Hey Gang!
For the past few months, in an effort to protect our current cable customers’ network experience, we’ve placed our sales on hold for most of our cable areas in Ontario. It’s no secret those networks rely on Rogers’ “last mile”. To significantly upgrade the network, it takes a lot of coordination and effort on both Rogers’ and TSI’s parts. Let me just say the work has begun! Our cable network capacity is being completely upgraded.
For those of you who have an understanding of the network, I will give some details of the upgrade. The network is divided into large chunks, each having its own amount of capacity; these are called Points of Interconnect (POIs). Essentially this is the point where TSI’s network connects into Rogers’ last mile. In total on our cable network we have 19 POIs to work with. Over the last year we’ve had many upgrades to our network; however none was major enough to solve all of the demands on our network. So 7 months ago we ordered a MAJOR upgrade.
What is a major network upgrade, you ask? Well… for the techies out there, here it is…
Our order consisted of a total of 29 1gbps circuits split out across 16 of the POIs we currently service. Currently we have a total of 25 1 gbps circuits outstanding. 4 were installed last week (with a couple more to come this week). The 29 circuits are split across 16 of the POIs as some POIs need more than 1gbps based on demand and projected usage. As of today we are working with Rogers to get the remaining 25 circuits up and running.
TSI and Rogers are actively working on completing these upgrades. We didn’t get a definite schedule from Rogers, but generally once the work starts it continues at a steady pace. That being said, there are always caveats and potential delays when working with networks, hardware, etc. Something could go wrong that might delay the upgrades.
Here’s a listing of what we are expecting. Yes, it’s risky to post this… Inevitably we will get questions: Why more here than there, when will I have an upgrade in my area, and when will you be available in my area? Many of you may not understand the concept of network management or quite frankly will not care about the concept. But we are going to share it anyway, with the understanding that we will get feedback and we will get questions. And we welcome all of it. In our minds, an informed customer is a happy customer (or at least a happier customer). So here it is – our capacity order, in no particular order.
| Mississauga (Wolfdale) | 2 gbps | completed | |||
| Markham (Anderson) | 1 gbps | ||||
| Toronto #1 (York Mills) | 3 gbps | completed | |||
| Etobicoke #1(Greensboro) | 3 gbps | completed | |||
| Richmond Hill(Newkirk) | 2 gbps | ||||
| Etobicoke #2(Scarlett) | 3 gbps | ||||
| Kitchener (Grand Crescent Place) | 2 gbps | completed | |||
| Ottawa #1(St. Laurent) | 1 gbps | completed | |||
| Scarborough (McNicoll) | 3 gbps | completed | |||
| Toronto #2 (Bloor) | 2 gbps | completed | |||
| London (York) | 1 gbps | completed | |||
| Toronto #3 (Dupont) | 1 gbps | ||||
| Ottawa #2 (Richmond) | 1 gbps | completed | |||
| Ajax (Salem) | 1 gbps | ||||
| Ottawa #3 (Fallowfeild) | 1 gbps | completed | |||
| Toronto #4 (ComStock) | 2 gbps | new POI to be commissioned | |||
Even though we are not quite there yet, we need to thank Rogers for the efforts they’ve put into this with us so far. We are looking forward to this being complete so our existing customers will have a better experience during peak hours and customers who are on our waitlist and customers who are interested in TSI cable service can now come on board. We’ll be sending out communications from time to time, so please keep an eye out for that over the next few weeks.
Marc – CEO/TekSavvy
Thanks for the update and giving IT people the level of detail we’d like to see while still keeping it simple for home users.
Are you able to elaborate on the POIs that are being upgraded? Specifically which POIs? “Toronto #1-4″ doesn’t tell us which POIs are getting the bump.
Thanks!
We’ve updated the blog to include the POI names. Hopefully that helps.
Echo’s the last posters’ setiments, and very curios which one is going to be the ‘newly comissioned’ POI. Cheers
Thanks a lot Marc!
Without knowing how many customers you have in each region listed, it sounds like you are massively over subscribing your POIs. A single Gbps link for all of Markham? That’s only enough service to properly provision 100 customers in Markham with ACTUAL 10mbps service.
