Lightspeed review: ADSL Internet service provider in Metro Vancouver

First published on February 23, 2009

February 2011 update: I have now switched back to Telus for my Internet needs. As much as I wanted to continue with Lightspeed, I had the impression that Lightspeed had no desire to improve their customer service or product.

In searching for a residential Internet service provider in Metro Vancouver, one of my main goals was to avoid Shaw and Telus. At the very least, I could inform others as to whether there is actually a viable alternative. Plus, all of the other residents in my building use one of “the big two”, so I had a bit of a backup plan there.

As it turns out, so far so good (about a month and a half in) with Lightspeed Internet Communications. Note that I signed up for its Internet and phone bundle for just over $50 per month after tax, so I’ll review its phone service in another post. Note that Lightspeed does not provide television service (although it’s good on your wallet and time to go without cable TV anyway).

Lightspeed’s Internet service on its own as of February 2009 is $34.90 per month plus tax on a month-to-month basis. This is a couple of dollars cheaper per month if you sign up for a contract. The price includes a $4.95 system access fee since Telus unfortunately owns all the wiring. Thankfully Lightspeed is not Telus, as it has its own network and customer support. The price is comparable to Shaw or Telus’s prices after you read through the big two’s promo and contract junk. To use Lightspeed’s ADSL Internet service, you must have either an existing landline phone (a VoIP line with Shaw does not count); or pay a $10 CRTC monthly fee; or bundle it with Lightspeed’s VoIP phone service for $10 per month (which is what I did).

The speed that I get with Lightspeed is consistently over 2.5Mbps for downloads and 850kbps for uploads, no matter what time of day it is. Divide those numbers by 8 to get the more user-friendly speed in bytes instead of bits. The total monthly upload and download bandwidth limit is a combined 200gb.

Here are my general notes about Lightspeed, for which I hope to be using for many years:

Setup is free, but you will have to get temporary access to your phone room (or equivalent box) for the owner of the wiring (typically Telus) to do a one-time test on the line.
I have not had any connection issues except for the weekend after I first signed up, when I had to reboot the modem several times before the connection started working again many hours later. I have yet to figure out what the problem was.
You do not get a free modem. You must either purchase one for $60 from them (plus an ATA if you are using their phone service) or you can use an existing DSL modem if you have one or can get one for cheaper elsewhere.
Phone support during their business hours is great as I have always had a live person answer the phone immediately.
E-mail support has been either speedy or non-responsive. I had good success following up via phone.
If you’re in a condo that is outfitted with several Ethernet outlets, you can’t use them unless you’re with Shaw. So you’ll have to rely on your router. Remember that while ADSL doesn’t interfere with your phone service, it uses your phone lines.
For the techies: Lightspeed doesn’t force me to use their own SMTP server for sending e-mails. You might see this is a good or bad thing. I see this as a good thing.
The Lightspeed website could really use an update. However, the money they would spend on marketing is theoretically being used to maintain and improve their service… I hope.

Overall, Lightspeed is a good service with friendly, responsive employees who know their product. It is not blazing fast for those people who download 10 movies concurrently via torrents, but then again I’d be happy if my fellow Lightspeed customers aren’t doing that anyway. Lightspeed has provided a reliable, fast Internet connection at all hours for my personal and work needs and is an alternative to Shaw and Telus that you should consider.

This entry is filed under Vancouver / BC / Canada and written by Peter Keung. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

48 Responses to “Lightspeed review: ADSL Internet service provider in Metro Vancouver”

March 17th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Julia says:

it’s difficult to know about your alternatives to shaw/telus. I use a company called Novus for internet/cable – they only operate in downtown vancouver. The service has been great – and is slightly cheaper than the big 2.

Going with a non ‘big2′ provider does usually still require coordination with them as they usually have to still ‘unlock’ your lines…really annoying.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Ron says:

I’m in Drumheller Alberta, and I think this is exactly what I am looking for as I am currently renting a house and I have Shaw. Since we moved in March it has been consistently excruciatingly slow.
Numerous calls have been made to Shaw and they know its slow, (I think they are putting in new fibre) it is ridiculous. They have had to credit my last three months, as its been dialup speeds.

Telus is such a mess, I have put up with the sloowwww shaw speeds.
But after reading your post, I might investigate this option.

We don’t currently have a land line hooked up, but from what I read in your post, we don’t need one hooked up .
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:52 am
Riun says:

I will be right up front from the onset and state- I am a reseller. My company is Cyber Gold Communications. I re-sell LightSpeed and DolphinTel produts. This may come across as being bias as I have an interest in the products but if you hear me out, you may see where I am comming from.

