This is a review of internet choices for the few folks like myself without a terrestrial internet solution. Any terrestrial solution will be both better in terms of speed and reliability, and be of lower cost, and should therefor be pursued by anyone to which it is available.
This review compares the so called Turbo Hub technology, which is based upon accessing cell phone towers, available from Bell and others; with Xplornet's new generation satellite service.
I finally gave up on dial-up about 3 or 4 years ago. At the time the options were the Turbo Hub cell tower technology and Xplornet's old satellite system. I knew from experience of the local library that the older satellite system effectively did not work: at 4AM Sunday it was fine as you were the only one using it, but 10AM on a weekday the bandwidth was shared by hundreds if not thousands of other users and the effective speed was less than my dial-up which maxed out at about 33kbs. So I went with the only real choice at the time, the Turbo Hub.
I am some 25km from the nearest cell tower, and effectively do not have cell service where I live. That is text messages eventually make it in and out sometimes hours after the message was composed, as propagation conditions varied, but voice never works. It was unclear if this internet solution would work at all. So I borrowed the basic gear, along with a booster and gave it a try for a day or two. The booster gave a very clear improvement in data rate compared to the internet appliance all by itself. So I decided to instead of buying a booster, to install an exterior gain antenna. I figured it would give a similar improvement at less cost, lower energy consumption, and less equipment to fry in the eventuality of a lightning strike.
Satisfied that the system was going to work to some reasonable level of satisfaction, I arranged for a contract and purchased the gear. I installed the antenna on the side of the house about 18 feet above ground level with a fairly short run of coax. Monthly cost excluding taxes was something like $45 up to 3GB, $55 up to 5GB, and $70 up to 10GB. Over 10GB, the marginal cost was 1.5 cents/MB or $15/GB! I did not pay any attention to the last point, as in the early days I was under 3GB. I began to pay attention a few months back when I used almost 20GB and paid an extra $150 that month. Same next month as I began investigating the options with some urgency.
Over the years, the Turbo Hub worked as well as any computer based system ever does. That is to say you had to kick it in the *** every once in a while to reboot it. In general it worked, and worked at a fast enough data rate for my needs. I was happy with it technically. It was only the cost issue that drove me away.
I obtained Xplornet for just under $70/month a month ago. I purchased the mid level data rate scenario which I believe is about double the Turbo Hub rates, plus I boosted my monthly data to 50GB. So in summary for about the same monthly cost as the Turbo Hub, I am getting $50GB/monthly instead of 10GB, and the data transfer rate is higher. There is also a higher level of service at > $100/month, and the entry level at somewhere in the $40 or $50 level for $10GB/month. Now for the gotcha ...
Xplornet is not reliable in the way that is the Turbo Hub. Sometimes nothing works, then it comes back. This is perhaps a propagation issue, maybe weather, maybe something else. I have rebooted the equipment and still not had service resume, and other times service has resumed after a reboot. I have not had service, but then gone to my neighbour's house (which I was watching while he was on vacation) and he has had service 15 minutes later. So it is unclear exactly what is happening.
Then there is the speed of light issue. The round trip time is 1/2 second or so to have a radio travel from my place, up to the satellite, then back down to the terrestrial station. This seems to wreak havoc with some things. There are timeout parameters with some web sites that seem to cause failures. Some things sometimes work, but then do not later even though in general I still have service. You should not expect to use any interactive video chat applications, as this stuff really doesn't work with any level of reliability. I use TDW Web Broker and in general I cannot access the “Markets and Research” page during trading hours, though it usually works after hours. Perhaps the additional delay in the TD servers during the busy period, added to the satellite delay just puts me over the timeout parameter. Who knows.
Then I am in the process of leaving my long standing email provider National Capital Freenet, because best case I need to go through the login process 3 times to access my mail – this is quite consistent it fails one way, it fails a different way, and then 3rd try I am in. Or worst case like the other day I could not get it to work at all the entire day. I have the expectation that email should work any time I have internet service, no questions asked, and this was clearly no longer the case.
I am not a particularly sophisticated user of the internet, so there are likely all sorts of things outside of my experience, like gaming, that will flat out not work either with Xplornet.
So we come to my recommendations. Like I said above, if you have a cable, fibre optic, or DSL terrestrial solution, you should not even be reading this, your answer lies with one of them.
As this is a site where most of us trade stocks online, if you have the expectation to log into your broker at an arbitrary time to trade RIGHT NOW, you will need the Turbo Hub. I no longer have the expectation that my internet in general works and that I more or less always have on line access to my broker.
If you need less than 10GB/month and want or need high reliability, then pay the extra money and go with a Turbo Hub.
If you are really cost conscious and can suffer some unreliability then go with Xplornet, especially for data > 10GB/month.
If you want some small Netflix action, Xplornet and 50GB/month will give it to you without breaking the bank. I assume that Netflix will work as I have no first hand knowledge.
Finally if you have large data needs and reliability needs, then go with both. Use Xplornet for the bulk of your access, then manually switch to the Turbo Hub when it just has to work now, or work at all. This scenario might be most applicable to a rural small business owner.
If you are a city person reading this out of curiosity, thank your lucky stars that you get 10 times the technical capacity at 1/2 the price as your friends out in the boonies. When you are mad as hell at your provider, stop and think of us that have it much, much worse.