@Lance, There’s two things you’ve misunderstood.
1) That’s 1Gb/s upgrade, that’s in addition to what capacity already exists.
2) Not everyone uses their internet at full speed 24/7, most people come nowhere close. Anyone on a 300GB/month plan would quickly go over their limit. As a result the total load of all the users in Markham is significantly lower than the maximum theoretical load. TekSavvy only has to have enough capacity for actual peak usage.
You can buy dedicated connections which are not oversubscribed like this, but they cost $1000/month or more. As long as oversubscription is properly managed (upgrades are installed before capacity is reached) you’ll never see the difference except in all the money you save.
It’s great that you are posting this information. A lot of the techie-talk goes over my head, but I can understand that you can’t have everything, at least at once, and depending on the density of customer base, it can have a large impact. So, I’m giving a certain amount of trust here. Anyways, all that aside, can you please break down Ottawa #1 and Ottawa #2, preferbly by a general geographic area? Or if I were to call in could it be identified which I fell into?
We’ve updated the blog slightly to help you identify your area. Take a look.
I’d like to echo the above two posts as well! More the detail the better and it’s great to hear those upgrades are finally starting to come to life!
Thanks for being upfront with us. A refreshing change!!
Oh my poor Ottawa, always behind Toronto except in Hockey.
Not necessarily, the POIs are being upgraded but not necessarily in the order you see in the chart. At this time Rogers hasn’t told us dates for each area.
A little sad not to see Cambridge in there, but thanks for the update.
Kitchener also includes Cambridge and Waterloo, it’s one big POI.
Do you have an idea when this will be? I’m in New Hamburg, ON and can get cable internet through Rogers but not with TekSavvy. I’m a long-time and happy TekSavvy customer, but as I work from home and have a growing family, I’ve outgrown the DSL service you can provide me here.
I recently brought this up in a post at dslreports.com and your tech explained that there are technical hurdles to implementing my suggestion, but it would be great if you have two things:
1. A way to register interest in giving you more money for higher speeds in a geographic area (maybe that knowledge doesn’t actually help you with planning, I dunno), and more importantly,
2. An opportunity to be notified by email when faster service is available to me. I would pay you more for faster speeds the moment it’s available here. You just have to give me the opportunity.
Hello Andrew,
Your idea of being able to register interest in a given area has been passed along.
As far your second point I’d like to suggest that you sign up for our newsletter here: http://www.teksavvy.com/newsletter-signup to get the latest news and offers from us. This will include new speeds and new areas opening up.
Thank you,
Keith
And yet still, no Brantford.
When we go aggregated you should be able to get service.
Ok perhaps I won’t switch to Distributel just yet, I will wait for this
Ok perhaps I won’t switch to Distributel just yet then, I will wait for this
Why not make the switch to Aggregated POI? It’d make upgrades a lot easier. Start is the prime example of easy upgrades with the use of Aggregated POI…
Aggregation is a hot topic here. Once again there are many pieces to the puzzle before we can make that happen.
@Karen, Run a traceroute to identify the POI that services you. WinMTR is one such tool you can use that will show you your POI. Be sure to place tsi.teksavvy.com into the input field. For more info/help, see DSLReports Forum or TekSavvy Official Forum. Cheers
Leafs suck
so are you accepting orders in new areas that got upgraded? do the POIs match rogers headend systems such as SLNT1 in east Ottawa (St-Lareunt I believe?)
We’ve only removed the stop sells from Mississauga & York Mills for the time being. More will shortly arrive, but no specific ETA’s & for which ones.
They sure do Justin!
Thanks Marc, can you specify which Ottawa POIs got upgraded or if SLNT1 did?
one last question that confuses me somewhat, why can’t other cable companies or Teksavvy offer Docsis3 packages/speeds (75mbit)?
To answer a couple of questions here:
1. St.Laurent has been upgraded.
2. With the latest ruling at the CRTC ISPs actually can offer the higher speed packages. Speed matching was approved. The issue is we cannot afford to offer the higher speed packages at a competitive cost. The capacity model that was approved for the incumbents makes offering these higher speed packages cost prohibitive from an operational perspective. Not a great answer, but it is the reality of the model we’ve been given.
I can’t believe you are actually thanking Rogers. (rant on) They take 7 months to upgrade some POIs? Maybe you should thank them for disconnecting customers that switched from Rogers to Teksavvy as well. (rant off)
The new POI ComStock, is going to be what area? Comstock road in Scarborough? Or someplace else in Toronto? I’ve seen conflicting guesses. It’d be interesting to have this pined down better.
Uh, never mind, I think I nailed it on the DSLReports Forums ComStock but you could confirm it heh.
It’s west end of scarborough. They are splitting it in half.
I am in Scarborough and would like to switch from Rogers Ultimate (75/2) service to Teksavvy but you don’t seem to offer upload speeds of over 1 Mbps. I could live with 28 Mbps down vs the 75 that I have today but going to 1 Mbps up would be a drag. Is there any chance that you will be offering faster upload speeds on your cable service? I know that Rogers is in the process of upgrading their upload capacity and some areas get 10 Mbps upload with Ultimate.
It is something that has been brought up, but for the time being there is no ETA about providing faster speeds.
When rogers gets the upgrades for faster uploads on the slower packages, expect teksavvy’s product offerings to reflect the same (except a few months later if i’m not mistaken).
I live in Toronto Dupont and my serice has been in the toilet for atleast 3 months – I’m getting 1.5 down at nights when I’m paying for 25+ mbps – I really like you guys but there is something wrong when I have to create a hotspot with my phone to watch a video at home… hope things go back to what they used to be like soon!
Kevin – our capacity on Dupont has been running around 70% in the evenings for the last 3 weeks. Have you still been having problems? If so give us a shout maybe we can help.
I live in the Dupont area and my Internet has been down for 2 days!!!!I can’t reach anyone at tech support, on hold for hours!!!! CAN SOMEONE HELP???
Guys,
What about Oshawa … any luck there … I have been told only very few select Oshawa locations can get service …. My Postal Code is L1K2C8
I’m in Oshawa as well. I have been trying to tell you I will give you money for a long time now, but you don’t seem to want it!
L1K 0E8
I understand needing to beef up your current locations, but when do you expect to be expanding your service area?
Also in Oshawa here… been trying to give you guys money for a long time, but not only do you not expand here, you seem to ignore any questions about when you think you might be expanding into Oshawa. L1K 0E8.
Are there any updates to the “completed” list ?
Yes, take a peek, newly changed, St. Laurent and Bloor.
I see some Rogers cable trucks in my neighbourhood Toronto 2 – Bloor – I hope that is a good sign, can’t hold out much longer
It was a good sign, Bloor has been upgraded. Let us know if it’s working out better for you.
Which POI would service near Islington and Lakeshore (in Etobicoke)…I’ve been waiting for months to switch my DSL service to cable service.
A year of awful service and still not upgraded … scamsavvy.
Wish your cable expansion would include Cogeco. Have your DSL now , switched from cable to your service. I like your service but would love it if you were able to provide Cogeco area with cable.
No signs of Comstock #4 Toronto area yet ?
thanks
I’ve been hoping to get Teksavvy for about 6 months now and have been frustrated by the stop sale, however there have been Rogers vans in my area for the past week or so, any chance this is the upgrade? I guess I’m the other Etobicoke.
Ignore this, just got the email saying it’s available in my area =).
I left a comment 6 days ago, asking about which POI serves near Islington and Lakeshore in Etobicoke, and it’s still awaiting moderation…how long before I can expect a response?
Would the Markham/Richmond Hill POIs include Vaughan (Wonderland area)?
6+ months of crap speeds and still no Scarlett update ?
Good work boys..
Ken,
Scarlett has been updated. All of the updates have been done except for one, 50 Anderson in Markham.
