Teksavvy alternates in 2025?

IIGS

So I’ve been with Teksavvy for over 17 years, and as much as I want to continue supporting them as an independent fighting Bell/Rogers/Videotron, I’m started to struggle with staying…

My package is 10/0.7 DSL with a 200 GB download cap. I’m only paying about $34/month + taxes at the moment, but it’s going to shoot up to about $45-$48/month + tax in the near future. To make matters worse, ever since Bell installed Fibre in my building, the copper network has been neglected and I’ve started experiencing random Bell “outages” (had stable DSL service for 25 years, find it funny only now there are issues).

If I ask Teksavvy to upgrade me to cable or VDSL, it becomes laughably unaffordable. They told me Fibre is $120/month, and not even available even though Bell has a fiber jack installed in my apartment. Cable and VDSL packages are around the $70-$80 mark, before taxes. My mother is in the same boat with her TSI service, she’s on 10/1.5 cable, but they can’t move her without charging almost DOUBLE what she’s paying now. My brother and his family left TSI, and now my mother is about to follow, leaving just me…

So just wondering if there are ANY other independent ISP’s left out there beside Teksavvy, or are they the last hold out? There’s extremely affordable alternatives with companies like eBox, Primus, Virgin, offering Fibre 60-500 Mbit for the same or less than what I’m paying TSI, but they’re all Bell owned. Don’t want to deal with constant price increases and crappy customer service and support. Though once my pricing discounts with TSI expire, I’ll have little choice but to leave them….unless there are big changes coming.

ElQuintron

Not sure how many true indies are left aside from Teksavvy, I’m currently with them for a FTTH package, but it’s not a deal pricewise, just glad to give a middle finger to Bell.

Wyn

Telus ftth is available to me now through Bell last mile, regular price is $10 more. I highly doubt Telus will play nice with using your own gear. If can get the 1.5G fibre teksavvy plan I’d head in that direction.

If you touch any owned by the big wigs they’ll net you with the cheap initial pricing then quickly raise monthly.

IIGS

Wyn - From what I can see, no one but Bell (or one of their affiliated-companies) can use the fibre network in most locations. Both eBox and Primus will let me sign up for fibre at my address, but Teksavvy cannot. I’m listed as unavailable.

How much is Teksavvy charging you for their 1.5G fibre plan? I was told it’s $100/month for the first year, then it jumps to $120/month. That’s not just unaffordable, it’s ridiculous. :/

Wyn

IIGS Thats what Im paying for Teksavvy 1.5G Fibre (Bell last mile, the plan become avaliable only a few months ago), my only option for fibre is through Bell/Bell flankers/Teksavvy. Telus through Bell last mile is even more expensive and Bell flankers will quickly raise the rates on me.

If I went back to Cable it’d be the same thing all over again with a different company.

You really don’t really to deal with support from one of the giants, it’s a shitshow.

IIGS

Wyn - I suppose $120/month for 1.5G is reasonable if you really NEED all that bandwidth and speed, but the problem is Teksavvy doesn’t sell lower tiers for fibre. People like myself can’t afford it. That makes them uncompetitive, unfortunately.

And yes, I totally agree about dealing with Bell, or even one of their subsidiaries companies. Support (and likely pricing) are going to be a total nightmare. Trust me, I’ve been there, having dealt with Bell and Videotron. That’s why I’m trying to hold off leaving Teksavvy as long as possible. Though if push comes to shove, there’s no way I’m paying what they’re asking for obsolete and low tiered Internet. I don’t even understand how they’re still capping Internet usage in 2025.

Wyn

IIGS Teksavvy has said on reddit they’re only allowed to sell the 1.5G plan, it’s a shame for everyone.

gwailodan

IIGS Did you check out Costco Primus internet?

CliqueofOne

gwailodan I just did. While checking out the plans for internet service, I came across this. https://www.primus.ca/index.php/cost_ont_en/network-status/

Wyn

CliqueofOne Just a fyi Primus is owned by Distributel who is owned by Bell.

Vintagewino

Wow, I’m surprised you still have viable DSL in your area!

I gave up on DSL 10 years ago, now. The Bhell lines were beyond neglected, and I was being switched to the “least bad pair” on the F2 cable. Could only get 3M/512k fastpath. 4M/640k interleave was not possible.

If you have cable in the area, you may be interested in going with C-cable or R-cable for the intro offer, then switch back to TSI.

My friend is currently in the process of dumping Bell fibre, as the basic 3 packages he has are costing him an arm & a leg. They would finally agree to match a lower price for 6 months, but he has to keep on top of this crap at all times. Forget for a day, and you’re dinged!

Sadly, with only 4 major companies (Videotron, Bell, Rogers, Telus). Lots of flanker brands.
https://blogs.teksavvy.com/carnage-in-canadian-telecom-more-competitors-eliminated

Dustyn

IIGS Signed up with Coextro after my price discounts came to end with TekSavvy. They offer up to 1.5G/50Mbps for my area on the rCable network.

You can check out availabilty here: https://coextro.com/service-availability-checker-v5/
I haven’t looked back. Coextro doesn’t have IPv6 like TekSavvy had, only IPv4. Realistically, not a big deal for home use. Not sure if any of this is helpful to you but thought I would mention my alternative to TekSavvy on the rCable network. Coextro may be available on other networks too.

Deafblindmonkey

I have heard good things about them, I have not used them personally, they still allow BYOD right?

I have been thinking of switching a friend from start to them.

