Bell Sympatico

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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. Two other Sympatico-branded Internet services are also offered; Unplugged is a wireless service and Optimax is based on fibre optics.

As of March 2006, Sympatico currently enjoys over 2 million subscribers in Ontario and Quebec and is the largest ADSL ISP in Canada. In order to differentiate between Standard High Speed and Ultra High Speed, it was decided that security software and home networking equipment would be included at no extra cost.

As of summer 2003, Sympatico has tried to differentiate its service from its competitors by adding Radial Point's (Formally Zero Knowledge) 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.

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.

Sympatico High Speed Unplugged

As of March 31, 2006, Bell Canada began offering a wireless Internet solution under the Sympatico brand. The service relies on technology developed by Inukshuk Wireless Inc., a joint venture between Rogers Communications and Bell Canada. and has no affiliation to Sympatico's xDSL operations.

Sympatico Unplugged currently offers two tiers of service to both rural and urban users in ten provinces and one territory; 512kbps with a 4 GB usage threshold and 3Mbps with a 60GB threshold.

Unplugged is an OFDM Non-Line-of-Sight NLOS wireless service. The modem is a (RSU-2510-FV) NextNet Expedience Broadband Wireless Modem available as a mandatory equipment rental.

Sympatico Optimax

As of July 5, 2006, Bell Canada began offering fibre-based Internet access under the Sympatico brand.

Optimax currently offers two tiers of service in select areas in Montreal: 10Mbps with a 50GB threshold and 16Mbps with a 100GB threshold. Upload rates are 1Mbps. $65 a month for the 10Mbps, and $80 a month for 16Mbps.

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.

External links

• [Sympatico/MSN MSN-based portal site]
• [DSLReports Sympatico forum and FAQs]
• [Sympatico High Speed Unplugged]
• [Inukshuk Wireless]
• [Sympatico Optimax]

 

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