DSL Processes

The purpose of this document is to explain how NCF DSL Broadband Service is offered to NCF members.

Please refer to our DSL Terms of Service for related information.

Email Address

1. In order to keep costs down, NCF has automated many systems to provision, track and notify members about the status of their service. NCF requires that you provide and keep up-to-date at all times a working email address that you access on a regular basis in order to receive notifications about your service.
2. NCF will also email notifications related to the service to the email address provided to the member upon signup with NCF (i.e., ID@ncf.ca where the ID is two letters followed by three numbers, e.g., aa000).

DSL Equipment

1. Use of NCF broadband service requires that the member provide a DSL modem that will work with the technology employed by its third party service providers. Currently, any ADSL2+ modem should work as long as its configuration is not locked to another provider. For VDSL service, a VDSL modem must be used. Please see our help site for configuration information.
2. You may elect to:
   1. Purchase a modem from NCF at the current advertised price. NCF will provide full support of the configuration of the modem and a manufacturer replacement warranty of any defective modem purchased from NCF.
   2. Purchase and configure any ADSL2+ modem on your own. NCF provides documentation to assist you to correctly configure your modem for use with NCF. Should you require assistance with the initial configuration of a modem that was not purchased directly from NCF, a setup fee may apply at the discretion of NCF.

Service Initiation

1. When the order for service is placed with the third party supplier, the supplier may indicate that a visit is required to your premises or they may indicate that no visit is required. This means that the supplier may or may not require access inside your premises. The supplier may also change the status of whether a visit is required from the time the order is accepted to the “installation date”.
2. Note for multi-dwelling (e.g., apartment/condo) buildings: the installer may only require access to the utility room or demarcation point for your building and not necessarily your apartment/unit. NCF recommends that you make arrangements with your landlord for access to the appropriate area of the building, if required.
3. NCF will try its best to inform you whether a premises visit is required by the supplier. This notification will be made via email or a phone call, therefore it is essential that you provide a working email address and phone number when subscribing to our broadband service.
4. Should a premises visit be required by the third party supplier, NCF highly recommends that you make yourself available (or have an individual over 18 years old available) for the third party technician.
5. Should you or your representative be unavailable, the third party supplier may not be able to complete the order/work required to activate your service. In this case, NCF will work with you to reschedule an installation date with the third party supplier. If the third party supplier levies any fees for the missed visit, NCF will pass these fees along to you. Also note that rescheduling a new installation date may require another 4-5 business days time frame.

Monthly and One-time Payments

1. Members will be billed for recurring services on a monthly cycle. All services are pre-paid. NCF offers billing via credit card or pre-authorized payment through auto-debit.
2. Failure to remit payments by the due dates may result in the suspension and/or termination of DSL broadband service. Should NCF terminate the DSL broadband service with the third party supplier, fees may apply to reactivate the service once the account is settled. These fees are levied by the third party supplier and are passed along to the member.

Refunds

1. Should NCF, through its third party supplier, be unable to provide service for any reason when the service is initiated:
   1. a full refund for services will be provided to the member.
   2. a full refund for the modem will be provided to the member, if the modem was purchased from NCF (as verified by the serial number) and is returned with all packaging material and in the same condition in which it was sold.
2. If you decide to cancel your service within the first 30 days, you may return any hardware (modem, filter/s) purchased from NCF (as verified by the serial number) with all original packaging material and in the same condition it was sold for a full refund.
3. Further, should NCF be unable to provide service during any time as a direct result of issues with the third party supplier provision of the service, a credit for length of time of the outage will be given to the member. Outages or inability to use the service that is directly related to member-provided equipment, wiring within the premises or any other factor, will not be refunded. Essentially, if we can get a refund from our supplier, then we will pass this refund on to you.

Cancellation of Services

1. Members may cancel their service at any time.
2. NCF will provide refunds for partial months of service. Also, if you had pre-paid several months, full months beyond the month in which the cancellation occurred will be refunded, too.
3. NCF requires a minimum of 5 business days to process a cancellation order. If you cancel your service on the last day of your billing cycle you will incur an extra month of charges.
4. Cancellation of DSL services does not automatically cancel your membership in NCF.