I have have been a re-seller of similiar products provided by much larger companies in the past (1997-2005) and always found that as the big guys grew, I was shut out as my customer base did not meet their levels to be important to them.

Since meeting Jason, Laurel and the rest of the crew at Lightspeed (mid 2005), I found a refreshing attitude that changed my mind about possibly getting out of the re-seller market. Jason (owner) really cares about everyone that is connected to his company- customers, staff and yes- the re-seller. I have seen him pour his heart and soul (and a lot of money) into the company to make upgrades, changes and life generally better for EVERYONE.

He listens to the feed back. He thinks about it and then acts.

In the early days of VoIP, I will admit there were problems but then then again- even the BIG guys with deep pockets had problems with quality. Some of the REALLY BIG ones has problems that matched their advertising budgets. I think you all know who that was. Others finally gave up and went out of business.

As technology has evolved, I have seen first hand how the Quality of the VoiP has gone from fair (quite often not reliable) to 99.999 percent crystal clear… and that gets even better if you are not using an outside provider for your internet connection. ie: If you use their infrastructe (adsl and VoIP) your VoIP can be better than using their VoIP service connected over one of the other BroadBand providers. (shaw, telus etc as your ISP)

The feed back that was being sent back to Jason was heard. Keep it all in house and the quality was even better. His response was was the BIRTH of the "FREEDOM PLANS"- ADSL and VoIP combined packages. From what I have heard from Support- this move cut their support calls down drastically.

Again- yes- I may be deemed as bit biased but I can say from being there through the evolvement, LightSpeed / DolphinTel has lead the way with Quality Products, Good Customer Support (although a 24/7 would be nice but not usually required because their product is very stable) and easy on the budget.

Oh.. before I close- Did you know that Jason was the FIRST company out here on the west coast to offer Dry Loop (aka naked adsl) connection? Telus followed his lead!! Quiet the compliment from them follow the little guy’s brainstorm.

I hope this helps a bit for those that are looking at VoIP and / or ADSL services. If I can be of any further assistance to answer other question, feel free to visit my web site -www.cybergoldcommunications.ca or call.
July 8th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Ann says:

I am an internet lightspeed customer that has regreted getting into a 3 year contract with this company because of the HORRIBLE customer service given by LAUREL at the billing department.

right now I hate them more then I ever hated telus or shaw.
October 22nd, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Elizabeth says:

Hello!!
I am in SUCH need of advice. Ok…so i am with Rogers currently and i have found my use of streaming videos has constantly brought me above MB, and they charge me accordingly. I have called PRIMUS and the will offer me UNLIMITED and a $3 modem rental, for $46.09 plus taxes. I called Rogers and they offered me with a 12 month contract (of course!) 115 GB new high speed modem free for the 12 months for $36.99
So what do i do?!?!!

Reply from Peter: There are so many factors to consider, so I don’t think the right answer is obvious. However, if you haven’t had any other issues with Rogers, I wouldn’t be too scared about a 1-year contract.
November 25th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Ed says:

I’m thinking about switching to a Lightspeed and Dolphin Tel plan, but I,m a little concerned about the 3.o 0r 6.0 MBps speeds compared my current speed with Shaw of 11.36 MBps.
It would appear that you have been on Lightspeed internet for well over a year now and I wondered if you could comment on your experience?
Thanks Ed. Nanaimo

Reply from Peter: I really depends on your “need for speed”. The speed from Lightspeed has remained consistent and I have not had a single problem since the review. Occasionally I have a large download, I sometimes stream videos online, and I make several Skype calls a day — the speed is plenty for that, although my usage certainly wouldn’t qualify as heavy.
January 29th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Cate says:

Since you haven’t written anything to the contrary, I’m going to guess that you’re still with Lightspeed, Peter.

I’ve had a look at their website and while their rates look good, I’m a bit concerned about the lack of reviews as well as the comment from Ann above. I’m currently with Uniserve and their service is beyond pathetic so I’m anxious to find another provider soon.

