CRTC declares broadband internet a basic service!

[DANSPEED]

BTW, power bars DO cause a lot of strange issues. The call center folks lean on it quite heavily at times, but it IS a valid troubleshooting step that may actually save you time instead of waiting on a technician to come and find out it's your *bleep* power bar and charging you for their call out. Have patience with the call center people, they have certain things that they HAVE to ask or it could quite literally cost them their jobs. If you ask for a technician, and it's an in home issue. Be prepared to pay.

Possibly if a modem randomly resets but my complaint was a speed issue. My speed would drop from an advertised 6Mbps down to 1Mbps and tech support blamed my power bar! They never did come out or solve my slow speed. I downgraded to lite speed then some time later Woodenhead suggested I switch to TekSavvy. Now with TekSavvy my speed is always near advertised.

... could quite literally cost them their jobs.

Good!

[Woodenhead]

I am thinking of buying a home in a remote location. I won't go where there is no phone service, but will have satellite TV. Can I get internet service via satellite?

Just wait for a little while:

SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

[Loed]

Have patience with the call center people, they have certain things that they HAVE to ask or it could quite literally cost them their jobs

Good!

Why would you want people to lose their jobs?

Seems pretty extreme for affecting you in such a minor manner.

[Loed]

BTW, power bars DO cause a lot of strange issues. The call center folks lean on it quite heavily at times, but it IS a valid troubleshooting step that may actually save you time instead of waiting on a technician to come and find out it's your *bleep* power bar and charging you for their call out. Have patience with the call center people, they have certain things that they HAVE to ask or it could quite literally cost them their jobs. If you ask for a technician, and it's an in home issue. Be prepared to pay

Great post thank-you. I did want to comment on this statement. Got a lot of experience with desktop support and rarely do I find problems caused by a powerbar outside of a no power scenario. About the only thing I've seen is with the fancy surge protector bars that are designed to protect your Ethernet adapter/port from a surge in addition to protecting AC power. Seen these fail causing lack of network connection while still powering the computer.

Everyone's experience is different, but I'd say for every powerbar failure I've diagnosed 5 power supply failures. And only once has the powerbar failure manifested as something I'd call a "Strange Issue". We do use simple good quality bars tho. Your experience may differ if you use those fancy "protect everything" bars or the "10 power bars for $30" specials off of ebay.

Having said that - If the call center folks aren't checking the basics like power/plugged in and "Did you reboot?" they'll get a good tongue lashing when the techs report the resolution. My very 1st dispatch call as a young computer tech was just this. Customer came back from vacation and her laptop wouldn't power on. Call center confirmed that it was plugged in....to a power bar that was turned off.

Pro-Tip: The reason you ask to bypass the power bar is because it actually forces the user to reset their device. 9/10 times the user will just say "ok I did it", having actually done nothing. The problem is many uneducated phone support reps lean on that now and actually blame the power bar when it was just the actual reset of the device that fixed things.

Also, please, for the love of everything, do not route your phone, ethernet, or cable through you power bar. It's no longer needed and very regularly causes issues.

I have seen power bars cause issues with rebooting, but it's a rare one off, usually involving some archaic power bar that should have been put to pasture decades ago.

[maryjane48]

so loed back to my complaint if i do speed tests and it seems decent then when watching stream or playing game i get lag even with games on ps4 which sets graphics and such automaticaly . i got shaw 150 package and know about resetting shaws routers . im wondering if i got my own router and plugged that into shaws

[DANSPEED]

My price dropped. Location doesn't matter. Many customers not only got a price reduction, but at the same time got a speed increase. Here's an example: http://i.imgur.com/HLVOCOC.png

TekSavvy rocks.

I think location does matter because my price stayed the same. Maybe they didn't like me calling their contest "TekSavvy 12 Days of BS!"

[Woodenhead]

I believe there's more price drops rolling out on the 16th, so keep an eye out.

[Loed]

so loed back to my complaint if i do speed tests and it seems decent then when watching stream or playing game i get lag even with games on ps4 which sets graphics and such automaticaly . i got shaw 150 package and know about resetting shaws routers . im wondering if i got my own router and plugged that into shaws

Gaming lag could be the servers, could be the route TO the servers your data is taking. Could be many things.

Are you hardwired, or on wifi? If you are using wifi, that's very likely your issue right there. Try running an ethernet run to your PC/PS4pro and see how things go before wasting money on a new router that will probably do the same thing.

The newest routers that telus and shaw use are really quite good as far as wifi coverage and reliability goes. That said, wifi in general is crap just due to how much noise is in the air affecting those signals. If you can do a simple test using wifi, and then hardwired via an ethernet run, you'll find out where the culprit is.

