Computers & Electronics

Is CIA a good ISP provider?

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  • Dec 20th, 2010 5:43 pm
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Newbie
Nov 10, 2007
78 posts
Ottawa Ontario

Is CIA a good ISP provider?

Currently I am paying about 100 bucks to Rogers for internet and home phone service.

One of my friends seems very happy with their service and price. (http://www.cia.com/home.html) It is about 40 bucks including cable internet and digital phone. The price is so tempting !I am thinking to switch to it. Does anyone have experience with CIA?
21 replies
Deal Addict
Feb 5, 2009
2429 posts
403 upvotes
Triple J wrote: Currently I am paying about 100 bucks to Rogers for internet and home phone service.

One of my friends seems very happy with their service and price. (http://www.cia.com/home.html) It is about 40 bucks including cable internet and digital phone. The price is so tempting !I am thinking to switch to it. Does anyone have experience with CIA?
Personally, I'd pay the extra $11.50 and get a landline + DSL from TekSavvy ($21.50 + $30).
Deal Fanatic
Sep 4, 2009
6575 posts
726 upvotes
Triple J wrote: Currently I am paying about 100 bucks to Rogers for internet and home phone service.

One of my friends seems very happy with their service and price. (http://www.cia.com/home.html) It is about 40 bucks including cable internet and digital phone. The price is so tempting !I am thinking to switch to it. Does anyone have experience with CIA?

They go down more than rogers for certain. Unless you have a dependable cell phone and treat your internet phone as extra, you should only order the internet.
Banned
User avatar
Oct 15, 2005
12954 posts
1617 upvotes
North York
stay away from cybersurf/3web/cia and all the other aka's they have.
horrible company.

if i were you just go with teksavvy.

29.95 for 5meg dsl
21.50 for phone
Deal Addict
Oct 20, 2005
1219 posts
418 upvotes
used them for 2 years in the west.. decently reliable since they rented shaw's network and got my 5.0mpbs as advertised..... however, when it comes to customer service, it lacks a bit.

The reason is when I called them for any technical support (net down), they had to contact shaw to fix it behalf of them. So there will be some delay between the following parties but eventually, it will be fixed.
Deal Addict
Oct 17, 2004
1573 posts
168 upvotes
Personally I wouldn't trust the CIA not to spy on me!
Deal Addict
User avatar
Jul 31, 2007
2053 posts
183 upvotes
York Region
luthair wrote: Personally I wouldn't trust the CIA not to spy on me!
Very funny !!! :lol:
Deal Addict
Jul 21, 2005
2087 posts
1134 upvotes
Alberta
Been with CIA for like 3 years now, I work in IT so I don't need techincal support as their customer service really does suck big time, but once everything is setup and working...it works. Been at it for 3 years now without issues. I wouldn't trust them with a primary phone for sure, but my primary phone is my cell phone and I use the voip line for my house phone witch works well since it is almost never used. The speeds are great, in Calgary I get about 1.5MB/s from newsgroups (yes MEGABYTES) but sometimes I have seen it jump as high as 2.5MB/s (don't remember who I was downloading from...but was hella fast...just a program download from Adobe or something, don't recall)

I wouldn't recomend it to anyone who calls everytime the internet is down, but if you are technical, then hell yah, $40 bucks a month is an awesome deal, and best of all, unlike shaw, they NEVER complain about how much I download, and I download ALOT.
Deal Expert
Mar 22, 2004
16012 posts
7474 upvotes
RFD
I have 3web for a while now, must be over 4 years. Then they switched to the CIA name. Located and using it in Brampton, their DSL line which is like Sympatico. I think its like 29.99 + $5 modem rental/month. Speeds are like capped at 5MBPS from my download speeds and uploads are horrible (typical of DSL). So the fastest download speeds I've seen with my service is like 500-ish KB/s.

