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Review by wbzial 
member for 83 days, 0 visits, last login: 83 days ago
updated 83 days ago
 Grand-Saint-Esprit,QC
 Contract price not specified.  "Prompt installation from dealer." "Everything went downhill the second the installer left the house" "Bad, really bad."
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My little story with Xplornet.
I live in rural Quebec. No other isp available, i'm writting this on dial-up.
So, back in July 2012, we ordered the service with the 5mb package. The installer show up, and start his work. As i go back to inspect the installation job, i realized that there's some taped cables. They had to put a extention on their cable cause they planned too short.
So the guy does it's thing, and it's all good. 5mb dn with 700+ms of pong.
The day after, big speed drops, VOIP wont work nor skype. Since there's a few cloud i decided to wait till i call to see if it fix itself.
2 days later after more than 18hrs downtime, i call. Ho lord. I never got such a useless tech rep on the line. He got trouble hearing me, cause of the VOIP that work on restricted ressource. We end up understanding each other, and diagnose the probleme i'm having. My router is slowing my connection. "hoarding" was the expression he used.
Have you ever experienced a router that swallowed all your BW? Me neither.
So after arguing with the guy that a router doesn't act as such and calling is bullshit out, he hang up. HE JUST HANGED UP. I was pissed and up for a fight. So i call back and the same guy take the call. After trying to know why he cutted the line (to wich i never got an answer) i asked to talk to a Supervisor. Nop, they wont let you talk to one. So, since he's clearly not gonna do something to help me, i asked to be forwarded to the service cancellation dept., and guess what happened? Yep, he hung up once again. That was enough.
So i call back, and go straight to customer service. I talk to a lady about the issue, and ask to get a tech to come and take their piece of garbage off my property. Guess what, i can hear the tech in the background, lol'ing, telling the customer rep to close the line, which she did.
2 calls later, i get the cancellation order but guess what, they came 3weeks after. But that wasn't the end of my misery with Xplornet. Because, THEY BILLED ME. 62$ off my bank account the next month. After a call at the bank, i got my money back.
Please, keep away from those guys. So sad our they got our taxes money to finance their service. This company wouldn't exist without it.
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Review by tannaberton
member for 141 days, 1 visits, last login: 134 days ago
lodged 141 days ago
- a6y7u8
- Contract price not specified.
- "most everything has worked for three years or so"
- "VOIP is suddenly unavailable, I live in the country and now have no phone and they say it's my problem"
- "If you cannot have services you expect from experience they should not be in business"
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VOIP stopped working last week. I am a Bell Canada Troubleshooter and after replacing every piece of my equipment, they said it wasn't their problem so I guess god is up to his tricks again. At least I am better off than the Coupleanites but feel I need both a new god and a new ISP.
Never saw such a reaction to my request they fix my service but I have found out it was some service drop due to upgrades in their eqpt.
Cust svc says I am screwed so put up with what I have. I wonder if I can sue if something happens between the time they didn't tell me I was done as far as telephony was concerned and the time they decided not to tell me anything but the problem wasn't theirs. I am stuck here not far from town but bell aliant will not even hear of having dsl or fiberop for the 30 families living here. Hopefully they are going to fix it soon (just for me?) and we will VOIP as we used to...ha!
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 Review by bluebaron2
member for 12.1 years, 5729 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 191 days ago
- North of 44
- Contract price not specified.
- "It's available in the sticks"
- "sporadic connection at times, and their equipment has failed two days after install."
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Not enough time with the service to make a final judgement yet.
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 Review by dailyplanet
member for 8.4 years, 648 visits, last login: 76 days ago
updated 217 days ago
- Colborne,ON
- Contract price not specified.
- "Works as promised"
- "Iffy during heavy snow or when a cumulus cloud farts"
- "Expensive proposition but worth it to have high-speed"
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==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 nothing 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.
================================================================
$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).
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 Reviews:
 ·Xplornet
| KaBoom was a bomb Next door neighbour upgraded from the old to the new Viasat HTS that I had installed in March. I did a speed check on their old sat (Kaboom package) and it crawled compared to the new sat. The new sat speed does vary regularly, but beats dialup and local wifi. I'm hoping to see cable or fibre here sometime in the next 100 years but until then sat is my only rural option. You can see my ongoing review here at DSLReports. | |
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain xplornet.com)
lodged 236 days ago
- Shepody Albert Co,NB
- Contract price not specified.
- "uhh...not much good"
- "terrible latency,overcrowded spotbeams..list is endless."