[TylerM4]

Pro-Tip: The reason you ask to bypass the power bar is because it actually forces the user to reset their device. 9/10 times the user will just say "ok I did it", having actually done nothing. The problem is many uneducated phone support reps lean on that now and actually blame the power bar when it was just the actual reset of the device that fixed things.

I suppose a poorly run call center may use such a practice. My experience is mostly dealing with a more professional service desk. If the agents can't tell if a customer actually rebooted a PC or not, then frankly - they're incompetent and don't belong on the team. Sure, use that as an excuse when you know the PC wasn't actually rebooted. But not otherwise.

Also, please, for the love of everything, do not route your phone, ethernet, or cable through you power bar. It's no longer needed and very regularly causes issues.

Good advice. Not sure who it's aimed at, but this has never been my practice so there's no reason to tell me not to do it. In fact, we take it a step further. We do not recommend surge protectors at all. Same goes with UPS power/backup on a PC. I won't do it. All of that stuff causes more problems than it prevents.

[kelownman]

Also, please, for the love of everything, do not route your phone, ethernet, or cable through you power bar. It's no longer needed and very regularly causes issues.

Good advice.

I have heard about the power bar issue but....
how do you plug in

3 monitors
computer desktop
router
cable modem
phone ATA
hub
2 usb chargers
external hard drive
speaker set up
lamp
printer
scanner
headset

without using a powerbar or surge protector/power bar?

similar to my TV setup, I have

the TV
xbox
dvd player
speakers
cable box

[Loed]

I suppose a poorly run call center may use such a practice. My experience is mostly dealing with a more professional service desk. If the agents can't tell if a customer actually rebooted a PC or not, then frankly - they're incompetent and don't belong on the team. Sure, use that as an excuse when you know the PC wasn't actually rebooted. But not otherwise.

It had nothing to do with the call center or employees themselves, but rather the volume of incoming calls and demand on shorter calls. When you have an obtuse or stubborn caller, you can tell when they are not doing what you are asking them to do, so you use tricks to get them to do what you want them to do. We're talking at the general ISP level, not IT calling into IT. It's a whole different monster.

Also, please, for the love of everything, do not route your phone, ethernet, or cable through you power bar. It's no longer needed and very regularly causes issues.

Good advice. Not sure who it's aimed at, but this has never been my practice so there's no reason to tell me not to do it. In fact, we take it a step further. We do not recommend surge protectors at all. Same goes with UPS power/backup on a PC. I won't do it. All of that stuff causes more problems than it prevents.[/quote]

This was aimed at everyone, just in general. I've seen far too many with the phone/ethernet or cable line "filtered" through the monster power bar(nonsense for another thread).

Not recommending surge protectors to avoid brand loyalty and avoiding overloading a circuit is one thing. Not using them at all is hilarious. A decet UPS($150+) will act as a filter for dirty power. Leveling out fluctuations in voltage and avoiding surges. A good power bar with proper surge protection does save equipment, they tend to float around the $30+ range.



@Kelownaman - Just don't buy cheap-o ones. Check amazon, check bestbuy, check with your techie/sparky friends for recommendations. Obviously we need them these days.
When I say don't router your phone, ethernet or cable, I mean the lines themselves, not the router devices.

[TylerM4]

Not recommending surge protectors to avoid brand loyalty and avoiding overloading a circuit is one thing. Not using them at all is hilarious. A decet UPS($150+) will act as a filter for dirty power. Leveling out fluctuations in voltage and avoiding surges. A good power bar with proper surge protection does save equipment, they tend to float around the $30+ range.

On paper, as you've pointed out. A UPS could have a lot of benefit. On PAPER. The reality is that they introduce more problems than they prevent. Do you have experience supporting a fleet of devices and UPS's? I've done analysis on failure rates with and without UPS protection. I've removed all UPS's from the fleet (only servers get backup power now) and it's been wonderful. Way less problems overall and it's been a huge money saver. I'll never go back. Every UPS will fail at some point and at a minimum require an expensive battery replacement. Very few make it past 5 years. It costs the same to replace a motherboard or power supply as it does to replace a UPS. 5 year average failure rate on enterprise devices is currently 5% without UPS protection. 5 year failure rate for UPS - 90%. Are you starting to see where I'm going here?

Back in the 80s and 90s computer power supplies weren't as robust. Electronics have come a long way. The same $5 worth of circuitry that's in your common $15 surge protector is now built into every power supply. Stand alone surge protectors became redundant over a decade ago. Also - Power companies have made tremendous improvements for the same reasons. Surges are much less common as a result.

