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'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.
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
34 Comments:
Talked to 2nd level support at xplornet. They stated that the corkery tower will be receving 4g in may 2012. Indeed their website already shows 4g technology for the corkery area. Good princingwithhigh caps.
You think xplornet high has cap. If you play games or download movie.Cap not high enough.Upload speed is slow too.There is rumour ther new provider coming to Corkery with no cap. Check out all the rules from Xplornet when tower is full.How much it cost for being over the cap.Plus the cost of setup 4g.
OpaB, I don't know what you're on, but their largest cap is 30GB. Their prices are astronomical and their service is sketchy at best. I can't get the speeds I'm paying for and I cancelled service with them due to poor customer service, bad networks and excessive charges.
I guess you dont live in corkey area, If you look for 3.5 or 900 you cant get it because tower is full.Do you really think 4g going to be better? Play games and find how good xplornet is. I know of people in corkey woods have problem with xplornet because of speed.You pay $100 or $54 a month you get the same speed. Know this for a fact. For your information the tower in manion call Rockland tower.More information there fibre line on March rd. that Rogers has. So next time you ask somebody what there on. Think twice before you write. Guess what i got all information on Xplornet 4g . Plus company have higher cap rate.
I'm just off Richardson Side Road and was forced to switch from Bell 'Portable' internet to Bell's 'Turbo Hub'. The speed is improved but the pricing is HORRIBLE! The only plan they offer is a 'flex' plan which bills you based on usage. This month I'm on track to have my monthly bill go from $50 to $180.00. I've heard nothing but bad news from Xplornet users and Rogers offers the same package as Bell. Does anyone know of an alternative?
Steve,
Check with Northwind Wireless. No caps, no throttling, decent speed & service. Not sure if they service your area though.
Gus
Marcpin30
Does anyone who can make a difference every take note of the information on this blog? I moved into Corkery in 2009, Paid 75 dollars to Xplornet for them to tell me I don't get a signal. I have tried Rogers turbo hub, terrible. Going through Hell I mean Bell Turbo hub now and it’s all bad and costly. We weren't told about the cap and we paid for it. We lose or cannot get a signal from 9am to about 8pm.Currently up to 14 phone calls trying to speak to someone at bell. Our phone lines or "Central Office" comes from Almonte 12 kms away so high speed like the urban folk is out of the question. We pay City taxes and we are serviced from Almonte. Perhaps I should ask Almonte for help. City doesn't seem to care and provided inaccurate information in a recent request I made. We have considered moving from our dream house because the internet is such an integral part of our lives as it is with everyone. My kid is not allowed on internet for more than 30 mins a day. Try and do school work and have fun as a kid with that. Not enough voters on this side of the Queensway I figure for us to make a difference. Funny how every small community around gets high speed but we don’t. Constance Bay gets it, oh forgot that’s where the city councilor lives. Maybe one will move into our area someday and understand. Again Rural loses against urban votes.
Also in Corkery Woods, best signal I can get is Rogers 3G with an external Yagi. Horrible caps, speed and cost. We will indeed be moving to get away from the frustration unless by miracle Fibe shows up on my doorstep. Been told that the techs have been working in area but that really says nothing. You would think they would want advanced converts as a reason to actually run cables.
Im located in Manion Heights (which I think is on the other side of March Rd from the Corkery Woods folks). After reading this blog entry about the fibre-optic lines on Richardson side road I did notice them on the ride home. They seem to run along Richardson, then follow Beavertail Rd to the Bell phone box at the corner of Beavertail and Old Almonte. So if your phone line terminates at this box there may be hope for DSL or Fibe (ADSL2+). Recall though that phone line length is a big issue with ADSL2 tech. Honestly as much as I would love to get a hardline connection, I just dont know that its worth it financially to Bell to upgrade the lines. The infrastructure cost to wire up Corkery style communities is enormous compared to the new cookie-cutter developments in Kanata, and then the CRTC rules force them to allow re-seller access (Teksavy and friends). From a pure business point of view the wireless solutions are much more attractive to the bottom line than expanding their hardline areas. Sucks for us, but my opnion is that we may be holding our breath for a very long time to see hardline based internet in the rural areas of Ottawa.
I am running a Rogers rocket hub (migrated from Rogers portable internet) and finally bit the bullet on getting an external yagi. The service was just OK in the winter, but as the trees starting getting leaves it got much worse. With the yagi installed on the roof ( clear LOS to the rogers tower ), there is a big difference. Averaging 3 mbs down in peak times (7-9pm) and 5 down just about all other times. Without the external antenna I would be lucky to get 1mbps, and peak time was a dialup style experience.
