Welcome to the self-proclaimed
Rural Ottawa High-Speed Internet Blog. High-speed Internet access is virtually
ubiquitous in the urban and suburban areas of Ottawa, but when I started this blog in 2005, only about 60% of the
rural areas of Ottawa have coverage.
However, even for rural citizens, high-speed Internet access is becoming as necessary as telephone service.
Happily, high-speed coverage for rural Ottawa has increased significantly, and not only is coverage
reportedly
above 90%, many rural residents and businesses now have more than one choice of high-speed ISP.
This purpose of this weblog is to track news and events related to high-speed (broadband) Internet access in the
rural areas of Ottawa and, to a lesser extent, in nearby townships.
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Postings & Moderation
I've opened up this blog to allow anyone to post to it. However, I continue to moderate and will remove any inappropriate content, e.g. anything not related to high-speed internet access in the rural Ottawa, the Ottawa Valley, Eastern Ontario, and the Outaouais.
Update on Bell TurboHub
I've had the Bell TurboHub for about 26 months now. All in all, I've been satisfied with the service, although there have been a few issues, mostly with peak period slow-downs.
One significant annoyance that I've had a few times is when I've reached by monthly 10 GB download limit. When that happens, Bell stops transmitting data and displays a warning that I've reached my limit, and to click a link to proceed. The trouble is, the link did nothing. This happened at least 2 months in a row. Each time, I had to call Bell to allow my TurboHub to continue surfing, and they always required me to reset the TurboHub. I was working from home a couple of times when this happened, and I lost about 30 minutes of productivity each time. I also asked the technician to set my account so that the limit warning wasn't displayed, and each time, I was told it wouldn't happen again, but of course it did happen again.
About a month or so ago, after receiving a brochure in the mail, I contacted Bell about the LTE service, and was told that the max speed available in my area was 21 Mbps... which I could also get via HSPA+ with my existing TurboHub. So I had my account settings increased from 7 Mbps to 21 Mbps, and (I think) I had my monthly download limit increased to 15 GB. Since then, slowdowns have been very few, and I've occasionally exceeded the typical speeds Bell advertises for the 21 Mbps service (IIRC, 3.5 - 8 Mbps).
This morning, even with an ice/snow storm going on, the receive signal on my TurboHub with the internal antenna is -79 dBm. This is the best I've ever observed it to be, as it is typically -85 dBm, and has been lower than -100 dBm on occasion. (I have an external antenna as well, but I need to orient it better.)
--Chris
IT World Canada: Internet access here ‘terrible,’ conference told
According to an IT World Canada
article, internet access in Canada is terrible, at least in comparison to internet access in the USA.
Bell's LGE Turbo Hotspot
Has anyone tested or bought Bell's
4G LTE Sierra Wireless 763 Turbo Hotspot?
From the coverage map, Bell's LTE coverage for Ottawa seems pretty good and is growing. Of course, it does not yet appear to cover the entire city, nor much outside the city.
Bell is advertising "...download speeds of up to 100 Mbps* (expected average download of 12-40 Mbps).", which blows the doors off of the MBR1210 TurboHub (HSPA) that I have, yet under the FlexPlan, the monthly costs would be the same.
I don't know if Rogers has a similar offering or not, but I welcome comments on that too, if it exists.
-Chris
CTV: Dial-up Internet still a reality for many Canadians
According to this article on CTV's website [http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120521/dial-up-internet-still-a-reality-for-canadians-120521/], an estimated 250,000 people across Canada still use dial-up to access the Internet. No shocker that most of these people live in rural locations.
Storm rolling out 10MBS wireless near Dwyer Hill
Another request for a new thread. I think I'm going to open up this blog to allow anyone to post new posts or comments, and I'll just police it unless it gets out-of-hand. Anyway, here's the new thread:
I have been really discouraged by Xplornet in the last 6 months and I have been looking for **any** other option. My Xplornet speeds have become so slow I can't use Youtube or vpn into work. They tell me it is due to my garage door opener or my wii :-) I was forced to convert from Storm. With my old Storm account I had 3mbs up and down and it was **very** good service. I contacted Storm and they are planning on rolling out a 10MBS service in the Dwyer Hill area if there is enough interest. IMHO if you want internet that is actually usable and you want to deal with reasonable people, go to http://storm.ca/ovs/.
dwyer-hill.ex9z@ncf.ca
Seeking advice on high-speed internet in Dunrobin Shores
I just got this request from someone looking at moving from out-of-province to Dunrobin Shores. If anyone out there can provide guidance or advice, please comment.
