However, after talking with Videotron, it appears that even business accounts are very limited. Yes you can host pretty much any type of server you want, but bandwidth stays the same. This means you run all those services on the 800-900kbps stream. Wow, no way I told myself. I’m not Google but I know I need a bit more than that. The sales guy was quick enough to offer me a T1 but I kindly refused his overpriced under performing offering. BTW, anyone still using T1’s ??

So I went to Bell, even though some people have had bad experiences (oh, really?). There, after waiting for a few minutes and getting the wrong department for a few times (how hard is it for “Emily – the automated assistant” to understand “business internet connection” anyways?) I was told that there was no coverage since I was in a rural area and dial-up was my only choice. “Rural??” I told him. I’m a few minutes from downtown Montreal and I can see the phone junction box if I look outside so I should be able to get wire speed on your DSL. I even got the Bell Optimax flyer in my mailbox a few months ago when they installed fiber optic all over my street. That’s when I found out that he probably didn’t know that the 514 area code was Montreal and that he couldn’t care less about me. He was anxious to get the next call as some fish wanted to join the beaver team. *Sigh* Poor Sympatico users… I now feel your pain…!

Next I found Openface. They offer shdsl (up to 9MBps up AND downstream). While very interesting, it is limited to downtown so once again, I was out of luck.

SO… here goes my question to you all and I hope someone somewhere has an answer for me. What are the options for small business on the Montreal Island? Not everyone is hosting/co-locating in a data center! Are there any SDSL providers out there?

PS: If you’re an ISP, please contact me. I have money to give you! I want to be a customer! But I need a decent upload speed.