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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Seemingly as an alternative to
Rogers Rocket Hub, Bell has come out with the Turbo Hub. I haven't taken a close look at it, except to determine that it's not available at my home, but Bell is claiming PEAK download speeds of 7 Mbps starting at $40 per month for data-only service (tiered model based on total number of gigabytes downloaded each billing period). Voice service option can be added. Turbo Hub can also have a Bell bundle discount.
Here's a couple of links that might be of interest:
Press Release
Current Offer
If anyone has the Turbo Hub, I would be interested in knowing how you like it (or not).
-Chris
11 Comments:
I live s/w west of Kemptville (Oxford Mills) and just installed the Turbo Hub yesterday. So far it's 50/50. When I have a signal it's very fast(relative to dial-up) but there is allot of times I don't have a G3 signal at all.
I'm presently hooked to the Hub with the ethernet cable but I picked up a WiFi card for my PC so once that is installed I'll try and move the Hub around the house to see if I can get a stronger and more relaible signal.
Will keep you informed on how it goes for the next 14 day trial period.
Prices are awful!
$60 for 10GB, $15.36/GB over on Bell, $10/GB over on Rogers.
Day 14 with the new hub...fabulous.
The WiFi card allowed me to locate the hub near a better window and the signal came streaming in at 8 bars.
It was still spotty service during bad weather so I sprung and bought a 24 dB Yagi antenna off eBay for $90 and saw my signal jump to 15 bars.
A speed test shows I get 6.5 Mb/s so not far from the rated 7.2 the Hub advertises.
As far as usage, I must be classed as a VERY light user...I haven't gone over 1 GB yet, and the month is almost 1/2 over.
So far I'm impressed, I see some folks complain about the cost compared to their beloved cable hook ups, but for us out in the rural community, with the only other option being dial-up..this service is worth every penny.
As a former SimplySurf subscriber, I've been investigating the details of both the Bell Turbo Hub and the Rogers Rocket Hub plans.
Both Rogers and Bell offer the Ericsson W35 unit, but Rogers also is supplying the Netcom 3G10WMV. Both charge $149 for the unit with a 2 yr contract. You can get either the Bell or Rogers unit for $100 with a 2 yr contract through the Wireless Etc booth in Costco.
The monthly rates for data transmission are approximately the same, until you breach the 10 GB ($60/mo) barrier, and then you will get nailed by Bell. Rogers charges $10 per GB with a $50 cap on the overage.
Mark, yes, Rogers at least has a $50 overage cap. Bell really DOES screw people, with $15/GB over 10GB. People reportedly have been getting bills in the many 100's (eg. $485 just like that), and one guy $1100 even...
Rogers also has a $15 phone option.
Great way to stick it to Bell.
Hi guys, I'm in Kars, stuck with rip off Xplorenet throttling. i'm trying to decide which is the better of two evils, Bell or Rogers.. I called both today to find out that rogers no longer has a $50 cap above 10GB, I was told I could turn off the unit while not using it and monitor my usage closely, as well as set a password to prevent unwanted WIFI use.
After chumming with the Rogers representative about other services, he made a private comment that new pricing and plans are coming for November, and made the effort to let me know without trying to sell me a unit today. Both Bell and Rogers were apologetic about not having a cap, and I made my point that this is a factor for my purchase.
@DeathBySedan
Depending on where you are in Kars (or outlying areas like me), and all other things being equal between Bell & Rogers, pick the company with the tower closest to you. Check out the Canadian Cell Tower Map -- you can zoom into your area:
http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html
The link is also available from this blog's main page.
-Chris
I found that I have a very strong nearby signal with Bell on my cellphone, and after much research about the Turbo Hub I can't justify buying into it. I have read many reports about the Ericsson hub being problematic, and Bell charging a $400 cancellation fee even for interrupted or unavailable service. I am also weary of Bell's policy to charge the $400 cancellation fee during the 14 day trial period for usage exceeding 50MB. I'm not prepared to deal with these old Bell grab tactics. I'd rather have my overpriced and terrible Xplorenet wireless then be saddled with these hidden fees.
On a positive note, if anyone was interested in trying the Hub for the 14 day trial period, be advised that you only have 50MB to play with to do a thorough and complete test of the Ericsson hub before your contract is binding and the 14 days no longer apply.
Also one could purchase the somewhat problematic Hub for $399 initially so that you would not have to pay the additional $400 cancellation fee on top of the $149 fee of the 2 year contract.
I will be waiting for better hardware and hidden fees before signing up.
I live on the 9th concession of Carleton Place (Beckwith Township). I love the access to high-speed rather than dial up. But, one very bad problem is that my emails get hung up about every 15 minutes and it says "bell not connecting right now". I called the turbo hub technical support and they said there is a big request from a lot of users about this problem. So make sure to copy your long letters before you send them because once you hit send, they're gone. Then the email starts again in a couple of minutes, then you can send the message again. Very frustrating. I still like the high speed when it works and forget about wireless, I have mine plugged in at all times.
Rogers still has the $50 cap but they don't publish that anywhere. I called them 4 or 5 times trying to learn as much as could. Of course they reserve the right to change terms anytime they feel like. Smartphones used to have a $100 cap, now it's $500. Wish it wasn't such a crapshoot.
I tried out the Bell hub in the last month. Tested it initially and got 2 to 3 bars out of 4 inside and a solid 3 outside. When I was getting 2 bars, the speeds and connection would drop off. So, I ordered an external antenna thinking that the 3 out of 4 bars would give me a good connection. Ordered the antenna from the States, got it within a week, and received 3 or 4 out of 4 bars consistently - connection was very good - bursting to 4 to 5 MB downloads.
But the hub started rebooting itself about every 10 minutes which of course caused the internet connection to be lost while it took its 1 minute or so reboot/reconnect time.
Called Bell, they agreed to replace the unit. Got a replacement from the store. Brought it home, and experienced the same rebooting on the new equipment. I talked to Bell support which were of no help. They said that a higher level support person would call back in the next 48 hours. Never happened, so I called Bell back and told them I was returning the hardware. I was done spending countless hours on the phone and getting no-where.
I had to rant quite a bit on the phone to get them to not charge me the 400$ fee and to return the 149$ for the hub. They said they will still be charging me for the usage that month - 35$.
All in all, this could be a descent service if the hardware had performed better. This was with the Ericcson W35 hub, not the newer Netgear hub. And yes, I had installed the firmware that became available in the last month (the unit failed before and after the firmware was applied).
The 3G network however does give some lag times with initially requests for pages, even when the connection signal appeared to be descent.
So, now I have to decide whether to stay with the slow, over-burdened xplorenet account I have, try out their "enhanced" packages and see if the throtteless plans are better, maybe try out Rogers hub (since I have the external antenna)?!
I guess the positive point is I still have some choices.
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