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Review by bsigg 
UPDATED: 49 days ago
member for 3 years, 42 visits, last login: 47 days ago
 Swan River,MB
 Contract price not specified.
 "Sweet."
 "None."
 "It's awesome."
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Pretty sweet. It is so fast.
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Review by Tig3
UPDATED: 352 days ago
member for 3.4 years, 27 visits, last login: 351 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."
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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.
Update, December 2008
Still a happy customer. Speeds have increased. Over 4M down and 1M up. They do traffic shape but they were very clear about that from the get go. That's fair.
Customer service is still among the best of any ISP I have had. Only Teksavvy is in the same league.
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Review by Tig3
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 3.4 years, 27 visits, last login: 351 days ago
Dunrobin,ON
Contract price not specified.
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Please delete
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Review by dave_ca
UPDATED: 2 years ago
member for 5.2 years, 108 visits, last login: 1 year ago
Bristol,NB
Contract price not specified.
"Speed as advertised, Installer was great"
"550ms latency (although expected, its still a negative) and cost"
"I read many reviews and other information, and did not have unrealistic expectations of satellite broadband."
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*** Update - I have since canceled my contract before the 30 days expired. The Weather effect on the service is too severe... I in good concious cannot recommend this procut to anyone at anytime. Dialup is better in terms of reliability and latency ***
Well I am going to start by saying I did a lot of research before purchasing high speed satellite so I realized the downfalls before signing up. I did not expect latency below 500ms, or a constant 1 Meg download speed at all times.
My satellite high speed story starts by the purchase of my new house. The house is located outside any DSL service, and far enough that not even the WISP's in the area would service me. The closest antenna (not line of site, far from it) is more than 10kms away. This left with two options, neither of which I was looking forward to. Dialup, or the expensive, and often reviewed negatively satellite high speed.
The initial call into Xplornet was painless. I live in New Brunswick, so it was very nice to speak to someone at a call center in New Brunswick. She was very friendly and more then answered any questions I had (Witch where billing/cost questions as opposed to technical questions of the service.) In a short few minutes I had a local installers name and number. I telephoned the installer right away and was very surprised on how quick I was off the phone with an installation date set.
Install day: The installer came on the time requested. He was very well organized and knew exactly what he was doing. I showed him where I wanted the dish placed, and he had no problem placing it. He routed the cable and hooked up the modem in my basement TV room, hidden a closet out of the way (Getting my wireless router to function with the service was a non issue). Once installed, the installer performed a speed test and we confirmed the service was running at 950/189, acceptable to me as I signed up for the 1000/256 plan. Latency was, on average 550ms while doing a ping test to a server in New York City
The cost is the only thing that bothers me. I do realize it’s a new technology, and I realize the cost of launching the KA band satellite was high, but I view the initial cost of 550 dollars (200 for equipment, 200 for installation and 99 for access fee and about 50 with taxes- all figures rounded) to be expensive. Also 99 dollars a month for 1000/256 package is extremely expensive, I was paying 45 dollars a month for DSL 5000/768 before. Given the choice between DSL, Cable, Wireless or Satellite, Satellite would be my last choice, simply because of the high cost for the bandwidth received.
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Review by Pilgrim2
Posted: 3 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 1266 visits, last login: 58 days ago
Seton Portage,BC
Contract price not specified.
"Stable, good Level 2 support, performance always above 80% of advertised speeds."
"expensive compared to other broadband; both initially for hardware purchase and monthly fee"
"When satellite is your only alternative to dialup its definitely worth the cost."
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I had been using a Ku Band system for nearly 3 years when Xplornet (aka: Lincsat) offered the new Ka Band packages. Aside from the claims for significant gains in upload speed, just the opportunity to get rid of Hughes was enough to make me seriously consider switching. The system was much easier to install, performance has been most always over 80% of the advertised speeds of my particular package (1000 kbps/256 kbps). Rarely have I ever seen a loss of service due to severe weather. It has been rock solid for the most part. Compared to other types of broadband, satellite service due to its very nature is far more expensive. But if dialup is all that is available in your area, the satellite alternative is certainly something to consider.
