ORCnet Update - City's Partnership with Barrett Xplore to Complete Rural Broadband
On Thursday, July 26, I received this email from Chris Cope of OrcNet. In it, Chris provides a general update on the state of rural Ottawa Internet affairs, including an update on XplorNet's deployment across the region. For example, 11 of XplorNet's 30 tower sites should be active by the end of July, with the remaining 19 active within two months.
I obtained Chris' written permission to post the message on this blog.
I obtained Chris' written permission to post the message on this blog.
I wanted to bring you up to date on progress on our broadband project. "In a nutshell Christopher, things are progressing very well."
As you may already know, on March 28, 2007, Ottawa City Council approved Barrett Xplore Inc. as the preferred private-sector partner to complete rural broadband coverage in Ottawa. Then, at a meeting of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee on 14 June 2007 the formal agreement with Barrett was signed. The proposed project will involve innovative wireless technology, designed to achieve the target 100 per cent coverage of the remaining gaps in broadband coverage in rural Ottawa.
Barrett Xplore will use two technologies to deliver 100% rural broadband coverage - fixed wireless and satellite. Barrett Xplore will rely mostly on fixed wireless systems, where a tower beams a signal to and from a receiver mounted on the consumer's property. But, in cases where topography or foliage makes this impossible (estimated to be less than 5% of rural households), a small satellite dish - 67 cm - will be used to deliver satellite broadband service to those hard to reach consumers.
Although the majority of Barrett's transmitters will be located on existing towers or other tall vertical structures, there is a need for several new ones. These are being installed over the next two months. The locations for new towers have already been chosen, being careful to minimize impact on the community while providing the best possible coverage. The towers are between 30 meters and 45 meters high. In comparison, many of the towers that cellular telephone companies use are much higher at 75 to 90 meters high. Barrett Xplore has tried hard to make use of existing towers, even silos, and more than half of the required sites will not require construction of a new tower.
The costs to the consumer will be very close to that of urban Internet service providers, but will depend somewhat on whether a resident can use fixed wireless, or will require a satellite installation. Fixed wireless packages start at $29.99 per month. Basic installation costs for the wireless service are $149 with a two-year contract and $99 with a three-year contract. Barrett Xplore will offer a heavily reduced fixed rate of $199 to cover the costs of satellite installation for the few customers who will require that service. Satellite packages start at $49.99 per month.
Barrett Xplore has an extensive dealer network across Canada and many of these dealers are located in or near Ottawa. Some of you may have already heard from them and those who haven't likely will soon. So far however, marketing has been targeted at a few homes that are within range of transmission nodes that are already operational. Most of these are on existing structures such as silos and existing towers and this pre-launch marketing is intended only to put a little load on the system as testing progresses. If you are not among those who have been contacted, or if you think the information you have received doesn't yet seem to coincide with what you've been told about the Ottawa project, I would ask that you be patient for the next few weeks as Barrett completes the technical deployment of its network and readies its marketing to be ready to accept sign-ups in the quantities that we anticipate.
Barrett has recently distributed direct mail pieces detailing their introductory offer to customers living in areas serviced by live sites. Over the next few weeks, all households within the City of Ottawa limits will receive that information. By the end of July, 11 out of 30 sites will be available to customers. The remaining 19 will come online, subject to site approval, over the next two months. Customers living in areas where service is not currently available will be given the opportunity to "pre-sign" so they can take advantage of the introductory offer, which expires August 31st.
For detailed information and dealer contact information, customers should visit www.xplornet.com and click on the Ottawa link. For those without Internet access, call 1-866-841-6001. The City of Ottawa's website is another useful resource: www.ottawa.ca/rural.
Please feel free to contact me directly should you need additional information. If this bulletin has been forwarded to you, and I do welcome this; and if you would like me to add your name to our email list to receive future bulletins on the rollout of the project directly, please send me an email providing your email address, street address and telephone number.
Chris Cope
Executive Director ORCnet
Email: Chris.Cope@ottawa.ca
(613) 580-2424 ext. 28991
This e-mail originates from the City of Ottawa e-mail system. Any
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contains by other than the intended recipient(s) is unauthorized.
