Bell Sympatico Highspeed

th3ha1og0d

th3ha1og0d

New Member
A few months back we switched to Bell high speed DSL which performs better than what we previously had (Rogers). We made the switch just before Bell introduced the 7mb/s down and 1mb/s up, so from what they have told me we are supposed to be getting 5 mb/s down and 800kb/s up. This is adequate for our uses but somehow I feel we are getting jipped on our upstream bandwidth. When I test on speedtest.net I always get a consistent 4300-4400 kb/s download speed which seems right but uploads are only around 430kb/s (these results are consistent all day, and I have tested on a wired and wireless connection on two different routers yielding the same results, I have even plugged directly into the modem and gotten the exact same results. I looked on google and apparently one guy called Bell and they boosted his upload profile so he would get upload speeds much closer to 800kb/s rather than 512kb/s. I have this funny feeling that Bell has us on 512kb/s instead of 800kb/s as they told me. I called Bell yesterday and the guy said my upload was 800kb/s, so why am I getting about half that? Is this something to be concerned with or is this about right, and does anybody else have any experience with Bell High speed? Thanks alot.

Here are the results: [URL=http://www.speedtest.net][/URL]
 
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it says on the bottom that it is a Siemens Speedstream 4200. Also the guy yesterday I was talking to said that we have the highest line rating of 16, and he said that means we could potentially switch up to the highest service they have of 16mb/s down and 1mb/s up. So I don't think that line degradation/distance is affecting it much.
 
No we are not currently subscribed for the 7mbps speed. Currently we are subscribed to the 5mbps speed which offers 800kbps upload. However the tech. told me we could upgrade to 7mbps or even 16mbps if we wanted to.
 
I still think it has something to do with the modem you have. You should probably give a call to tech support and ask them for a new modem as this one is not preforming well in upload speeds.

Another thing you might take into consideration is to probably upgrade from 5mbps to 7mbps.
 
Will do. I know there are too many variables to get exactly what is promised, but I'm getting about half the upload speed that they are promising which isn't very good. I'll inquire about a new modem and about upgrading the service, but even if I upgrade to the 7mbps service my upload speed may still be crippled if the modem is bad. Thanks for your help.
 
No problem!

Also tell the support team to do a speed test from their end and ask them to make sure you are on the "high speed" package because sometimes they might have you down as a "high speed" customer but you are actually put on the DSL basic speed for downloading/uploading.
 
I'll ask them to do that as well. I was looking around on the internet about the 4200 vs 5200 modems for upload speeds and found a guy that did a comparison with them, and he found that download speeds were identical but upload speeds on the 4200 were about half of what they were on the 5200. I wonder how hard it would be to convince them to send out a new modem...
 
One thing is the 4200 is an older model than the 5200. And as technology changes, the hardware needs to change to. The 5200 is also a old model to, however in comparison to the 4200 it is much better.

Making them send you a modem should not be too hard.
 
Sounds good, I'll call tomorrow and see what they're prepared to do about this, and I'll post again about whether or not they want to replace the modem, again thanks for the help.
 
I called Bell today and talked to somebody, I kid you not they said that my line "had some errors" and they said that they would attempt to fix them. They told me that they would "boost" my upload speed so that it would be around 600kbps and they told me that it may cause my download speed to dip slightly. I then inquired about the modem and they insisted that it wouldn't make a difference if they swapped it out. They then offered to upgrade me to the 7mbps down/1mbps up service from my 5mbps down/800kbps up service that I am on now and they told me that for one full year the cost on my bill would be reduced from 47 dollars to 44 dollars, and I accepted the offer. They said it would take a few days for me to see the increase in speed but so far my speed has dropped dramatically and ping times have increased by alot. I guess this is just a side effect of them upgrading my service? I called in again and they said my case had been escalated and that I would see the change soon. I power cycled my modem and router and speeds have stayed the same. I will keep doing that for the next few days until my connection gets upgraded...

But still though this doesn't make sense:

I'm guessing the decrease in performance is due to them doing something to my line, because in the past few months I have not seen any decreases in speed at all.
 
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I posted directly on DSL reports so that a Sympatico rep could look at my situation. Apparently there was a "glitch" and my profile got switched down to 1.7mb profile. They quickly fixed it for me but for some reason they said I was not getting full upload speed and so they are sending me a new modem! Excellent. Currently they have me on the 6mb profile and they are going to switch me to the 7mb profile once I connect the new modem which should be here tomorrow or Monday. :) With a new modem I guess I will get a nice boost in upload speed, because here is what I am getting atm with the old modem and on 6mb profile: [URL=http://www.speedtest.net][/URL]

EDIT: Bell called me back saying that they did some testing and that the reason for the slower upload speed was that some equipment in our area needed maintenance. So for less money I get a new modem, maintenance on the lines and upgraded speed. Can't thank you enough.
 
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new modem being sent to me is Bell 2 wire modem. From what I understand this is a modem + wifi router in one. Assuming Bell fixes some of the lines and it ends up not being the old 4200 modem at fault for the slow uploads I'd really rather continue using my Linksys router to manage my network. Would you recommend sticking with the old modem or using the new 2wire modem and then bridging it to my Linksys router? because my connection with the original modem and Linksys router is extremely stable and I'd hate to install a new modem, send the old one back and then start to have problems...
 
I received the 2wire modem from Bell and set it up. It fixed my upload speed problem and now I am getting over 600kbps. Since I wanted to use my Linksys router as the gateway instead of the 2wire modem I simply went into the settings for the 2wire modem and disabled the wireless, I also turned off all of the firewall settings (so that it won't conflict with my Linksys firewall). Should I have left the Bell 2wire modem firewall on or off? I did firewall tests and the Linksys firewall works well, so I'd rather just leave the 2wire firewall off altogether to avoid any conflicts.

Also you know what the funny thing is? After all that haggling with Bell to send out a new modem they insisted that the modem wasn't at fault. And it was!
 
Sorry to trouble you again soccerdude... but problems are arising again :( I'll sum it up for you.

1. I hooked up new modem. Was constantly getting 5100kbps down and 670 kbps up with good pings to speedtest servers (like 20-40 depedning on the server). I was told I was on a 6mbps fastpath connection.

2. They switched my line to a new remote (RSLAM DLSLAM whatever its called) and my download speeds went up (after switching to new remote they upgraded me to full 7mbps speed but INTERLEAVED and not fastpath) to around 6000kbps down and 700kbps up, but ping times went up by around 20-30ms for all servers. So I thought to myself, I'd rather have the lower ping times and sacrifice a little speed. So I talk to them and have them switch me back to a 6mbps fastpath connection...and the rep said she did it and all is good, but now my speeds have shot down to around 4500kbps down 550 kbps up and ping times are through the ROOF (on 6mbps fastpath before i got 20-40ms, on the 7mbps interleaved i got 40-60ms, and now I am getting 100ms!!) They say this is normal, feed me BS and now I am afraid I am stuck with this lousy pingtime!!! I really want them to fix this!!! What do I have to do to get them to fix this, I think they are sick of me calling them, really, and I dont know if they will authorize a technician to go out and move my line to the original remote that it was on...If you have any advice or if anyone else on the forum has advice for this please...help...would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks again soccerdude.
 
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