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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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.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Arryba Mail Server Unavailable

By now, former Arryba Communications customers may have noticed that they are not able to send or receive email from their Arryba email accounts. The mail server appears to have been down since at least Saturday (Sept. 16) morning, and is still down at the time of writing this posting.

Since Storm Internet is taking over many of Arryba's former customers, I gave Storm customer service a call to see if they had any control over the Arryba mail server: they don't.

However, since I already had an application submitted for my service to be transferred from Arryba to Storm, the tech support person at Storm immediately setup Storm.ca email addresses for my wife and I. I thought that this was excellent customer service for someone who wasn't quite yet an official Storm customer. Obviously, without control over Arryba's mail server, any missing mail will most likely stay missing, but at least this minimizes lost mail and provides new email service.

posted by Chris Spencer at 11:17 am 0 comments

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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Update: Arryba-to-Storm Transition

For those of you who have applied to transition your high-speed wireless Internet access service from Arryba Communications to Storm Internet (as I have), here is what I have found out to-date:

  • Storm is currently providing service to Arryba's (former) customers for free, until such time as the transition is completed.
  • For Arryba customers wishing to transition to Storm's service, there will be a one-time admin fee of $75... so maybe the current service is not so free. Oh well.
  • Monthly service fees will be $40 for service of up to 3 Mbps download (i.e. faster than Arryba).
  • For customers with Arryba equipment on-site, Storm is offering a service & maintenance option of $10 per month. Depending on how the bankruptcy process handles Arryba, this may change.
  • Storm appears to be planning to complete the transition of Arryba customers by the end of September.

For more information, please contact Storm Internet at (613) 567-6585.

posted by Chris Spencer at 10:01 am 7 comments

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is Storm saying that all Arryba cusotmers should be back up and running? The reasons I ask, is that I was pointing to the Metcalfe Golf Course tower before things went haywire, and I still have no service.

September 13, 2006 1:25 pm  
Blogger Chris Spencer said...

Arryba had previously indicated to me that all their customers should have service restored. If you are still not getting service, you should contact Storm to see if they can help. It is important to remember that Arryba is now defunct and Storm has not taken over Arryba's former network. However, it is my understanding that Storm is making plans to assume all of Arryba's customers.

September 13, 2006 2:39 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I spoke with Storm a couple weeks ago about the possible transfer, the $10/month service fee still seemed an uncertain arrangement. Since neither we nor Storm currently own the equipment on our properties, technically I don't believe such a service arrangement can exist. If something happens with the Arryba equipment requiring service, Storm does not have a legal right to repair/replace that equipment, and we don't have legal right to permit it. (Unless maybe there is some sort of abandonment law that put the gear in our ownership once Arryba became a non-responsive company.)

In any case, with no guarantee that Storm will be able to aquire Arryba's gear, if one does break in the meantime, is Storm really going to replace it with a brand new unit within the $10/month fee? There seemed a lot of unanswered questions here. Has anyone yet seen the text for such a service agreement?

Note I have not yet transferred to Storm, as I was told that would not be possible until the legal situation/ownership of Arryba's equipment is sorted out. I was told that Storm was currently only making a list of interested Arryba customers, but not actually transferring anyone yet (unless you want to pay for a whole Storm installation from scratch).

Also, Arryba's service had "guaranteed" a minimum service speed, as their rates were based on various speed levels. Storm has no such arrangement. A neighbour of mine who has been with Storm for some time reports speeds in peak periods as slow as dial-up. Of course they are not on the same transmitter as I am, and may perhaps be using older technology (the Storm rep couldn't confirm). In any case, it is worth noting that Storm does not have a bandwidth guarantee, and their rates are higher.

KDJ

September 26, 2006 10:30 pm  
Blogger Chris Spencer said...

A couple of comments on the previous comments from KDJ...

I've wondered about the $10 service fee myself, but I figure if the Arryba gear gets damaged and I cannot contact Arryba to have it removed or repaired, then as the property owner, I figure I'm within my rights to have it removed and replaced.

The $10 service fee is Storm's answer to the normal modem rental fee that they levy, which obviously they cannot do on equipment not owned by them.

My guess is that if you refused to pay the fee, and the equipment eventually needed to be repaired or replaced, Storm might hit you for their $200 installation fee. If that would be th case, then it's a bit of a gamble as to which you think will save you money.