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posted by Chris Spencer at 8:35 am
5 comments
5 Comments:
Hi Chris,
I posted on the July 28, 2007 post. The the left of my screen right now as I type this comment it says "ORCnet Update - City's Partnership with Barrett Xplore to Complete Rural Broadband". I went with wireless - only other provider in our area. The service so far is great. Sorry, won't say as I want my posts to stay anonomous and these guys are quite exclusive to the area. Xplornet was charging $300 over and above to go without the contract and I really did believe them about their service. We live in a very small town, the installer was very nice so you don't ask a bunch of questions. You believe them. Xplornet has to screen their installers much better as well. It is written right into their contracts they are not responsible for the install, so screening is likely not a priority. I think they guarantee the install for a very limited time, however, with me they just kept getting me to recycle the modem when I think all along I had faulty equipment. However, the installers (ones not interested in customer service) won't even look at our hardware without a work order from Xplornet. I gave Xplornet every chance I could. I was very patient for over a year and after spending well over $3000 in 18 months, I finally gave up and called it quits. What a huge waste of money. I hope they smarten up as people in rural areas really depend on their service provider to connect them to the outside world. Thank you Chris for replying to my post. I wish you all the best of luck with these guys but I wouldn't hold my breath that they'll change.
Thanks for the comments. Hope the wireless service works out for you; I've found my wireless service very reliable. I've had problems but those problems *have* been with *my* equipment -- my wireless router would lock-up and have to be power-cycled frequently.. so I replaced it.
BTW, I'm not with Xplornet nor am I considering Xplornet. I'm with Storm and have been since they took over from Arryba last fall. Some people haven't been happy with Storm, but all my dealings with them have been fine.
Anyway, I was only interested in hearing about people's experiences with Xplornet for the purposes of this blog et al. Mostly I'm interested in hearing about Xplornet's wireless service, since that's the big thing right now around here. But hearing about any Xplornet experiences -- good or bad -- is helpful. Thanks.
Sorry Chris, one final word, for anyone who read my last post, just prior to Chris, please read my 1st 2 posts under the thread on this blog: "ORCnet Update - Rural High-Speed Internet Service - Coming Summer 2007" Just to lessen the confusion. Chris, I find sometimes the wireless can get busy and slow but for it has been reliable almost 100% of the time. I know our wireless carrier goes down sometimes for a day or 2 but have dialup to fall back on now. Thanks for your replies. Take care.....Way out West....
Chris, thanks for this blog, I just found it and thought I would add two cents. I am in an area that not one provider has ever been able to set us up with wireless or high speed. We have had every company come here, even arybra, most of us signed up and then they folded. We can't get simplysurf to call back and now xplorenet is making great promises, but I must say our community is really tired of the whole process of trying to find a service that will actually work. We are in the K0A1L0 in between Carp and Stittsville. If there is any community that the City's partnership with xplorenet should be working with, it certainly should be here. We are a dead zone with wireless all around us, it's very frustrating operating a home based business.
cheers
sue
Hi Sue.
I was with Arryba too before they folded. I thought that all Arryba subscribers were picked up by Storm, as I was. Storm did take over operation of a number of Arryba sites/towers/antennas. You might want to follow-up with Storm.
After Storm, I would check out XplorNet, Bell Sympatico Unplugged, and Rogers Portable Internet. I have friends in the Carp area and they tell me that XplorNet has been canvasing the area and taking orders, although they also say XplorNet has been slow to get back to them (I need to follow-up with my friends on this). Bell and Rogers' wireless high-speed internet is provided over their Inukshuk wireless network, and my understanding is that the network uses their cell towers, so if there's a cell tower within a few kilometres of your house, you might be in luck. You can check if Bell is offering highspeed wireless service in your area by filling in your address at this website. I entered your postal code at Rogers Portable Internet site, but it couldn't tell me if service was available in your area, so you may want to call them.
I too had talked with SimplySurf, several years ago, before Arryba. But my talks with them didn't go anywhere, even when I got their required number of interested people. I've since had other people tell me that SimplySurf wasn't returning their phone calls.
I hope you find this useful.
-Chris
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