Anyway like the above poster said, I too have had good experiences with CIA. It works without dropping and has never given me major issues. Only once in a blue moon would I have the problem of not being able to connect to the CIA server for a few hours (I assume they do maintenance of some sort that causes this).

Since I know about fixing computers, etc, I really have had no need to call in for technical support. The only time I did call in was initial support and I can tell you that their office is in Calgary I recall and you will hate waiting on the line for 30 minutes+. Their call centre really sucks imo.

But for the price, I already compared with Sympatico or eqivalent Rogers and 3WEB/CIA is definitely cheaper.
Member
May 10, 2006
309 posts
83 upvotes
Gloucester
I've been with 3web DSL for years, but was disconnected last week. It was my fault, as I changed credit card companies, and forgot to notify them. Still, I would think they might give me a ring prior to pulling the plug. I called them up, sorting things out, but it took several days to get the service back on line again. I presume that is because they need to send the request out to Bell, who then prioritizes it as they see fit. After I was told the service was back, I still could not log in, so I rang them up. Surprisingly the wait was only a couple minutes, and a guy walked me through things. Apparently when the account was re-started, a new login and password were assigned - but I wasn't notified. It wasn't a huge deal, but I did find it odd that they'd initialize the account and not advise me of the basic info needed to use it.

In any case, we're back up and running now. If reliability is as good as it was before, and the rate stays at the $25/month, then I'm happy.
Newbie
Nov 10, 2007
78 posts
Ottawa Ontario
Thank you all for your suggestions. I pretty much made my mind. I will switch to CIA from Rogers. I would prefer CIA cable, instead DSL. I had horrible experience once before with DSL, still not ready for any DSL in the near future.

My question is, can I keep Rogers cable TV, and at the same time having the CIA Cable internet and phone service?
Deal Addict
Dec 26, 2005
2806 posts
37 upvotes
Mississauga, ON
Triple J wrote: My question is, can I keep Rogers cable TV, and at the same time having the CIA Cable internet and phone service?
Cable internet for sure will be ok with Rogers TV, as CIA is reselling Rogers service at a lower price. You won't notice much difference on the cable internet service except a different IP, and mail servers.

Phone service should be fine as long as internet is working.
Newbie
Nov 10, 2007
78 posts
Ottawa Ontario
Whitedart wrote: Cable internet for sure will be ok with Rogers TV, as CIA is reselling Rogers service at a lower price. You won't notice much difference on the cable internet service except a different IP, and mail servers.

Phone service should be fine as long as internet is working.
Thank you very much.
Deal Fanatic
Sep 4, 2009
6575 posts
726 upvotes
CIA isnt reselling rogers - they merely use Roger's cable wires going into the home.

The bandwidth is from CIA, not rogers, the servers used are CIA's, which is why it is less reliable than rogers. When there is a problem on roger's end affecting cia, expect rogers to take their time fixing the problem. This has happened before.
Deal Addict
Dec 26, 2005
2806 posts
37 upvotes
Mississauga, ON
rageking wrote: CIA isnt reselling rogers - they merely use Roger's cable wires going into the home.
Please explain then.

A CIA customer connects over Rogers's system to the local Rogers office, where Rogers has all the information on the mac address, and modem serial number to allow that modem to connect to their network, like a local DSL loop. That customer then connects to CIA where an IP address is assigned.

Rogers also monitors the bandwidth usage, and applies traffic shaping to the traffic over their network. If an issue occurs, Rogers contacts CIA, who then contacts their customer.

In the process, CIA pays Rogers a subscriber fee per month per customer, the same way any DSL provider pays Bell a monthly fee per subscriber for access to the local loop and central office.
The bandwidth is from CIA, not rogers, the servers used are CIA's, which is why it is less reliable than rogers. When there is a problem on roger's end affecting cia, expect rogers to take their time fixing the problem. This has happened before.
And how is this different than any DSL provider waiting for Bell to repair a dsl line issue on a local loop from the CO to a subscriber?

