how-to block ads
|
»next review in page
 Review by Kemistry 
UPDATED: 99 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 672 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Canada
 $49 per month
 about 7 days
 "Fast consistent speeds, Unlimited Bandwidth, No Throttling, Local CSR's."
 "Some CSR's don't seem very knowledgeable."
 "For quality & value of service in N.B. choose Aliant!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I am going on my 5th month of service with Aliant and hardly have a thing to complain about. I continuously get consistent speeds which are actually faster than advertised, about 5420/620 (advertised as "up to" 5000/640. Also, I get unlimited bandwidth and no throttling of BT. I haven't had any issues since the service was activated but before I had to deal with a couple CSR's which were a bit misinformed but other then that it's been great!
I was previously with Rogers on the Express tier and experienced nothing but headaches such as daily disconnects, throttling and of course monthly caps. I am so glad I made the switch to Aliant. Like I mentioned above I am only 5 months in so I will periodically update this review with any changes if they happen but judging from the present I don't think that will be necessary.
*Update* 10/31/2008:
I'm still with Aliant, I now have a value package consisting of home telephone, T.V. & ultra high-speed Internet. As far as internet is concerned (because that was the focus of my initial review) I have never experienced a single moment of downtime, I have never experienced any throttling and there are still no caps. Overall it's been well over a year now and I am satisfied with all Aliant services and plan to never choose Rogers again.
*Update* 5/14/2009:
All is still good in Aliantville however I've learned not too long ago that they have changed their name to none other than...BellAliant. I hope despite the name change that we will get the same quality of service in Atlantic Canada, meaning no caps or throttling unlike their practices in Ontario & Quebec. Actually I do have one minor complaint and that would be for them to finally upgrade their backbone so that they can offer faster speeds to T.V. subscribers since they have all of 14 Mbps total bandwidth available. Oh well they are leaps and bounds above Rogers any day of the week.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
 | »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by insomx
UPDATED: 266 days ago
member for 6.7 years, 2809 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Canada
$45 per month
about 2 days
"Customer service is english speaking, unlimited download, no throttling"
"Great Company"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
Feb 15 09
I now have Aliant in Fredericton. I'm rather far from the CO so it took them a couple weeks to provide me with a stable connection. It's been steady since, but we do see large speed flucations at which the modem sycs at. Sometimes it's 3mbps, sometimes its' 6mbps. Either way we still like it a lot more than anything Rogers can provideo as there aren't any limits or restrictions of any kind.
So overall Aliant is one of the few ISPs left that don't trottle, and that alone is enough to rate them highly.
April 17 08
They seem to have stopped throttling! It may have been some time ago but I don't get to go home much. They are not blocking any ports or throttling anything at all. Makes you wonder why such a small ISP can handle their network w/o thorrtling while Bell and Rogers can't.
******************************************
Dec. 24 '07:
******************************************
Why do good things never last? Our one year contact ended a couple months ago and I was planning on staying off contract so I wouldn't be locked in. Guess what they did? They automatically signed me up for another one year contract for 10 dollars more a month for only 1.5mbps. I called them up and asked why this happened. They said they automatically renew contracts and you have to call and tell them if you don't want this to happen. Their rates also have gone up A LOT over the past year and the new contract did not make that much better.
So now long story short, I got out of the contact they auto-renewed me for (after tons of pain), but I'm at 1.5mbps for a whooping 45 bucks a month!!
It looks like they have also started to throttle lightly...what a tick off...
I heard rumours that TekSavvy will be coming to NB in the spring, I sure hope this is true...ditch this crappy ISP...even though Rogers isn't any better.
******************************************
Oct. 27 '06:
******************************************
Great service! It's an unbeatable price of $35 for a one year contract. Rogers is $52 for the same speed, but crappier service.
I still can't get over the no-throttling on Bit-Torrent. I can download at full speeds 24/7. I could only attain around 3-10kB/s with Rogers.
There aren't any download caps, nor any hidden caps. Completely unlimited and it is advertised as unlimited also.
