The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Bell

**Posted by Saul** November 6, 2024 1:00 am

Not radio related, except that it's, well, Bell...
I live in a condo near College and Jarvis. My home phone has been dead as a doornail since Oct. 27. So has that of a neighbour in the adjacent building. Bell is telling both of us it's a cable issue, and they're working to resolve it. I know one other Bell landline user in the complex who has no problems. Tech support keeps giving us service restoration estimated dates/times, and when these don't materialize we get a new estimate. Today they told me the problem was escalated to a new tech unit, with service expected tonight at 11 pm. That, too, has passed. I recorded a call where the tech supervisor I spoke with explained some of what's been allegedly going on in greater detail. I haven't yet transcribed it, but it gets into detail about cable types etc that are beyond my pay grade.
Any idea of what we might do? Is this happening elsewhere?

**Posted by Radiowiz** November 6, 2024 1:17 am

Heh, and I'm complaining about how, with Rogers landline, it takes 15 seconds after the last digit of a phone number is dialed to be connected to a call... at least I have some form of service...it's still not proper phone service though.

**Posted by newsguy1** November 6, 2024 12:11 pm

During the height of COVID I was working from home every day. I and others needed their home phone line or we'd be screwed.
What do people do if thhey must work from home on a land line, and it's down for day, if not weeks.
Does Bell do anything to compensate or can they sue Bell?

**Posted by RadioActive** November 6, 2024 12:20 pm

If your phone line is out, how would you get through to them?

**Posted by AspectRatio** November 6, 2024 12:58 pm

newsguy1 wrote:
During the height of COVID I was working from home every day. I and others needed their home phone line or we'd be screwed.
What do people do if thhey must work from home on a land line, and it's down for day, if not weeks.
Does Bell do anything to compensate or can they sue Bell?

I might think for consumer-grade service to the home there wouldn't be any legal resource to claim work loss of productivity/wages, etc. as it would be "residential" service. But if one leased a business-class service to the home (business package, guaranteed static IP, etc. - and perhaps associated webhosting not on your equipment, but as part of the package), that may be different.

**Posted by Saul** November 6, 2024 3:15 pm

Any thoughts on the technical side of this? Anyone had anything like this with Bell or any other major carrier, with a landline (or cable-based internet) in a populated urban centre? This seems surreal... but maybe it's just what we might expect from Bell...

**Posted by newsguy1** November 6, 2024 4:07 pm

Believe it, and what's more the Bell lady I spoke to (on my cell phone) told me it must be my modem that was wrong and she tried to arrange to send me a new one.
I told her that can't be because my upstairs neighbour's phone, Internet etc was also down and it can't be that both our modems are faulty.
But she kept insisting there was no problem with Bell.
Then finally after talking to about two more Bell people I got one to admit it was indeed a problem with Bell in my neighborhood, not my modem.
But she could not tell me how long it would take to fix it, saying it was "mother nature" and not their fault.
She never explained what mother nature meant.
The total outage lasted 24 hours..... but wait... there's more!!
This happened twice more in the space of a few weeks.
Things really went to Bell in a handbasket

**Posted by Ale Ont** November 6, 2024 4:13 pm

I hope you insist on compensation.

**Posted by Forward Power** November 6, 2024 4:42 pm

...and then there was that time in 2009 that the OPP showed up at my front door in the middle of the night, claiming that they got a 9-1-1 call from my Bell land line. Turned out to be a faulty card or something at the CO causing my line to pulse-dial at random, but when my wife & I bought our current home the following year, we went with Cogeco and haven't looked back, nor have we had a phantom 9-1-1 call, knock on wood.

**Posted by betaylored** November 6, 2024 5:11 pm

It would take a lot of work by a huge team of really good lawyers to pull everything together but if you think about the various complaints of lack of service people have spoken about here on the big yellow board as well the articles from the CBC shared on here about sub par to no service by Rogers and Bell, there's a serious class action law suit just waiting. And there's the small but successful Quebec law suit already in the books to serve as recent precedent if that's the correct term...

**Posted by darcyh** November 7, 2024 10:54 am

I can't comment on Bell, but where we live (near Grand Bend Ontario) the phone company also provides internet and cable service. They seem to have given up on maintaining copper lines (thin copper twisted pairs of wire) which is the way phone service was delivered since it came to be. A few years ago we were getting noise, hum and static through the phone. Solution: we were switched to a voice over IP system. There is a phone modem connected to a coaxial cable. A phone jack cable connects to the wall phone jack and the phones connect to the wall jacks.

It works okay until the power goes out and the internet stops which takes the phone service with it. We now have a cell phone as a back up. With the old copper system the phone continued to work during power failures. I always considered a traditional 'landline' to be more reliable than cell service. This is no longer the case with us.

Last edited by darcyh (November 7, 2024 10:55 am)

**Posted by RadioActive** November 7, 2024 11:27 am

People sometimes ask me why I still have a landline and one old fashioned plugged-into-the-wall model phone, in addition to a cell. It's because of what you just cited - in the event of a power outage or technical failure, the old tech works every single time.

The Internet can be out, the electricity gone, taking cordless phones with it, and even cell service - in the event of a huge weather event - can all disappear. But I've never had a problem with what we used to call POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service. Hard to believe, but it's been a lifesaver more times that I can count.

I look at it almost like an insurance policy. And it's paid off in times of emergency. Which is why I shell out for it as part of the service from my provider, Tek Savvy. For now, I wouldn't be without it.

**Posted by turkeytop** November 7, 2024 11:28 am

My issue is nothing to do with radio or Bell or Rogers, So I won't even go into a rant about the details. But I have big issues with London Hydro.

There. It's off my chest.

**Posted by mace** **Online!** November 7, 2024 11:36 am

RadioActive wrote:
People sometimes ask me why I still have a landline and one old fashioned plugged-into-the-wall model phone, in addition to a cell. It's because of what you just cited - in the event of a power outage or technical failure, the old tech works every single time.

The Internet can be out, the electricity gone, taking cordless phones with it, and even cell service - in the event of a huge weather event - can all disappear. But I've never had a problem with what we used to call POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service. Hard to believe, but it's been a lifesaver more times that I can count.

I look at it almost like an insurance policy. And it's paid off in times of emergency. Which is why I shell out for it as part of the service from my provider, Tek Savvy. For now, I wouldn't be without it.

When I can't find my cell phone, I use my landline to call it. Problem solved.

**Posted by mace** **Online!** November 7, 2024 11:37 am

turkeytop wrote:
My issue is nothing to do with radio or Bell or Rogers, So I won't even go into a rant about the details. But I have big issues with London Hydro.

There. It's off my chest.

Well since you brought it up, I am curious about your "issues" I am quite sure they are valid.

**Posted by The Weed** November 7, 2024 2:39 pm

While I agree that the old POTS worked when everything else went out there was one time that was not the case. I'm in the west end of Toronto (York) on the border with Etobicoke. One day everything went out. Power, so TV and Internet, cell service and my Bell POTS landline.

When Rogers, who supplies my condo complex presented us with an offer we couldn't refuse, we switched from our Bell POTS to a Rogers (VOIP) home phone. We went from over $100 a month for local calls and 13 hours of long distance across Canada and the US to $15 a month for unlimited calls across Canada and the US. The POTS line just wasn't worth it. As always, YMMV.