Any further observations you’d care to share regarding Lightspeed’s services will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Reply from Peter: I’m still happy with Lightspeed’s Internet service. For residential phone service, I’m strongly considering switching to a mostly DIY solution at voip.ms because of the sheer number of features that voip.ms offers.
March 14th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Darcie says:

we are curently with east link, we live in alberta and cannot get service from Telus of Shaw, we are looking at this as an option I am a student so i need all hours internet access and we use it to talk on skype for hundreds of hours a day, I was just wondering if you have ever had problems on skype East like drops every 2 minutes and it takes twice as long to get back on and they continually say it’s not them it’s the ip address or whatever excuse they come up with, lightspeed looks promising but what about the 125gb cap, does that inmpeede skype or just downloading

Reply from Peter: No, I have not had Skype problems with Lightspeed. As for the bandwidth cap, I can see how that might be an issue if you download a lot; however, it really depends on your usage. Skype voice is not a huge bandwidth hog. I don’t know about Skype video, but it would be less of a concern than heavy multimedia downloading.
August 19th, 2011 at 9:00 am
David Philips. says:

This is the most useless "service" ever.
I haven’t used their internet service I’m happy to say. I had their phone service beginning in the Spring of 2010, attracted by the unlimited long distance to UK since I do a lot of business there. For a year it wasn’t bad and did save some money but since May of this year it has been awful and cost me a small fortune.
I have been unable to make calls to London, UK on five separate occasions, these (attempted) calls have been between 03:00 and 06:30 but when I dialled there was no signal at all. Since those occasions and before I cancelled my service it was deteriorating further, even local calls were often unintelligible but after I gave them notice it got even worse and it became impossible to use. I’m a Civil Engineer and have several capital projects in London on which I’m consulting; naturally I don’t get paid when I can’t do the job I’m hired for and Internet Lightspeed/Dolphintel have cost me over a thousand dollars in just the past few months. Needless to say I’ve cancelled my "service" from them and advise anyone who might be considering getting the phone connection, don’t, avoid it like the plague. They will be hearing from my lawyer about loss of income since they have not even bothered to discuss reimbursement for this.
I am now with Shaw for everything and VERY satisfied. Lightspeed! Shove it!.
August 25th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
R Hebner says:

Well, I’ve about had enough with Shaw and Telus although Shaw is better than Telus, I wouldn’t recommend supporting either. I won’t sign any contract with anyone especially Telus as their contract allows them to do whatever they like with your personal information but then they know most don’t bother to read contracts.
I’ve decided to go with Lightspeed simply because I’m fed up with these two and Rogers is completely off the charts when it comes to price gouging and Bell isn’t any better.
Ironically, I pay more with Lightspeed for the same speed but that’s where it ends as support is not offshore and you can understand who you’re speaking to which brings me to say Shaw has good, local support while Telus is the WORST anywhere.
I tested out Lightspeed support by calling them before I signed up for their service which involved no contracts, just first and last month, a credit card works best for setting up ongoing payments. They allowed me to buy and use my own modem although they told me it would take 5 to 7 days to set up the service as they would be using Telus land line and it takes time to get that all sorted out.
My biggest concern was support, using my own modem and not waiting on the phone for an hour or more to speak to somebody. I prefer to pay more, for better support and no contract and in Victoria, BC, there are not a lot of viable options to Telus or Shaw. The only other high speed internet service that I was able to find was Uniserve and their service was limited to 6mb at that time. I do know that Lightspeed offers speeds up to 25mbs although I went with 15mbs. I don’t expect there will be a lot of problems but when it comes to service providers, my level of skepticism grows faster than the rates.
August 31st, 2011 at 9:44 am
Rod Hebner says:

Well, it’s time to update my post on Lightspeed. Again, their support is really great but don’t expect any replies to emails or phone messages as that could take a week or not at all. When I signed up for the 15mbs service, I assumed there wouldn’t be any problems but it turns out the best I’ve gotten after a week is 4.77mbs down and 0.79 up which is far from the 15mbs service I subscribed to. After talking to two different technicians there who had me do various speed tests with different websites, they told me that I was connected to a 15mbs service but they would "look into it".
When I checked all the other dry adsl providers, they all listed a 6 mbs service or less. Only Lightspeed lists a 15mbs or 25mbs service to which I am very skeptical as it doesn’t take a week to find a technical problem. My guess is, they are trying to sell something they can’t provide at this time but may be able to provide at some point in the future. Kind of like Microsoft selling Vista before it was a viable product without issues. I have given them another week to get the 15mbs service or I’ll be moving on to another provider. When it comes to Telus, they lie but I’m not sure if false advertising is a lie or just a misleading way of getting more customers to sign up for a service they don’t have ?
November 30th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
fnord says:

