 Review by aqk 
member for 6.9 years, 164 visits, last login: 109 days ago
updated 1.5 years ago
 Elgin,QC
 $39 per month- (24 month contract)
 about 120 days "Reasonable hi-speed (3mbs) where no DSL landline was available" "Gigabytes /mo limited to 3-5 Gig, then cost increases dramatically!" "Good value for money- not much more than 56kbs dial-up"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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Landline broadband was not available in this rural neighbourhood.
Choice was between a wi-fi company which had an install/equipment fee of $400+ and Bell Canada's cellular service which shipped a cellular router via postal service for the user to install.
The router was purchased over the internet + phone for $149 on a 2-year contract and easily installed by the user.
The Bell coverage, even in this remote rural area is NOW reliable** and generally provides DL speeds of 3 to 4 mbs with a small user-installed external antenna, in spite of a heavily-treed neighbourhood. The cell tower is approximately 8 Km away.
The main drawback now is the "bandwidth" - 3gig for $35 -above that it's $45, if over 5gig it jumps to $60.
Over 10 gig it becomes 15 cents per megabit!
Still, except for dial-up's unlimited bandwidth, it is far preferable.
Details: »www.bell.ca/shopping/Turbo-Hub-F···sku=THUB
** reliability: The first 4 months were a nightmare of continual 2 to 5 minute timeouts, sometimes 3 or 4 every hour. By late December, Bell had stabilized their cellular network problems, and so far, for the past month the network has been consistently reliable here.
UPDATE!
DECEMBER, 2011- I am now into 18 months of my 2 year contract with the Ericsson W35 turbohub. The only time it has recently "slowed down" was in late November 2011, when WET HEAVY STICKY snow covered all the tree branches in my neighbourhood. But even then, the only thing that degraded was the UPLOAD speed - from 1+mbs down to 100kbs. and the ping slowed also - Due to (I think) wet snow on my small yagi. Obviously I need some bigger transmit power.
Once the snow melted off, situation resumed normally. Even with lots of snow on the trees. Presumably a stronger transmitter on my turbohub would have at least melted the snow on the antenna! 
Al in all, the Turbohub is GREAT! ...
EXCEPT! For the pricey "bandwidth", which is a bitch!
Location: N45.004501, W74.24253 .... Elgin Quebec. AND-
Some 3rd-party dorks (really!) are soon gonna put-up a Bell cellular tower at the BOTTOM of a hill near me! Wow. What a rip-off!
Are you listening, Bell? Yeah, yeah- I know- my only alternative is dial-up...:-(
Comments:
 | | bell Wimax its 5:30am i just did a speedtest.net on my ps3 my download speed was 1.79Mb/s and upload was .37 Mb/s my ping was 139 which is pretty good for my wimax i get 6GB a month on my iphone from rogers so instead of runnin wifi from the comp tp the phone sometimes i jus tether my phone to my comp to my ps3 the download on my iphone was 4.12 Mb/s upload 3.18 and ping 149 both from same location so im really considering rogers since they max out at $100 unlike there competitors and theyll be the first with 4G | |
| aqk
join:2006-07-17
Elgin, QC
kudos:1 Reviews:
 ·Bell WiMAX
| Feb 14,2011 -follow up February follow-up:
Well it's been almost two months since Bell finally cleared up their Ericsson W35 problems with the Cellphone network - at least as far as my local tower.
The system is running PERFECTLY. I've hardly had a time-out since late December.
I've had several rural friends complain since then about frequent timeouts on their turbo-hubs, but even this was cleared up once they each purchased a small indoors whip antenna. ($22 or so).
Seems to me that the Ericcson W35 was made for people only in direct view of a VERY local tower. Anyone else GET AN EXTERNAL ANTENNA!
Once again, my only complaint is the low "bandwidth" (I hate this misleading term!) of Bell's Turbo-hub contract. I.E. Anything over 10 Gig starts costing $25 a gigabyte.
Hmnn...  I wonder if the CRTC could make that UBB cancellation decision retroactive for us rural Turbo-hub users who have no other hi-speed option...
--
- The Fibe 0.037 guy
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