So far...it's not perfect, and it's not the same as having high speed internet in the city. But it's far, far better than the cellular internet that we had the last two years.
And the future looks promising because it's only going to get better!
Right now, Xplornet's top service is rated to give a maximum download speed of 10 Mbps. I've done three different speed tests over the last two hours this morning, and they are all coming out close to 10, which is great.
Yep, slower than 75% of Canada. But way better than what we had before!
Over the last month and a half, I've seen speed test results of between 3 and 10, with most of them around 7 which is more than fine.
When our daughter Lindsey was here, we tried out her Netflix account quite a few times, and it worked with no problem at all. We've got the 100 GB plan, so no worries about using up our data allowance.
Xplornet is in the process of upgrading and launching two new state of the art satellites that will have the capability of increasing speeds to 25 Mbps. One of those is supposed to be online this year, with full rollout by next year at this time.
Xplornet satellite internet had a bad reputation for many years and a lot of people went online to complain about it's intenet traffic management policies because they would slow things down to almost unusable speeds when there were a lot of people online. But along with the upgrades over the last two years, they've also changed their policies on throttling.
Now, the system will minimize the effects of traffic congestion by automatically throttling things that arean't important such as peer to peer file sharing and app and sofware updates.
We've sucessfully used voice and video calling, although I admit that it's not perfect. The latency between when you speak and when the other party hears you sometimes affects the experience, but for what we do it's not a problem.
So, on an overall basis, we're totally happy with our new internet service. Almost feels like we've joined the 21st century!
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Sounds like you struck it rich !
ReplyDeleteWe feel like we have. Explornet is quite a bit cheaper than our cellular was and we get about 10 times the amount of usage. Gotta love that! :-)
DeleteWe have Hughesnet which is satellite Internet. We live in a very small town in the mountains and it was the only option here. It's the first time we've had satellite Internet & it's been a learning experience. We only use our computers to check email and look up info, no big downloads or YouTube watching and yet our monthly data allowance (10 GB) per month is gone after only 11 days into the month. Then you are supposed to purchase "tokens" which give you more data. After spending a ridiculous amount the first month, I decided we would just live without it and see what happened. The laws state that satellite companies (here in the states anyway) can't shut you down once you have used your data allowance, but they warn you will be getting speeds the same as the old dial up speeds. I figured out quickly this is a way to get you to spend several times the amount you would with a regular Internet service. I am seeing barely a difference in speed and our tablets work fine streaming Netflix. I actually prefer the satellite Internet to the other options we've used before when we lived in other places. Xplornet must have some great deals because 100 GB of Hughes net would cost a small fortune!
ReplyDeleteYikes, that is incredible that they are allowed to do that! We had 2 choices here for internet, cellular and satellite. For the last 2 years we had been using cellular and it was expensive and we had to watch everything that we did, we couldn't even use video chat/skype because it used up our precious bandwidth so this year it was decided to try the 30 day moneyback guarantee with the satellite and as you can see it seems to be working out quite well for us, so we are happy campers. We love the fact too that it comes with 100GB a month and it is still cheaper than 10GB of cellular was.
Deletechecked their website it only advertises up to 50 GB
ReplyDeleteDo you plan to install it on Sherman?
The larger package mustn't be available in your area Barry.
DeleteNope, no plans to install it on Sherman!
Hello Ruth and Kevin,
ReplyDeleteWe are a couple of frenchies who want to travel across the canada in a van and we try to find a good solution to have an internet connection anywhere we'll be. Can you confirm to us this post speak about internet in your RV and that work in futher places you were go ?
Thank's for sharing your experience !
A bientôt ! ;)
Anthony.
PS : Sorry for the approximative english but that seem to be better with time... :)
No, this is just for permanent residence internet. Nothing to do with the RV.
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