They are just connected to the telus backbone, they are just reseller. You can check it easily out, configure you dsl modem
as a bridge and just send a dhcp request you end up in a /22 network of telus.
The whole network is a security nightmare, which applies to most of the telus pop’s.
So avoiding telus and using lightspeed is more a fairy tail. But lightspeeds tech support is the best, they knowledge is between Laurell and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin, it’s just useless to discuss a technical issue with their so called technicans.
Technical guys with a backup connection will have a lot of fun with these funny people, not quite sure what they smoke.
If you just wanna have a reliable connection avoid them.
December 4th, 2011 at 5:56 am
pedram says:

i have found another company which support BC. has anyone signed up with them ?
Naked ADSL http://www.nakedadsl.ca

Reply from Peter: They are actually Lightspeed Internet
December 20th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
Jay says:

DISASTER. The service is a nightmare. Really. I wasn’t that happy with Telus, but these guys are worse. Maybe they used to be good, but not now.
January 7th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Viridian says:

Found your blog while Googling Vancouver ISP speed issues.

I’m having issues with Shaw over d’load speeds after signing up with them for their 30mb/s service. I use a UK based VPN for downloading local content unavailable outside the UK but I’m experiencing severe buffering issues due to poor connection speeds. Using speedtest.net identified that, although my local internet d’load speed is in around 30 Mb/s, connection to most UK servers is EXTREMELY POOR at between 1,5 and 2.3 Mb/s resulting in the buffering. My VPN supplier was unable to identify what was causing the problem and suggested contacting Shaw for help.

Technical Help from them is incredibly bad! Apart from having to wait nearly 6 hours before I actually spoke to a human being, I eventually explained the situation to the techie in great detail. She was helpful but totally ignorant of the problem as she was only able to check my local d’load speed which, of course, showed an acceptably high figure. I then persuaded her to use speedtest.net, not only for my local connection but also from her desk (in Calgary) to some of the London servers. She identified similar speeds to mine. I then suggested that as global internet speeds from Canada to the UK are generally in an acceptable range of 5-10 Mb/s there must be something wrong with their server connections. She couldn’t offer any help but I asked that she refer the problem to those higher up and get back to me. She said that she would and that another person (name given) would get back to me.

I have yet to hear back from them and I probably won’t. From this, I’m left with the clear impression that, because Shaw makes it’s major revenues from providing TV services, they maybe ‘throttling’ d’load speeds from oversees servers to prevent easy viewing of foreign programs and prejudicing their profits.
January 30th, 2012 at 12:26 am
Jay says:

I am a Dolphintel customer. I wanted a better, cheaper, more customer-friendly service for internet and phone. These guys seemed to offer it, so I signed up. I regret it now.

100% agree with Ann’s comment about Laurel in billing and some of the other comments I’ve read about her. She really, really shoudn’t be in a job where she speaks with customers. Just not good at all. Infuriating, actually.

Tech support is very hit-and-miss. Lot’s of "can you call back later/tomorrow/another time?" and "I’ll leave a note for someone to look into that…". It’s not a place where many people seem to care at all. Too bad — it would be so easy to be better than the big guys.

If you’re with Telus or Shaw right now and thinking that you might switch, I suggest that you DO NOT, at least until these guys get their customer service act together. It’s a mess.
January 30th, 2012 at 6:45 pm
Philip_Surry says:

Just CANCELLED my subscription. Bad network reliability and the WORST support. You call and it’s like there are no professionals working there.
February 5th, 2012 at 7:34 pm
T.Jones says:

Lightspeed Dolphin is our small business provider for 2 years. Best thing is they’re cheap for sure. Our phones work well most of time. As long as you don’t need really clear sound and you don’t need to call tech line, its ok. if you have problem, they don’t know.
February 13th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
J. Spratt says:

I’m looking for an alternative to Shaw (and Telus), have had a very bad experience with Shaw this past fall where my service was not acceptable even by their own standards. (Shaw said they’d re-imburse but they haven’t sent a cheque, then when I phoned today they said my bill was sent to collections, but I paid in full in Oct, they owed me! What a nightmare! I’ve phoned them so many times since Oct, unbelievable!)
I looked at Lightspeed but they want $203. initial payment. This includes 1st and last month billing up front + 75.00 modem fee. But the billing sounds wrong, from Feb 1st (today is Feb 13th) -March 1st is what their invoice says. (and the wait is min 5 bus days to come out) When I questioned it, they emailed me back saying I would get credit on my bill, still doesn’t add up to me?
I had a really really really bad experience with Shaw this past fall where I couldn’t get my internet, Shaw knew what the problem was (the details would make you shudder, theft of signal, I was paying, the other guy was stealing, Shaw knew it but wouldn’t take action)…
So, I’m looking for an ‘alternative’ to Shaw, anyone able to recommend?
March 2nd, 2012 at 11:18 am
CSk says:

