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 Review by tux 
UPDATED: 1 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 171 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 undisclosed location
 $41 per month
 "Great Value, Good Service, Fair Price, Pretty Good Tech Support"
 "They had a bit of a snag, but were dedicated to turning it around, turning the negative into a positive."
 "A great value; good service @ a fair price and pretty good customer service"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I was a longtime Sympatico subscriber [8 years] with an unlimited plan, until their ridiculous 30/30 throttling began on my line. It took me a few months to finally commit to switching providers because; I guess you get comfortable and complacent, the known is better than the unknown type thing. Finally I had had enough and I began the quest to find a new provider. Teksavvy was highly recommended on ./ [slashdot.org] which gave weight to my decision. Throughout my search Teksavvy got great review after great review [slashdot/DSLR /canadianisp.com] there wasn't much, if anything at all negative. I was sold and called up to order their service after canceling with Sympatico.
The phone was answered immediately by Cheryl [I wrote the name down after the call; If I got it wrong I'm sorry  ] who was great; friendly, efficient and helpfully. She made a great first impression.
On the service start date, I fired it up and it was active as expected.
I had an issue with the upstream line speed and posted in the Teksavvy Direct support forum here on a Sunday. I had no expectation of a reply until sometime Monday, but to my surprise there was a response a few hours later. There was a small hiccup with getting it fixed, where I wasn't sure what was happening - which started to give me some reservation about switching. But those feelings where quickly removed by Rick who took over the situation, apologized for the mix up, and had the problem corrected in less than 24hrs from his involvement. Like Cheryl, Rick was outstanding, providing fantastic customer service that I couldn't be happier about. It wasn't that he remedied the problem so quickly that impressed me most, it was that he acknowledge the error [which he didn't make], and apologized for it without making any excuses - the fact that the speed issue was fixed so quickly was just a bonus in that regard. We all know shit happens, but when it does, how its handled is whats most important to the consumer - it was handled in my situation *perfectly*; Thanks Rick and Thanks Mike too for the additional info and assistance. Great Job Guys
I began selling up Teksavvy to co-workers and friends, even before my service start date because of all the rave reviews. My experience so far has been great, mirroring the experiences of others. I'm extremely happy I made the switch and I'm confident that I chose the best provider.
The bottom line is Teksavvy provides a great value; good service, fair price and great customer service - which is becoming scarce to find
*********
Update
*********
Since June 2009 [it's now November 2009] my line throughput has been throttled generally between 4pm and 2am Mon-Fri and Noon through 2am on the weekends. During peak hours I get less than 1 Mb/s, outside of those hours everything is fine. My line is perfect, the problem exists between the CO and Teksavvy, whether equipment or capacity. It's been a complete nightmare in trying to get this fixed in the private forums. Tech staff don't follow up when they say they'll provide an update, staff jump into the tread without reading the background, only to rehash what's already been done, they avoid answering questions, there's misinformation, and what appears to be avoidance [a few times posts were ignored for 2 days, while plenty of staff respond to other threads], and worst of all no one seems to be dedicated to see the issue through, it goes from one tech support to another. TSI should be embarrassed, I'm throughly disappointed. For a company that claims to have such great tech support, you're fooling yourself; you aren't any better than an overseas call center.
I don't have any faith that this will be resolved, so I began looking for an alternative today, if there isn't any change soon, I'll switch over to Rogers.
I hope TSI looks at my situation and implements some changes, because if they don't learn something from this mess it amounts to a lose-lose.
***********
Update #2
***********
Bell corrected their equipment problem on November 27th, 2009. Mike and Dave were good to their word and stayed committed to the issue through the resolution. Mike was great with following up and passing on updates good or bad, Dave and Rick were working hard behind the scene communicating with the project managers.
It's great that the issue is finally resolved. But what's _more_important_ is Mike turned the whole situation around, he salvaged what was a completely miserable customer service / tech support experience, and renewed my faith and belief in Teksavvy. Great job Mike.  and Thanks to Dave and Rick too.
I hope others [bell & Teksavvy customers] in the Oak Ridges/Richmond Hill area appreciate 'our' efforts.
Followup comments:  
TSI Mike
TSI Mike
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Chatham, ON
| Speed issues First off, let me apologize for the delays and misinformation. It's definitely not right and we'll be discussing ways to make sure it doesn't happen again.
