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All reviews of Xplornet


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Reviews:
read 28 reviews (9 positive) (13 negative)
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Six Month Rating

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(28 Reviews)
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Review by jimmybarnes See Profile
Posted: 14 days ago
member for 161 days, 0 visits, last login: 161 days ago


Pearson,Atkinson,GA
Contract price not specified.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

    :::.. testmy.net test results ..:::
    Download Connection is:: 784 Kbps about 0.78 Mbps (tested with 1024 kB)
    Download Speed is:: 96 kB/s
    Upload Connection is:: 120 Kbps about 0.1 Mbps (tested with 386 kB)
    Upload Speed is:: 15 kB/s
    Tested From:: »testmy.net (Main)
    Test Time:: 2008/08/13 - 5:13pm
    D-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-15UE349VL
    U-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-064J7N8IR
    User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506) [!]

    I have had these speeds for about 7 months,,they say everything looks good to them,, what do you think?its getting hard to pay 79.95 a month for this

    Followup comments:
    view ALL 4 comments

    Luvfishin
    Cancer Sucks
    Premium
    join:2001-12-06
    Canada
    clubs:
    ·Xplornet

    Well...

    Sounds fair enough for Xplornet. (unfortunately)

    They never have been blindingly fast and barely meet their advertised speeds.

    All I can say is if you're only alternative is dialup, they got ya.

    Good Luck

    ps, what speed package did you buy?
    --
    Put your PC to work!-Xplornet Ka-band 1.5mb/300bps, 2 iMac's, 1 PC - Airport Extreme
    permalink · 2008-08-17 12:08:59 · Reply to this

    Wendy Keats

    @barrettxplore.com

    Xplornet

    I've been using Xplornet for 2 1/2 years now but only because I have to. I have never had such poor service, slow speeds and shoddy equipment. My speeds range around 25 for download and 500 for upload. I've made over 40 phone calls to technical support and might as well have saved my breath.
    permalink · 2008-08-18 20:19:29 · Reply to this
    xplornetsuck

    join:2007-02-22
    BC
    edit:
    August 20th, @06:17PM

    Wildblue is the actual review above

    No ones noticed that the review is for 'Wildblue' and not 'Xplornet'.
    Hopefully the Mods will correct that.
    permalink · 2008-08-20 18:15:28 · Reply to this

    Luvfishin
    Cancer Sucks
    Premium
    join:2001-12-06
    Canada
    clubs:

    Re: Wildblue is the actual review above

    Looks like xplornet to me? hummm
    permalink · 2008-08-22 13:24:07 · Reply to this
    Forums » comments on review of Xplornet

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Review by Luvfishin See Profile
UPDATED: 74 days ago
member for 6.7 years, 2023 visits, last login: a few hours ago


St George Brant,ON
Contract price not specified.
"Faster the my old ku"
"Still costly and latency as with all satellite net services"
"Am not very happy overall (costly and slow)"
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

    I replaced my Direcway (Lincsat) with the new Telesat ka from Xplornet (formerly Lincsat) here in Canada. I simply wanted faster speeds and I certainly got that. It is costly, but I have no other choices. However, I am getting a 1mb d/l service with 256kbps u/l for the same price as my old 500 d/l and 50 u/l.

    The only catch is the equipment (dish and modem cost $699.00 and install was $300.00) as it requires all new equipment and does not use any of the old Direcway equipment.

    Install and setup took about 2 hours and it was a breeze. My dealer here always treats me well and does a great job.

    Tech support is a phone call away and I have not needed them.

    Connection seems better in rain/snow and no problems so far.

    Value for the money is of course a toss up. I am in an area where I have no choice; and to compare satellite to cable or dsl is almost unfair. However, it could be less costly and monthly rates could be less. I pay $89.99/month plus tax and it is much better value than the Direcway which was identically priced.

    So far, so good and I'll do an update in a while.

    Speeds are averaging around 950 down and 250 up with bursts of up to 1.4 mb down and 380kbps up.

    *Update* Upgraded on Feb 6/06 to 1.5mb down, 300 up and and impressed. Averaging 1200 down/300up and solid in lousy weather. No networking/router issues at all. Expensive, but my only option. Xplornet email doesn't want to work with my Yahoo...humm...tech was not helpful. Am using "forwarding email" to get my Xplornet mail.