I switched back to Telus after a month of Service with Light speed. I paid the 1st and last month service. I have my old modem could be used so I did not pay the rental service. A Telus installer came to install the internet for Light speed. After a while, the service suddenly stopped. A few calls to make to Light speed. It was because there is an over limit usage so the service stopped providing the internet. Services can only be restored the next day. It also means that a huge bill is also on the way. I did not do not any movie download. It is just normally surfing and the speed is not fast as what I think it should be. I canceled the service immediately but they said it needs 30days notice. So the last month payment is gone. Either way you lost. During the service time, a few unpleasant encountered with the customer service.
March 6th, 2012 at 11:59 pm
Douglas says:

Been with Lightspeed for 2 yrs now and am fed up with dropped calls, internet down time which affects my business. Can’t run credit cards and phone works intermittently. Tech Support guys are nice enough (when they are available) no 24hr support.

Not worth what I’m paying and will switch over to Telus. Saved about $20 a month. Probably lost thousands in missed calls and business.

Lightspeed is ok if you want to save $$$ but don’t care about when Voip works or Internet reliability.
April 22nd, 2012 at 10:31 pm
MegP. says:

Advice to J Spratt: you’re right, the billing doesn’t look right. My bills with Lightspeed are wrong about 40% of the time.

Every time I correct them they fix it, but why should I have to? Same mistakes are repeated over and over. A waste of my time. I don’t think they’re dishonest, just incompetent.

I’m waiting for a good deal from Telus to switch back (after swearing that I never would). So unfortunately, keep looking for another option. Don’t pick this one.
May 30th, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Plen Arroyo says:

Finally, I got the offer I was waiting for from Shaw, allowing me to switch. Dolphin is just weak, especially on service. Boss doesn’t seem to care about customer interactions.
November 28th, 2012 at 1:14 am
end user says:

I’ve had Lightspeed at my house for 2 years which I switched from Shaw and their useless techs. I also have it for my business in Mission. I can’t say much about the tech’s as I’ve never had to call it except for when I went over the 200gigs but anyone complaining about it need their head checked. Read the TOS. Anyways I usually bought the extra 25gig lot but never got charged for it on three occasion.
December 20th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Chris says:

My experience with Lightspeed:

Install date came and went with no phone call, no one visited my house. On Day 2, I had to call the company and ask where my internet service was. After 2 additional days of back and forth (mostly my calling and emailing them) and no service or resolution, I requested cancellation of service never given. I was told they were keeping the first month billing payment because in their opinion the internet service was hooked up.

This despite the fact that no installer ever entered my home or called throughout the process.

I wouldn’t recommend this company to anyone.
February 18th, 2013 at 4:39 pm
thereasonableman says:

Installed cable internet from Lightspeed. Switched from Shaw. It was supposed to be a few minutes to an hour downtime while they switched. 12 days later (after they disconnected my Shaw internet), I finally got connected. It may have been Shaw that made a mistake with my connection, but all Lightspeed could do for two weeks was say, "We’ve emailed Shaw and they have opened a ticket". Basically, Shaw controls everything for the connection and Lightspeed can’t do any diagnosis of the connection. Lightspeed just suggested I power cycle the modem, which I did about 25 times over the 2 week period but that changed nothing. So, if Shaw screws up, Lightspeed can only open a ticket with Shaw, and Shaw will fix it in their sweet old time. 12 days in my case. I don’t think Shaw has any motivation to speed things up since Lightspeed just scooped their customer. I was offered absolutely nothing from Lightspeed as compensation for the nearly 2 weeks of downtime. I think they feel it wasn’t their fault so they shouldn’t care about keeping me happy, or they are just cheap and don’t care about the customer very much, or both. However, it was their fault for not following up with Shaw faster, and the result is that I’m not happy.

That said, it seems to work right now, and I hope it continues to because they cost less. I will rant here some more if I experience more problems, but if I don’t, it is very likely that the service is doing fine and I’ve forgotten to follow up.

Unfortunately, there are very few, if any alternatives other than the big 2.

