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SMMOG
@74.198.165.x

SMMOG

Anon

Rogers LTE....3yr Contract.....should I pull the trigger?

Hey all, need some advice. I live in rural Ottawa, but I am way out between Pakenham and Arnprior. My ISP providers are limited. I have already checked with a few of them and I either can't get service (go Zoom, Storm)) or I just don't want to deal with them (Xplornet) I have the rocket hub now and I am happy with it. Should I sign up for 3 years for LTE, $50/month 10G usage, or is there anything new or anything being upgraded coming down the pipe. Kids are getting older so they are using the puter more, I could definitely use more than 10G a month, suggestions?
julienvf
join:2008-12-30
Verdun, QC
Cisco SPA112
TP-Link TD-W8960N
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julienvf

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I would never sign a 3 year contract for such a low cap considering bandwith usage raises from about 50% per per per household and that you can blow that 10gb cap in about an evening at LTE speeds... You might want to check with skynetcanada.com if they're coming to Ottawa. You will have something unlimited.. Expensive but unlimited. My best guess is to search for wisp in your area. There are probably some like in most part of Ontario.
Boris19
join:2006-07-10
K1A2A2

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I would take another look at Xplornet. It's a mediocre service but with my current plan it's unlimited data. They want me to join their new "4G" network with a 60 gig cap, but I've so far been able to stick with the current. I tried a Rogers hub but it was unusable here, and even if it wasn't the cap is ridiculously low. Keep in mind too that they recently changed their policy so that it's $100 maximum charge for going over the cap (it was $50 before).

My kingdom for decent rural internet, we might as well be in the third world rather than right outside the nation's capital.

SMMOG
@74.198.165.x

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to julienvf
said by julienvf:

I would never sign a 3 year contract for such a low cap considering bandwith usage raises from about 50% per per per household and that you can blow that 10gb cap in about an evening at LTE speeds... You might want to check with skynetcanada.com if they're coming to Ottawa. You will have something unlimited.. Expensive but unlimited. My best guess is to search for wisp in your area. There are probably some like in most part of Ontario.

Where my place is I am limited to the wisp's I can get, bush down one side and trees across the road. I think I can only get signal from one tower......and it happens to be rogers
SMMOG

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said by Boris19:

I would take another look at Xplornet. It's a mediocre service but with my current plan it's unlimited data. They want me to join their new "4G" network with a 60 gig cap, but I've so far been able to stick with the current. I tried a Rogers hub but it was unusable here, and even if it wasn't the cap is ridiculously low. Keep in mind too that they recently changed their policy so that it's $100 maximum charge for going over the cap (it was $50 before).

My kingdom for decent rural internet, we might as well be in the third world rather than right outside the nation's capital.

I'll have another look at xplornet, it's just that I always hear nothing but bad about them. Are you in a contract?
OHSrob
join:2011-06-08

OHSrob

Member

said by SMMOG :

said by Boris19:

I would take another look at Xplornet. It's a mediocre service but with my current plan it's unlimited data. They want me to join their new "4G" network with a 60 gig cap, but I've so far been able to stick with the current. I tried a Rogers hub but it was unusable here, and even if it wasn't the cap is ridiculously low. Keep in mind too that they recently changed their policy so that it's $100 maximum charge for going over the cap (it was $50 before).

My kingdom for decent rural internet, we might as well be in the third world rather than right outside the nation's capital.

I'll have another look at xplornet, it's just that I always hear nothing but bad about them. Are you in a contract?

Nothing is worse then Xplornet they are bad all around.

That said I would recommend you call storm.

With the new EORN network deployed wisp's in the ottawa area taking proper advantage of this network can sell a continuous 10 megabits per second down and 1 meg up with the present generation of equipment.

LTE won't touch a properly run wisp for jitter, latency, usage limit's or over all consistency.

edit: Nevermind I see storm cannot service you. IMO you should consider getting a tower.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron

Premium Member

said by OHSrob:

edit: Nevermind I see storm cannot service you. IMO you should consider getting a tower.

A tower would also get you whatever ATSC is in the Area so it's never a bad idea.
KC7
join:2006-11-08
Ottawa, ON

KC7

Member

said by El Quintron:

said by OHSrob:

edit: Nevermind I see storm cannot service you. IMO you should consider getting a tower.

A tower would also get you whatever ATSC is in the Area so it's never a bad idea.

