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

CDN article: Rogers to sell USB sticks that can double LTE speeds

It looks like Rogers is upping their game in LTE-land. Currently, Bell and Rogers LTE devices max-out at 25 Mbps, but Rogers' new LTE devices should peak around 40 Mbps... under ideal conditioins.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/IT/client/en/CDN/News.asp?id=65985

CDN Now article: Rogers will stop traffic throttling next month

Here's a link to a recent CDN Now article entitled, "Rogers will stop traffic throttling next month":

http://www.itbusiness.ca/IT/client/en/CDN/News.asp?id=65964

Bell stopped traffic throttling in December:

http://www.itworldcanada.com/blogs/network-world/2011/12/20/bell-will-end-internet-traffic-throttling/63427/

ITBusiness article: Rogers launches Canada's first LTE service

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.

FP article: Rogers to roll out LTE network in Ottawa

The Financial Post recently publish an article reporting on Rogers' deployment of an LTE network in the Ottawa area. LTE -- Long-Term Evolution -- is next (4th) generation mobile voice and data, and promises to be 6-10x faster than current technologies. The LTE service is apparently available immediately.

I wandered over to Rogers website, and sure enough, the LTE Rocket Stick is being offered in the Ottawa area... with delivery sometime this summer. So it looks like the stick is available for pre-order.

The site doesn't get into performance specifics either, other than to say the service will be significantly faster than current HSPA+ networks (which have download speeds of up to 21 Mbps) and will depend on hardware selected.

LTE Rocket Stick hardware costs are $80 for 3-year contract, and $170 with no contract. No word on monthly service package costs.

Hopefully we can find out more later in the summer.

-Chris

Comparison of Bell and Rogers HSPA networks

I've just done an impromptu comparative test of Bell's and Rogers' HSPA services (e.g. Bell Turbo Hub vs. Rogers Rocket Stick -- both the 7Mbps peak HSPA service).

Although not exhaustive, I tried to keep things as similar as possible.

1. The Bell Hub and Rogers Stick were located ~1m apart.
   
2. The tests were performed ~30 seconds apart.
   
3. All tests were performed using testmy.net's Download SmarTest.
   

Key differences include:

1. The Bell Hub was connected through my WinXP PC while the Rogers Stihttp://www2.blogger.com/img/blank.gifck was connected to my Vista laptop.
   
2. Rogers are towers are located to the ~2.5km north and ~5km south of my home, while Bell towers are located ~5km east and west of my home.
   

Bell Turbo Hub test results: 3.3 Mbps down

Rogers Rocket Stick test results: 750Kbps down

Click on the 'results' links to see the test details.

I actually ran a numbers of tests; the above results are typical. I saw Rogers range from 63 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps, while Bell never dropped below 2.5 Mbps.

For this morning anyway, and in my immediate area, Bell was way faster than Rogers.

ElectronicBox offers DSL in Ottawa area

According to a reader, the ElectronicBox, which has been around since 1997 (in Quebec), now offers high-speed DSL service in the Ottawa area. They also offer telephone services. Their prices and speeds are somewhat lower than competitors, but they offer up and down data limits that are as good or better than their competitors.

Of course, most rural Ottawa customers can't get DSL. If they could, this blog would likely never have been created. But I'm posting it here since I know that some readers are in areas serviced by DSL.