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.

RSS Feed

I think members of this blog can be notified of any new postings via email. Membership is free (and I won't spam you). As well, if you have an RSS news reader, you can easily be notifed of new postings to this blog by subscribing to: http://firstlinehs.blogspot.com/atom.xml

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.


Thursday, September 15, 2005

Arryba Updates

Arryba Communications has re-forecast the activation date for their First Line/Century Road tower to Monday, September 19. They have been busily activating several towers in the Osgoode and Metcalfe areas, but the First Line site seems to have fallen by the way-side. I followed-up with Arryba, who informed me that they had been having trouble with the main link to the First Line/Century Road tower, which have recently (within the past day or so) been resolved. At this point, they are on-target for a Monday activation. Stay tuned.

September 21 Update:

Arryba's webpage now indicates that the First Line/Century Road site will be fully activated today (September 21). Furthermore, the page indicates that the Metcalfe G&CC site is now operational. As of late last night, this same page was still indicating that both sites were still scheduled for alignment and activation on September 19.

I've also recently noticed that the Acredale Farms silo being used by Arryba now has a small dish up near the previously-installed antenna mast.

Things are moving. Keep your fingers crossed!

September 23 Update:

At 1:28pm, I received an email from Arryba that was reportedly sent via the First Line/Century Road tower. So it appears that they are in the final stages of activating the neighbourhood's tower.

I will post again once I know more. Once the site is operational, I will also send an email to my list of interested people. Stay tuned.

October 9 Update:

I've received an email from Arryba indicating that the First Line/Century Road site is now fully functional. Installations will reportedly begin this coming week.

At the time of writing this blog entry, the Arryba - Area Maps web page was not updated to show that the First Line/Centruy Road site was fully functional. Hopefully, this is just a small delay on their part.

Also, I noticed an article on page 18 of the October 7, 2005 edition of The Packet about Arryba's efforts to bring high-speed wireless Internet access to the south Ottawa areas. The article was entitled, "Arryba Brings High Speed Internet Service to Rural Ottawa".

October 16 Update:

Arryba has contacted me about scheduling my service installation. Tentatively, the date of installation is scheduled for Saturday, October 22 (i.e. next Saturday). I will post again once the installation has been completed (hopefully that with Arryba's non-line-of-site technology, I can get a clear signal despite the big maples and cedars on the north side of my property).

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Tuesday, September 06, 2005

XplorNet Availability

XplorNet's two-way Ka-band highs-peed satellite Internet service is now available in the area. At least one household has the service installed, and they appear to be happy with both the installation and the service itself. Please see my website for testimonials.

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