I dont know if Northwind has made any more progress on their deployment to the Corkery area - has anyone heard from them in the area ? Its really a shame that Xplornet is sucking up municipal and federal grant money and not providing much more than SimplySurf did for the area.
Fox
It is really too bad that a company doesn't tap into the fibre at the corner of Jacob's Gate and Hwy 49 used by a previous ISP.
I use Xplornet and will jump in a second to find a true high speed alternative. It is pretty fast from 6 AM to 7:30AM . Hit and miss after that. And, I am using the top business WiFi package.
I tried the Rogers LTE stick but only got 3G speeds.
I have been told that Bell is coming out to our area DSL but they need to install some power at the remotes. Who knows. However, if any ISP is reading this, many of us are nearing the end of our Xplornet contract and have had enough experience to realize, it sucks.
I have been in the Corkery/Bearhill area for 11 years. I have been through it all from bonded modems, 3 high speed sat options, 2 WiFi providers. I have looked at fibre to my house and distribution from there.
D
"It is really too bad that a company doesn't tap into the fibre at the corner of Jacob's Gate and Hwy 49 used by a previous ISP."
We looked at that - there's no ROI - Rogers owns that Fiber and it's priced accordingly. Part of the reason why Simply Surf went under was their atrocious transit expense.
goZoom.ca Fixed Wireless Service will be available in Marathon and Deerwood Estates June 1st. We're also looking at a shot to Beartrail and Manion BUT the prospect of DSL via an ONU in that area is a deterrent as that would probably wipe out our ROI so we need to consider that.
Ian Fraser
CEO goZoom.ca Inc
877(613) 622 0093
http://www.gozoom.ca
"We're also looking at a shot to Beartrail and Manion BUT the prospect of DSL via an ONU in that area is a deterrent as that would probably wipe out our ROI so we need to consider that."
I assume you mean Bearhill?
I thought you tried doing a shot before but could not get anything helpful. Note the DSL rumour was from 2 different Bell line workers. I am not sure how much validity.
I personally had looked into tapping into the fibre (quotes on service and equipment). I think it would be viable if deployed properly. If done right, there would be no reason to go to any other solution.
I would support an ISP that would be interest in shaking the bed that holds the City of Ottawa and Xplornet.
Yes Sorry - Bearhill. The network is always expanding. BearHill is now a possibility. The viability of serving the area effectively is still not 100% with the type and density of the foliage. The prospect of a pending Landline solution adversely effects the ROI obviously. It should be easy enough to determine if that's what's going on though.
Afraid I disagree on the price of that tail; That's one very expensive Fibre there. Way beyond what I would expect to pay for a 100Mbps drop.
I'm moving into the Manion Heights area and have been researching internet options.
This link gives some info on how to get access to some one at Bell who can answer questions:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26780696-Wired-internet-Pennycross-Richardson-side-road-ottawa
The person I spoke to suggested 6 months for the address I provided and that Ottawa is one of the primary areas of expansion.
The other good news is that it looks like it will be Fiber To The Neighborhood...which means independents such as Acanac should be able to provide service as well as Bell, I hope.
For Bearhill and subsequent streets on the south side (more or less) of March Road, the only available service provider is Xplornet. There is no direct line of sight to the tower on the Diefenbunker where GoZoom has equipment - even with the 60 foot tower I have.
I was on the bell webpage today and I will tried the what's available to my phone number and I'm getting a list of bell five options and when I call them it seems to that it's true I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this? Because some times it's just a glitch for one number.
Do you mind sharing your approximate area? I live near William Mooney and Richardson Side Road and was told by Bell in Feb that June 30 was the magic date for my area. I checked the web site and I still don't have service.
Do you mind sharing the approximate area where you live? I'm near William Mooney and Richardson Side Road and was told by Bell months ago that work would be completed in my area June 30.
I live in the 1300 corkery and I've tried a bunch of different address near me and all seem to report getting bell fibe but it could just be a browser glitch or something I was wondering if anyone else was getting similar results
I tried 1300 Corkery but I get this message displayed above the standard Bell Fibe options.
We were unable to confirm which services are available at 1300 CORKERY RD CARP, ON, k0a1l0
Please try another address or check using your phone number. You can also contact Bell at 1 877 571-1278.
