And there, in a brief paragraph above, are the exact reasons you hear me rant all the time about Rogers and Bell and why I refuse to do business with either of them. It's not that their services are bad. It's just how much they endlessly charge for them.

If "Listener's" questions don't tell you why we need more competition in this country (even if - horror of horrors - it's from a U.S. telecom that would help force prices down), I don't know what does. The gouging of their own customers will never, ever end unless someone else forces them to. 

Listener wrote:

Has anyone had experience with Freedom or any recommendation would help.

I've been with Freedom Mobile for many years, going back to the Wind days. I've had no issues but I have a permanent discount on my account so I'm somewhat biased.

My internet/TV is with Bell. My rate has been slowly creeping up but for some reason in early 2024 it dropped by about $15/month. Like many folk, I just can't be arsed to play Bell/Rogers off each other and I'm not entirely confident in going with a lesser-known just yet.

I switched from Bell 1 gig internet service @ $132 per month to Distributel -500 mbps -  @ 49.99 transmitted on the same fibre that Bell used to service my house.  When I switched I received a torrent of calls from guys named "Sam" (all of them seemed to be named Sam) - telling me that I would be very sorry for leaving Bell.  They never put any counter offer at a lower price.  I asked them to put something in writing, but they refused.  That's their "MO" at Bell. .  On more than one call, Bell's customer service reps claimed that the service from Distributel was poor.  They also claimed that I would probably lose service for an extended period of time on installation day.I challenged them with the knowledge that Distributel is wholly owned by Bell.  They refused to confirm the truth...The service technician who came to my house was a Bell employee, drove a Bell  truck,  and accessed my home's fibre in the nearby Bell "box".  So far, the service is great, no outages, Distributel's customer service reps are located in Quebec, are bi-lingual and are not located in the Philippines or other off-shore locations.  They also use a very advanced software app to provide analysis of your home network.  Distributel also provided up-to-date equipment including mesh network hardware.  Bell's equipment was out of date, after nearly 10 years of being in service.  After the confrontation with Bell's incompetent customer service reps, I moved our cell service to another carrier and save nearly $90 per month for 2 lines and a big bucket of roaming data that is more than we can use.

I highly recommend Distributel's fibre to the home service.  The "big guys" can't or won't match or beat the price for fibre service. 

RadioActive wrote:

And there, in a brief paragraph above, are the exact reasons you hear me rant all the time about Rogers and Bell and why I refuse to do business with either of them. It's not that their services are bad. It's just how much they endlessly charge for them.

If "Listener's" questions don't tell you why we need more competition in this country (even if - horror of horrors - it's from a U.S. telecom that would help force prices down), I don't know what does. The gouging of their own customers will never, ever end unless someone else forces them to. 

Thank you, all for your input.  I will definitely be searching elsewhere.

Unlimited internet plan from $85/month. Depends on service location though.

https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/home-internet

Radiowiz wrote:

Distributel IS Bell.
 Distributel:   https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/bells-acquisition-of-distributel-death-blow-to-isp-competition-consumer-advocate

Distributel is also no longer accepting new customers for a few months now as Bell has now decommissioned their brand.

Radiowiz wrote:

I'm surprised Rogers isn't doing more though, even if it has to be through their sister company Fido...

Fido used to offer rebranded Rogers Internet service but has since ceased to do so and everyone was migrated to Rogers.  This was done to bolster their subscriber numbers at the expense of reducing customer choice.