    *Update* Update on May 18/08 and am still getting the 1.5/300 KaBang service which is getting slower and for $149.00/month should be poppin'! Am told their sat space is overcrowded, but who knows. I have relocated my dishes to a very nice stainless pole mount (added new picture). I sure wish I was a wee bit closer for DSL as the satellite is very costly.

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    Followup comments:
    view 1 comment

    jabo

    @barrettxplore.com

    xplornet kazoom 1mbps down 256kbps up

    I've had xplornet $89.99 kazoom 1mbps down, 256kbps up package for about half a year now. Its really reliable, only went down once and a simple power cycle fixed the problem. When I do a speakeasy speedtest I get about 935kbps down and 190kbps up. The upload could be a touch better because its only at about 75% of advertised, but its alright.

    The pings are a little slow, but it definitely beats dialup since its always on without tying up your phone line and the package I have is about 30x as fast as dial up. It takes about 2 minutes to download a simple 15MB file with the kazoom package compared to about an hour on dial up for the same 15MB file.

    Its not horribly great with online games since the pings are a little slow, but dial up is worse with the games I play.

    You can also network it easily with a router, unlike dial up. We have it connected wired to one desktop and wirelessly to two laptops no problem. they can also all be on the net at once without too much slow down, unlike dial up.

    I'd definitely recommend xplornet over dial up to anyone that doesn't have any other high speed alternative in their area.
    permalink · 2007-01-04 20:53:19 · Print · Reply to this
    Forums » comments on review of Xplornet

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Review by dailyplanet See Profile
UPDATED: 86 days ago
member for 3.8 years, 527 visits, last login: a few hours ago


Colborne,ON
Business customer
Contract price not specified.
"Works as promised"
"Iffy during heavy snow"
"Expensive proposition but worth it to have high-speed"
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)

    $1099 for equipment and installation...yike!

    $89.00 for "KaBoom" package - 1 meg down, 256 up.

    Three computers networked. Last night (fairly heavy snow) was the first time we noticed a slow down.

    Have not done any significant downloading, but what we have done has been at or close to advertised speed (my one speed test was 778K down, 214 up).

    ==UPDATE==

    Ditched them when my anniversary came and went in February,2008.

    System failed on 26DEC08 leaving me and my business high and dry. Blamed it on weather in our area (it was cloudy and a few snow flurries but nothng major). Finally on the 27th of December, spent two hours on the phone with a tech who finally pronounced it DOA. Modem or dish-radio? No one knew.

    They immediately tried to sell me another package or charge 150+ an hour to come out and fix it (of course, warranty was expired a full year before).

    The dish is gone from the house and the wiring is torn out. Will never go that route again.

    Followup comments:
    Forums » comments on review of Xplornet

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Review by xplornetbtch See Profile
UPDATED: 93 days ago
member for 1 year, 7 visits, last login: 29 days ago


p2a3j7
Contract price not specified.
"I can get some sort of broadband in Northern Ontario"
"You go over average usage in an hour the cut your bandwidth by 25 percent"
"This can only be a last resort service"
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

    My Other Reviews·NetSpectrum
    I was sold from Anikast to Xplornet. So I did not get it installed by Xplornet.

    I had no other choice. I was with DirectPC/Bell. They shut down and I had to buy a new dish and modem and go with Anikast/Telasat/Bell.

    I ordered the 500 Down and 100 up package. The package was $54.00 a month.I have yet to sign a contract with Xplornet. I just was transfered over a month ago.It's just a new name on my credit card.

    The modem I have with this system is a Surf Beam. This is a KA band system.

    When I called to get some new email addresses things seemed to go good. I needed the In/Out codes so I could get them working in Outlook.

    The problem with Xplornet is the FAP/Fair Access Policy.

    If you use more the the average usage in an hour. The next hour they cut your bandwidth by 25 percent for an hour. So you buy bandwith from Xplornet and you use it. They cut your bandwith down. This sorta defeats the purpose of getting bandwidth.

    I ask the Tech guy how much bandwidth can i use before it will be cut back. He tells me It's an average and it changes all the time so I can't give you a number.So you never know when you are useing to much and will get cut back. The record of how many times you have had your bandwidth cut back only goes back a week. I was cut back 7 times over the last week.

    Another thing is if you call over slow bandwidth they tell you to do 4 tests on their test site over 24 hours. This is the same site Anikast used. If you don't do the tests over 24 hours they will not let you go up to a level 2 Tech guy. So if you have any bandwith problem it will take a least a day.

    The bottom line is I have had this system for 18 months. The seem to do their work on the system from 2 AM until 6 AM Eastern. Every now and then it will be out, but not very often. I would say, It's 98 percent up time over 18 months.

    Let me on your luck with Xplornet

    I cancelled my Xplornet service Feb 2008.

    I had no contract and it was still a pain trying to cancel.

    I sent them an email letting them no I was canceling.

    3 days later it was still working.

    I call them up a the girl goes, anyone could be calling to cancel the service and would not cancel my service until I filled out a form from their web site.

    I told her I do not have a printer. So I can't fill out the form. She told me to go to my public library and get a print out there. The closest library to me is 40 K away or 24 miles. I told her thats not happening.

    So the next day I sent in a hand written fax notice of cancelation(with no form att).

    So a few days later some other girl calls and says, she will let me cancel. But before she trys to get me back by boosting me up to the next package of 1000K down for a few days to check it out. I told her I was at 1000K down until you bought me from Anikast and you cut me back to 500 down. When you go to the 1000K service you get what you paid for with the 500K package and Annikast knew it and boosted me up for free. So I would get what I was suppost to get.

    I have had internet service in the Bahamas/Europe/ The Toronto area a few and out in British Columbia.

    I have delt with at least 10 Co's over this planet.

    Xplornet is buy far the worst Co I have ever had to deal with for a internet connection. They sell you a service for 500 K down and you are lucky to get 200 to 300 K down unless it's 3 AM. Quit a bit of the time you get less than 200K down.

    You call Tech and they give you the run around. Like they don't know they have oversold the service and your beam is full. Then I head down to my mail box and I have another flyer for the service.

    The service is so oversold they put up another sat for southern/eastern Ont.+ they are putting up wireless towers to make more space on the beams.

    I would stay clear of this Co at all costs.

    One more sleazy thing they do is. When they sign you up you have 30 days to cancel. They don't FAP you until the 30 days has gone buy. So when you service does not work as it should. You are locked into a contract for 2 or 3 years. I looked at the contract and it is 8 pages long. First of all you need a lawyer to understand it. But the bottom line is everything goes against you. You can't cancel for poor service. If you have to move you are out of luck. If your house burns down they want you to keep paying for the service.

    It's an outrage these thieves are still to be in the biz.



    Followup comments:
    view 1 comment

    sick and tired

    @telecomottawa.net

    Xplornet knows they have you!

    To whom it may concern:

    I went with Xplornet in November of last year and up until April I didn't have too many problems; however, as of about two weeks ago we have been down. I had to call the dispatch people myself. Xplornet has been abusive over the telephone to my daughter and myself. They now state when I call about the problems that we are deemed unserviceable. I find this very hard to believe since we live in a village and there are numerous amounts of customers out here. I can look out my living room window and see all the antennas. Needless to say they will not come out. The dispatch guys I called had to call them in order for me to get any kind of tech support, which by the way states that within 72 hours they will be out here and fix the problem. I am now going on two weeks and they will not give me a refund and they are still taking money out of my account for their service. I called them last night to ask them to hold taking out the payment until the tech support team came out on Monday and the guy told me that he didn't have the authority to do that and (conveniently I might add)that the people in the payment department won't be in until Monday who are capable of making that kind of decision. My next door neighbor is also experiencing the same problem. They will give you excuse after excuse as to why it is my fault. They are now answering my calls with a simple "you are deemed unserviceable" and that ends our call. It is now worse than it has ever been. I am beginning to think that they have already cut me off, without even taking down the equipment and continuing to take my payments out of my bank account. It is funny; however, that I was able to get on here this morning after I called and told them that I was stopping their payments until I got results from their dispatch team. Would I recommend this company? NO, NEVER!!! They seem to know that they have you between a rock and a hard place as we can only get dial-up where we live. I have called numerous other companies and I know that Xplornet knows this. I would have dropped them long ago. Unfortunately, my daughter is on line training with a university and she is in the last two courses in order to graduate and we are just trying to get her through until April of next year. At that time I am going to dump them and go back to dial-up at least they were consistent.
    Sincerely,
    Sick and Tired of Excuses!!
    permalink · 2007-09-29 08:41:33 · Print · Reply to this
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Review by jnmontario See Profile
Posted: 109 days ago
member for 109 days, 36 visits, last login: 48 days ago


