For 18 years, Stephen Lawton sat atop the complaint chain at Rogers Communications, dealing with the angriest of customers as a senior adviser in the office of the president.

Now retired, Lawton, 74, is using his insider knowledge to try to overhaul the Canadian telecom industry’s  practice of “advance billing.”

And he wants your help.

“I know all about billing issues,” Lawton says. “The system is broken by design — and the CRTC has never questioned the design.”

Read the full story with this gift link. No paywall.

Some stuff from this week..

- Musk claims Starlink can now hit 10 Gbps symmetric anywhere on Earth
- Apple sues OpenAI, alleging trade secret theft "at every level"
- Most 5G networks aren't ready for the AI workloads coming their way
- Meta pulls its Instagram AI image feature days after launch
- xAI ran 59 unpermitted gas turbines near Black communities in Mississippi
- New York becomes first US state to freeze new hyperscale data centers
- Hamilton on track to become first Canadian city with a data centre moratorium
- LEO may lose 35% of BEAD
- OpenAI's first hardware product will be a moving, screenless AI companion speaker
- TELUS wants the CRTC to bring back device locking, and it's starting anyway
- AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon quietly kill the SMS login code
- FAA clears Starship to fly again after May's booster failure
- Bell collects over 70% of federal phone line spending, again
- Pentagon's missile warning satellite network resumes launches after nine month pause
- Comcast and AT&T push FCC to enforce its own pole attachment order
- Operators want more control over satellite, not just a Starlink relationship
- Uber lobbies against robotaxi-only rules it can't win under
- New federal bill would ban using kids' chats to train AI models
- A California permitting gap means some Waymo rides are free right now
- Even bigger Starlink satellites won't threaten fiber, analyst says

Hey guys ! I'm a sales rep in Ontario for both Telus and Koodo Internet and Mobile if anyone is ever in the market for a quote please feel free to contact me. No high pressure sales no commitment just a chat and a quote .

Their service has been spotty lately - the past 6 months or so. I’ve noticed several short outages lasting several minutes during office hours, slow speeds in the evenings, and finally the big outage yesterday , July 13. Then when I try to go to their website, it’s unreachable.

is anybody else having the same experience with them? I’m in the Churchill Meadows area of Mississauga.

Good evening I have a possibly dumb question. I ordered the 1gb download 50 mbps upload speed cable internet to my apartment building and selected to use their modem and router at check-out I payed about $75 total does this cover my first month of internet after the activation date?

Meta drops $13B on Alberta, Starlink hits customers with surcharges, The only AI Glossary you'll ever need, Conexon tells the FCC the fibre shortage is real, and more! | 73 articles in Issue #131.

Telus is having fibre installed in our neighbourhood. Two guys came by the other day running and burying the lines going up to our houses. I just noticed that the end of the conduit running it to my yard is above ground and the line coming out of it is exposed. My neighbours are even worse (second pic is my neighbours).

Hi everyone,

I'm moving to a new location on July 1 and I'm looking for a reliable home internet plan for a 1-bedroom apartment.

My budget is under CA$50/month (including tax, if possible). We mainly use the internet for:

4K video streaming

Video calls

General browsing

Wfh

I've been comparing EBOX, Carry Telecom, koodo, TekSavvy, Rogers, and Bell. Surprisingly ebox is not available in my building.

I noticed that TekSavvy's 100 Mbps cable plan comes to around CA$44/month including tax. For those who use it:

Is 100 Mbps enough for a household of two adults (and occasionally a child)?

How reliable is the connection in Ottawa?

Do you experience slowdowns during peak hours?

How is TekSavvy's customer service and technical support?

Would you recommend spending a bit more for a 500 Mbps plan, or is 100 Mbps sufficient for most people?

If you know of any better-value internet plans under CA$50/month, I'd really appreciate your recommendations. Referral codes or current promotions are also welcome.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Ended up signing up with Tek savvy...

Is it possible that my TPIA ISP is throttling based on OS? When I run Speedtest.net or Cloudflare's speed test on an Android phone during evenings, I get full download speed, but if I run it on a Windows or Linux PC at the same time, I get single digit download speeds. Upload speeds are unaffected. The test is run with the same servers between devices. Tunnelling my connection through a VPN resolves the problem.

I scalp trade. Do you notice a considerable difference with bell fibe, if you had rogers before? AI answer says about 10ms faster from ottawa to NJ.

I only do market orders, meaning I always click on the mouse. i never do limit orders, so that's why I'm asking.

I use questrade.

Also, i've read that IBKR is faster than questrade because of DMA? True?

Hey,

I have recently renewed my 2 year contract with telus fibre internet in Alberta. I got 1gbps for $70 a month with $250 credit. My past plan was 1Gbps for $60. I think I got a decent deal but what other offers have you got?

Bell beats Rogers on reliability, Rocket Lab buys Iridium for $8B, SpaceX courts Charter for mobile, Washington unblocks Anthropic's Mythos, Dish files bankruptcy, Canadians protest AI data centres, China builds fastest supercomputer, Gander Social goes live..and more! | 49 stories this week

If you're a reddit referral and want a free subscription, let me know!

I'm looking into Beanfield's Unlimited Fibre Internet plan and was wondering if anyone here has experience with this ISP.

How has the service been in terms of reliability, speed, latency, and customer support? or any major outages or issues?

Appreciate hearing about your experiences before I decide to switch. Thanks!

Is AFC present in the gigahub?

Supposed to drastically improve 6GHZ band strength

​

Hi everyone,

I'm moving to a new location in Ottawa, on June 30 th and I'm planning to get EBOX 500 Mbps internet.

The online checker shows my address as an "exceptional address", but when I contacted EBOX through chat, they confirmed that service is available at my address. The problem is that I can't complete the order online, so I'm worried I won't be able to get the CA$40/month promotional price that's currently being advertised. the chat people are saying they can only provide the expensive plans.

A few questions:

\- Does anyone have a working EBOX referral or promo code that I can use?

\- Has anyone successfully received the online promotional price after placing their order through customer service because of an exceptional address?

\- Any tips on what to ask the sales agent so they can apply the online promotion manually?

\- can i book for another address and call customer support and charge the address?

\- they are doing a credit check and asking for one month charges as security deposit. is it the same for everyone?

- is there any other internet provider within 50-60 dollars?

Thanks in advance for any advice or referral codes!