# Review of rural Internet service options - the good, bad and the (especially) ugly



## hboy43

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


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## Sherlock

I read this with great interest as I hope to move out to the country at some point in the future. Hopefully by then there will be better alternatives. So you're just east of Bancroft? I've ridden my motorcycle in that area.

I wonder why they charge for bandwidth accrued during off hours. For example any bandwidth you use between say 2am and 8am should be free since there is hardly anyone using it at that point so you are not causing network congestion by downloading at that time. But I guess they want to milk you for every penny.


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## andrewf

That is what you call a rational pricing model. Most ISPs won't use it because:

a) it's too confusing for many users
b) it acknowledges that the marginal cost of using internet service is nearly zero. The cost is all in providing peak capacity.

The only ISPs I know of that use that model are resellers of Bell/Rogers service who have similar terms (regulated and enforced by CRTC) from the incumbents.

What is really outrageous is the increasing marginal cost per GB ($70 for first 10 GB, $15 per GB after that--that's more than double the price). There is no reasonable justification for that. You might as well get a second account.

I have a very strong dislike for telecoms. The bigger they get, the more fundamentally dishonest their pricing models get.


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## mind_business

We use Explornet ... $70 per month for 70 GB (lucked out with a special). Our service has been very stable ... absolutely no complaints. We are only a few km's away from the nearest tower.


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## carverman

mind_business said:


> We use Explornet ... $70 per month for 70 GB (lucked out with a special). Our service has been very stable ... absolutely no complaints. We are only a few km's away from the nearest tower.


I had a monthly data with WIND. It used a USB "data stick" style of antenna that had the s/w and configuration built in. It used cell phone frequencies and I am less than 1km from the nearest cell phone tower.
Worked ok for a while, then I started to get strange signal dropouts.
Nothing to do with the WIND data stick, since I had another one from Wind to try. Dropouts continued, and WIND also imposed a fair usage policy that if you exceeded 10GB in any billing, your download speed would be cut back to 100 Kilobytes download...useless for anything but email. Then I went to a cable modem ISP and experienced numerous dropouts on cable causing "no internet service", which forced me to abandon the cable internet.
Finally on DSL ..so far no problems with signal, but I've had other problems with the ISP. I have up to 75gb per month of bandwidth and between 2am and 8am it's unlimited. Works good with Netflix. 
I live right in the west end of Ottawa.


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## hystat

it's really important in a rural setting to talk to neighbours back and forth. Xplornet came into our area recently - lots of glossy cards in the mailbox and attractive initial pricing. Anyone around me says it is not worth the hassle - very unreliable. Other areas it's great.
Luckily, a local rural company is still operating here with line of site towers and my old 40' TV tower from the 80's has been repurposed. However the service has been slowly degrading over the past 18 months as people move from cable to watching Netflix etc.
Evenings are slow.


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## hboy43

Hi:

Just to clarify, Xplornet offers internet by two technologies, a terrestrial tower/radio based system that is not the same as the Turbo Hub cell tower system as discussed in my review, and the satellite based technology that I reviewed. The terrestrial Xplornet system I understand is available in parts of Hastings county south of Bancroft along the highway 62 corridor where the population/wealthy cottagers density is high enough to make the investment.

hboy43


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## carverman

hboy43 said:


> and the satellite based technology that I reviewed
> hboy43


Here's the thing about using satellite technology for internet access. You have to receive and transmit via a dish which is exposed to atmospheric elements (snow, freezing rain, heavy rain clouds such as a heavy down pour).
In my experience with sat tv, with the el cheapo dishes they hand out for sat tv service, as soon as you get any kind of accumulation on the reflector part of the dish, the signal strength is attenuated severely and if prolonged
LOSS OF SIGNAL until the temperature warms up or you go to scrape or brush off the accumulated snow. Same with large thunderstorms. This is due to the extremely high frequencies 

Even if the dish is located close to the ground, it's still an inconvenience in the daytime, but at night, it would be aggravating to lose your internet .....while you are using it. There may be heaters available to warm up
the dish to allow sticky snow to run off, as in the bigger dishes that the ISP providers use on their bigger gain dishes to provide service to end use subscribers, but I'm not sure. 



> Satellite communications are affected by moisture and various forms of precipitation (such as rain or snow) in the signal path between end users or ground stations and the satellite being utilized. This interference with the signal is known as rain fade. The effects are less pronounced on the lower frequency 'L' and 'C' bands, but can become quite severe on the higher frequency 'Ku' and 'Ka' band. For satellite Internet services in tropical areas with heavy rain, use of the C band (4/6 GHz) with a circular polarisation satellite is popular. Satellite communications on the Ka band (19/29 GHz) can use special techniques such as large rain margins, adaptive uplink power control and reduced bit rates during precipitation.
> Rain margins are the extra communication link requirements needed to account for signal degradations due to moisture and precipitation, and are of acute importance on all systems operating at frequencies over 10 GHz.