In regards to your specific problem, I've got one of the other guys double-checking for me to be sure, but it looks like the ticket we opened for you went into what's known as a pattern match, which means there's something in the area that's going on.
I do see the original ticket from October was closed stating that there was a capacity issue in the Richmond Hill area on the BAS you were connected to, so this may be an extension of that. Dave's checking into it with Bell right now and will follow up shortly with more information.
--
TSI Mike - TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
Authorized TSI employee (»TekSavvy FAQ »Official support in the forum) | |
| 
TSI Dave
Premium,VIP
join:2007-04-25
Chatham, ON
| Pattern Match Hello,
Just a quick follow up here - it does look as though there's a general issue in your area causing problems. I've updated your direct thread with more info on this.
Regards,
Dave
--
TSI Dave - TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
Authorized TSI employee ( »TekSavvy FAQ »Official support in the forum ) | |
|
tux
I worship at the House of Penguins
join:2008-03-16 |  The turning point? -Hopefully
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| |
TSI Mike
TSI Mike
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Chatham, ON | Re: The turning point? -Hopefully I'm certainly hoping so. I'll keep an eye on things for you and make sure you receive any updates as I get them. | |
| | | Presharized
join:2009-09-14
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | Re: The turning point? -Hopefully Is there also a general issue like this in the Downtown core of Ottawa?!? I have the exact same symptoms and have been experiencing them for the last month and a half. I understand that this appears to be an issue on Bell's end, and while I sympathize, it no longer cuts it. TSI offers customers a service, and if they do not have the capacity to provide such a service, there should be some form of disclaimer. I am paying for 5MB a month, and I am getting less than 1Mbps in the evening (when I actually USE the service). | |
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Review by lutful
UPDATED: 2 days ago
member for 4.4 years, 990 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Ottawa,ON
$29 per month
 Bell Canada
"efficient and friendly tech/billing support"
"good performance and value"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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After 2+ years, we are now quite happy with Teksavvy and do not contemplate switching to another DSL provider.
Followup comments: 
R0CKY
TSI Rocky
Premium,VIP
join:2005-05-19
Chatham, ON | Hmm... strange... Hi Lutful,
This sounds a little strange... I've passed your information on to our Tech Manager to have a look at.
Rocky
--
TSI Rocky - TekSavvy Solutions Inc. | |
| | 
TSI Steve
TSI Steve
Premium,VIP
join:2007-01-12
Chatham, ON
| Re: Hmm... strange... Hello Lutful,
We've looked at your account and it seems that just recently your profile was changed from 1M to 4M.
Were the problems you indicated with the speed from some time ago or is the issue happening now?
Thank you,
TSI Steve
--
TSI Steve - TekSavvy Solutions Inc. | |
| | | lutful
Premium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Re: Hmm... strange... Yes, it is much better now (around 3M/300K) ... I just did a DSLR test and saved result. 
I am not the main user of this DSL line, so my review was based on somewhat "stale" information from others.
Thanks very much for changing profile to 4M although I am curious why/how it became 1M in the first place. | |
| | | |
R0CKY
TSI Rocky
Premium,VIP
join:2005-05-19
Chatham, ON
| Re: Hmm... strange... No clue as to why.... The only thing I can think of is a card that was either rebooted in emergency or a card that failed, which might cause a reset on profiles, but 1Meg is a low profile....
Rocky
--
TSI Rocky - TekSavvy Solutions Inc. | |
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Review by paulgb
UPDATED: 5 days ago
member for 3.2 years, 170 visits, last login: 5 days ago
Mississauga,ON
$42 per month (month by month)
 about 20 days
"Great tech support, consistent billing, value"
"Minor point, but their self-service is weak, which tech support covers"
"Best ISP in the market"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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Tech Support:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Let's start from the top.
Days from order to success was 20 days due to the lead time to cancel Bell Internet/Sympatico.
Monthly cost is $42 (tax included) versus the $58 (tax included) from Bell Internet/Sympatico.
To date, the bills have been consistent at $42, unlike Bell Internet/Sympatico, whose bills were inconsistent and error prone. It was like they overcharged you on purpose and it was up to you to catch the fact that they had overbilled you. You wonder how many people were overcharged that didn't notice it and Bell never bothered to fix it.
On the tech support side, TekSavvy has made an investment in their tech support, and it shows. This makes up for the lack of self-service at TekSavvy. You cannot check you own usage, nor manage your additional email accounts. However, TekSavvy support is there to handle these issues. Bell Sympatico/Internet has always been very weak in this area.