In my experience that usually indicates that the lines are being reworked and DSL service is imminent, or sometimes already available. BUT YMMV... I do not have inside information on Bell's Activities; that's just what I've seen fairly often elsewhere in our Wireless coverage area.
Cheers,
Ian
Although we technically have "high Speed" internet where I live the service has only about 50% uptime. Impossible to work from home. I have been to third world countries with more reliable service. Satellite is not an option due to latency issues in real time usage (Skype for example). Thinking of going back to dial-up as reliability is more important than bandwidth.Yes I am in the "city" of Ottawa. Any ideas?
Thanks
you said "Check with Northwind Wireless. No caps, no throttling, decent speed & service. Not sure if they service your area though."
you forgot to say no service also. They suck. Always down. It's either too hot or too cold or too windy or icy or raining or snowing, need I go on?
@Anonymous: What ISP/service are you currently using? There a re two Anonymous postings above -- not sure if they're the same -- that's the problem with Anonymous. I use Bell's TurboHub, which is pretty good, although I got better service after I purchased and installed an external yagi antenna. Your mileage may vary. Roger's RocketHub -- same network -- doesn't work very well where I am, so I suggest that if one doesn't work, you try the other. Xplornet should be available everywhere, but I left them for Bell. --Chris
If Rogers owns the fiber on March rd, they would have the most to win from an expansion around - I live in the Corkery area. Especially if they can squeeze cable programming through it - albeit that would mean fiber to the home - but they would put Bell, Xplornet, etc out of business there. Whoever comes first with wireline high-speed, will have a pretty good customer base for some time. Hopefully they will come, it was economically feasible for Huntley and rural Kanata.
I once spoke to a Rogers planning engineer who told me that it costs them $30K/km to lay fibre (hopefully I'm remembering that number correctly -- it was 5-7 years ago), so they require a certain number of houses before they'll even consider it.
30k? 5-7 yrs ago? Not that much. We are at least 150 homes in the subdivision. Roughly 4 km.
Assuming 30k is still there (I'd guess things went down, that's almost always the case with tech) - makes it roughly 120k for 100 (homes that actually sign up)*120 (Rogers average annual service - could be more) aprox 12k revenue/year, not profit, but still, assuming 66% houses would connect (conservative in my mind since there will be no match for the service).
This doesn't include the school across March rd, the other close subdivisions to be "taken", the city of Ottawa facilities down the road.
If I knew someone at Rogers I would definitely contact the person.
Xplornet just went further with their attrocious service. I am still on their old fixed wireless system (not 4G). I made a package change from the 5Mb to 3Mb package. Without advising me about it, they slapped a 20G cap on my account and charged me an overage fee. Of course they refuse to do anything about it. So any news on when Bell's fiber system will go active along March road?
It seems it's Rogers' fiber. Sent them a couple of messages ... probably lost in ether.
Don't know how to make Rogers at least aware of the possibility to expand.
I gave it a go and got to one of Bell's senior techs with regard to DSL service down March road where they already have their fiber. Based on what he told me - and I don't know if he is just not allowed to tell me - there is no plans of bringing DSL over their fiber down March road. I also drove around Bearhill Road, Corkery Road, etc and although there are many of the traditional brown units next to the road, there is no ONU in sight at all. So it seems that although the subdivisions are fairly large, there is no interest in Bell to bring DSL service out here. So the bad news is that most people in the rural areas down March road is either stuck with Xplornet, or if you are lucky you can get one of the other service providers which are localized to very specific areas. If I spend a couple $1000 on a tower, I can see more than just Xplornet, but that cost I cannot justify.
Northwind is coming to Corkery/Bearhill by the fall.
I'm located near William Mooney and Richardson Side Road. After watching fiber being connected at that intersection I repeatedly called Bell to find out what was planned for the area. I actually received a call back from Bell Engineering. Although the fiber line on Richardson and William Mooney is active there are no ONUs installed in the area and no installations planned. There is a new development across from Pennycross that has fiber to the home but that's it. So no wired service from Bell is planned for any existing residential areas, only new developments.
On the West Carleton EMC weekly paper of November 29, Northwind Wireless had a “Notice of proposed broadband internet tower and community information session “ For a 42 meter height tower on Corkery woods drive. This to be considered by the City of Ottawa and Industry Canada.
I live near William Mooney and Richardson Side Road and was told by Bell in Feb that June 30 was the magic date for my area.Do you mind sharing your approximate area? I checked the web site and I still don't have service.
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