Slashdot Mirror

Well, in October 1999, I succumbed to the siren songs of ADSL service. Not having cable, I pretty much had no choice and had to use Bell Sympatico's service.

When the modem arrived a few days after my signup, I hooked it up and it worked flawlessly. Then, I found out many horror stories about Bell's ADSL service. I had even the surprise to discover that they were even phasing out DHCP and taking up PPPoE, which was strange, as I hooked the modem straight to my NT workstation, configured with DHCP.

Turns out that I was in the last pockets of "resistance"... About two months later, DHCP was dropped, and I switched to PPPoE, which worked fine except for maybe three or four times in the further 6 months where I could not connect for about 30-40 minutes.

Then I moved to another part of the country, where ADSL wasn't available. This is surprising, because I live downtown, 3 blocks from the CO which also serves a very high concentration of government offices...

I wasn't very hot with the idea of using a cable modem, because I don't relish TV at all, and because of the abysmal level of service that is so typical of cable companies (they hire people not smart enough to work for phone companies)...

I managed to last 3 months on a 56 kbps hookup, and when the ADSL became available, I jumped on it. So I went to register, was told that there would be a 3 week backlog. I decided to endure the 56kpbs for a while more.

But I had the immense surprise to see a package arrive by courier two days ago, and the documentation bore a notice that the service would be activated today. So, I just hooked-up the modem, and the service logged-on flawlessly first shot. This is my first post with the new service... :) :) :)

Interestingly, the box had a sleek-looking Alcatel Sp eed -Touch Home modem rather than the bland Nortel modem I used to have...

A couple years ago, Bell Canada had a service called "name that number." You'd dial 1-areacode-555-1313, and for 75 cents a pop, a machine would spell out who owned the line.

They discontinued it without telling anyone; I only found out when I tried it and it didn't work.

A quick search on google turned up:

• Angus Telecom Update
• Telus' CRTC application
• Bell's withdrawl notice (no details, though)
• etc...

It's interesting how all the telcos introduced and withdrew the service around the same time.

Paul

I agree that the result (and probably intent) of this is that "It allows companies to bill their customers cheaper." I can't remember Canada Post ever providing any innovation in their services targeted at individuals. I think they realised that individual people rarely use letter-mail to communicate with other individuals anymore, instead it is individuals communicating with organisations and organisations communicating with other organisations.

I'm sceptical that this will be a successful service, as they are attempting to provide a middleman service using a medium that, I'm sure you will agree, has an excellent track record in removing burdomsome middlemen. (As an example, think of how easy it is to get information on buying a car from the Net, as opposed to from a salesman). Some companies are already providing methods of getting your bills without mailing them to you. Bell Canada, for example, offers an e-bill (their name) in PDF format. In using this, you get your bill directly from Bell, and pay through your regular direct banking method. No middle man required and Bell trades the postage cost for the development cost of the system. The customer gets the benefit of dealing with only two bone-headed, customer-hostile companies rather than three. (The phone company, the bank and the post-office - there's a combination to ruin anybody's day.)

The benefits that I can see for customers are: as someone stated above, consolidation, and the perception of reliability. Some customers will pay to have everything in one place. Hell, I pay for convenience. Some will pay because they trust Canada Post to get it there. I don't.

Bell Canada (and probably other Stentor companies) also offers a competing service based on their screenphones. Companies can sign up to use that as a delivery medium, and most of the telephone banking companies (not mine however) already are integrated into the system.

My conclusion: they are offering a service with very little innovation, that offers an unnecessary middleman service, and that other people can do better. What should Canada Post be doing instead? See Effugas' comment "Postal Services: The Ultimate Escrow Architecture" - that's what I'd like to see them offer.

I agree that the result (and probably intent) of this is that "It allows companies to bill their customers cheaper." I can't remember Canada Post ever providing any innovation in their services targeted at individuals. I think they realised that individual people rarely use letter-mail to communicate with other individuals anymore, instead it is individuals communicating with organisations and organisations communicating with other organisations.

I'm sceptical that this will be a successful service, as they are attempting to provide a middleman service using a medium that, I'm sure you will agree, has an excellent track record in removing burdomsome middlemen. (As an example, think of how easy it is to get information on buying a car from the Net, as opposed to from a salesman). Some companies are already providing methods of getting your bills without mailing them to you. Bell Canada, for example, offers an e-bill (their name) in PDF format. In using this, you get your bill directly from Bell, and pay through your regular direct banking method. No middle man required and Bell trades the postage cost for the development cost of the system. The customer gets the benefit of dealing with only two bone-headed, customer-hostile companies rather than three. (The phone company, the bank and the post-office - there's a combination to ruin anybody's day.)

The benefits that I can see for customers are: as someone stated above, consolidation, and the perception of reliability. Some customers will pay to have everything in one place. Hell, I pay for convenience. Some will pay because they trust Canada Post to get it there. I don't.

Bell Canada (and probably other Stentor companies) also offers a competing service based on their screenphones. Companies can sign up to use that as a delivery medium, and most of the telephone banking companies (not mine however) already are integrated into the system.

My conclusion: they are offering a service with very little innovation, that offers an unnecessary middleman service, and that other people can do better. What should Canada Post be doing instead? See Effugas' comment "Postal Services: The Ultimate Escrow Architecture" - that's what I'd like to see them offer.

Oh, I dunno. Bell Canada seems to be into it (and Cookies, if you don't notice it). See Bell Canada and Expressvu... :-) (Of course, this does have something to do with the bilingual nature of the sites... :-)