- "stick with dial up"
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Was originally on Hughesnet KU band and "had" to switch over to Viasat KA band by the end of April 2012. Cost remained the same at least and there was no charge for the "upgrade"
I paid for 1.5 down and 128 kb up and from the get go was not getting anywhere near half of that. Connection completely failed at the slightest hint of rain and was riduculously unreliable.
After banging my head against the wall with level 1 and 2 "techs" telling me I was "within parameters" I finally got fed up and emailed the president of Xplornet. Shocking but he actually replied and put me on to an engineer. He simply put me on another "beam" and
I get on average 1.4 down and 128 kbs up. In peak times no but they have covered their asses on that aspect.
There is no way you can access your Viasat Surbeam SM2100 modem any longer either. Would be nice to be able to view your SNR so at least you had a little ammunition when you called in to them.
My dish also went out of alignment not long ago..trying to get a "work order" for someone to come out is quite a chore..and cost me $20 to cover his fuel.
Service is so so...and still seems to be timing out from time to time as well.
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·Xplornet
| Eastern Ontario appear to have better reception We are on 'Beam 7'. Speed is unstable but frequently close to what I am paying for. Downtime totals about a day a month. Skype still works, but is not as clear since they changed how they deliver bandwidth in early July. Weather is usually not a problem here although it has gone out before satellite TV when there is a really heavy rainstorn and cloudcover coming from the west. Exede seems to be able to deliver better service over the same satellite for some reason. I always seem to read about problems with xPlornet wireless and satellite in New Brunswick. | |
| | | Unresolved issues with xplornet must go through a mediator Xplornet is registered with a mediator. If you cannot resolve issued with them, you must contact the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS)
»www.xplornet.com/legal/
CCTS is an agency independent of the telecommunications industry, whose mandate is to resolve complaints of individual and small business retail customers about their telecommunications services. If you have a complaint about your services, including local or long distance telephone service, wireless telephone service, or Internet service, you must first try to resolve it directly with your service provider. If you have done so and have been unable to reach a satisfactory resolution, CCTS may be able to help you, free of charge. | |
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Review by xploited
member for 1.3 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
updated 1.3 years ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
- "Worked awesome for a month, higher than rated"
- "Network is total garbage"
- "Don't use Xplornet, ever - and definitely don't sign a multi-year contract"
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I live in rural Alberta. I signed up with Xplornet for terrestrial wireless 5mbs account ($90/mth) a few years ago when signs went up in my neighbourhood advertising a new ISP. I Googled their name and came across a lot of negative chat about their satellite service, but couldn't locate anything related to terrestrial wireless specifically.
My previous ISP was all but collapsing. They were using unlicensed frequencies with a Motorola system, and bandwidth had degraded to dialup speeds, so staying with them wasn't an option for me. I decided to try Xplornet. The installer assured me I had 30 days to try the connection out, and if it sucked I could cancel the contract and walk away.
The installer (and sign poster) was a local guy moonlighting, not a professional hired directly by Xplornet. Despite that, he did an efficient, quick job of the installation, but it should be noted that half of the infrastructure was already in place, he just had to swap the radio transmitter out and setup my account. The tower is 4km away, we have direct line of sight, and the receiver has never shown less than 5/5 lights.
For the first month I got astounding bandwidth. I signed up for 5mbs and was actually getting closer to 6mbs, so I was ecstatic because the contrast with my old ISP's performance was stark.
After that, it slowly degraded as more people were signed up, and I wasn't surprised at all. After a few months passed, I was unable to muster more than about 1mbps at any time of the day or night, often as slow as 0.5mbps for hours (10% of theoretical max). I could not watch a single YouTube or Netflix video without restreaming 5 times or more.
Numerous calls to Xplornet yielded all kinds of stories. One week it was a rogue player in my neighbourhood, another week it was a server in the backbone misbehaving. I followed up with each technician calls dutifully, and yet the speed never improved. I spent hours and hours working with them, I gave them every chance to correct the problem and was willing to help test solutions.
I tried all the usual things - powering everything off and on again. Disabling my firewalls, rechecking the modem status lights, wiring computer direct to transmitter, I upgraded the CAT5 cables between my machine and the transmitter, you name it, I did it. I followed every instruction the level 1 & 2 techs gave.
The ping times to my gateway (the first hop after my machine) have degraded to the 200ms range, and packet loss is approaching 10%. When I complained to Xplorenet about this, I received a snarky reply saying that the operating parameters for the system are "up to 200ms" and so they would take no corrective action. This effectively renders the system useless for gaming or any other realtime purposes. Remember, this is not satellite, and in the beginning ping times to gateway (not the internet) were always 20ms.