Only thing I don't like is the modem/router they give out. It's unreliable for heavy downloading, but that is only when using it in Router mode. I let my own router control my internet and use their modem just as a bridge. This way works fine. Keep in mind I am a VERY HEAVY internet user with 2 computers and a server running.
Excellent service!
******************************************
Sept. 29 '06:
******************************************
I love Bell Aliant DSL. It is really fast, no bit torrent throttling, no download caps and really reliable. For $35 a month, it can't be beat! To compare to their competitor, for $52 a month you get the same speed, a 100GB download/upload cap a month, massive throttling on bit torrent so it becomes dial up and terrible realiabilty. All this for 17 a month more!
I've had no complaint yet of my downloading, and it's been overall great.
It is a PPPoE service with dynamic IPs. I just let the router perform the login stuff so I don't need to worry about it.
My profile is 7.2mbps down, but I'm on interleave so I get 20ms pings on my first hop and about 60-70ms to google.ca. When I first signed up I was on a 1mbps profile, I called and 2 days later I was bumped up to 7.
Followup comments:  
Matt_s
@aliant.net | Bittorrent throttling has started at Aliant Please note the statements about Aliant not throttling bittorrent traffic are no longer true as of December 2007 (and probably a month or two before that). | |
| |
insomx
Premium
join:2003-01-26
Canada | Re: Bittorrent throttling has started at Aliant I'm at university at the moment, so I cannot test this, but this really sucks if that's true. | |
| VeryGood
join:2006-02-04
Tignish, PE | It's not true... Aliant does not throttle at all. | |
| |
insomx
Premium
join:2003-01-26
Canada | Re: It's not true... Which I mentioned in my latest review | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Mmmmick
Posted: 1.5 years ago
member for 5.2 years, 44 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
Saint John,NB
Contract price not specified.
"unstable, incosistent speeds, waste of money employee!!"
| |
5 meg ultra never better than 2.4 meg has never been addressed by isp over 8 year period.
useless for gaming due to incosistent speed and dropouts.
I am a retired employee and embarassed to acknowledge that fact.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Samson27
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 1.9 years, 43 visits, last login: 329 days ago
Bathurst,NB
$45 per month
about 1 days
 Bell Canada
"Reliable"
"New modem seems to limit uploads to 5080kbps"
"Very satisfied"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
Good service - have never seriously considered switching to cable. Can't see that I would benefit. Have managed to get the speed above 5080 a few times but suspect that it is the reliablity of the test and not the actual speed.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by delldude190
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 2 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
Corner Brook,NL
Contract price not specified.
"Good Speed, Awesome price, no throttling, Free full supported wireless modem (SpeedStream 6520)"
"Wireless on SpeedSteam 6520 not as great as dlink or linksys"
"if you live in atlantic canada and Aliant High Seed is available, go with it"
| |
well since we move to the city there are 2 options for High Seed internet available, Rogers and Bell Aliant so i chose bell aliant over the fact that rogers has bandwidth throttling in which aliant don't
the speed we get currently is about 5Mb downstream and about 450 Up which in my opinion is really great for the 29.95 per month with a free Wireless modem and no modem rental fee + 4 free Aliant Security Sevices with the Ultra Service
i ordered on tuesday July 16 and it was ready to go by the 20th when we moved in, a technician had to come and install it because the self install option was not available here but the technicians were very polite and friendly and very through on how everything worked
The modem i got was the SpeedStream 6520 flashed with Aliant Firmware which in my opinion took away alot of the functionality of the modem\router, like firewall features but with a coule hackes you can make those available again
The only bad experience we had so far was we had to get the modem replaced because it decided it didnt wanna work anymore so a quick call to tech suport was all it took, within a week the same technician came back and swaped out the ld modem fir a new SpeedStream 6520
Over all the service is GREAT so is the price and the equipment
Followup comments: |
hackless
@aliant.net
|  Eureka!
But then I read about setting up pppoe connections in XP and Vista, and that did it - I'm probably not describing it quite right, but it causes the 4200 to act like a modem and not a router, 'disabling' the 4200's firewall, opening up any ports I want to configure in Windows Firewall.