Dustyn You can check out availabilty here: https://coextro.com/service-availability-checker-v5/
I haven’t looked back. Coextro doesn’t have IPv6 like TekSavvy had, only IPv4. Realistically, not a big deal for home use. Not sure if any of this is helpful to you but thought I would mention my alternative to TekSavvy on the rCable network. Coextro may be available on other networks too.

Dustyn

Deafblindmonkey Yup, you can bring your own device provided it is on their compatibility list for the provided plan. I brought my Technicolor TC4400 and they remote activated it no problem. I’ve had no issues with them on the rCable network.

For example, here is the list of modems available to use on the rCable network:

Compatible modems:

Hitron CODA-45 (7.1.1.1.2b1)
Hitron CODA-56
Hitron CODA-4680 (7.1.1.2.2b9)
Technicolor TC4400 (SR701343-190628-D)
Compal Broadband Networks (CBN) CD8000
Sercomm DM1000

IIGS

Sorry for the late replies, I haven’t been able to access this site in weeks (usually times-out or won’t connect!)

So I’m on borrowed time with Teksavvy at this point. The last several months there’s been random DSL outages in my neighbourhood, I lost my Internet completely for 5+ hours between 4 PM and 9 PM last week, and for several hours before that a few days earlier. Either Bell isn’t maintaining their copper network, or purposely sabotaging it. Either way, it’s no longer reliable.

Add to that my pricing discount with TSI ends in December, so my cost will go up about $12/month with taxes (this on top of the $3 increase they introduced last year). Teksavvy is now overpriced, unstable and outdated technology. Even their customer service isn’t what it used to be, plus any direct contacts I had with their staff has been severed thanks to DSLreports being eliminated. Really don’t want to leave TSI, but the unstable service is the last straw.

Coextro isn’t available in Quebec, and Teksavvy can’t offer Fibre service in this province, so my best option is Primus through Costco at this point. Hopefully they provide their customers with their PPPoE username and password, so you can use your own router.

sickcars

IIGS
I’m in a similar boat but I currently have VDSL 50/10. My discount ends in Nov & then my choices are stay with VDSL at the high cost, go to Teksavvy Fibre which will cost me a bit more however it will be MUCH faster OR go to ebox & save some money.

I’m waiting to hear back from Teksavvy with some options as I would love to stay with them however I can no longer justify the high cost when I can save almost half the price by going with ebox. I wish Teksavvy had a 150/500gb fibre offering at a decent price I would be all over that

InvalidError

Vintagewino DSL has been working well for me, except for those times where RADIUS servers quit responding for several hours straight. Never had any sync issues at any of the four locations I have had xDSL at except when my ST516 sort-of-died - still works today but it can take 10+ minutes to get sync and loses it fairly often, my TP-Link 8816 has no problems.

I’m still on 7/0.8 and starting to feel like it is getting painfully slow, especially considering the $45/month price. I would really like to upgrade to 15/10 but today’s pricing makes absolutely zero sense.

TSI offered a $10 fidelity discount for 12 months to ease the pain of sticking around for over 15 years, That may pause my decision to look for alternatives for 6-8 months since. If Rogers is still doing its $25/month 5G internet push by then, I will give that a shot out of curiosity.

LondonDave

Hey Folks I’m just chiming in as a Coextro user in case someone else sees this. For the last month primetime speeds have been abysmal. I only subscribe to 100/30 as a backup to ebox FTTH but in the evening latency spikes and I’m lucky to get 40/25.

I’ve provided the support folks with evidence and they keep telling me the network team has made changes but they clearly still have capacity issues. Its too bad I was hoping they would work out and I could support a small ISP but they are more concerned about rolling out there Fiber to MDUs than operating a stable network.

The only choices with decent routing now are Teksavvy or Vmedia at a decent price point for 100/30.

Dustyn

LondonDave I completely forgot about this thread and haven’t been notified of replies. I pay for the 1000/50 plan as my modem/line is not currently capable of the 1500/50 plan. Strange as my address qualifies for it, and the modem I have is listed as a compatible modem fully supporting the 1500/50plan. All I could achieve is 1000/50 on my line so I just downgraded to that plan.

Anyways, I have to say that what LondonDave has reported here about Coextro is pretty damn accurate. Any time after 4 or 5pm my average network WAN pings begin to increase until around 9 or 10pm before they begin to drop back down to good numbers. I have seen great pings as low as 13ms outside of prime time hours, then skyrocket up to 80ms and higher during prime time. My speeds go down 200-300Mbps during those hours. I think what I pay for the 1000/50 plan is pretty fair. However, there are days when my connection during prime time hours make doing things more difficult when it comes to streaming, gaming or downloading at plan speeds.

My only other option is TekSavvy. And although I can’t recall having bad ping times with them, they are almost as expensive as Rogers. My experience with Coextro has been a pretty fair one for a 3rd party ISP, up until the last 2 or 3 months ago.

Apologies, as I recommended it not only to LondonDave, but a number of people here and on DSLR in the past. I sincerely apologize to anyone who has experienced troubles with Coextro. I’ve been having similar issues as LondonDave has reported for the last 2-3 months.

LondonDave

Well I just dumped Coextro. Someone else was cancelling in the background while I was on the phone with them. Its too bad they choose to string me along instead of being honest or perhaps proactively monitor there network.

Just signed up with Teksavvy for 100/30. The 1 year discount is great. Maybe the CRTC will pull its head out of its ass in the next year! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL