From: syl@therockgarden.ca   
      
   On 2025-07-05, Lew Pitcher wrote:   
      
   > Here, in Canada, you either deal with one of the "Big Three" ISPs   
   > (Bell Canada, Rogers Telecommunications, or Telus Telecommunications)   
   > or you deal with a small ISP.   
      
   Slight clarification: "... or you deal with a small ISP that   
   ultimately resells service from one of the "Big Three" ISPs ..."   
   You're effectively limitted by what the big three offer in your area.   
      
   There are regionally also some bigger service providers (Videotron   
   in Quebec, Eastlink in the maritimes, Shaw in the prairies, though   
   Shaw are now part of Rogers ...)   
      
   > The smaller ISPs (of which I have been with the biggest for about   
   > 20 years) offer ASDL2+, DOCSYS (cable), and FTTC, but over the   
   > lines rented from the big 3.   
      
   We may be with the same "smaller" ISP (mine is based in Chatham,   
   Ontario; yours?)  I discovered about two years ago that their   
   ability to offer certain services is highly dependent on which of   
   the big-three's service they're reselling in a given location.   
      
   When I was in suburban Montreal (in a neighborhood orginally developped   
   in 1957), we had (resold) ADSL (and later variants, I believe that   
   went up to VDSL2) from them for at least 2 decades, with a static   
   IP address, a proper PTR record in their DNS for our address, and   
   (effectively) no restrictions[*] on how we used the service.   
      
   [*] "effectively no restrictions" being defined as "there was nothing   
   even mildly questionable about how we used our service."  We ran our   
   own DNS, mail, and web services; not much else.  The ISP did not give   
   us any grief about any of this, nor did they ever question whether   
   we were competent to manage these services.   
      
   I have since moved to a (neighborhood originally developped in 1992,   
   in a) much smaller city in Atlantic Canada, where the only service   
   the same smaller ISP is able to provide is (resold) DOCSYS; no static   
   IP and no inbound port 53 (these restrictions imposed by Rogers, not   
   the smaller ISP); We had to come up with work-arounds, which we did,   
   but it really was enough to make me try to find a different option.   
   FTTC is probably also available here (though I don't think resold   
   from the same smaller ISP), but that's certainly not going to improve   
   things for my purposes.  We went with workarounds, which seem to be   
   working well enough for now.   
      
   > I've been on ADSL (in one form or another) for over 20 years ...   
      
   I miss ADSL-VDSL2 from this smaller ISP, and I'd love to see it come   
   to this neighborhood, but the service I have now is good enough ...   
      
   > ... as the service is cheap, stable, and fast enough for my needs, I   
   > haven't seen the need to change.   
      
   If you ever do consider changing, be very careful about whether you'll   
   be able to get the same "ancillary services" as you're able to get now.   
   Apparently these depend largely on the larger provider whose service is   
   being resold.  Discuss in detail with the potential new ISP ...   
      
   Is that worth about two cents?  ;-)   
      
   --   
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------   
   Sylvain Robitaille                                syl@therockgarden.ca   
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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