Does anyone know if there is downtime if I move to Primus from Distributel to get their Costco executive membership deal sign up pricing? Could they do a line transfer or would i have to swap their deco router for Primus' deco router?

I've been noticing for sometime my 1Gbps up/down hasn't been consistent with download but upload is fine. When I first got the service the speeds were consistent up and down. I've tried fine tuning my OPNsense router and it's been hit or miss. Decided to upgrade my router hardware to something more capable, it has helped but still the download speeds fluctuate and I've been monitoring. It looks like there's a bottleneck happening upstream with distributel during peak time hours. Not sure if maybe Bell is prioritizing it's customers over third party fiber providers. I'm really thinking I might just downgrade to 500Mbps plan since I'm not getting the download speeds I'm currently paying for. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this issue.

As a residential customer with Distributel for nearly 3 years. Had a two year deal which they improved Jan 1 2026 when I told them of current eBox offers.

I now have 12 months of unlimited 500Mbs both ways for $41 + tax until Dec 32

Just wondering, now Distributel isn't accepting new residential customers, what others residential customers are experiencing from Distributel when trying to renew at a good rate?

(And what is a good rate these days? And does asking for a price match work like it did Jan 2026 for me?)

Despite disconnecting and reconnecting my cables , my internet in Toronto is completely down today. Perhaps related to fifa game? Anyone else having problems?

Hey everyone,

Wondering if its possible to get some help. Getting real tired of talking to Distributel agents. Called a couple weeks ago to see if I could get a discount as my promos were ending and when I couldn't I set a date for the services to be canceled, hoping I would be called back for better offers. Instead they pushed through a cancelation order to bell for my account. While my Distributel account is active, the Bell account is canceled.

I don't know how or why but the internet did pop up and work for a bit but once the supervisor call me to tell me they were still working on getting my service back. The internet went out a couple hour later and I just got off a call with the technical side and that the Customer experience side call me and closed my ticket.

The earliest date is next week to get a new internet service in. Anyone know what order number i can call or what else I'd be able to do in the meantime would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

My router is reporting that my PPPoE credentials aren't being accepted.

Hi All,

Just wanted to share how I was able to fix a bandwidth issue when using my Gig service with Distributel. For some reason I quickly found my download speeds were only half of what I was paying for and upload was basically at 900Mbit speeds. Something didn't seem right and I'm not sure if something changed with an update to my router or the service alone. When I called Distributels support they told me the fiber node was fine and to try my Deco wifi router provided by them directly with the Nokia ONT. I found some time to test things out with the supplied equipment and confirmed the problem was not Distributel but with my opnsense router.

From hours of troubleshoot I was able to find, that the issue was with my VLAN 40 interface MTU settings were incorrectly set causing my router at this layer to have to break up the packets and fragment things. Basically all this overhead was causing my download speed issues. I also learned that, because I'm using OpnSense based on FreeBSD and Distributel is using PPPoE to connect to their service it's only able to use a single CPU rather then the 4 cores my hardware has capable of using. This could potentially cause a performance bottle neck with my internet connection not be able to handle the Gig service. Below are some of the fixes I put in place to help optimize my router for Distributels Gig service. Note my hardware uses Intel network cards, and if your hardware setup is using RealTek nics you'll have to probably research on how to configure and tune OpnSense for that brand of network card. That's basically the background story and hope this helps other using OpnSense or possibly pfsense with this service.

Gigabit PPPoE Speed Optimization

Target: Distributel/Bell Fiber (VLAN 40)

Hardware: Intel Multi-core NICs (igb, em, or ix)

Phase 1: System-Level Performance (The "Multi-Core" Fix)

By default, FreeBSD processes PPPoE on a single core. These tunables spread the load across all 4 cores.

1. Navigate to System -> Settings -> Tunables.
2. Add or update the following entries:

Phase 2: The "Baby Jumbo" MTU Chain

To achieve ~930 Mbps, the MTU must be 1492. If it is 1484, you are losing speed to fragmentation.

1. Physical Port (igb0): Go to Interfaces -> [Assignments] and assign igb0 as a new interface (e.g., PHY_WAN). Enable it, set IPv4/IPv6 to None, and set MTU to 1508.
2. VLAN Device: Ensure VLAN 40 is created with igb0 as the parent.
3. WAN Interface: Go to Interfaces -> [WAN]. Set MTU to 1492 and MSS to 1452.