You live, you learn... | |
| delldude190
join:2007-11-02
Corner Brook, NL | Hidden DMZ Zone on the ss4200 series there is a hidden DMZ zone which will give you full open access to the internet bypassing all of the modems firewalls | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by thecid12345
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 17 visits, last login: 67 days ago
Halifax,NS
$44 per month (12 month contract)
about 2 days
"Quick,reliable,no hassle."
"Techs seem to have trouble diagnosing problems."
"Is well worth the bill every month."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
It was only a dispute with aliant vs. eastlink, aliant was much cheaper with a bundle, as well as eastlink telephone services fail with power outages here. I ordered the basic which gave me a speed around 1.5mbps and I am currently switching to their ultra. They included prof. installation for free and all equipment needed, it was a deal at the time.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next review in page (previous review)
 Review by DaJinx
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 2.2 years, 180 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
Moncton,NB
$34 per month
about 10 days
"Fast consitent speeds, Unlimited Bandwidth, No Throttling, Local CSR's."
"Some CSR's aren't very knowledgeable"
"For quality & value of service in N.B. choose Aliant!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I am going on my 3rd month of service with Aliant and hardly have a thing to complain about. I continuously get consistent speeds which are actually faster than advertised, about 5420/620 (advertised as "up to" 5000/640. Also, I get unlimited bandwidth and no throttling of BT. I haven't had any issues since the service was activated but before I had to deal with a couple CSR's which were a bit misinformed but other then that it's been great!
I was previously with Rogers on the Express tier and experienced nothing but headaches such as daily disconnects, throttling and of course monthly caps. I am so glad I made the switch to Aliant. Like I mentioned above I am only 3 months in so I will periodically update this review with any changes if they happen but judging from the present I don't think that will be necessary.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by techcafe
UPDATED: 2.1 years ago
member for 2.1 years, 8 visits, last login: 316 days ago
Halifax,NS
Contract price not specified.
"nothing is good about aliant"
"everything"
"aliant products & service suck"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
NBTel/Aliant is awful.
i am in halifax, ns and subscribed to Aliant's so-called 'Ultra High-Speed'
DSL service, but the absolute maximum speeds that i am able to get are
2.9Mbps and 0.3Mbps, downstream and upstream, respectively... and that's
under absolutely IDEAL conditions. oh, and did i mention the dropped
connections and DNS timeouts that constantly occur with Aliant's broadband
service?
i've e-mailed Aliant support and customer service on several occasions about
the slow speeds, etc... they simply don't care and have not gotten back to
me.
based on aliant's high cost of service, unreliable & slooow broadband and
poor customer service, i will be cancelling my aliant account in the near
future and switching to eastlink instead.
i definitely do NOT recommend Aliant to anyone for anything
sincerely / francis
Followup comments:
support 6556
@aliant.net
| Aliant High Speed just because it says 5.0MBPS does not mean that it is going to always be that sped.. a lot of things depend on that. Line Conditions, Distance from the CO ect.. the further from the CO you are the less the speed is going to be personally i usually get between 4.0 to 5.0 but the CO is just up the street i am on.. maybe try calling Tech Support at 1-800-773-2121 and they may be able to help you, but i doubt it cause you are in the range for Ultra... Hope it helps | |
|
zer
@aliant.net
| Aliant is as reliable as a k-car Aliant offers absolutely pitiful service, coupled with exceptional marketing. They can of course pay marketing droids to troll sites like dslreports to make it seem like they care, when they should be spending that money fixing their horribly unreliable service.
In my opinion internet on phone lines is just a match made in hell. They may have eventually reached fairly reasonable speeds, but you must be in exactly the right location, with exactly the right modem, streaming exactly the right test file from their server at exactly the right phase of the moon for it to actually work at all. The next day it will either be working at a tenth of the speed, or not at all. After a couple of calls to tech support you will regret ever dealing with them. | |
|
Dhalgren
@aliant.net
| Aliant Wow...I've used Aliant for over 6 years and rarely ever had dropped connections, have (almost) always had constantly high speeds (unlike my friends on Eastlink, who being at the mercy of bandwidth hogs in their area, are always complaining about their speeds dropping). And as for tech support...you get what you ask for depending on how you ask for it. From the tone of these posts I doubt you'd get anything...From anyone. Good luck. 