+1

SMMOG
@74.198.165.x

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to El Quintron
said by El Quintron:

said by OHSrob:

edit: Nevermind I see storm cannot service you. IMO you should consider getting a tower.

A tower would also get you whatever ATSC is in the Area so it's never a bad idea.

Sorry if this is a silly question, but how would I go about getting a tower?

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

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Pull the trigger yeah, but on the gun that you're holding to your head, if you sign that...

Thats borderline extortion...
Cloneman
join:2002-08-29
Montreal

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Do you have a regular Rogers cellphone plan with 6gb data? Or interested in getting one?

Rogers is offering 10$/month to share data with a 2nd sim card. They are also waiving the 10$/month for the first year (dunno if that still applies).

My point is, you may want to consider a setup like this, which like likely run you 70$, which is only 10$-20$ more than what you're suggesting, and you'll have a complete smartphone package as well. (note that regular plans/sims probably don't work in a rocket hub, so you'll have to use a mifi or something)

Of course, 6gb will never be enough for a home connection, and overages on a setup like this MIGHT be worse than a rocket hub plan.

If I was living a rural area, I would probably have a setup like this, but I'd also have a secondary connection to control my costs. Most likely, some sort of loopholes:

- Special Bell corp plans with "unlimited" hspa+ "mobile browsing" with unofficial tethering

- tethering hacks on weird providers (old CDMA plans, or "mobile browsing" plans from speakout)

- grandfathered unlimited hspa plans from fido

- High gain antennas equipment to use wind or mobilicity?

- setup a mesh network with your neighbors.... I believe Rogers has a max overage of 500$ per month on some plans.... could be worth it if you have enough people, haha

etc.... you gotta dig deep
Boris19
join:2006-07-10
K1A2A2

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Xplornet can be bad, I know, but for me they're the best of the options available. Rogers and Bell are both unusable here, and there's no one else. When you're in the country there is no "good" option - there's only a choice between mediocre and unusable. If you're lucky, one of the available choices will actually provide something tolerable where you are. I happen to be close to a Xplornet tower so the service is stable. It's very limited in speed and capacity, of course, but that's rural internet for you. I'm in the second year of a three year contract, but the prices are also better than what Rogers wants for their hub.

SMMOG
@74.198.165.x

SMMOG

Anon

said by Boris19:

Xplornet can be bad, I know, but for me they're the best of the options available. Rogers and Bell are both unusable here, and there's no one else. When you're in the country there is no "good" option - there's only a choice between mediocre and unusable. If you're lucky, one of the available choices will actually provide something tolerable where you are. I happen to be close to a Xplornet tower so the service is stable. It's very limited in speed and capacity, of course, but that's rural internet for you. I'm in the second year of a three year contract, but the prices are also better than what Rogers wants for their hub.

Is there a site where you can find where the towers are? What speeds do you get? Enough to stream video?
Boris19
join:2006-07-10
K1A2A2

Boris19

Member

Xplornet may have something up on their site that provides a coverage map. I know they've been pretty aggressive in expanding the new network but any time it's a line of sight connection it's going to be dependent on your location (trees, etc). As for quality of connection, we watch Netflix but forget about HD. On my wired computer it's okay but on the wireless in other parts of the house it's usually the low end stream (heavily pixelated). Theoretically the 4G connection would be better, but given the heavy selling they're doing I expect it will be over-capacity quickly. Like I said, for me it's the best of bad options. There's nothing available here that will replicate what I got in the city, even when I first switched to broadband in 1997.

Bell and Rogers are "bridging the rural divide" by providing the 3g/LTE hubs and rocket sticks, and therefore they will never bother extending the infrastructure necessary for real broadband.

SMMOG
@74.198.165.x

SMMOG

Anon

So from what the xplornet website says I'm only good for satellite.....that's brutal. Slow speeds and outrageous prices. I'll give them a call and make sure....other than that, I guess rocket hub it is.

cybersaga
join:2011-12-19
Selby, ON

cybersaga

Member

About the tower, you can check Kijiji to find one used. It'll cost a bit to put it up, since it'll need a solid concrete base. But it's a one-time cost.

But you may even be able to get away with putting their receiver on the top of your house if you have a two-storey. When I was out in the country, we put it on top of the barn and that worked for us for wireless. Depends how high your trees are I guess.
OHSrob
join:2011-06-08

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If you want to go the tower route, The best option would be to have storm out again and have them figure out where the most optimal place to receive their tower and exactly how high you will need to go.