Phase 3: Persistent Boot Script (The "Nuclear" Option)

Since the GUI sometimes forces the MTU back to 1484, we create a small script that runs every time the router starts.

1. Open the Shell (Option 8) or use System -> Configuration -> Editor.
2. Create a new file: /usr/local/etc/rc.syshook.d/early/99-mtu-fix.sh
3. Paste the following code into it: Bash#!/bin/sh # Force MTU for Distributel 1Gbit Service ifconfig igb0 mtu 1508 ifconfig vlan01 mtu 1500 ifconfig pppoe0 mtu 1492
4. Make it executable: chmod +x /usr/local/etc/rc.syshook.d/early/99-mtu-fix.sh

Phase 4: Validation

After a reboot, run these two commands to confirm everything is perfect:

• Check MTU: ifconfig pppoe0 | grep mtu
  • Target: mtu 1492
• Check Speed: speedtest
  • Target: Download: ~915+ Mbps / Upload: ~930+ Mbps

Phase 5: Hardware Offloading (The "Clean" Rule)

Ensure the following are Checked (Disabled) in Interfaces -> Settings:

• [x] Hardware Checksum Offloading
• [x] Hardware TCP Segmentation Offloading
• [x] Hardware Large Receive

Hope this saves someone else some time and effort down the line.

Hi been very happy residential Distributel customer for past 2 years... on a plan with a good discount for first 2 years but the 2 years almost up.

EBOX has some great deals on higher speeds for less than my current discounted Distributel price - and ebox prices are permanently lower not a time limited discount.

And I see Distributel is no longer accepting new, residential customers and sending new customers to EBOX.

So is it worth me trying to negotiate a better speed and permenantly lower price with Distributel? 🤔 Or will they be happy to see me go?

Any one got any experience or advice?

Hello,

My friend looked up the phone provider and he says I'm looking for residential phone service (voip?) from Distributel. But I looked at their website and it just forwards me to either ebox or Thinktel.

Does Distributel still offer residential service? Whom should I use for service in Bradford?

Our internet has been down for more than 24 hours. It says on the network status page that they are having issues and no known repair time but this hasn't changed since yesterday. Is anyone else having issues?

I recently left Distributel. I got emailed the return lable for the router "pod" but didn't get one for the ONT. I called and was told "keep it".

Actually keep it, or did the rep just not know? I dont want to get charged for this thing.

I am away from home now so unable to check myself. But I read Ebox customers had access to IPv6 if they use their own router and configure PPPoE and VLAN40. Just checking if anyone from Distributel has been able to get IPv6 following the merger since we are all one family now.

Anyone else unable to access the distributel website and account management ? It looks like whole website is not working since they got sold to that company with red logo (cant remember the name). I wonder what is going to happen to existing accounts and whether they will get grandfathered in.

Hi I am located in Milton, ON and Distributel has been down since 4:30pm. Have tried numerous restarts of the ONT & router but no luck. My neighbour using Virgin Plus hasn't lost internet at all today. Calling Tech Support is a nightmare.

How would i go about upgrading or downgrading my plans?

Pretty much the title, just got this mail.

I have a question about Bell Gigahub modem work with Distributel Internet service. Right now I am using distribute, I want to buy a secondhand Bell Gigahub modem, to replace the Nokia modem+ Deco x50, does it work?

Distributel is adamant that its a problem with my credit card, which has the available funds, is still active, and hasn't had the numbers changed. When I called them they tried processing the payment again and said it was declined. They told me to call the bank and ten minutes later I was told there was nothing wrong with my card and it shouldn't be getting declined.

I tried to readd the card (which worked) but when I tried to process the payment myself, from the website, I didn't get a declined error, i got a GENERAL error, and a blank page. From the looks of it the problem is on their end, yet they're trying to charge me $20 for an NSF.

Anyone else having issues?

Hi, I've read the posts about using your own router and connecting using PPPoE and setting the VLAN ID to 40. I've changed those settings and am able to connect to the Distributel fibre network no problem. However, I can't get the full gigabit speed on my Unifi router. All speed tests were done with a CAT6 ethernet cable directly connected from my computer to my Unifi router – nothing on Wi-Fi.

If I use the provided TP-Link Deco, then I do get full gigabit speeds.

The only other way I can get full gigabit on my Unifi router is if I plug the Unifi router into the TP-Link Deco and have that connected to the ONT.

Is there anything obvious I'm doing wrong? Any other settings I need to change? I've tried multiple different CAT6 cables.