PS: Forums are a waste of time unless you're really just looking to whine. | |
|
Bignose
@aliant.net
| Aliant vs. Eastlink Dhalgren.
Sounds like you might be a little sensitive about the issue. Little concerned about your job?
I think forums are an excellent location to find out what people really think about a service. This is a great example. Recently I was looking into a high speed hookup for my house. Of course many of the examples I had heard about and read about regarding Aliant were all chalked up to disgruntled users who did not understand or "know how to use" their high speed hookup. So, I signed up. Lasted 2 weeks. Lousy connection, worse service. Went to Eastlink, excellent connection, excellent service.
Seems to me that the comments posted in this forum were pretty accurate.
| |
| |
Dhalgren
@aliant.net
| Re: Aliant vs. Eastlink Hardly. LOL. I've read posts in forums about all kinds of crap on LINKSYS routers and Asus motherboards where people did nothing but complain about everything and all I ever had to do was call the manufacturer to get problems solved while on the phone. Odd you can't accept that maybe I've had good service and instead chalk up my post to concern about my job. To bad you ended up with lousy service. Sucks to be you I guess. BTW I did try aliant's satellite TV service and it really does suck big time...but thats Downeast not aliant.
If you think forums are an excellent place to get info then you have pretty low requirements. | |
|
Bignose
@rogers.com
| RE: Aliant vs Eastlink Why are people so quick to automatically assume that because someone is pleased with a service that you may not be, they must work for them. C'mon, I'm a Rogers customer at the moment and am a former Aliant customer that will, indeed, be switching back due to Roger's inconsistent connection and their throttling. But of course, I must work for Aliant, so take what I say with a grain of salt. | |
|
BlueFoot
@aliant.net
| Turdlet Supreme Well my friend, A what a regret that will be. I have just found out for myself that the whole Rogers throttling may infact be a myth. At one point maybe...buuut no. I was just with rogers..about 2 weeks ago, switched to aliant to test the theory..Well was I ever wrong! speeds are worse..way worse, If I run a downloading program, such as a torrent program, slows the hell out of my browsing, never had that issue with rogers, my download speeds were great with rogers.. just thought since they may have been throttling, that Aliant would have something way better to offer..WRONG. not too mention Rogers is up to 7 and 8 and for a price 18Mbps. The only thing Rogers may be throttling is their upload speeds, which didnt reply matter to me a whole lot..It didnt affect my download speeds any. and aliant tech support..I hope they are all new to their jobs, because they wernt too informed. Back to Rogers I go! | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next review in page (previous review)
Review by Vunachar
Posted: 2.9 years ago
member for 3.6 years, 8 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
Wilsons Beach,NB
$45 per month
about 3 days
"I ordered the install package and it was delivered within 3 days"
"Speed was good at first but dropped to less then half 5 months later."
"OK, but can't seem to get any real answers on why the speed dropped."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
|
I signed up for the - Ultra High Speed Package. (I pay 44.95 - Monthly on my phone bill) PPPoE - Dynamic IP.
The install package contained Documentation, Instructions, Software CD, Line filters and the Aliant - (Siemens) Speedstream 6520. The instructions were straight forward and I had it up and going within 2 hours. I was pleased with the speed for downloads, as it was around 4.9 Mbps and Upload was around 59 Kbps.
About 5 months later, the speed dropped off to around 300 Mbps and again in November (2006) to around 2.10 to 2.30 Mbps. Upload speed not changing all that much. It seems to stay between 54 and 59 Kbps. I called the tech-support about this and was told "anything above 2.0 is considered Ultra High Speed." I think this is a canned or poor answer and I wonder if this is what other callers will hear if they ask why their speed dropped?
This is what it reads on their site:
Up to three times as fast as Aliant High-Speed with speeds up to 5.0 Mbps.