Xplornet has been a reasonably good company to deal with as ISPs go, especially when you compare them to Direcway.
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 Review by The Geezer
UPDATED: 3.4 years ago
member for 4.9 years, 484 visits, last login: 90 days ago
43.3°N/8
Contract price not specified.
"Tech support for the Professional Level Installations."
"Entry Level support marginal. Expensive (like all Satellite accounts)"
"Best value for the money for Satellite."
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Had Direcway/Xplornet account since January 2005. A few initial glitches were quickly and expertly dealt with. They have the best support technicians of any Internet services I have used so far.
If you have to have Satellite because of no DSL, Cable or Wireless available, this is the best way to go. But if any of the other services are available, grab it and save yourself $$$ and a few headaches.
I wrote a review of LincSat earlier at which is the previous name of Xplornet. The same comments apply.
I have the $149/month Small Office account DW6000 service with a 98cm dish on a steel pole. I will soon be moving to a KaBang account which is the same level of service (SOHO) for about $15/month less for a two year contract. I will update my review soon after the installation date.
- - - - - - - - -
July 4th 2006
I have now gone from the Xplornet DW 6000 account to the "Ka-Bang" (Small Office) Telesat service through Xplornet. The speeds for both download and upload are significantly faster with the Surfbeam modem than with the DW 6000. The upper range advertised is 1.5 Mps on download which I regularly attain or surpass. Since the package is less expensive with faster service, I am upgrading the Value for Money another notch.
But I have to downgrade Install Co-ordination a notch for two reasons. I had to play tag with the installer in my area over several months before the install was done, but once a time was arranged the switch went very quickly and smoothly.
There also seems to be a problem with Xplornet administration, because when I had the DW 6000 installed they set me up with the basic 'value' package even though I arranged to have the Small Office package (and faxed in a signed contract to that effect). The same thing happened with the KaBang install. I sent in a signed 2-year contract at the Small Office level and Xplornet was all prepared to set me up with the KaZam (basic) 3-year contract. So I have had to be back and forth with Xplornet administration to get things straightened out both times.
The equipment is first rate and the install went quite well even though some of it was done during a severe thunder/rain/hail storm. Because the cables and the installation done with the DW 6000 install were done right, I didn't have to buy new cables, ground block, etc. All that had to be done was to install and aim the newer, smaller dish, hook up the Surfbeam modem, turn everything on and wait for the account data to come from Telesat to my modem and I was set. For that reason the install was done very cheaply (No Charge! - in exchange for my DW 6000 equipment).
I am still very pleased with the tech support, although I haven't tested it yet with the KaBang account (and I hope I don't have to!)
I would like to see a few things done at Xplornet: 1) Develop a dial-up service for the times that the NOC is down. 2) Allow users to log into an Administration page where they can review their usage and other details of their account info and their Internet connection (like Wildblue users have). Perhaps a link to one or two speed testing sites would also be helpful.
Geezer
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Review by hytanium
Posted: 3.8 years ago
member for 3.8 years, 16 visits, last login: 3.1 years ago
Canada
Contract price not specified.
"Fast! Reliable and fair uploads"
"None so far"
"Can't get any other Broadband type. This Satellite access rules."
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I am a 4 year Direcway vetran with the Small Business Plan at $149.99 / month through C-Com. I was even a dealer/installer. Had the 4000, 4020, and then 6000. Also I used the .98m dish hoping for better reliability. Bottom line, Direcway technology sucks.
My installer quickly set-up the dish, modem and ran a couple of speed tests which bursted over the advertised speeds and settled slightly lower. Pings have been reduced by 100-200ms and browsing is enjoyable, not painful like Direcway. For $10 less per month I have 1.5 Mbps down and 300Kbps Upload.
Dynamic IP, but using Dyndns.org
I will rate more once I have used it a little longer. Bottom Line, Fantastic Technology!