Bell Internet/Sympatico hidden gem is their installers, who are exceptional.
Paul
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Review by Presharized
UPDATED: 6 days ago
member for 75 days, 12 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Ottawa,ON
$42 per month
"Good, friendly techsupport. Don't treat you like an idiot or try and grab a buck wherever they can."
"Dial up speed currently in the evening. Completely unusable. On the verge of switching very soon"
"Unusable speed currently"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings well below consensus)
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Update - So it has been about 2 weeks since the below post. After calling tech support that night, Bell determined that the problem was on their end (no other details were provided). Since then the connection has been rock solid and speeds have been withing range of what I was expecting. I am glad to say that I am now very pleased with my service.
I wish I could be giving teksavvy a good review right now, I really do. I have heard nothing but great things about them, and I really do want to like them as they have tried to be nothing but helpful. Let me preface this by saying that I am a heavy bandwidth user and that was the real problem when I was subscribed to Bell. I would consistently go over my monthly bandwidth allotment and was getting charged upwards of $90 a month, but their speed was always within the range of expected results.
I switched to Teksavvy in Early to Mid August this year with high hopes. Their setup was easy and I originally used an older Speedstream modem I had kicking around... Worked okay for about the first day that I had the service, then I noticed that the speed would decrease to the point that it was unusable (about 100kb/sec). At this point I did my due diligence and took the router out of the equation, powercycled blah blah. When none of this seemed to help, I decided to call teksavvy. After some troubleshooting and once we determined that my profile was set right (800/5000), I agreed that perhaps it would be best to try a different modem. I went out and bought a brand new Speedtouch 516 (I know there are better ADSL/DSL modems out there but decided to get this one as Teksavvy sells it and therefore supports it). So brought it home, set the modem correctly and went off to the races. Everything seemed okay for the first couple of days. The speeds were still not really what I was expecting (about 3.7Mb/sec Down) but it was usable. Seemed as though we had come to at least a livable solution although I was still not overly thrilled with the speed, but hey, it's DSL and it's copper (Even though I was getting about 4.5MB/sec on average from Bell I was willing to live with the drop to not have to deal with them). So as days went on, I noticed some inconsistencies in the speed... Started getting slower and being less reliable. Speed tests started yielding about 2.5 Mb/sec results. I called back support a few times, went through the standard TS drills and it seemed that the speed would go back to a reasonable level and that would be it for a while. Well tonight enough was enough. Speeds are now consistently sitting at about 300Kb/sec down and nothing seems to make any sense. After more equipment troubleshooting, nothing seems to be wrong. No errors on the Modem, no packet loss, nothing, just crap, near dial-up speeds.
Now before anyone jumps the gun and says it's wiring or equipment, the wiring in the house was put in specifically at the time of connection with Bell (about 1 year ago) and has been tested and is fine. The modem is brand new and was working fine at first. We have tried multiple cables and all that non-sense and nothing remedies the situation. There is currently a ticket in with Bell to investigate what the issue is as their support is somewhat stumped
While with Bell, the speed was never an issue, it was the fact that they treat their customers like a nuisance and a barrier to profit. I despise them and feel close to the same about Rogers.
As I have previously mentioned, I have no issue with Teksavvy's staff, pricing or attitude towards customers... In those fields they have excelled so far, but I cannot deal with this type of service. Please Teksavvy, prove my assumptions about your company right and deliver. I know I may be having an unusual issue, but it just doesn't make sense to me, as we have had dryloop DSL here before and it was flawless in terms of performance.
==========UPDATED REVIEW==========
So it has been a while since I have last updated this review and I am again barely able to use my internet connection. I am paying for 5Mbps down and getting less than 1 in the evenings. I know this may be a throttling issue on Bell's end (no I do not DL torrents) but I am sick of this speed. I am back in dial-up days but still paying DSL prices. This is unacceptable. If you advertise 5Mbps (I know a slight deviation is acceptable) than you should be able to commit to providing it. It takes 30 seconds to render a JPEG for crying out loud!! As mentioned before, I have no doubt this has something to do with Bell being shiesty, but I do not care anymore. I am on the verge of ponying up and switching to (*shudder*) Rogers. It is sad, but Canada is truly becoming the internet ghetto. I have been told more than once now (in progression) that my ticket was escalated to the technical manager.... Where was it escalated the first time you said that? I can't be too harsh on the tech agents because I truly feel there is nothing that they can do and they have been nothing but friendly and helpful though. I am seriously running out of patience and I don't think I should have to pay for the severely degraded service I have been provided...
