do you mean that when I go to my bank's website and engage in some transactions some else can access that page themselves by diverting it somewhere else while I am on the site. I am just not sure what you mean by diverting. The have to have already changed my router's password in order to do that right? How do they get my bank password?

Please explain.

Thanks