undisclosed location
Contract price not specified.
"I have internet"
"They HEAVILY throttle and block ports"
"Avoid them if there are any alternatives unless you ONLY surf."
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

    My Other Reviews·Bell Sympatico
    So I got an email from Storm (a great wireless ISP in Ottawa area) a few months ago saying that they'd been bought out by Xplornet. I was a bit trepidatious about it but figured what the heck, can't be all bad. Well, now that I've had Xplornet for 3 days that I can look back on the Garden of Eden and see how green it was. Xplornet's policies SUCK!

    I first noticed that my WoW/LOTRO patches as well as ANY service needing non-port 80/21/110 didn't work any longer. When talking to Xplornet CSR's (which always take a min. of 1 hr. on the phone) I was forced to get a static IP which has NOTHING TO DO with port forwarding, yet is their way of charging a premium of $10 extra per customer per month that knows the internet or uses it to its fullest (skype/gaming/torrents/iRC etc...). They simply could have put my NIC in the DMZ and still had dynamic IP addressing and I would have had normal access to the internet.

    I sucked it up and got the static IP. Now, utorrent works fine now. WoW / LOTRO patching works fine. Dloading SUSE works fine. Skype works fine.

    To boot, They HEAVILY throttle their connection. If you go to speedtest.net you get a rosy picture of xplornet's dl/ul speeds - roughly what they adverse because they burst their data flow for 10-15 seconds at the advertised rates. After this 10-15 seconds the traffic shapers kick in. If you look at sustained dl/ul that you get a good picture of how badly they throttle their connection. I have a '3 Mbps' connection. This should theoretically give me speeds of around 366 kB/s. Their sustained UL/DL speeds are 80-84 kB/s (and I've got a solid signal to noise ratio). After talking to a tech, their 1.5 Mbps service has a sustained cap of 70 KB/s (should be 183 Kb/s) and their 5 Mbps service is capped at sustained 100 KB/s(should be 610 KB/s). To summarize, you get ROUGHLY 1/4 OF THE ADVERTISED SPEED. Their upload rates are even worse - marginally better than dialup - and I'm not joking, but I won't get into that on this post.

    For those of you from Storm - or any others looking for a wireless ISP because you're in the boondocks, check out Bell's WiMAX. Do yourself a favour, the Xplornet help desk folk are nice (or at least have been for me) but their policies are DRACONIAN.

    Followup comments:
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Review by Tig3 See Profile
UPDATED: 169 days ago
member for 2.1 years, 25 visits, last login: 125 days ago


Consecon,ON
Contract price not specified.
"Ease of install if you can see the tower."
"a bit more expensive for the speed available"
"Reliable with good technical support."
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)

    My Other Reviews·Primus Telecommuni..
    ·Primus Talkbroadband
    ·TekSavvy Solutions..
    ·Xplornet
    I had problems getting DSL installed so I opted for the more expensive point to point wireless solution. Install was quick and flawless.

    I am 14 km away from the tower but I can see it. Line of sight is very important if you are this far away.

    I have the 3 Meg package. With static IP. My speed tests out at over 3 Meg down and 600 up. Cost is just under $60 after taxes etc

    The tech came out to survey the site and gave me the option of on the spot install. Start to finish less than one hour.

    They use the motorolla Canopy system. I have a reflector dish installed.

    I needed to be able to use my VoIP gateway for internet at this location to give me any benefit. At first the VoIP gateway would not connect. Xplornet technical support was very co-operative when I requested setup information and changes to test different subscriber module configurations. In the end, the setup I required was only available to customers who had leased the optional static IP. All this was accomplished during the free trial period. I am leasing the optional static IP and I have no regrets.