Dedicated High-Speed service** with Unlimited online time
Exclusive access to Aliant.net for High-Speed
Plus 5 hours per month of Dial-up Internet access
5 e-mail accounts, and 5 megabytes of personal web space
Toll-Free, 24/7 technical support
.................................................
This from their FAQ:
Q: How fast is Aliant High-Speed Ultra?
A: Aliant High Speed Ultra is up to three times as fast as our regular High-Speed service! Download speed (receiving information, surfing the web) is up to 5.0 Mbps with a minimum speed of 2.0 Mbps. Upload speed (sending information) is the same as regular High-Speed and is up to 640 kbps
.....................................................
Overall, I would be pleased if my speeds had not changed. Since they have dropped to less then half, I am not pleased with the service.
Vunachar .. Wilson's Beach, NB, Canada
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
| »next page (previous review)
Review by gaj
Posted: 3 years ago
(review was emailed from domain nb.sympatico.ca)
e1e1b
$40 per month (12 month contract)
Bell Canada
CLEC party: Bell Canada
"reasonable tech support wait times"
"connection bad / appearant lies from people scheduling service call"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
|
Hi!
My experience with aliant is not good.
I live in Moncton, NB, Canada
My problems with aliant are in 3 areas
1. Poor line quality giving many disconnects and terrible speed
2. Poor technical support - unable or unwilling to answer questions
3. Incompetence / dishonesty of staff
Here is my experience (Tech details at end)
October 23 - phoned Aliant and signed up.
October 30 - received package in the mail including Modem, line filters
and instructions
Installed filters and modem/router and everything appeared to work
dslreports.com speed test 2006-10-30 13:58:41 EST:
46 / 233 (Kbps)
(5.6 / 28.5 KB/sec) Compared to the average of 59 tests from
aliant.net: *
download is 98% worse, upload is 48% worse
Many times the speed test failed
Web pages randomly fail
POP mail service fails more often than it works.
October 30 - Called Tech Support to see if I had done anything wrong.
Asked about 10.0.0.1 network address -
- Tech support unable / unwilling to answer simple question
They scheduled a technician to come out for Nov 1
Nov 1 - Technician did not arrive
Called tech support in evening
Tech support says "no one home" - we were home
Tech support says no answer to phone - Call display shows no
calls from Aliant or unknown numbers
No message left
Re booked a technician to come for Nov 3 between 8 am & 4 pm
Nov 3 - Technician did not arrive
Called tech support in evening
Tech support says "no one home" - Teens were home all day
Tech support says no answer to phone - Call display shows no
calls from Aliant or unknown numbers
No message left
Tech support says no answer to phone at alternate number
- Call display at neighbors shows no calls from Aliant or
unknown numbers
- No message left
Re booked a technician to come for Sunday Nov 4 between 12:15 pm
(after church) & 4 pm
Nov 4 - Technician did not arrive
Called tech support in afternoon
Tech support says "we goofed and booked a telephone tecnician"
Asks Can we schedule a tecnician for Nov 9 (or possibly Nov
8)
I request an earlier appointment
After time on hold they give me an apointment for Monday (today)
between 8 am and noon
Nov 5 - Hoping technician will come today
*************
Technical details
HARDWARE
Modem - Siemens 6520 modem / router / wireless
Wiring - New home / New CAT5e /
Location - a long way from closest Telco repeater in older
neighbourhood
- probable cause of problems
Network - For testing purposes network was simplified to
Telco -> Modem -> Computer
Computer using 3Com 3c905b TX Ethernet card
Results / Statistics
Going to the Modem Web Interface (192.168.2.1) I find my signal :
Noise ratio is bad
My DSL Statistics log entries (»192.168.2.1/dslstatsx.htm)
for Sat, Nov 4 show
a SNR range from 0 (no signal) to 15
an average SNR of 9
a median (most often it was close to this value) of 6
The activity log shows that the WAN keeps dropping connection,
or had connection unavailable.
Error rates are very high including CRC errors (bad data) and
dropped packets (no data)
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Aliant Communications |
|
|
Aliant Communications
Can't hack