Bell Sympatico
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:Logo - Bell Sympatico.gif Bell Sympatico, originally and frequently simply called Sympatico, is the consumer-side Internet service provider division of Bell Canada. It is affiliated with MSN. Sympatico was launched on November 29, 1995. Originally a national service operated jointly by Canada's ILECs, the companies other than Bell (including Aliant) have since retreated to their own brands. Bell subsidiaries NorthernTel, Télébec and NorthwesTel continue to brand their internet services as Sympatico, and users receive an @ntl.sympatico.ca, @tlb.sympatico.ca, or @sympatico.ca email address, respectively.
Sympatico offers five tiers of service: 56K dialup, 512K "DSL Basic Lite", 1018K "DSL Basic", 5 Mbit/s "High Speed" ADSL, and 5 Mbit/s "High Speed Ultra" ADSL. Sympatico currently enjoys over 1.8 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec and is the largest ADSL ISP in Canada.
- Update Feb. 2006: "High Speed" is being upgraded to 5 Mbit/s in Quebec. "High Speed Ultra" is not -- it will remain at 5 Mbit/s. To justify the difference in service tier pricing, "High Speed Ultra" will now include various "Value-Added" services, which at this time have not been specified.
- Update Mar. 2006: "High Speed Ultra" will include the antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware services, wireless modem-router hardware upgrade, Microsoft's MSN Premium software and the gamesmania.
As of summer 2003, Sympatico has tried to differentiate its service from its competitors by adding Zero Knowledge's suite of antivirus, firewall and anti-spyware services for extra charge. As of spring 2004, Sympatico has added a wireless modem-router hardware upgrade and Microsoft's MSN Premium software to its portfolio.
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ADSL Equipment
For services other than dial-up, Sympatico mandatorily provides its own modem equipment to its subscribers with a rental fee, which is waived on some plans and promotions. High Speed service was launched in late 1996.
During the original test trials in 1996, Sympatico provided Westell FlexCAP II modems to its High Speed subscribers. Since then, Sympatico has upgraded their modem rollout on a nearly yearly basis.
Over the years, Sympatico supplied the Alcatel A1000, the Nortel 1MM (running on the proprietary Nortel DBIC platform), and the Alcatel SpeedTouch Home. In late 2003, Sympatico standardized on the G.DMT ADSL platform and phased out support for the Nortel DBIC platform. Going forward, Sympatico has exclusively provided Efficient Networks' Speedstream DSL modems.
As of 2004, Sympatico has been providing ADSL2-capable modems to their customers. These modems are backwards compatible with ADSL, and as such Sympatico caps them at 3 or 4 Mbit/s like any other modem. However, they are capable of speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s, should Bell decide to take advantage of ADSL2 in the future.
Etymology
The name Sympatico was chosen for its universal recognition by both English and French speakers, as both are official languages of Canada. Visually and phonetically it resembles the English and French words "sympathetic" and "sympathique" (meaning "kind"), respectively. The word is pronounced as in the Spanish "simpático" with the emphasis on the second syllable.
Unplugged
Has of March 31th, Sympatico offers an unplugged service in 8 provinces and in one territory in Canada. The coverage area includes most of the big cities and after the test phase, Sympatico wants to cover most of Canada.