Its not the easiest thing to do and if its really hilly might not be possible to take trees into account accurately but if you are within 5KM of the tower they should be able to plot it and take the tree's into account with just a quick google maps and a quick drive with some estimates.

If your really in a hole you might need something like a DMX-68 it is a 68 foot self supporting tower optimal for people with mid sized tree's or they give you roughly the height of a 6 story building-. They retailed for about $1600 last time I checked last year.

Or if you want to go with a normal TV tower . They start at about $100 per 8 foot section from most retailers. Mounting with pipes to the gable is the most typical way they are deployed. However make sure you spray it with rust proof paint and that lots extra is on the welds. Or else in 10-15 years the tower may become unsafe to climb.

The best place to contact if you don't want to build it yourself is what ever business deals with tv antenna's.

Around Oshawa/Whitby I tend to I recommend Abel TV antenna for building them in Clarington I recommend Durham TV antenna as they are closer.

Some wisp's will also sell tower's to people. We do not as building them takes up the better part of a day (2 day's with a DMX as it involves concrete).

==============================================================
Below started as just a bit of advice and has turned into tons of advice for customizing the best possible deployment.
==============================================================

If you want to take advantage of ATSC it is a very good choice in Durham at least. With a 4 bay channel master antenna aiming at buffalo you will get approximately 30-50 tv station's depending on how tall the tower is. The CN tower is not within the my 60 degree

tvfool.com is an awesome site for checking what channels you can receive, I recommend you use your GPS co-ordinates as opposed to your address. ATSC tv is just wicked the picture is far superior to rogers HD cable. The American station's seem to look the best at 720P with 5.1 surround sound. Canadian stations are mostly 1080i with stereo sound.

I get more then it say's I should at my house, Between 45 and 60 station's depending on the weather. I get at least 50 all the time in the winter when the leaves are off the tree's.

I have a 50 foot TV tower with a 12 foot stainless steel pipe in my tower and a 4 bay antenna and a 26dbm FM/VHF/UHF preamplifier.

I use such a extravagant setup because I wanted to get the American station's in consistently despite that I have way more then 50 tree's and a small hill in the way of these tower's within 2km of my house. I also did not want to use a rotor as they are prone to failure when they get old.

But be warned if there are any FM tower's in your area or your have line of sight near a analog TV broadcasting tower that is close enough to physically see with your eye's your going to run into issues with AGC and have issues with channel's dropping when using the pre-amplifier.

AGC is automatic gain control, It will drop the receive gain low to try to keep the noise level less then 5DB. The preamplifier add's noise on its own as well this can result in loss of stations if the AGC has kicked in fully that you would get without the amplifier.

ATSC tuners are very very sensitive. A single as weak as -115dbm will still come in nice and stable if your noise is low. (-120db or less noise).

ATSC is much more prone to multipath reflection issues then other modulation's but less prone to issues than analog TV.

On analog TV multipath reflection causes a visible ghosting effect and in bad situations will even cause audio issues. On digital it just causes drop out's depending how bad it is.

If you have bad multipath reflection you will need a stronger signal to receive the station or you will need to be aimed directly at the station with a narrow beam antenna such as a high gain 15dbi yagi or an 8 bay antenna rotor's also help as you can aim your antenna in a way that minimizes the issue .

Multipath reflection is the same signal that is arriving at different times because it bounced off something metal. Signal is traveling at the speed of light it is emitted from the broadcasting towers in all direction's. With multipath reflection you receive the same signal twice but one with a slight delay. (probably just nanoseconds apart).

This cancels out much of the signal you are receiving depending on the amount of multipath you are receiving.

This is why you cannot simply stick 2 antenna's together to get 2 different directions of signal without a rotor. You will lose upwards of 5DB of signal near the end of the uhf tv spectrum per F connector, god knows how much from the splitter as how ever much extra you lose from multipath reflection.

If you did want to combined antennas for more gain, Use the highest quality splitters you can find rated for 2ghz+ for the least loss and ensure they are aimed EXACTLY the same right to the exact degree. Stacking horizontally cuts the beam in half but has a higher chance of picking up the waves you want because of the height. Stacking vertically keeps the beam the same but you sacrifice some height.

I think I have answered many ATSC related questions that might pop up, If anyone has any further ones just let me know.