I've been using Storm's free-for-Arryba-customers service for a month now, including email. I've not had any problems with speeds, and I've been working from home online some days from 8am until after 5pm.

Storm may not have a minimum speed guarentee, but they do advertise a higher maximum speed (3 Mbps down) than any of Arryba's service options, IIRC.

The bottom-line is that for some of us, there aren't a lot of other high-speed options. Personally, if I don't continue with Storm, I can install a 65' tower and get service from RipNet, or I can go with 2-way satellite... or I can wait until Bell or Rogers deploys their portable Internet service in my neighbourhood.

-Chris

September 27, 2006 8:57 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'm in the same boat, only real option is Storm. Ironically enough, a year ago I tried to get started with Storm, and their guy never showed up for the installation (and I took the day off work for it). I didn't get an apology, reason, excuse, nothing. A day or so later I get a voice mail saying my installation was rescheduled for 5 months later, with no explanation. I said screw 'em and went with Arryba (not that they were any faster). Funny that I'm now back with the same crew. I haven't heard great things about Storm's customer service, either, but I guess we're really picking from the lesser of evils here..., kinda like the municipal elections! ;)

If I may ask, are you in an active agreement with Storm right now? I mean are you paying them anything, like the $10 fee?

On a related note, last week I got a notice in my mailbox, from a Tom & Kari Toomey regarding an info session they were hosting this past Sunday with Bill McDougall and Jose Gonzalez (the former Arryba head who got sacked) about this new company they've started called "Affiliated Rural Broadband Network Systems Inc." I gather the Toomey's are the ones who own the limo company at 590 David Manchester where Arryba got in the local papers for raising a tower there for them. Anyhow, I gather Gonzalez and friends are looking for money to start things all over again. Lightning notwithstanding, it seems his first effort was a sufficient disaster that I don't know how this could possibly have any credibility---the company had more issues than just lightning strikes. At any rate, I'm wondering if anyone else heard about this session on Sunday and attended it? I was out of town.

KDJ

September 27, 2006 10:22 pm  
Blogger Chris Spencer said...

I had Storm at my place on 4 separate occassions between 2001 and 2005. Funny that they never offered to put up a tower for me, even though they used to list the service on their web site.

I know that about a year ago, Storm made a posting on their website that they were not accepting any new applications for service until December 2005 or later, and I'd heard rumours about equipment shortages. That might be why you got pushed back 5 months.

I'm currently not paying any money to Storm, as they have not yet approached me to do so.

Also, I heard about the session with ARBNS, but I did not attend. It's not in my area, and I was warey of the up-front investment, given all the goings-on with Arryba and ABRNS' relation to Arryba.

My biggest problem Storm is it seems that they have aproblem with their DNS servers or something. I sometimes have to attempt several times to get to get to a website before it loads. However, if I tunnel into work, so that I'm effectively using my company's routers, I do have any problems, so I'm reasonably sure the problem isn't at my end. I haven't actually brought it up with Storm, since I'm currently getting the service for free. I wonder if anyone else is having the same problem.

September 28, 2006 9:09 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was on Storm's eqpt shortage list for ages, and then when they got the gear I was scheduled for install, but the guy never showed when he was supposed to. Then I got the arbitrary delay (actually two in a row). Weird...

I haven't had any noticeable web problems since Storm stepped in (nor before that). It might depend on where you're at. I gather storm has different technologies out there, and maybe the one in your Storm-Arryba feed is not a great one..., it could be the same problem for my neighbour with the slow connections.

KDJ

September 29, 2006 9:02 pm  

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

globeandmail.com: Rogers Portable Internet

Here's a link to a July 17, 2006 article in the Global and Mail that reviewed Rogers Portable Internet:

globeandmail.com : Rogers Portable Internet

posted by Chris Spencer at 8:59 pm 0 comments

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Otawa Business Journal: Rural broadband tops 60%, now comes hard part

On Monday, September 4, the Ottawa Business Journal published an article about the state and future of high-speed Internet access in rural Ottawa.

Among other things, it mentions Arryba's recent demise, and lists companies like Storm Internet, SimplySurf, and NorthWind Wireless as active ISPs.

It also mentions the recent arrival of Affiliated Rural Broadband Network Systems Inc. in the Ottawa area. My understanding is that the former CEO of Arryba is involved in ARBNS.

posted by Chris Spencer at 4:14 pm 0 comments

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