Here's the bottom line: Xplornet does not have a minimum bandwidth or service level.
No matter what package you pay for, they will not correct low bandwidth issues no matter how much you complain to them. Half of the techs I talked to were useless (one had no idea what a "ping" was) and the other half just gave me a verbal shrug when we'd exhausted all the possibilities and delivered me a canned line about not guaranteeing bandwidth.
The gateway ping issue is likely caused by oversubscription - they have oversold the tower in my area and now will not correct the situation. I asked when they will be fixing the problem and they stated that they "hoped" enough people would move to the new 4G satellite system to bring the loads down, but they wouldn't commit to anything. Downgrading to a lower package would not help - even at the lowest package I would not be getting anything like what I was paying for.
Do not sign up with Xplorenet.
They oversubscribe to maximize profits, and when your connection degrades to uselessness, they will laugh in your face and do nothing. Tech support is non-existant, a bunch of kids on the other end of a phone who aren't empowered to do more than read steps from a list to you.
That they can sell a package and fail to deliver any more than 10% of the service should be considered fraud, but currently is not. There are no laws against this in Canada. I feel bad for the rural municipalities who have invited Xplornet in to provide internet services, and inevitably find out how poor the service actually is. Let's hope the government of Canada wakes up and does something about this practice soon.
When my contract is up I will be leaving Xplornet and never looking back. I warn anyone and everyone I can away from their service, to save them the headaches I have experienced.
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| | | couldn't agree more Rural Ottawa here...been an Xplornet subscriber for a year now with 3Mbps/3.5Ghz package and have had the same experience. I work from home and so am sensitive to bandwidth problems. The service is usually tolerable on weekdays until about 4pm when performance nosedives. It's always poor on weekends. I've also heard the "up to 3Mbps" BS from them along with the other nonsense they throw at you. Me: "the ping time to my default gateway is 2000ms" Them: "what operating system" Me:" take your pick, Windows XP/Vista/7, Linux, IOS, etc" Them:"what antivirus are you using? what browser are you using? did you clear the cache?" wtf!!!!! They seem to have no way to verify that the problem is at their end and so all they can do is blame your equipment. Typically when it's really bad like 2 or 3 SECOND ping times it will resolve itself, but the people on the phone won't have a clue.
My only other ISP choice was Telus/Bell/Rogers using their 3G hubs. I tried a Rogers hub and it worked very well but the cost is too high. The $10/GB for exceeding the plan limit was the deal killer, even with the undocumented $50 maximum (which they could rescind at any time).
perterbed, thanks for the links. I feel like I'm being fleeced and it would be interesting to see what the consumer complaint agencies would have to say about this.
Yeah, they suck »testmy.net/qTEaZ1L.png | |
| | | | Another duped Xplornet customer Rural Ottawa - I have been with Xplornet for 4 years. The first year with Satellite - sucked. Then I moved to a house that could see a tower - thank god. Initially, my speeds were awesome. I am on the $50 household package. I get 4GB per day download without throttling. My speeds were great 1/2 meg per second download. My VOIP Vonage phone worked great.
Now, I just got off the phone with the Xplornet tech support. I was complaining about latency, lost packets, generally slow speeds.
His answer was that the tower was sold completely (they have stopped selling on my tower) and this is why I have service issues. No solution for my problem except to complain on this website.
I feel duped and ripped off. Wireless has the ability to compete with wired ISP's and then they oversell the towers and screw the end user.
I will be complaining to the CRTC and my MP..... Xplornet sucks! | |
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Review by NorthCowgirl
member for 1.3 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.3 years ago
updated 1.3 years ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
- "Xplornet is slow, unreliable and they continue to bill you after you've cancelled service"
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Just got off the phone with Willard at Xplornet's Fredericton Customer
Service Department about overbilling. Simply put, we called them to let
them know we were moving and would no longer be using their services. They
have continued to withdraw $62.14 from our bank account and they refused to
stop billing us based on our telling them we were moving. They insisted
that as we did not call to "cancel" the service but only told them we were
moving, that they were entitled to continue to bill us. Xplornet claims
that as they did not issue a cancellation number, that the service was not
cancelled. Amazingly, when we contacted Bell, Hydro One, etc, they were
all able to grasp that when a customer moves, it is time to do a final
reading and close the account.
We have moved to another city and are happily using Cogeco's internet
service.