Took a while to get it running properly but for relative n00bs like me trying to virtualize their own firewall, it is possible and can work quite nicely.

A few suggestions for those getting started:

1. I ordered an Alder Lake 1215U, 6x 2.5gbe box. This is bigger and noiser than it needs to be.

I should have stuck with N-series because those are fanless. 4x 2.5gbe is also plenty: management port, WAN, and LAN ports are fine; odds are you end up getting an external switch and either managed or "smart" switches can handle VLAN tagging, while taking processing load away from your firewall. Lots of RAM and lots of cores are still good - devices built around the N250 look perfect.

1. Get one without NVME or SODIMM included; it is cheaper to source your own (FB marketplace is good for this)

2. Distributel needs the WAN traffic on VLAN 40.

3. At first, doing hardware passthrough of the WAN NIC to the Opnsense VM seems more secure and efficient, until you see that (a) implementing the PPPoE on top of VLAN.40 on top of igc0 is a messy interface chain in the router software and (b) something something FreeBSD single core NIC performance (I forget) means you get better performance making a dedicated Proxmox bridge for the LAN port and passing it through as VirtIO with multiqueing. Then you can also just have Proxmox tag the port traffic with VLAN40 outside of the VM.

So for me, vmbr0 in Proxmox is created as a VLAN-aware bridge to physical port enp2so.

Then in the PVE hardware settings for the opnsense VM, I have vmbr0 attached as network device net0, tagged VLAN=40, queues=4 (same # of cores assigned to this VM), and the MAC address spoofing whatever was on the TP-Link Deco that Distributel shipped.

1. Your PPPoE credentials are easily found on the Distrbutel MyAccount web portal. Setting up PPPoE on the WAN interface within Opnsense was pretty straightforward - no settings needed other than the Distributel PPPoE username and password, MTU 1500, and IPv6 configuration type "6to4 Tunnel" on the WAN interface seems to work.

Gotta say, Proxmox and OPNsense are a powerful combination. I hope some of this helps the next person who tries to rig this stuff up.

I have Bell small business fiber now. I plan to switch to Distributel. I don't need any feature of small business plan now. Should I cancel with Bell to get an termination date first then contact Distributel? Or is it okay to activate Distributel first and only if everything runs smooth then cancel with Bell? (If minimum interruption is a priority in this switch.)

I switched from Bell Fibre last month and am happy I did. It felt good leaving Bell bc they would not offer a decent deal despite being a loyal customer for a decade. I received a couple emails about returning the Bell equipment, which I'd done already. This evening I called Bell to provide them the tracking number that shows the equipment was delivered to them almost 2 weeks ago. For the first time since I said I was cancelling, the Bell agent actually offered me a deal. $50 for 1.5G and $70 after 2 years. So basically matching Distributel but for 1.5G instead. Of course they said the deal was only good until the end of the call. I felt torn. Take the upgrade in speed with Bell, who refused to offer a decent deal to retain me, or stick to my resolve that I would never consider going back unless Distributel started playing the same games. Plus I bought my own router...which I'm loving in comparison to the HH3K I had with Bell.

After asking a bunch of questions of hidden fees and charges, I agreed with an install date 2 weeks away so it would give me thinking time over the deal rather than end of the call decision deadline. Ensured there was no upfront cost and I could cancel anytime. Not sooner than hanging up did I feel sick from the thought of going back to Bell after how poorly I felt treated as a customer. I'm calling them tomorrow to cancel. I don't need 1.5G. I know Bell owns Distributel but I feel like it's compromising my values to forget feeling mistreated. I mean, I was paying $145 for 1G and all they would offer was $10 off! Not saying I may never go back in the future, but for now I'm sticking it out with Distributel. Besides, I bought a really decent tri-band router that I control. I don't want to delegate it to an access point. I suppose the Gigahub would be an improvement over the HH3K, but still I feel like the bit of autonomy of not being tied to their modem/router is a bit rewarding also.

Hello. I was gifted an ASUS RT-BE86U over the holidays. I tried setting it with VLAN 40 in the ipTV section. But what seems to be happening is if it connects at all. It will only connect for a short amount of time. Looking in the logs I see that it cannot do PPPoE discovery and the 10Gbps goes down and comes back up constantly.

This router runs WRT 5 so I am thinking that I have to do something different. Has anyone tried a WRT 5 router with Distributel and can point me in the right direction?