We're considering a home on Armitage in Dunrobin Shores. Not familiar with Internet here (we are out of province) but have a home-based business that is dependent on high speed. Any advice
I'll open with the usual list of Bell (TurboHub), Rogers (RocketHub), Xplornet, NorthWind, and Pioneer. Links to all of these ISPs are available on this blog site (usually in the right-hand margin of the page).
Bell and Rogers seem to be hit-or-miss in any given area even though they claim to provide excellent coverage over virtually all of eastern Ontario (e.g. Bell is quite good at my home near Manotick but Rogers' signal in the same location is very poor).
Xplornet seems to have high latencies (ping times) and can't seem to maintain reasonable speeds. This too may also vary from location to location.
NorthWind and Pioneer are small local companies. I have no personal experience with them, but in the main, comments from blog readers seem generally positive.
-Chris
Fibre optics on Richardson Side Road
I live just off of Richardson Side Road which is off of Carp Rd. They have 'installed' the thick fibre optic telephone lines all the way down Richardson. Does anyone know if they will be hooking up the subdivisions just off of Richardson or will it be a case of 'so close yet so far'? Bell people won't tell me anything.
-- Mike
According to the
article, Rogers has rolled-out LTE service in the Ottawa area.
It's looks a little pricey for what you get, compared to Rogers' RocketHub/Stick or Bell's TubroHub/Stick (HSPA+ service). From the article:
The Sierra Wireless modem costs $80 on a three year data plan. The flexible plans start at $45 for 1.5 Gigabytes of data a month and run up to $90 a month for 9 GB of data. The plan automatically shifts subscribers up or down levels depending on their monthly use.
Rogers said customers will see average download speeds of between 12 and 25 Mbps, depending on network congestion and spectrum used.
With RocketHub or TurboHub -- especially with the higher speed SpeedBoost option -- rural home Internet users can get similar performance at a lower price than Rogers' LTE service. The LTE plan seems suitable only if you need high-speed with your mobility plan.
5 Comments:
My parents have a Turbo Hub and while it's better than dial-up they seem to suffer a lot from what seems to be network congestion/slowness during peak periods. To the point where sometimes it's slower than dial up.
To rule out signal strength, I have a couple questions:
1. How do you get those the antenna signal strength readings?
2. What external antennae do you have and where'd you buy it?
Cheers
@Lief.
1. Open a web browser and go to http://www.routerlogin.net/start.htm. Click on Router Status, and then Connection Status at the bottom of the Router Status page. 2nd row of the pop-up window reads "Received Signal Quality(in dbm)". The value is updated periodically (default is 5 secs). I would be concerned if the received signal strength is regularly lower (more negative) than -87 dBm.
2. I have a Yagi antenna. I bought in from City Wireless, through Amazon.ca. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B004UNYNVU/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The trick with external antennas is that they are directional, so they have to be pointed directly at the host cell tower (within a few degrees). The Canadian Cell Tower Map page (http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html) may help you locate the Bell tower nearest you.
As I write this, my reading is -81 dBm, which is very good for where I am. However, right now, I'm using my internal antenna as I think my external antenna is out of alignment.
Hope this helps.
--Chris
Have the same modem from Bell, MVBR1210C. Generally my bandwidth is good. My main issue is that the connection often drops and reconnects a few minutes later. Am located on Grey Fox Drive. Noticed this morning that someone is building a new tower on Corkery Woods. Wonder if this is a new Bell tower. Earlier this week Bell was stringing new cables from March/Corkery towards Corkery Woods.
This comment has been removed by the author.
The tower you see is for NorthWind Wireless. Bell was installing fibre optic cables with respect to this tower, but I'm not sure what the actual the relationship is. I'm looking at this site trying to learn more about NorthWind and whether we can actually get true highspeed in Corkery.
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