ISP recommendation

taikobo · December 11, 2023

Hi guys, new to the forum, so forgive me if I break some rules by asking this:

My wife and I are moving to Canada (BC) from overseas in the next several months, and I am wondering about the Mobile and home Internet options. There seems to be 3 major players: Telus, Rogers, and Bell. What they offer seems to be mostly similar on first glance, so I am a bit lost here. Then I remembered that Linus is a Canadian youtuber so there must be some Canadians here....

Anyway, I will be self hosting some services at Home, so I am looking for some reliable home Internet options without too many restrictions in terms of port block or mandatory ISP gateway management device that I cannot replace etc. I don't need any crazy speed, 500 mbps symmetrical should be enough, but I won't mind if it is faster. For mobiles, my wife and I are not phone addicts, so we won't need massive data caps, just enough for daily usage (messaging, browsing websites, occasional videos) when we are not at home or work. Telus seems to have the best coverage amongst them three. Where I come from, you usually get massively better deals if you bundle mobile plan and Home Internet, but I am not sure if it is the case in Canada. So my question is:

1. Is bundling mobile plan and Home Internet going to save me a lot of money? If not, I will just get the mobile first, and see about the home Internet. Maybe I will stick with what the landlord has for now. If bundling makes a lot of sense, then can you move your existing service to a different address when you move? Is it possible to get a mobile number first, then upgrade to a bundle later?

2. Which ISP is best for my user case?

Thanks for anyone who is willing to help! Some of my questions may sound silly because I really have no idea how it works there...

dalekphalm · December 11, 2023

You're going to want to talk to BC locals, as the the type of Internet available in any given place is going to vary (that's even within the same city, let alone the province or country as a whole).

The first thing you need to do is look up the address of the new location and see what's even available. Symmetrical Internet (which is basically going to be FTTH/FTTP - Fibre to the Home/Fibre to the Premises) may not even be available where you're going to live.

Large swaths of modern high speed internet in Canada is done through DOCSIS or VDSL. DOCSIS is Internet over Coaxial Cable (think Cable TV) and VDSL is Internet over Phone lines.

The latest iterations of DOCSIS (3.x) have extremely fast download speeds. Here in Ontario, Rogers has been rolling out 1.5 Gbps download, for example. Upload speeds however are heavily constrained. I think the faster packages might have 50 Mbps upload with DOCSIS.

VDSL for the most part caps out at 100 or 150 Mbps download, or less.

Pure fibre (FTTH) connections are growing, but they're still not as common unless you're in dense downtown areas or newer neighbourhoods. As I said, it entirely depends on where you live.

Canada also has a bunch of TPIA (Third Party Internet Access) ISPs. These are ISPs that buy space on "the last mile" (the infrastructure in the ground near your house) from one of the large incumbents (Telus, Bell, Rogers/Shaw - Rogers recently bought Shaw, Yay competition! - there are a few other regional big ones like Cogeco and Videotron too). These are like Distributel, TekSavvy, and so on. TPIA's often have more competitive pricing, but due to the high fees they're charged by the incumbents, they often can't have as aggressive special deals (Rogers for example will often sell their service at a fraction of the regular price for a term deal for new customers).

I would check your address with Telus, Bell and Rogers/Shaw, and start from there. If it's available from one of them, it's probably available from a TPIA too, so you can start shopping around. BC residents can give you better suggestions for regional companies from the area.

Edited to add: I wouldn't bother with bundling mobile + internet. Yes you can get a bundle discount, but you're probably better off shopping around for Mobile service to get a better deal there anyway.

taikobo · December 12, 2023

3 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

You're going to want to talk to BC locals, as the the type of Internet available in any given place is going to vary (that's even within the same city, let alone the province or country as a whole).

The first thing you need to do is look up the address of the new location and see what's even available. Symmetrical Internet (which is basically going to be FTTH/FTTP - Fibre to the Home/Fibre to the Premises) may not even be available where you're going to live.

Large swaths of modern high speed internet in Canada is done through DOCSIS or VDSL. DOCSIS is Internet over Coaxial Cable (think Cable TV) and VDSL is Internet over Phone lines.

The latest iterations of DOCSIS (3.x) have extremely fast download speeds. Here in Ontario, Rogers has been rolling out 1.5 Gbps download, for example. Upload speeds however are heavily constrained. I think the faster packages might have 50 Mbps upload with DOCSIS.

VDSL for the most part caps out at 100 or 150 Mbps download, or less.

Pure fibre (FTTH) connections are growing, but they're still not as common unless you're in dense downtown areas or newer neighbourhoods. As I said, it entirely depends on where you live.

Canada also has a bunch of TPIA (Third Party Internet Access) ISPs. These are ISPs that buy space on "the last mile" (the infrastructure in the ground near your house) from one of the large incumbents (Telus, Bell, Rogers/Shaw - Rogers recently bought Shaw, Yay competition! - there are a few other regional big ones like Cogeco and Videotron too). These are like Distributel, TekSavvy, and so on. TPIA's often have more competitive pricing, but due to the high fees they're charged by the incumbents, they often can't have as aggressive special deals (Rogers for example will often sell their service at a fraction of the regular price for a term deal for new customers).

I would check your address with Telus, Bell and Rogers/Shaw, and start from there. If it's available from one of them, it's probably available from a TPIA too, so you can start shopping around. BC residents can give you better suggestions for regional companies from the area.

Edited to add: I wouldn't bother with bundling mobile + internet. Yes you can get a bundle discount, but you're probably better off shopping around for Mobile service to get a better deal there anyway.

Wow that is some really helpful information! Really appreciated that!

If bundling doesn't have too much benefit, then everything becomes easier. I will just get a mobile plan first and see how it goes from there.

dalekphalm · December 12, 2023

1 hour ago, terrytw said:

Wow that is some really helpful information! Really appreciated that!

If bundling doesn't have too much benefit, then everything becomes easier. I will just get a mobile plan first and see how it goes from there.

Yeah - sometimes bundling can make a difference, but generally not a whole lot unless you're bundling a lot of services together.

Good luck!