[DANSPEED]

UPS, power bars? ... this is really getting off topic!

I believe there's more price drops rolling out on the 16th, so keep an eye out.

TekSavvy is still advertising the same old prices. I'd rather see a speed increase, especially upload than a price drop.

[maryjane48]

when i called tek savy where i live they told me i have pay 500 up front to get going . i hope that changes

[Loed]

On paper, as you've pointed out. A UPS could have a lot of benefit. On PAPER. The reality is that they introduce more problems than they prevent. Do you have experience supporting a fleet of devices and UPS's? I've done analysis on failure rates with and without UPS protection. I've removed all UPS's from the fleet (only servers get backup power now) and it's been wonderful. Way less problems overall and it's been a huge money saver. I'll never go back. Every UPS will fail at some point and at a minimum require an expensive battery replacement. Very few make it past 5 years. It costs the same to replace a motherboard or power supply as it does to replace a UPS. 5 year average failure rate on enterprise devices is currently 5% without UPS protection. 5 year failure rate for UPS - 90%. Are you starting to see where I'm going here?

Back in the 80s and 90s computer power supplies weren't as robust. Electronics have come a long way. The same $5 worth of circuitry that's in your common $15 surge protector is now built into every power supply. Stand alone surge protectors became redundant over a decade ago. Also - Power companies have made tremendous improvements for the same reasons. Surges are much less common as a result.

I've dealt with extremely large device roll-outs. UPS's and surge protectors we're not a concern as they just weren't worth it for the cost, depending on the application(as you observed). Management sure doesn't need them given that they only use mobile devices(tablets, laptops, phones) and those all contain their own regulated power supplies. Just like you, we only used them in mission critical locations(servers/dedicated machines, etc). They(UPS's) regulated power fluctuations and removed a variable for us.

That said, for a home user, depending on their needs(here we go again, evaluating individual needs instead of blanketing everyone the same...) they can be quite useful. Back up power has it's use in many instances. Heck some surge protectors come with a replacement guarantee!

I'm going to let you in on an industry secret(pro-tip: it's not a secret). The batteries for common APC style ups systems are cheap, like $15-25 cheap, relatively easy to replace, and if the scenario needs it, invaluable. Also, those tiny little SLA batteries are only designed to last 3-5 years. In a properly run organization, those with the battery back-ups in use would replace them every 2-3 years as the cost is negligible and if they were put in place that means the cost benefit analysis was already done and came up positive to do so. Not sure what you were doing to have the entire units fail around the 5 year mark. Sounds like neglect of the recommended service schedule.

Every UPS will fail at some point? Sure, that's life with electronics. Too many variables come into play here though. A system can fail for many reasons, that's why they are monitored. I regularly service UPS systems that have been in place for 30+ years. Only thing we change out is the batteries(and sometimes fuel), because batteries(and fuel) have an expected life span.

Hardware these days is very fault tolerant, yes. Most data on machines is now centrally located and if a machine fails for whatever reason it's basically a zero cost to get them up and running again with zero loss. Home isn't the same, as houses introduce a ton of variables that you or I cannot foresee without testing. Computer power supplies by and large do not have a circuit breaker(surge protector). There are some that do, of course, but most are just fused.... If that at all. They handle voltage variations much better now though, but often than not they don't come back after getting over-volted. Here's some light reading: http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/Power_Supply_Design_Guide_Desktop_Platform_Rev_1_2.pdf. This doesn't take into account every single manufacturer's variations though.

Not every person needs them, but they are a valuable piece of hardware found in every mission critical installation worth it's salt. In your case, they didn't make sense. Why would every person need one? They don't.

Also, stand alone surge protectors are not redundant. They can save your life and your hardware. Surges are not less common, they are just better understood and controlled/inhibited from the outside rather than letting the households take the hit. We are also VERY lucky in Canada as our distribution grid is very well maintained and built. Smaller towns, third world countries, heck a lot of the states even have very poor power grids prone to surges, more commonly sags, and full on brown outs. Yes even low voltage can damage your electronics! In fact, brown outs are the bigger threat to your electronics than surges are.

Most consumer power bars/surge protectors are basically just fancy extension cords with some light protection built in, and some tend to hurt the AC coming in more than help it. They should also be replaced yearly depending on the quality of manufacturer you've purchased from.

Anyways, yes. I've done the research and investigations. I was being very general with my being appalled, just as you were with your statement of not recommending them. We can easily agree that every case is slightly different and that there wouldn't be so many options if things were redundant for over a decade.... This horse is well beaten now.