    I use this connection for work. One day the connection went down. I called support and found out that this was a scheduled maintenance outage. I commented how this impacted me and suggested that they should send and email to warn customers in advance. Now they send email warnings in advance. Nice to know they are listening.

    There were some evening sags in throughput last year where speed could plummet to the point where VoIP became choppy. Although it took some time to resolve Xplornet was responsive in working on and monitoring the situation. Speed is consistent and better than ever now.

    I have had this ISP for 18 months.

    Followup comments:
    view 1 comment
    jnmontario

    join:2008-05-11
    ·Bell Sympatico
    ·Xplornet

    in reply

    You needed to check more than speedtest.net results.

    Xplornet uses BitBucket traffic shaping which means that if you use speedtest.net to find out your speed you'll get a WILDLY skewed result for your speed. Their sustained download rate is ONLY 80KB/S!!!!! (for the '3 Mbps' service).

    That's worse than ANY DSL or Cable solution.

    In addition to heavy throttling, they also block ports because they have a crappily configured NAT router at their linking stations. While I'm sure you're content with their service, if you peel off the top layer of the Internet (simple webpage browsing) their service if FAR worse than many.
    permalink · 2008-05-11 10:00:41 · Print · Reply to this
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Review by roxy12sanchez
Posted: 196 days ago
(review was emailed from domain gmail.com)


San Diego,San Diego,CA
Contract price not specified.
"wildblue the worst"

    Very bad service customer care the worst I did have a really bad experience they
    technical support the worst I did resolve my probles just surfing on the internet

    Followup comments:
    Forums » comments on review of Xplornet






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Review by danhb See Profile
Posted: 227 days ago
member for 5.7 years, 67 visits, last login: 207 days ago


North Gower,ON
Contract price not specified.
"cheaper than satellite service and more reliable"
"still gets overly busy on weekends"
"only choice I have"

    My Other Reviews·HughesNet Satellit..
    I originally had Xplornet for Satellite service when they were still Lincsat. Got rid of them and worked for Galaxy Broad Band. Still used Hughes KU service. I guess I was lucky as I am a trained satellite technician and was able to resolve most problems myself, and I could jump right past first line support and talk to the guys in the NOC.

    Anyway, a couple weeks ago Xplornet got wireless into our area. So I switched. I signed up for the 5 Mb/sec service but I have too many trees, so had to go with the next best, the 3 Mb/sec service. According to the speed tests, it seems to run most of the time around 2 Mb/sec. But Friday nights I may as well forget it ... can't get a speed test to load. Stuff I too slow to bother. Much like Hughes was.

    Over all, in the wireless arena, Xplornet seems to be no worse than anyone else. I'm stuck with 'em for the next three years, so may as well as get used to it. Still is twice what I got with Hughes, and I was paying for Home Business package at $150 per month then. The $40 I'm paying now seems a whole lot easier to take.

    Followup comments:
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Review by bonnie212
Posted: 242 days ago
(review was emailed from domain verizon.net)


Rockton,Winnebago,IL
Contract price not specified.
"it sounded good because it would be just one bill."
"It won't let me e-mail without getting a failure notice"
"Need help now."
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings below consensus)

    I have had this same network for 3 years and it isnt getting any better. Just more expensive. Something needs to change. I've gone through 3 different services, and thought I had found the right one. I was WRONG>

    Followup comments:
    view 1 comment

    BradR

    @barrettxplore.com

    what help do you need?

    You're in Illinois? Because Xplornet serves only Canada. If you actually have an Xplornet system (wireless or Ka-band satellite) you can probably find help at »www.xplornetsucks.com. If you have one of the HughesNet Ku-band satellite systems, you can find help really good help right here on this web site -- go to »HughesNet Satellite to get the correct forum for HughesNet.
    permalink · 2008-01-03 17:58:28 · Reply to this
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Review by Tig3 See Profile
UPDATED: 247 days ago
member for 2.1 years, 25 visits, last login: 125 days ago


Dunrobin,ON
Contract price not specified.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)

(28 Reviews)
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