Hassle Inc.

I have read places that Bell ExpressVu is a company that is some what difficult to deal with when problems arise with their sytem.

Well we up in the northern latitudes can now attest to that sure. For around six weeks an unknown number of customers of ExVu have been calling about weak to no signal on about 8 transponders. As I have mentioned before, the run around was given in no uncertain manner, even when many customers tried to explain that this was a community or regional problem the same spiel was given, “it is only an isolated issue, check this check that”. This went on for many weeks. One could be excused for thinking there was some sort of avoidance here on the part of the company. At best there is a distinct lack of coordination and correlation in their technical help system. The dots should have been connected a lot sooner as to a wide ranging problem.
After checking with a variety of sources over a fairly wide geographic area, it became clear to me that something was amiss, either with uplink or down link with the satellite.

After many phone calls, e mails to ExVu, and the CRTC, I finely received a call on the evening of the 8th from a person in the executive office of ExVu. He admitted there was a wide ranging problem, mainly in the northern latitudes, and from BC to NL to Nunavut.
So the admittance of a problem was there, unfortunately no idea given as to what the problem was, or how long to correct it. Also not given to me was any promise of re imbursements for the lost programming.
Earlier on the same day I had called Telesat, who operate the satellite, so I already had information as to the wide ranging area of the problem. Telesat did not admit to what the problem was, just that their was a problem.

So we sit and wait. Not for long though, yesterday I get a call from a gentleman at Telesat, he asked me if I would be kind enough to help with monitoring the signals while he attempted to set things right. I agreed to do this, in for a penny in for a pound as they say.

So he called back in the afternoon and I spent an hour on the phone as he came and went doing what ever it was he was doing. Seems there were other people on the line with him also. The end result was that all the problem transponders had their signal strength raised, some substantially, others just a small bit.
What made it more difficult is that just as he called to do the corrections it started to rain in Nain, so this affected any accurate test of the signal strength. So it was left until the weather patterns clear and we will most likely do it again.
There was some interference last evening as usual, but not as bad as previous. This morning the signals are up, but the main effects are as the sun goes down and into the early evening, when all the good shows and news are on, so we await again with crossed fingers.

We will also wait to see what Bell ExpressVu comes up with in the restitution field. I have spoken to several people who are fed up, and if they get treated like this again, or are not treated fairly with some rebates, then they are going to look else where for their television service.