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## Sherlock

andrewf said:


> I have a very strong dislike for telecoms. The bigger they get, the more fundamentally dishonest their pricing models get.


Me too, Bell, Rogers and Telus are terrible companies to deal with. But great stocks to own, so I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite.


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## Ponderling

Get your ham radio license, and make pals with someone at a high speed spot.
I am in Mississauga, and we at our club are working on getting wireless 900MHz service rolling to link all west end GTA ham radio repeaters. 

Each node is projected to cost about $600 on a one time basis with no ongoing direct fees for each node. Since the repeaters are already somewhere high, the issue of towers/tall sites is already solved. 

The goal is to go with two high speed lines and a 5-6MBPS high speed link between the towers, 12-20km apart. This will free each node from needing a commercial link, and the two we keep will be split among about ten groups.

Look up Broadbandhamnet.org to see what it can do. 

From the 900mHz tower node we can optionally step down to 2.4GHz line of site links that run about 10MBPS running for up to 2km, that run on reflashed old home wifi switches you find on craigslist, and at thrift stores, etc. You add height, ans maybe $50 in antennas and weatherproofing, and you join the mesh.


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## Retired Peasant

hboy43 said:


> Hi:
> 
> Just to clarify, Xplornet offers internet by two technologies, a terrestrial tower/radio based system that is not the same as the Turbo Hub cell tower system as discussed in my review, and the satellite based technology that I reviewed. The terrestrial Xplornet system I understand is available in parts of Hastings county south of Bancroft along the highway 62 corridor where the population/wealthy cottagers density is high enough to make the investment.
> hboy43


I had a very similar experience as you re Turbo Stick/Hub until about a year ago. Xplornet put up a tower close enough to us, that we were able to get the fixed wireless. It has worked very well for us; we're very happy that we didn't have to get their satellite service. They have been putting up more and more towers, so you should keep enquiring with them to see if the fixed wireless becomes available in your area.


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## hboy43

Hi:

An update on Xplornet satellite service and webbroker ... 

When I go the the main page and choose login to webbroker, it almost always fails, so I have been first going to easyweb which usually works, then transfering over to webbroker. Right now I cannot login an any way shape or form yet the rest of the internet seems functional. Could be TD internal problems I suppose.

Selecting "markets and research" usually fails in the daytime, but usually works after trading hours.

hboy43


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## hboy43

Hi:

Looks like the beginning of the end. Xplornet seems to have enough customers now that the average bandwidth in business hours is insufficient to reliably use the net. I am getting a bunch of "ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED" errors at TDW, google, anything that uses SSL ("https://") it seems. I thought it might be the snow on my dish, but things worked file at 7:30 AM today. We will see if today's prime time access is as useless as yesterday's was.

hboy43


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## Retired Peasant

That would be very frustrating! I have xplornet, but it's their fixed wireless; haven't had any problems.


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## hboy43

Retired Peasant said:


> That would be very frustrating! I have xplornet, but it's their fixed wireless; haven't had any problems.


Yes, frustrating, but I got lucky too. I tried to buy some more TCK.B yesterday at about $14 IIRC, but would not work. Did the trade today at $13.17! Saved hundreds of dollars ... and I am down a few hundred as the price continues to fall to the high $12s.

Flaky and slow again today.

hboy43


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## Rusty O'Toole

Bell recently upgraded from 3G to 4G in my area. I signed up and am very satisfied, better and faster service and cheaper too (I got a special introductory offer).

Since I moved here, near Cobourg, have had dial up, turbo stick, 3G hub now 4G hub. Xplornet won' t work here and no high speed or other service is available. The 4G is by far the best and cheapest.


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## rurallondon

*No improvement here on phone and internet services in 2016. CRTC???!!!*

:upset::upset:


hboy43 said:


> 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


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## m3s

Xplornet just resells internet from Viasat. They are behemoth dinosaurs in geostationary orbit so the latency and bandwidth is poor

Starlink already has thousands of small sats in low earth orbit. It's still in beta so there are coverage gaps but the internet is already much better


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## andrewf

You dug up a 5 year old thread from when Starlink was just a glimmer in Elon's eye.


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## Retired Peasant

Darreng87 said:


> WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS SATELLITES BROADCASTING INTERNET IS ELON MUSH .SINCE WHEN DOES XPLORENET HAVE SATELLITES LOL AND YOU SAY IS OLD . YOUR LOST CLEARY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT


No need to shout. Xplornet does have satellite. Also you are resurrecting a thread that is 7 years old


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## andrewf

If I were a rural resident, I would either get Starlink if I didn't have any service or muddle through and get Starlink later when it is more reliable.


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