I started using a TV antenna when the analog stations were still all broadcasting both in the USA and Canada, Analog TV did waste a whole bunch of radio spectrum but worked everywhere and it really really helped with aiming more then even the signal reading in -DBM. (The bar representation the TV does is 100% useless)

As you can see and hear the exact what the effect of multipath reflection has on signal and find the optimal position for the antenna to get the stations you want the most 24/7 even with weak signal's.

If you want to get a good TV antenna deployment without dealing any of this. Most professional TV antenna installer that were around during the Digital TV transition period will be aware of these effect's and will be able to help you get the most optimal television solution for you.
Boris19
join:2006-07-10
K1A2A2

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That's too bad. I get fixed wireless from them. I've heard their 4g satellite speeds aren't too bad, less latency than the older networks. Still, I'm glad I've never had to go that route.

What pisses me off is that I'm maybe 2 km from both Bell and Rogers infrastructure, on the edge of Orleans. It might as well be a wall between us though, one they just refuse to cross.

SMMOG
@74.198.165.x

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to OHSrob
said by OHSrob:

Or if you want to go with a normal TV tower . They start at about $100 per 8 foot section from most retailers. Mounting with pipes to the gable is the most typical way they are deployed. However make sure you spray it with rust proof paint and that lots extra is on the welds. Or else in 10-15 years the tower may become unsafe to climb.

I'm in a 2 story house and I do have a tv tower, but it is pretty old. I do still climb it from time to time. Funny that some of the wisp's never mentioned anything about that, that I could us it....
said by OHSrob:

I get more then it say's I should at my house, Between 45 and 60 station's depending on the weather. I get at least 50 all the time in the winter when the leaves are off the tree's.

Out of curiosity I have run just a straight coax from the tuner of my tv and got 5 channels, you think I would get a lot more running something from the tower?
OHSrob
join:2011-06-08

OHSrob

Member

Check out TVfool.com, it really depends on location they will tell you what you should get.

From my roof I saw a peak of 30 station's, all of the American ones but Fox would come and go depending on the weather.

SMMOG
@74.198.165.x

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said by cybersaga:

But you may even be able to get away with putting their receiver on the top of your house if you have a two-storey. When I was out in the country, we put it on top of the barn and that worked for us for wireless. Depends how high your trees are I guess.

It's not so much that the trees are tall as they are close. The tower that I can see, which is a Rogers tower, is in LOS from my roof, but when I drive around the area I see some houses that have a wireless receiver pointed in that direction. I guess I'll have to go door to door and ask them who there wisp is.
SMMOG
join:2012-10-25
Arnprior, ON

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....so if anyone is interested I went ahead with xplornet. Fixed wireless, 100G/mo, 5mpps. Just got it installed a couple of days ago, and so far so good. Random speed tests have it anywhere from 4.6mbps to 5.2mbps. Hopefully it will last, and not just for the 30 days. Netflix HD runs great, will update thread periodically with any valid info.
julienvf
join:2008-12-30
Verdun, QC

julienvf

Member

Glad you got some decent bandwith!
jumpingryan
join:2008-07-27
Pembroke, ON

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said by SMMOG:

....so if anyone is interested I went ahead with xplornet. Fixed wireless, 100G/mo, 5mpps. Just got it installed a couple of days ago, and so far so good. Random speed tests have it anywhere from 4.6mbps to 5.2mbps. Hopefully it will last, and not just for the 30 days. Netflix HD runs great, will update thread periodically with any valid info.

Any latency tests?

I will be moving in the summer to outside of Ottawa area, and I need low latency!

Thanks

Ryan
SMMOG
join:2012-10-25
Arnprior, ON

SMMOG

Member

said by jumpingryan:

Any latency tests?

I will be moving in the summer to outside of Ottawa area, and I need low latency!

Thanks

Ryan

Everytime I've checked it's been between 80-85ms.
SMMOG

SMMOG

Member

So it's been 2 months since I got Xplornet installed and it's been nothing but perfect. Speed has always been 5mpps, never had a disruption in service, latency is between 80-100. Hopefully it will stay status quo.
Boris19
join:2006-07-10
K1A2A2

Boris19

Member

Good to see. I'm on their old fixed wireless network and it's solid (it should be, I can see the tower from our living room window). It's extremely slow though, and I'd love to upgrade it. We have an account with no data limit though, and when I last talked to them it would be a 60 gig monthly limit for us if we upgraded. We do too much Netflix watching for that. I'm not even sure 100 gigs would be enough, with a few hours a day usage even at the lowest quality. I'd think that HD quality Netflix would rapidly eat up the data.