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Review by (hidden by request)
Posted: 3.8 years ago
(review was emailed from domain ca.inter.net)
B2Y 2
Contract price not specified.
"speed, reliability (so far)"
"nothing"
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Had Xplornet Ka service installed on Tuesday, Jan 17th.
Installation painless. Downloads 1.1 Mbps, Uploads 200 kbps.
Set it up with Linksys 802.11b router with no problems.
No complaints at all. Very good for remote areas.
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Review by energy105fm
Posted: 3.9 years ago
member for 3.9 years, 2 visits, last login: 3.9 years ago
Canada
Contract price not specified.
"You get a Real Public IP"
"Servers and connection sharring is tricky, but theres ways around it"
"One of the less restrictive Sat Isp"
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Explornet ( Can Ver of WB ) My Experiences
Hello most people out there are wondering how good do these new guys work. There is not much tech info. Just a little package details on the speeds etc. It looks good on paper.
I been using explornet now for one month. And these are the observations I have noticed.
1) You better know a little about networking to get this to work... Their tech support is useless. On one case my Sat modem was crashing lights going off and all and I explained that and the tech support tells me that it seems like I am having speed problems and to go to their speed test site. Well I just told them Its off line!
2) the service works ok for now. I got the 2mbps down and 500kbps up package for around 200$ a month. Speeds are not bad at all. I get 2mbps pritty well at all times. And it even bursts faster to around 5mbps for 10 secs. Whats nice about this is you can do some downloading and another pc and the network can surf the net without beeing bogged down.The upload is never canstant but it stays around the 300-400kbps range
3) ping times are around 500-600ms so its still not good for games.
3) people have been experiancing problems with p2p on this system. As far as I know they are not blocking any ports. See the trouble comes from the system itself. Any sateleite connection have high lentency... thats a big no no for p2p and most programs out there like limewire have a timeout limit set that you cannot change so when your trying to connect to sources most of them just "time out" and nothing happends. The fix for this is to go find a p2p client that you can set a timeout value. I don't know of one but in all of them that I tried this one here works very well on explornet. Its called KCeasy and it connects to Ares, Gnutella and openft. Without playing with any settings I can download files with many sources at my full speed
3) servers Ok here is the fun part.. your paying lots of money for this Internet connection and you can't have a server.... I found ways around this. more of a "Patch" job. Since explornet is very anoying with its nerver ending changing ip's You need to get a free dns service. There are tons out there just do a google search. Poeple who have ran any kind of server at all may have noticed after a few hours regardless what port that the sat modem knows about it and starts to firewall the server from the outside world. Unplugin the modem to make it reboot seems to cleer its memory on your server and your good for a little while... an easy fix... put a timmer on the sat modem and program it to reset a few times a day.
3) sharring your connection... Ok they do not support this. I even called and they would not guide me on how to setup a home router to their network. I tried all popular brands.. linkys dlink etc.... most of these routers wont even pick up the dhcp address of explornet and after resetting the modem 10 times it might pick it up and work for some time... nothing but head aches... So 2 can play the game... That fix is a linux gateway. I run Ipcop .. a free linux router.. It works great and I now have no problems sharing this Internet connection... Very easy router.. Its all web based like a dlink router so you ca setup unlimited numbers of virtual servers or do some bandwith shapping if this will be used in a large office
4) VOIP ... I got vonage on this and It works great.. Some people think that theres to much delay I dont really notice it ... My Digital cell phone has more delay and echo then my vonage.
5) Famous FAP...... if you read on their terms of use its there.... but there is no limit set... I been downloading lots of linux iso's at full network speed at once and it did not bother me.. what I think this is is simply like most isp's out there... most all have a FAP notice just to protect them if ever they would catch you abuse the service then they can limit you without you going after them...
So My conclusion is if you know how to work with networks then this system is really not at all that bad for now.
Hope this is some help for the people that want to try it without spending 400$ just to "find out"
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Xplornet
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huh?
Xplornet Service (thumbs up)