Have you ever actually used CIA, or just going with the comments you have read on forums?
Deal Fanatic
Sep 4, 2009
6575 posts
726 upvotes
Depends on what you mean. The bandwidth clearly isnt from rogers, that was changed 2 years ago, during that month in November those with CIA cable lost internet access for close to 3 weeks.

If you even use CIA, try to figure out who's DNS servers are being used. Yes those are SERVERS owned by cia. They go down, you no longer have internet. Roger's networks are still running while CIA's service is down. I've experienced this about 4-5 times over 2 years.

My comment about Rogers taking their sweet time to fix cia problems stems from that incident from 2 years ago, listed in the first paragraph.

As for traffic shaping, there is none for cable. Roger's own networks are throttled.

You clearly arent a CIA customer. You dont have a clue what you're talking about.

Whitedart wrote: Please explain then.

A CIA customer connects over Rogers's system to the local Rogers office, where Rogers has all the information on the mac address, and modem serial number to allow that modem to connect to their network, like a local DSL loop. That customer then connects to CIA where an IP address is assigned.

Rogers also monitors the bandwidth usage, and applies traffic shaping to the traffic over their network. If an issue occurs, Rogers contacts CIA, who then contacts their customer.

In the process, CIA pays Rogers a subscriber fee per month per customer, the same way any DSL provider pays Bell a monthly fee per subscriber for access to the local loop and central office.



And how is this different than any DSL provider waiting for Bell to repair a dsl line issue on a local loop from the CO to a subscriber?

Have you ever actually used CIA, or just going with the comments you have read on forums?
Deal Addict
Dec 26, 2005
2806 posts
37 upvotes
Mississauga, ON
rageking wrote: Depends on what you mean. The bandwidth clearly isnt from rogers, that was changed 2 years ago, during that month in November those with CIA cable lost internet access for close to 3 weeks.
For something that is not provided by Rogers, Rogers sure has a lot of control over CIA cable internet.
If you even use CIA, try to figure out who's DNS servers are being used. Yes those are SERVERS owned by cia. They go down, you no longer have internet. Roger's networks are still running while CIA's service is down. I've experienced this about 4-5 times over 2 years.
So why are you using CIA dns servers then?
My comment about Rogers taking their sweet time to fix cia problems stems from that incident from 2 years ago, listed in the first paragraph.


That did not affect all CIA customers the same way.
As for traffic shaping, there is none for cable. Roger's own networks are throttled.
Yes of course, throttling is not a form of traffic shaping, according to you.
You clearly arent a CIA customer. You dont have a clue what you're talking about.
Clearly I am not, according to you.
Deal Fanatic
Sep 4, 2009
6575 posts
726 upvotes
Before this carries on too far, what is the first octet of your ip address - is it 206 or something else.

If you tell me you're have a rogers ip address then nothing I've said applies to you. The vast majority of us are truly on CIA's network, with a cia ip address and are certainly not throttled or BW limited.

Can you pls lose the attitude. You can do that, right?




Whitedart wrote: For something that is not provided by Rogers, Rogers sure has a lot of control over CIA cable internet.



So why are you using CIA dns servers then?



That did not affect all CIA customers the same way.



Yes of course, throttling is not a form of traffic shaping, according to you.



Clearly I am not, according to you.
Deal Addict
May 11, 2005
2182 posts
218 upvotes
Ajax, ON, Canada
screw cybersurf.

They once offered free dial-up internet in the past, but their users were asked to pay a monthly subscription which sparked a lawsuit. In the end, the case was settled. This is what i had remembered when i was about 14 or 15 years old back then.

I'm with Rogers and i'm happy to be with them. Unless you have your own biased opinion on them.

If in doubt, go with TekSavvy.
Newbie
Oct 14, 2009
1 posts
1 upvote
Stay away from CIA in Ontario.technical support is not able to solve any cable or a phone line problems and customer service is a call center with a limited technical knowledge and experience .

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