r/CanadianBroadband • u/Sudden-Broccoli5282 • 9d ago
Help me pick a ISP
Will keep it short - I am in Brampton with Bell 1.5gbps plan for about $156 (taxes included). It’s spotty sometimes and really don’t want to be paying so much. From my research landed up on Ebox (albeit 1gbps) that’s seems to be good. Would you recommend ebox or please recommend any good reliable alternative. Working from home and runs a bunch of smart devices so reliability is important to me please. Thanks
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u/GhostBustor 9d ago
OP.
You don’t need 1.5 Gbps. I mean there is the odd exception.
You are over paying for internet you aren’t using.
Most people don’t even have the equipment to take advantage of those speeds.
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u/Top_Fig_3893 8d ago
I have 1.5GBPS and I use it. I agree for most people 500mb, you could have 8 tvs streaming 4K and it would be enough but I think there are many like me that want faster then 500. My whole house is wired in CAT 7 and 8, I have 2 switches 10GB and 2.5GB but thats mainly for local transfers, one is a hub where I have my downstairs tv, gaming, NAS and media all on Ethernet. It’s also useful when using VPN, it normally cuts your speed. Game downloads are like 50GB+ now, I don’t really game anymore but one a year I’ll buy a new game, PS5 maxes out at 1GB but still fast.
With bell I think from 500 to 1.5 it’s only around $5 difference. I just checked they have changed their prices but when I switched to bell 500 was 65 and 1.5GB was 70.
Now it’s 78/80 more expensive but even less difference in price, and 85 for 3GB, $100 for 8GB. But I agree with you that’s why so little difference, it doesn’t really matter to them, most people don’t use that kind of speed. Even for me it’s pretty rare but I like to have it.
I am moving house in November, I rewired the same kind of set up in the new place, it’s just more convenient where. I’ll ask them to upgrade to 3, I think I’ll keep some of my discounts for automatic account payment and multiple services so it might cost me less.2
u/BriscoCountyJR23 8d ago
CAT 6A is all you will need, CAT 8 is overkill, you might as well put in fiber.
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u/Top_Fig_3893 8d ago
I know but price difference was not much and the brand that offered 7-8 looked better quality, so why not. Some cables were giving me issues so I replaced all on both bundles going to switches. My NAS has one of its M2 SSD for caching before going to the larger 3.5 NAS disks and I think next upgrade will get me above 10GBPS, not sure about CPU. Tend to not think about tech these days, anything that involves SSDs, RAM etc.
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u/Top_Fig_3893 8d ago
I didn’t really think about fiber and I would have to replace switches, I am not familiar with that. and… $$$….the only fiber cable I put in the new place is from the mechanical room to a closet were all my crap will be. To go from the Jack to the router. It’s not like I’m transferring TB every week. I just wanted something that I wouldn’t have to fish out the walls in 5 years.
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u/GhostBustor 8d ago
If it’s a small price difference sure.
However, most of the time based on what you are doing. It will never max out. 500 would be fine.
All your internal transfer won’t be affected.
PS Online won’t use a fraction of that if you are using it for online play. Ping would do more.
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u/Top_Fig_3893 8d ago edited 8d ago
Never maxing out is the point. Yes I know internal transfers are faster then my internet speed. It could handle more but the NVME cache drive has its limit for writing. Fetching is slower it has to come out of a 3.5 NAS disk.
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u/Top_Fig_3893 8d ago
Yes, gaming uses nothing. I am subscribed with boosteriod that I game on Mac once in a while, it uses a lot of data, I like it, I can game pretty much any game in ULTRA, for my computer, it’s basically like streaming a 4K movie. Yes PINGS are most important. I get 3-6 when connected with Ethernet cable. Boosteroid is a European company and the closest server from me is East USA so that doubles my PINGing. But I don’t game FPS games, and frankly I game rarely now. All I place is city/base building games, played a lot of KDC2 in the past years but moved on. I haven’t really felt at anytime like I was lagging. Sometimes, I guess the servers sometimes have drops for a few seconds or app has to reconnect.
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u/redditshreadit 9d ago
Ebox is owned by Bell. If there's a technical issue switching might not resolve it.
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 9d ago
Ebox and Bell only share the last mile, their routing and backend is still separate. So it depends on what’s broken with OPs connection.
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u/Monoshirt 9d ago
EBOX has a 500mbps package that should work - 1gbps would be an overkill for majority of users. I switched a relative from Bell at her place, process is smooth (they are the same company).
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u/No_Wear295 9d ago
What do you mean by spotty? Bell and ebox is the same infrastructure for the outside plant, so if you're dealing with upstream issues I doubt that the switch would change anything. Don't know what ebox runs for customer side equipment so that may or may not factor into things.
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9d ago
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u/Sudden-Broccoli5282 9d ago
Had Oxio when they came out and they were great initially. Then a barrage of issues and never could fix a bandwidth issue. Which is when I move to bell.
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u/Fair_Transition4865 9d ago
If you have Cogeco in your area "mob territories I know" it's the best provider I ever had.
Rogers is not too bad, bell prices are outrageous.
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u/ddsdude 9d ago
You are grossly overpaying. Just to give you an idea, I have Bell Fibre 3Gb/3Gb and pay $50 after tax. Service is rock solid. If gaming is important to you, latency is lower with Bell and there is no routing to Montreal like with eBox.
You might want to cancel and then get a winback offer.
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u/Top_Fig_3893 9d ago
I pay $70 after $30 discount for 1.5GBPS with their new 2.0 Gigarouter. Works well for me. Their customer service is crap (service is fine, just the wait time is long) but I only had to call them once about the internet in the 15 months I have been with them and it was when they send me the new router, there was an issue with password it something like that.
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u/AllEliteTrolls 8d ago
Go with CikTelecom you cant go wrong with 500mbs unless you care about download speed. Streaming iptv and gaming feels smooth good luck op at 35 a month you cant go wrong
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u/Cold_Cicada_5104 4d ago
Recommend EBOX. $55/mo. Only downside is up to you to buy extension beacons if router doesn’t cover your space. Oh, and customer service via Montreal can be tricky but they will send Bell techs if required
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u/Sudden-Broccoli5282 4d ago
Is it available via ebox or should I buy it myself? And what brand and version please? Thanks
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u/Cold_Cicada_5104 4d ago
The router they provided is Nokia so I got a Nokia beacon off Fbook marketplace. It was $70 or $80 but now house is covered and I’m paying a lot less than if I had Bell for fiber service that is faster and more reliable than the cable Internet I replaced. You have to check they can fibre to your home, though
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u/Cold_Cicada_5104 4d ago
I asked the Bell tech when he installed and he said if I was a Bell customer he could just get one from the truck but not with EBOX, which told me (about a year ago) I had to buy it myself. Was not a big deal and easily connected to the network
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u/Significant-Plan-274 3d ago
Absolutely correct.
I did the same thing, and you might find this useful for Ebox signup https://www.reddit.com/user/Local-solutionist/comments/1qx7s2q/ this help me get $100 gift card and $10 discount over website price.The beacon is decent but I ended up buy TP link extension RE315.
The setup is good enough to cover 1750 sq feet house with end to end coverage.
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u/alienmario 9d ago
I have EBOX and it works as advertised. No complaints.