Account Pause (planned suspension)

Account pauses are available for a minimum of 28 days/one month, there is no maximum.

For all DSL accounts, the charge during the paused period is $20 per month + the dry line cost + HST and is pro-rated for mid-month periods (ie. five weeks = (monthly cost) * (5 weeks / 4 weeks)). This is processed internally as a credit on your account for the difference between their regular plan and the amount charged during the pause. Connectivity will be disabled during the paused period.

We ask members to give us one week's advance notice to process a pause. If the notice given is less than one week we will try to process it as fast as we can, but we cannot guarantee the start date of the paused period. The member will be charged the paused rate as of its implementation date.

Dry DSL

Dry copper, dry copper loop or dry DSL refer to DSL service on a telephone line that does not include voice service. The term dry simply means that there is no telephone voice service on that line.

Here in the 21st century many people are using cell phones for communication and do not have home land-line telephones, but still want DSL service. This leads to a requirement for a phone line to just carry DSL service and not voice service.

This page will provide some additional information that the NCF DSL sign-up page does not explain. See that page for how to sign up for dry copper as a new service.

Changing Voice (Wet) to Dry DSL

Signing up for NCF's DSL via dry copper as a new service is easy. Changing over from having voice service to dry DSL while retaining your existing NCF DSL service is a little bit more complex, but can still be done. It involves cancelling your voice service (for instance, with Bell) and then starting dry DSL service. Note that we need minimum of five (5) days notice to switch the service, as Bell treats this as a new installation. This will result in an interruption of DSL, but with some planning this can be kept to a minimum.

Here are the steps:

1. Cancel your voice service
   • Before you cancel an existing voice service, find out if you are using other services (like an apartment door buzzer and entry control system, or a burglar alarm) that depend on the voice service. Unless you make alternative arrangements for those other services, cancelling the voice service will disable the other services. Cancelling your phone service should not incur any costs unless you are breaking a contract.
   • Cancel with your service provider and ensure that you get the service end date and confirmation number. Note that if you wish to port your phone number to an alternate provider (say, VoIP), the process is similar with another twist - contact NCF for details
2. Contact NCF with the voice service termination date AND confirmation number. NCF will aim to start your dry DSL service the same day.

Step one: Cancel the existing phone service

Confirm a cancellation date with your existing phone service provider respecting the minimum 5 business day lead time that NCF requires. Once you have a date, contact the NCF office and we will schedule the dry line install to match that cancellation date. The new order may be blocked by the existing service so expect the possibility of some time without DSL.

To alleviate this possibility, ask for a confirmation number for the request and provide it to the NCF office. NCF will include this with the new order.

Step two: Sign-up for the new DSL service

To arrange for the new DSL service, call or email the NCF office.

You will be billed a one-time Bell dry DSL activation charge as part of the process. The current fee is $49.95 + tax.

• An installation charge that Bell Canada charges to start the dry DSL service of $49.95 + tax.
• A monthly line charge from Bell Canada for your dry copper service of $7.00 + tax.

Potential Problems When Changing to "Dry" DSL

Changing a line to "dry" DSL cancels the voice service on that line. Canceling the voice service will disable any service that uses the voice service. Examples include:

• Apartment entry control systems that use the voice service. Some entry systems use a panel at the front door with buttons or other means to contact the occupant of a particular apartment. The panel dials a telephone number that has been programmed into the system for that apartment, the occupant answers, and uses the touch-tone dial pad to unlock the front entrance. You need to have a new telephone number with voice service programmed into the entry system so that people can still contact you to open the front entrance.
• Any alarm system that does not use the internet probably uses the voice service. You need to contact the alarm company to find out what to do before you change to dry DSL.
• In general, any service or device connected to the phone line but not using internet is likely to be disabled when voice service is cancelled.

Changing from Dry to Wet (Voice) DSL

Phones and other devices connected to the phone line will need a line filter, as described in the DSL sign-up web form. You can order these from NCF on the DSL sign-up form.

You will be charged the service move charge as part of the change. Currently this is $49.95 + tax, but confirm this with NCF staff.

See also

• DSL terms of service
• Troubleshooting (DSL)
• NCF equipment exchange - a place to buy and sell used modems