The first call to Xplornet resulted in Willard placing us on hold and then
disconnecting us. Our second call to Willard was with the intention of
speaking to his supervisor. Willard claimed that he was able to handle
this and flatly refused to pass us up to the Supervisor despite repeated
requests. Willard refused to give me his last name or his employee #.
We ended the service effective November 3, 2011; they withdrew $62.14 from
our bank account on November 10, 2011; I called Xplornet on November 15, 2011
and asked for a refund of the overpayment which they steadfastly refuse to do so.
During the conversation, it became clear that if I did not state to cancel
the service, that they would continue to bill us. I can't believe how
short-sighted and cavalier Xplornet is.
As an aside, we were often dissatisfied with Xplornet's service. They
charge $62.14 per month for their upgraded service which is barely faster
than dial up plus we were having frequent problems with their Surfbeam
Modem and were without service days at a time. If you live in the country
as we did, I would strongly suggest you use Rogers or Bell's service and steer clear
of Xplornet.
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Review by steveleach
member for 1.6 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.5 years ago
updated 1.5 years ago
- Cobourg,ON
- $54 per month
- (36 month contract)
- "Nothing."
- "Signal, reliability, speed, customer service."
- "Pathetic."
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I assumed the lease from the previous owner of our home. I complained to Xplornet from Day 1 that it was too slow, and completely unusable, especially for uploading. After 2 months, I finally cancelled and went with Rogers Turbo Hub (which is excellent). Xplornet wants their $450 cancellation fee and is threatening to send my file to a collection agency. I plan to take legal action.
Their contract states they will make a "reasonable effort" to improve my service. They did not do that.
Stay away from this company - they are heavy-handed, unprofessional, and their service stinks.
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain hughes.net)
lodged 1.7 years ago
- K0J2R
- Contract price not specified.
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I am sharing with you the experience I have just lived with Barret
Xplornet- New Brunswick and their sub-contractor in Ontario. They have
provided no service, not even returned calls.
I am therefore cancelling the Service Agreement that I signed 8 days ago
and instructing them to remove their equipment from my property. I now
have no Internet Provider and therefore no e-mail address.
I=E2=80=99m not sure to whom I may apply next in order to find and
ethical company to deal with. I may revert to dial-up or just
stay off-line. The aggravation of dealing with Xplornet has been
absolutely stressful, draining and utterly useless waste of time and
effort.
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| | internet service with xplornet Our internet service from the beginning has been very expensive and very slow. They charged a 600 dollar fee for hook up and 135 a month after, and we could go hours without internet. Phoned them several times, they came in and charged us another 400 for something else, still no good. Finally, they checked our modem and said it was only working at 46 percent, and the warranty had run out. 250 for a new modem, or 125 and sign up for another 2 years. I said forget it. They forwarded it to their "Loyalty department". Still didn't hear anything. Phoned again and cancelled service. The next month, another 135 on my bill. And, they want 220 for cancellation. They are such a rip-off outfit, and I hope they go under. The technician they sent couldn't even set up our Mac, said "I don't speak Mac", so we still can't use that computer. Why are the credit card companies protecting thieves like this, they won't touch it if there is a contract. Even if I cancel my card, I will still get a bill. And, I just met a neighbour with similar problem, we are all fit to be tied!!! | |
| | | This is how the internet always works in Canada This is Canada home to the worst internet in the entire world. In the years past we were barely above the third world countries now we've slipped below all the third world countries. | |
| | | any ideas?? I was a customer with Xplornet internet services for just over two years. In order to get internet to our house in the country, Xplornet needed to install an antenna device on the house we were renting. They contracted and installer at $100 to me to install the antenna as it was explained to me that because of warrantee issues I could neither install nor uninstall the device myself. After renting the house for two year the owners put it on the marked to sell and it was sold the first day. As soon as I was notified I called xplornet to close my month to month account and uninstall the product before we had to move out. The uninstall date was set for the following week. After a week’s time the uninstaller that xplornet had contracted called me and said that they have to reschedule. I told them that this was not possible as we would not be living in the house when they could make it back. They told me that this was not a problem and they would talk to xplornet about the matter. 4 months latter I have received a bill from xplornet for $462.07 for the cost of this antenna. When I asked why it had not been installed they gave me the number to the uninstaller they had contracted to do the job. He told me on the phone that the new owners of the house would not let him on the property and was using the device for his own internet. As we live very far from the former house I tracked down the new owners phone number and left numerous messages asking if he could let the installers onto the property with no response. At this point I contacted Xplornet and they suggest I ask the realtor to call the new owner. The realtor got a very angry response from the owner and was hung up on. At this point I contacted xplornet again to explain that I had done all I could but because they rescheduled the uninstall even though I made them aware I would not be living in the house I could not pay this bill. When I asked to talk to a manager about the matter I was told by “Ray White” that I should have taken down the unit myself. When I told him I was told that I could not touch the unit by xplornet he said I still should have done this.