Scarlett is updated? My speeds have been a fraction of 1mbps during the day for the past 4 months, and now I’m having trouble loading websites. Speedtest.net just gives me a “Latency Test Error”. I’d call tech support but I’m already out of daytime minutes this month due to being on hold for over 30 minutes per call each time I try to get some kind of resolution. Ordinarily I rely on skype for my daytime calling, but of course that’s hardly an option.
Can somebody at TSI give me a call? This is very frustrating.
On a side note, I did appreciate the transparency with these POI updates.
Any word on Richmond Hill?
any update for Markham? I haven’t seem anything done…my speed is still horrible….for months now…
any update on Markham? My speed has been horrible for months now…
Looking at other alternatives cause I don’t feel like I’m getting what I’m paying…
Well I for 1 loved Switching over to Teksavvy…The speed i’m getting is unreal. Was on Rogers…max speed I’d get was 3 – 3.2 Mb/s…on Teksavvy I average 4Mb/s on torrents…best speedtest 76.97Mb/s. worst was 32Mb/s…now if you’d only increase the upload…
Keep It up!!
Any update on Markham POI upgrade?
Poor customer service need to go somewhere else
@ Richard…. Yo Richard, maybe you should move on over to the bell or rogers page where the CEO’s of those companies are having discussions with the average consumers….Oh , wait
YOU CAN’T!!! JAFA!
Really Would Like to see Brantford Upgraded Thanks … Marc
So what’s up Marc? You can’t make any comments on my reply? I thought so to much Rogers or bell on the mind? I’m so curious to see what you can say about this?
Still no new progress for “Toronto #4 (ComStock) 2 gbps” ?
Thanks,
HTC Lovers
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hey, what about mississauga (clarkson)?
also, rogers recently sent out an email saying my speed has been upgraded to 42 MB/S, Is there anything comparable with teksavy? because it seems you and rogers use the same lines or something?
Thanks
I’m not sure what this upgrade means exactly…but is this why the internet is slow in Ajax? I can’t even log into my bank account. when is Ajax getting done?
Hello Jeff,
Ajax has been upgraded and has no known congestion issues at this time (peaking about approximately 80% in the last 24hrs). If you are still having issues with your service please call into our tech support at 1-877-357-2889 or send us an email at support@teksavvy.com and we can look into this with you.
Thank you,
Keith
Cancelled Roger today after been told yes from tek savvy rap then called tek savvy again andthey told me opps oshawa L1G 6L5 they have to check Service Availability whats now! even i bough modem
Hello Jad,
I apologize for the frustration here. Oshawa is an area where we are able to provide service over the Rogers network but only in certain areas. We always need to verify availability for an order in Oshawa. I’m very sorry if the first rep you spoke to failed to advise you of this. Would you mind emailing us at sm@teksavvy.com with the agents name (if you remember it), the date/time you called, and the number you would have called from? This way we can address the issue with the agent and make sure this mistake is not repeated.
Thank you,
Keith
Hi thanks for your answer i am just watting as second agent told me (( Thank you for your interest in Teksavvy
The ticket number is 2013013010024196
If you haven’t heard from us in 72 hours, please call with the number and we can check to see if we have had a response.
Thanks, Becky))
i will call later and check if i did not hear anything …
But in the first place when somone go to the site and check by postal code it dose show me thats i am ok and shows what aviailable its not just the agent problem .. if you check my postal code in the site its shows i can make an order which second agent told me to wait 72 hours .. I am waiting hope everything will be ok .
Thanks
Jad Saleh
Hello again Jad,
If you have not heard from us already you may shortly, but since you provided the ticket number I decided to check for an update for you. Unfortunately we are unable to provide service for you there. I do apologize, typically our qualification for Cable Internet is based off of the postal code alone. However in certain areas (Oshawa, Maple, Stittsville, and St Thomas) we do offer service but only to specific areas and in these instances it is necessary to submit a request like this.
It is for that reason that I inquired about the first agent you spoke to because they need to know (or be reminded) that in these areas, despite what the qualifier may say, a verification request is always required.
With that being said I do see that our DSL internet service would be available for you there. If you’d like additional information on that please give us a call or send us an email at sales@teksavvy.com.
Thank you,
Keith