If you make the switch … good luck. And post here, even if it is a good experience since everyone here seems to have had a bad experience.
August 21st, 2013 at 6:32 pm
canamjay says:

Kind of hard to believe all this internet agony is in a large Canadian city to which I am in the process of relocating. I’ve traveled widely in recent years.. lots of 3rd world countries and some not. I am appalled at the incredible cost and poor service of cell phones in this, the country of my birth.. but internet?? Man, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama spring to mind and I can tell you that services there are vastly superior on a cost/benefit basis to what passes for ‘service’ here. I’ve never speed tested a single Canadian Internet connection and found it performing as billed!
This is a country that pioneered in packet switching algorithms and for years was considered the standard for broadband and microwave transmission… not any more it seems. And customer service?? don’t make me laugh! Rogers, Chatr, et al… are not only incredibly expensive, but customer surly more often than not. Gouge the customer, nail his feet to the floor, interrupt service, provide rudeness and often incomprehensible ‘terms’. Even the US does not compare well to the third world in price/performance… used to be the 3rd world were way behind … not anymore. One can only surmise that the biggies here, like the banksters in the US are lining politicians pockets to be allowed to continue to pretend they still need to recoup their decades old infrastructure costs… support? press 1 if you’ve had the measles, press 2 if…..
. Mexico’s Carlos Slim is the worlds’ richest man. Not because he rips off his customers, but because he provides good services for a fair return that even the poor can afford. What a concept. I weep for the future of my birth country on many levels; this is just another one.
October 3rd, 2013 at 1:36 pm
andrea says:

As long as Telus and Shaw exist it doesn’t matter who else you go to, they control the access to your house. Between these two and Bell, the also tell the CRTC what to do. We are all doomed.
October 5th, 2013 at 12:16 pm
Roland Lindgren says:

Hi. I’m interested in finding cheaper alternative to telus Internet high speed and cable TV.
Can anyone suggest anything that’s actually worthwhile trying? And what’s happening with you there Peter? anything new that’s working well or have you quit trying?
Am in Vancouver BC area.

Anyone tried Primus?

It seems you have it right Andrea.

Any info much appreciated,
Roland

Reply from Peter: I’m still open to an alternative, but for now I’m stuck switching between Shaw and Telus.
December 3rd, 2013 at 4:40 pm
thereasonableman says:

I’ve been with Lightspeed cable internet for almost a year now and upgraded to 25Mbps about 7 months ago. Happy to report that everything has been just fine. Saving about $30/month compared to what I was paying Shaw. I’ve had no complaints after the first month. I think I can recommend them now.
December 3rd, 2013 at 5:05 pm
thereasonableman says:

By the way, the $30/month savings is including phone service from Dolphintel. The internet phone started off not as good as Shaw’s but after upgrading to 25Mbps the phone has been as good as Shaw’s phone. Not sure if it is because of the speed increase or if they upgraded their systems, but it is quite good now.
January 22nd, 2014 at 1:39 am
eddo says:

I live in the hills out side summerland and pay a fortune for abt 3.5k ! the lignt speed web site says my line is good for adsl but there is no adsl switch in the local switch station. Im confused and have been hoping for decades to get something faster. can adsl work for me?
April 15th, 2014 at 11:04 pm
RP says:

Can anyone tell me what Lightspeed Cable Internet service is like? Recommend, not recommend?
July 4th, 2014 at 4:47 pm
jeff_yao says:

I am currently using Primus both ADSL HS internet and traditional phone (for 3 months now) after switching from Telus. The only thing I can say is Primus’s customer service is much better than 12 years ago. However, the internet speed is horrible in the evening (from 7:00pm to 12:00am), it can be anywhere from 0.3mb to 1.2mb.
But in daytime, it is consistent btw 3.5mb to 6mb. I guess I pay what I get. My bill (internet and phone) is less than half of my original. After 6 month promotion, my bill will still 30% less than the original.
July 9th, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Andrea says:

I read this post and sign up to use lightspeed’s service. So far they’ve lost my order form twice so I had to write it again. and I got yelled at the lady rep because I didn’t tell them that its a ‘basement apartment’. Well I didn’t use the exact term but I did tell them that I’m renting a ground floor suite in a house!!!! And she said I need to know the service address of my place so I asked her where to get it and she got mad at me and started yell at me again saying that she doesn’t know where to get it. I am very upset and mad now. How does she think its ok to yell at a customer asking a question? If she doesnt want to answer questions why is she in customer service dep??? And How the hell do i know what kind of terms THEY are familiar with??? Very very unorganized and crappy custmer service. They might be cheaper than shaw or yelus but its really hard to get even installation done. I really do not recommand them.
September 16th, 2014 at 8:19 pm
Destiny says:

Lightspeed’s website needs a redesign to look more contemporary and clean. Website is messy and stuck in year 2001. Customer service is good, I had no problems. I think it’s because I am fairly technical and I speak their language. My advise to Lightspeed is to train their customer service people to talk in lament terms. This blog originally from 2009, it’s 2014 now and I decided to cut the cord – meaning use VOIP for phone service and use Lightspeed’s ADSL for all my entertainment needs. No high TV fees from major providers. I went from paying monthly $130 down to $55 (before tax). My advise is to get the unlimited bandwidth for $5 extra since Internet usage will go up. To replace TV programming, get Netflix or Roku; both cost $8/month. Next, get a Chromecast ($40). I also got a HD antenna (one time $75) to get free HD channels over the air. Depending on your geo location, you can get anywhere from 12 – 25 channels; not all in HD. As for VOIP, you got your choice of MagicJack, Ooma, Vonage, etc.. MagicJack’s initial investment is the least. Back to Lightspeed, you need to buy a VDSL wireless modem router. Lightspeed gladly sell you one. Shop around and compare modem router. When Lightspeed increase their monthly fees, then their value proposition will start to diminish. In terms of price per bandwidth, Lightspeed is much less. That’s their only selling point. To improve their customer service, they should look at Zappos’ company philosophy.
November 25th, 2014 at 12:02 pm
Mary says:

Lightspeed.ca Is a horrible service. I had it for 2 months, albeit with continuous problems. It would work well intermittently throughout the day with large periods of disrupted internet and phone service. At least 80% of the time callers in to the home would be incomprehensible. Internet would slow down to a snails pace or not work at all for large chunks of the day. As a stay at home mother, who relies on the phone to organize her day, and internet to pay online bills, organize activities for my children, etc, it’s very frustrating. In this time period I made at least a dozen calls to their tech support. On 3 of those occasions they told me there was nothing they could do as they tried trouble shooting the problem. I finally threw the towel in and asked for a cancellation/refund. They refused. Even though I technically had the service for 2 months, they tried charging me for the third as well and also refused to refund this. They were so unconcerned about my problematic time keeping a consistent and reliable service, and really only concerned about keeping my money. Finally I spoke with their "head of complaints" department. He was so rude and arrogant, I was so turned off by him that we filed a small claim against them. It was more than just the money. The smug attitude and insults this person made, questioning my intelligence, not to mention scamming me is going to be worthy of a meeting before the judge.
December 10th, 2014 at 11:52 am
Paul says:

People be aware….where you live matters……especially when it comes to where you live and where the internet provider servers are located. The further away, the slower the speed, the worse it gets so anyone living on Vancouver Island would be well advised to avoid anyone selling internet services with their servers located on the mainland especially dry loop ADSL service.
January 15th, 2015 at 11:58 am
Gary says:

January 15, 2015

I’m considering a change for internet service only as I use Mjack for phone. I have read through all of the posts and the one from Paul (2014-12-10) and a few others suggest the last mile may be the culprit as well as the server location for slow speeds and service interruptions. I live in Tsawwassen and I know the line out is Telus but do not know how far it is to the LightSpeed server. Does anyone in Tsawwassen have LightSpeed able to rate their performance or know where they pick up the service from Telus?
February 13th, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Elizabeth says:

I’m planning to get this internet service with Lightspeed. I live in Courtenay. Could someone from Courtenay comment on their experiences with this company?
February 26th, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Dave says:

Don’t waste your time/money on Lightspeed…total joke of a company..they don’t supply the speeds they charge you for…very very very bad customer service…you’ve been warned
March 24th, 2015 at 12:09 pm
James says:

Can anyone provide a more detailed review of:

Speed (weeknights and weekends)
Outages (any? how often no service at all)
Ping (what does speedtest give you?)
Lag from switching over from shaw to actual service (I hear upto 12 days)?
Location (What part of metro vancouver)?