It was not my choice to use these contractors as they were contracted my Xplornet so I hold no responsibility of there actions.
i received the following email yesterday from Xplornet;
Dear Valued Customer,
Subject: NOTICE OF DEFAULT IN PAYMENT TERMS AND CONDITIONS
This is to advise that you are in default of payment and are required to pay the balance of $462.07 within ten days of receipt of this notice and you must return any leased, financed or rented equipment immediately to Xplornet to avoid additional charges and legal action.
If we do not receive a response to this notification your account will be billed according to your contract and the balance will be sent to an outside collection agency.
Regards, | |
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Review by Kim Paynter
member for 2.1 years, 16 visits, last login: 1.8 years ago
lodged 1.8 years ago
- Edson,AB
- Contract price not specified.
- "Fairly reliable connection."
- "Dis honest buisness practices"
- "Get it only if you have no other choice. DON'T go long term contract."
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Have been using their service for over 5 years it was the only option when I first signed up. Initially the service provided close to the speed I pay for (My boss pays it.) Originally $199.00/month for 3Mbps Up and 1Mbps down. After 2 1/2 years they called and offered to switch me to a different service. Actually the story from them was that they had a new service that was better with less latency and that because I was such a good high paying customer. And because I lived on the firing of what may be the service area they wanted to try installing at my location. To see if it worked. After 2 days of me lending my ladder, tools and 100' Ethernet cable to there install Team. I had service that was the same as before. only the price went up by $50.00/month. And the install guys sent a $600.00 bill to me. I freaked on the phone and they knocked the price back to 199.00 for the remainder of my original 3 year contract and paid the installers bill. In 6 months my monthly price went up to 249.00/month.
Last year a private WISP who operates in my area put up a tower closer to me. There prices were quite high and install was quoted at about $800.00. I was considering switching and was told by Xplornet I was still under contract. I went back and forth with them on the phone and never received proof of the fact that my original 3 year contract had been extended. However due to the high install cost my boss opted to continue to pay the $250.00 monthly charge instead of the $800.00 install and a $50.00/month lower monthy cost.
This winter I decided I was fed up with the latency and declining speeds I had seen over the years and looked again into the possibility of wireless. THe Local WISP wants the same monthly rate for 3mbps down and 3mbps up total of 65GB/month limit ($250.00) and Xplornet offers wireless here now too but at 5mbps down and 1.2mbps up with no monthly limit for 99.00/month. I spoke to the local dealer and was told that they could not provide service to me despite the fact that the xplornet website said they could. He actually recommended I contact their competition.
I spent several months of spare time on the internet learning about various aspects of wireless networking. Including PtP links and terrain plotting. As well as enough technical lingo to confuse the level one technicians that you get when you phone in for service and made contact with there marketing department. The result was that they put me through there training so I am now certified to install their equipment. My intention was to hook up my own CPE and save on the install and get 5mbps instead of 3 for half the cost. At these training classes I found out that all traffic from Alberta goes through a 50mbps pipe to Toronto where it gets into the internet. So I will pay the $800.00 to get online with the local WISP.
Oh yes one other thing I learned was that the new satellite service I was switched to was actually done only because it could be done. As they wanted me off the original Ka band satellite and onto the Ku band one because the Ka band is the only one that can be used north of about 200km from the US border and they needed to free up circuits on Ka band. So they could service people up north.
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| | consumer protection Alberta consumer protection.
»www.servicealberta.gov.ab.ca/Con···Info.cfm
file a complaint(actually the bill payer would have to file the complaint).
»www.servicealberta.gov.ab.ca/562.cfm
Generally, contracts can not be extended or renewed without being told of it and preferably a contract should be signed so that both party's are in full agreement(if you call a one sided contract in agreement). Some companies like to extend contracts(illegally) without notification, when a user upgrades equipment.
The telesat Ka band satellite has been sold out for a couple of years in bc and alberta(capacity in reserve for northern users).
hughesnet KA band is along the bottom 1/3 of alberta, with a beam available in the middle of alberta.
hughesnet is slowly transferring users from old leased KU band satellites to it's KA band one. next hughesnet KA band launch is in mid 2012.
viasat1 to be launched in august and will cover the high usage areas.
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Prisoners are treated better than supposedly free North Americans. | |
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