11-22-2009
Speed is at an all time low today. 0.32 Mbps down all day so far. The teksavvy support rep told me AGAIN that this issue has been escalated to the technical manager. They also told me last night that this would be fixed by now. I am switching providers on monday I think. Service is no longer usable.
Followup comments: 
Oinktastic
join:2005-08-24
Scarborough
·TekSavvy Solutions..
 ·3 Web
| Check your line stats yourself You should check your line statistics when you're having trouble. Bell may say it's one thing, but your modem may be seeing something else. You can do this with your ST516 with DMT or another tool. This will give you a great indication of where the problem really is.
Start a thread in the Teksavvy forum with a screenshot of the statistics and a description and we'll help you out. | |
| 
TSI Rick
TSI Rick
Premium,VIP
join:2007-02-17
Merlin, ON
| Your Situation Hello,
I would like to look into your account and situation. I sent you a PM. Would you be able to reply back with your username so I can investigate?
Thanks,
Rick
--
TSI Rick - TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
Authorized TSI employee ( »TekSavvy FAQ »Official support in the forum ) | |
| | Presharized
join:2009-09-14
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Re: Your Situation
Thanks | |
| | |
TSI Mike
TSI Mike
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Chatham, ON | Re: Your Situation Can you PM me your details again so I can take a look at the account and find out what's going on? | |
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R0CKY
TSI Rocky
Premium,VIP
join:2005-05-19
Chatham, ON | Re: Your Situation This now resolved? | |
| | Presharized
join:2009-09-14 | Ummm no... No where near resolved | |
| | |
R0CKY
TSI Rocky
Premium,VIP
join:2005-05-19
Chatham, ON | Re: Your Situation Hmmm.... ok... thanks for the update. | |
| | | |
TSI Mike
TSI Mike
Premium
join:2007-10-09
Chatham, ON | Re: Your Situation There's a dispatch going out tonight. That should resolve it. | |
| | | | | Presharized
join:2009-09-14 | Re: Your Situation Okay thanks for the update. hopefully the bell tech gets here after 5 so he can see the symptoms | |
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Review by netwerk007
Posted: 7 days ago
member for 111 days, 102 visits, last login: a few hours ago
undisclosed location
$29 per month
about 7 days
"Not contracts. Friendly tech support that is canadian and easy to understand"
"Had some ping issues here in BC for a certain server I play on but it really wasn't that bad"
"Da BEST!!!"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I had 3 meg service with them for a while last year. Was very good with just one minor issue that really wasn't their fault. A server I played on had bad routing with them. Besides that they were good. I also used them for long distance for a year and was also pretty good.
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Review by hemzer
Posted: 7 days ago
member for 30 days, 21 visits, last login: 6 days ago
Ajax,ON
$40 per month
"Simple, straight forward and honest"
"None so far"
"I luv it"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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The experience was pleasant from start to getting connected. Quite the difference from Rogers. Bless them Good Success in the future.....and most of all a big Thank You for being honest and upfront with your details.
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Review by g121
UPDATED: 8 days ago
member for 5.5 years, 53 visits, last login: a few hours ago
East York,ON
$30 per month
"Customer Service"
"lol .. relying on Bell"
"A company who truely provides good service to their customers"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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I had been with 3Web for years. The service was initially acceptable but slowly & steadily become worse. Alas 3Web has extremely poor customer service .. had to wait 30, 45 even 60 minutes for someone to answer the support line .. & when you finally reached a tech they'd simply have you run a bunch of tests when clearly the issue was at the provider side. They refused to push Bell at all to address the situation. When new DSL openings became available in my area, I immediately switched to Teksavvy. Teksavvy support even spent a good 15-20 minutes with me BEFORE I was a customer explaining how they'd address improving my internet connection even though they relied on the same Bell lines as 3Web.
Every one of my trouble calls to Teksavvy was answered in less than a minute by friendly & knowledgeable techs. It took Teksavvy a week of pressing Bell .. 5 tickets .. but at the end of this frustrating week, Bell had moved me to a remote just around the corner from my house. Finally I'm getting decent & consistent internet speeds of 4MB down & 600KB up.