Considering switching from Shaw…currently live in New Westminster (Queensborough)..paying $80 for 30 mbps. (a rip!)
October 31st, 2015 at 12:42 am
David H says:

Yes, the service is definetely one of the worst things ive ever witnessed with regards to a company that sells such ‘essential’ services but isnt open 24/7 … however… to go around waiting for them to get back to me next week somtime i was hoping that maybe someone out there can publish the Lightspeed DSL Configuration data that you need if you happen to reset the OVIS link modem and cant get the modem back online? anyone remember the dsl numbers that they walk you through over the phone?

thanks in advance!
David
November 28th, 2015 at 9:56 pm
thenonexistentservice says:

The service from Lightspeed needs improvement from grounds up. Subscribing internet connection through this company is as easy as a phone call and providing your credit card number, the service though will not be started on the day you expect. The customer service will not call you back for the issues you report, they will rather escape and leave a voice mail. Service Desk is non existent, it is manned by technical support representative whose focus is not serving the customer but saying "i don’t know" it is not ours, so either call the modem company or check the wiring in your house. The only pleasant experience is when you disconnect the service. If you are planning to work from home and use this internet service, be aware that for weeks you will be without internet if the service breaks for reasons you will be never aware of. Not reliable, not customer friendly, just a alternative service if you were to use this for backup.
May 15th, 2020 at 1:35 pm
Kassidy says:

Hi everyone, watch as I bring this thread back from the dead hahahaha.

So, Lightspeed, I have had experience with and can say mostly good about them. I am looking back at these posts from 2010 seeing speeds of 5/10mbps being sought after. Lol
Anyways, I have had Lightspeed on a couple occasions at different locations. They use Shaw installers to come and hook up the cables and set everything up. They seem to work good in unison. The only real problems have been with certain staff members not being overly knowledgeable or anything about their actual role or occupation. Being left with half ass answers and no real solution. Good thing that was for a timing issue not a service problem. As with this whole coronavirus thing messing up everyones life. I called them april.27th made a payment instantly of first and last month’s came to 131.98 for the 75mbps per month . I had to pay for shipping and the 2$ extra a month it costs for the modem. So the bill adds up. But my internet wast hooked up until May 13th I waited 15 days when they said it would be a max of 5-7 business days. Well when Eugene told me that my appointment wasn’t fr another 10 days after I allread waited a week. I asked him well what about the money ive paid. What will happen to my bill. I’m paying for a half month of not even using the service and his response was " we don’t do credit checks that’s why you pay for a second month security deposit" fist of all that does not even answer my question Eugene. So I realized he wasn’t going to give me the answer I needed I said goodbye and hung up. So needless to say I am happy with their service but like all providers they can have their problems. But that’s just life.
Hope you all stay safe and enjoy your internet surfing.
February 14th, 2021 at 1:23 am
Aidrean says:

I have been a satisfied customer with Lightspeed/Dolphintel for about 15 years. I remember when they were operating out of a few small rooms, and you could just drop in for a chat anytime. Not so much today, as they’ve expanded significantly. However, I still find that friendliness, politeness, and patience go a long way towards ensuring smooth relations with both technical and business staff. If you’re impatient and grumpy with them, then you deserve the service you get. I also find that technical quality has improved hugely since the early days of VoIP, and, as an elderly pensioner on a shoestring budget, I have always thought Lightspeed’s service to be reasonably priced. After the dreadful experiences I had had previously with TELUS and Uniserve, I feel lucky to have found a home with Lightspeed, and I have no intention of moving.
March 26th, 2023 at 10:13 pm
Bruno says:

I am in Lethbridge AB. I was with Shaw but wanted to save $. Lightspeed.ca was recommended by a friend as being reliable, low cost and unlimited data included on all plans. My friend said that ADSL (phone lines) might be glitchy here. I switched from Shaw internet to Lightspeed.ca cable internet in 2020 and have been happy with, connection, connection speed, customer service and billing department. I get better connection speeds and service than I ever got with, first Telus ADSL, then Shaw internet. And much better pricing! I seldom give compliments or recommendations for a certain product but with Lightspeed I remain impressed!
May 15th, 2024 at 12:16 am
Peggie says:

I’ve been a lightspeed internet customer in Winnipeg over a cable connection for close to 6 years. The service has been rock solid. However, I purchased my own modem which can do speeds well above my service level, and the tech who did the install replaced the line running from the pole to the house, and the cable inside the house which runs to the modem.
I get exactly the speed I’m paying for (have tested it). Having said that I dont do a lot of streaming, dont do IPTV, dont usually use it during peak hours (peak hour throttling) and am the only person in the house using the internet. Can’t argue with what I’m paying, and the price never goes up. Less than half the price of either Bell MTS Fibe or Shaw Ignite.