DSL + Bell Hell

the dief — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:38:00 -0800

Just moved into a new rental house in Hamilton, ON and I'm trying to get my DSL turned on, but oh boy. Me and Mrs. the dief moved to a new apartment last week that is a single unit that shares a house with a business, the operator of which owns the house. We have phone jacks in the unit, so I thought oh yes, now is the perfect time to throw Teksavvy, apparently Canada's best ISP, some money for dry loop DSL. I call them up, they take my money, they ship me a modem in lightning time, they have Bell come over to light up the switch last Monday, and nothing happens. No service. Figuring Bell messed up somehow I call Teksavvy back up and ask them to have Bell take a look at the line again. Bell comes out, declares nothing wrong and that the problem is inside the house with the wiring. Considering that as a possibility, I get the landlord to come out and that's where things get interesting.

Apparently the house was at one time some sort of office or switching station for Rogers and there is a *crazy, crazy* number of phone lines in the basement. Like a junction box with at least 12 lines going in. The landlord follows wires around, does his best to rewire, tries a bunch of different things, still no light up on the modem. After me trying to explain that it's phone service but there's no phone number and him just barely believing me, I'm not sure where to go from here. Someone else suggested that it might be the modem and if I plug a phone into the line I could perhaps hear noise or some indication that the DSL was turned on.

So, any suggestions? Will plugging in a phone result in noise and therefore an indication that I have a busted modem and not a bad/wrong DSL? Is it possible that Bell flipped one of the kajillions of nonworking phone lines that go into the house and is just being, well, Bell about things? Can I hook up something to either end of the phone line that will tell me if there's a break somewhere in the middle? Should I be pressuring the landlord to call a real phone tech instead of trying to do it themselves? Is this something Bell can be forced to repair or diagnose?

Recommend a DSL modem?

dobbs — Thu, 24 May 2007 09:42:03 -0800

I'm in need of a DSL modem (details inside) and am wondering if I'm better off buying one or renting one from my (soon-to-be) provider. Any suggestions on brand or things to avoid is appreciated. So I'm going with DSL. I'm on a Mac. I'm in Toronto, Canada. Provider will be TekSavvy.

I need a modem that supports G.DMT (or G.D.M.T. ?)

The provider's cheapest modem is $125 (canadian) and is single port. Multi/wireless unit is $165.

I have a desktop and a wireless laptop. However, I rarely if ever connect the laptop to the internet, even thru wireless--so unless the wireless or second port capability is cheap, it's probably not a must-have.

Suggestions?

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DSL + Bell Hell

Recommend a DSL modem?