*this has nothing to do with Primus internet service or the topic of this thread, it's just a joke that only Primus (the band) fans will get. Sorry, had to be done.
AFAIK, Primus does not own any copper or fibre... I believe they resell services they buy in bulk from the cable or telco. Consequently, their services cannot be any faster than the last-mile service that is available in your neighborhood already.
I just posted a Primus speedtest result in another forum.
Primus uses Bell wires and sells service cheaper than Bell does. I've been using their phone service for a few months and have had no problem. I've just bundled phone, long distance, and DSL because nobody can beat their price.
Primus will sell you a DSL modem (or modem/wireless router). Bell, when I left, forced you to rent hardware at a rate that would quickly pay for the equipment many times over. I bought the DSL modem from Primus for $35 and hooked up my existing wireless router.
Hookup was painless. Once they switch your line on, you plug in the DSL modem, hook up a computer, go to their website and with a few clicks you are up and running.
Here's my Speedtest from this morning:
Not 7, but not bad. It also depends on how close you are to the nearest switch.
I don't do online gaming or download movies, so this will do. I Torrented the latest Linux release and it downloaded pretty quickly.
Keep in mind that you are at the mercy of Bell. There are claims that they throttle the bandwidth they sell to people like Primus and the CRTC allows it.
From all reports I have seen, Primus is a pretty good service - unless you need customer support, which is reportedly far worse than anything Bell can dole out. And that's saying something.
For the same money, go Teksavvy (if it is available in your neck of the woods), since they have some of the best customer service going, and are quite flexible when it comes to the OS you will sue, or a mix of machines, or the selection of a modem/router, etc...
__________________ Powered By Acer AMD NEO II & Windows 7 - Legacy Apple Systems Are OSX Panther Powered!
I tried Primus in Vancouver - so it goes through Telus.
The result was a disaster. It took them 3 weeks to actually get internet working. They never thought to wait till I actually received the modem to switch over, they just jumped on it. Then it didn't work, so I got to see how useless technical support is. They had to go to Telus a few times. Support was pleasant, but not helpful. People rarely called me back. No apologies, just like "whatever".
Then 4 months later, it suddenly stopped working again. It's two weeks on and it's still not working. End result: I'm switching. In a bit over 4 months, I've had one whole month without internet.
Perhaps with shaw (out east) it's a bit better. It could be Telus doing nasty stuff, but even with allowances for that, Primus absolutely sucks. Don't bother.
I do not work for Primus or at this time use their services, but recent events do effect anyone who does.
The CRTC or the Supreme Court of Canada have said that Bell and Rogers can no longer throttle the internet services that resellers buy off of them to sell to you and me. I recall them saying on CBC Radio that it is now a level playing field. If a company who is a reseller of Bell ISP services says you get 7MBPS, you will get that speed given that the farther you are from a switch the more traffic there will be to slow that down.