As a public service to anyone considering the switch to Canada’s upstart ISP Teksavvy I’m going to write about my first week or so using their service.

It’s true that Teksavvy piggybacks on at least part of the incumbent networks for their Cable and DSL Internet products, but if you think that supporting a company other than the incumbent ISPs is important like I do then you’ll want to keep reading…

This would be the Rogers-managed portion of my Teksavvy connection, the fabled “last mile” between hub and home.

Glamorous, ain’t it?

Partly due to a misunderstanding and partly because I was out of town when the switchover happened, I ended up coming home to no cable service at all. Fortunately Teksavvy was able to arrange a Rogers service call for me on a Sunday morning, where I got to see this unfortunate mess of ancient wiring in my condo’s cable room.

It all still works, though, and after a few minutes of cable guy futzing my Teksavvy modem was online for the very first time.

So how does it compare to the Rogers service I had before?

These are my results from SpeedTest.net — downstream is pretty much identical to what I was getting before, but my upstream bandwidth has been halved. This is a bit disappointing as there’s a noticeable slowdown when I’m surfing and using a BitTorrent client simultaneously.

Thankfully I’ve had no issues with Skype, the only other upstream-intensive app that I regularly use. Other upsides include the almost $20 per month that I save, and that some but not all of my monthly bill now goes to Rogers.

Here’s how the two services compare:

Rogers Extreme Internet:

Up to 15 Mbps download speed (and on which planet might that be?)

Up to 1 Mbps upload speed (I only ever got about half of that)

80 GB monthly usage allowance

$59.99/month + taxes

Teksavvy Extreme Cable:

10 Mbps downstream

1 Mbps upstream

200 GB monthly cap (!)

$42.95/month + taxes

In both cases I purchased a modem outright rather than renting it. I could have technically waited to see if my Rogers cable modem would work with my Teksavvy service, but decided to play it safe. At least now I have a spare…

I should also mention that Teksavvy’s legendary customer service has perhaps taken a turn for the worse, in that my wait times to speak with someone on the phone have consistently been ten minutes-plus. However, when they finally answer the folks on the other end of the line have been consistently courteous and helpful, and I suspect that support requests by voicemail or email might be a more efficient means of getting help.

Despite the hit in upstream bandwidth I’m very satisfied with Teksavvy. I even get the same trickle of TV stations that I did with Rogers, though they’re of dubious value since there’s little worth watching on the idiot box anyway.

If you’re tired of handing over your hard-earned money month after month to the usual suspects, Teksavvy is definitely worth looking into.