A1 Customer Service .. I'm very pleased.
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Review by ertw6
Posted: 8 days ago
member for 6.3 years, 64 visits, last login: 8 days ago
Toronto,ON
$34 per month
Bell Canada
"Great service, MLPPP support, innexpensive static IP addresses, servers permitted."
"Limited by Bell Canada's sub-par DSL infrastructure."
"By far the best ISP available in these parts, only limited by their dependance on ILEC infrastructure."
| Pre Sales information:
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Couldn't really ask for more from a DSL wholesaler - great service, innovative product offerings, customer-oriented business models and accessible management. Extra value services like static IP addresses (including full subnet blocks), MLPPP bonding of multiple lines, etc. are all reasonably priced. Further, their capped service (they also offer unlimited for $10 more) provides an extremely reasonable 200GB/mo limit and overage fees designed to simply recover costs rather than being punitive in nature. No restrictions on servers and ports in use, no artificial traffic management (using MLPPP) and a commitment to network neutrality principles.
Their only downsides are related to the severely limited DSL infrastructure provided by Bell Canada (which will be the case for any wholesaler). Fortunately, Teksavvy does a lot to try and remedy these problems where they can - from fighting with the CRTC to get more consumer friendly rules to providing mechanisms to work around Bell's throttling equipment. Unfortunately, given the duopoly situation that the Canadian telecom market is made up of there is little in the way of other options - Teksavvy does what they can to make the best of a bad situation, but there are limits to what they can do without their own infrastructure.
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 Review by AkFubar
UPDATED: 9 days ago
member for 4.7 years, 1859 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Toronto Can.
$60 per month
about 30 days
"Great...customer service/price/openess/professionalism"
"None to report"
"Great value for $. I am treated with respect by folks who really know their stuff"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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My package price includes landline phone (POTS) with call answer and 5M internet (200GB cap).
Please Note:
The 30 Days from Order to Live is reflective of the 30 days notice I had to give to Bell for cancellation of my internet. Teksavvy (TSI) had me up and running exactly as promised!
Moved my phone landline plus features and internet from Bell to TSI in January 2009 (phone activated Jan. 6th; internet activated Jan. 14th). Everything went flawlessly and I am enjoying great performance with a $30 saving per month over what I was paying Bell! I should have made the move sooner! My internet services performance using the ST516v6 modem is attached below.
Update at 6 Months:
I am very satisfied with TSI services and my savings continue. I continue to be impressed by this company's customer service, transparency and forward thinking. I heartily recommend TSI for both phone and internet services! An all-Canadian company that embraces traditional business values.
Update at 1 Year
My connection has remained solid and my savings continue. I am impressed by TSI's attention to customer service and by their commitment to net neutrality, innovation, fairness and keeping prices down. I have no hesitation in continuing to recommend TSI. Future updates will be made on an exception basis only. Now please excuse me while I continue to enjoy my TSI services!
Attachments:
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Review by chronoss2009
UPDATED: 11 days ago
member for 1.1 years, 351 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Lindsay,ON
$45 per month
about 5 days
"No contracts, always fast"
"ya still have bell on back end capping and throttling"
"best choice no matter what the cap issue result is"
| Pre Sales information:
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(ratings match consensus)
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Other options considered: rogers cable has worse support then bell or similar and prices can suddenly get high.
Started off with TSI, 200GB cap account and went a whole year fine with that.
Did a speed test on unlimited and in 22 days non stop gathered up 900GB of data form downloading.
Order process and install was extremely easy and friendly ( damn bell ought to take lessons )
I have my own hardware for all equipment.
ONLY bad experience is due to previous bell issues that continue to come up, they owe me and my father money still while claiming the reverse despite there own bills that prove otherwise. So once or twice the phone line was cut off. Other then that its extremely stable experience and i have to say , i wish they owned the back end. All the things one can do with this style of internet is amazing.
UPDATE: i have expanded my local network to include 3 other tenants and very soon every tenant in this house will be either with my own account or have there own TSI account. Even a year later BCE is still trying things and as we all know its just fluff to try and anger you so much as to leave TSI....DO NOT listen to the crap by BCE , do not get angry get even. Stay with TSI and that will anger them massively.
Create your own software and host it yourself , make a game run a web server, how its all meant to be.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of TekSavvy Solutions Inc. |
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