Postscript. I edited this offline as, you guessed it, my internet service failed this morning. During the hour or so I was composing this, I polled my service occasionally to no avail. I finally rebooted the internet box, then the wi-fi box and regained functionality. I also did same yesterday, and will likely again tomorrow it seems.
hboy43
This review compares the so called Turbo Hub technology, which is based upon accessing cell phone towers, available from Bell and others; with Xplornet's new generation satellite service.
I finally gave up on dial-up about 3 or 4 years ago. At the time the options were the Turbo Hub cell tower technology and Xplornet's old satellite system. I knew from experience of the local library that the older satellite system effectively did not work: at 4AM Sunday it was fine as you were the only one using it, but 10AM on a weekday the bandwidth was shared by hundreds if not thousands of other users and the effective speed was less than my dial-up which maxed out at about 33kbs. So I went with the only real choice at the time, the Turbo Hub.
I am some 25km from the nearest cell tower, and effectively do not have cell service where I live. That is text messages eventually make it in and out sometimes hours after the message was composed, as propagation conditions varied, but voice never works. It was unclear if this internet solution would work at all. So I borrowed the basic gear, along with a booster and gave it a try for a day or two. The booster gave a very clear improvement in data rate compared to the internet appliance all by itself. So I decided to instead of buying a booster, to install an exterior gain antenna. I figured it would give a similar improvement at less cost, lower energy consumption, and less equipment to fry in the eventuality of a lightning strike.
Satisfied that the system was going to work to some reasonable level of satisfaction, I arranged for a contract and purchased the gear. I installed the antenna on the side of the house about 18 feet above ground level with a fairly short run of coax. Monthly cost excluding taxes was something like $45 up to 3GB, $55 up to 5GB, and $70 up to 10GB. Over 10GB, the marginal cost was 1.5 cents/MB or $15/GB! I did not pay any attention to the last point, as in the early days I was under 3GB. I began to pay attention a few months back when I used almost 20GB and paid an extra $150 that month. Same next month as I began investigating the options with some urgency.
Over the years, the Turbo Hub worked as well as any computer based system ever does. That is to say you had to kick it in the *** every once in a while to reboot it. In general it worked, and worked at a fast enough data rate for my needs. I was happy with it technically. It was only the cost issue that drove me away.
I obtained Xplornet for just under $70/month a month ago. I purchased the mid level data rate scenario which I believe is about double the Turbo Hub rates, plus I boosted my monthly data to 50GB. So in summary for about the same monthly cost as the Turbo Hub, I am getting $50GB/monthly instead of 10GB, and the data transfer rate is higher. There is also a higher level of service at > $100/month, and the entry level at somewhere in the $40 or $50 level for $10GB/month. Now for the gotcha ...
Xplornet is not reliable in the way that is the Turbo Hub. Sometimes nothing works, then it comes back. This is perhaps a propagation issue, maybe weather, maybe something else. I have rebooted the equipment and still not had service resume, and other times service has resumed after a reboot. I have not had service, but then gone to my neighbour's house (which I was watching while he was on vacation) and he has had service 15 minutes later. So it is unclear exactly what is happening.
Then there is the speed of light issue. The round trip time is 1/2 second or so to have a radio travel from my place, up to the satellite, then back down to the terrestrial station. This seems to wreak havoc with some things. There are timeout parameters with some web sites that seem to cause failures. Some things sometimes work, but then do not later even though in general I still have service. You should not expect to use any interactive video chat applications, as this stuff really doesn't work with any level of reliability. I use TDW Web Broker and in general I cannot access the “Markets and Research” page during trading hours, though it usually works after hours. Perhaps the additional delay in the TD servers during the busy period, added to the satellite delay just puts me over the timeout parameter. Who knows.
Then I am in the process of leaving my long standing email provider National Capital Freenet, because best case I need to go through the login process 3 times to access my mail – this is quite consistent it fails one way, it fails a different way, and then 3rd try I am in. Or worst case like the other day I could not get it to work at all the entire day. I have the expectation that email should work any time I have internet service, no questions asked, and this was clearly no longer the case.
I am not a particularly sophisticated user of the internet, so there are likely all sorts of things outside of my experience, like gaming, that will flat out not work either with Xplornet.
So we come to my recommendations. Like I said above, if you have a cable, fibre optic, or DSL terrestrial solution, you should not even be reading this, your answer lies with one of them.
As this is a site where most of us trade stocks online, if you have the expectation to log into your broker at an arbitrary time to trade RIGHT NOW, you will need the Turbo Hub. I no longer have the expectation that my internet in general works and that I more or less always have on line access to my broker.
If you need less than 10GB/month and want or need high reliability, then pay the extra money and go with a Turbo Hub.
If you are really cost conscious and can suffer some unreliability then go with Xplornet, especially for data > 10GB/month.
If you want some small Netflix action, Xplornet and 50GB/month will give it to you without breaking the bank. I assume that Netflix will work as I have no first hand knowledge.
Finally if you have large data needs and reliability needs, then go with both. Use Xplornet for the bulk of your access, then manually switch to the Turbo Hub when it just has to work now, or work at all. This scenario might be most applicable to a rural small business owner.
If you are a city person reading this out of curiosity, thank your lucky stars that you get 10 times the technical capacity at 1/2 the price as your friends out in the boonies. When you are mad as hell at your provider, stop and think of us that have it much, much worse.
Postscript. I edited this offline as, you guessed it, my internet service failed this morning. During the hour or so I was composing this, I polled my service occasionally to no avail. I finally rebooted the internet box, then the wi-fi box and regained functionality. I also did same yesterday, and will likely again tomorrow it seems.
hboy43
