Country internet round 2

[skid]

I take my smart hub from Alberta and use it in BC with no issues! Why do you think it is tower specific?

Just what Telus and the local dealer told me, probably bull**** but I haven't tried taking it with me anywhere as of yet. A tower went up behind our place about 2 years ago and they were trying to get more customers on it so they waved the cost of the device in the local area. But yeah they told everyone I know who has it the same thing about it being tower specific

 

[rsaruk]

We take our Telus hub camping. As long as cell signal it's good. Great for the road trip to keep the kids quiet with wifi.

 

[DRD]

Telus kinda sucks. I phoned to try and get a hub to try and talked to someone pretty clueless who suggested I call the local seller. I called the local Telus store who said they had to call Telus to see if I was eligible? WTF? Makes me not hate xplornet as bad, so wish there was a 3rd option but I have no line of site to any towers.

 

[Cdnfireman]

I just got a Telus smart hub a few days ago from the Telus shop in drayton valley. So far working very well, on average about twice the speed of using my phone as a hotspot. Speed varies from 6 to 25 Mbps download and from1 to 6 upload. Doesn't seem to be a pattern as to time of day for different speeds.
The person in the shop was only marginally less clueless than the immigrant I talked to over the phone. She couldn't tell me if the hub would work on the tower closest to my farm, but that I could try it for two weeks and see if it would work. I had to buy the SIM card ($15) that wasn't returnable to try the hub. Worth the chance I thought, and it has been working fine since.
She told me that in the past users have reported that the hub will suddenly quit working and that Telus tech support has told her that due to overloading on different towers Telus will stop access from the hubs so as not to interfere with regular cell service. So it seems that in some places the smart hubs are a victim of their own success.
Its pretty obvious that none of the cell providers have much interest in improving the rural cell infrastructure above basic services.

 

[Mike270412]

I just got a Telus smart hub a few days ago from the Telus shop in drayton valley. So far working very well, on average about twice the speed of using my phone as a hotspot. Speed varies from 6 to 25 Mbps download and from1 to 6 upload. Doesn't seem to be a pattern as to time of day for different speeds.
The person in the shop was only marginally less clueless than the immigrant I talked to over the phone. She couldn't tell me if the hub would work on the tower closest to my farm, but that I could try it for two weeks and see if it would work. I had to buy the SIM card ($15) that wasn't returnable to try the hub. Worth the chance I thought, and it has been working fine since.
She told me that in the past users have reported that the hub will suddenly quit working and that Telus tech support has told her that due to overloading on different towers Telus will stop access from the hubs so as not to interfere with regular cell service. So it seems that in some places the smart hubs are a victim of their own success.
Its pretty obvious that none of the cell providers have much interest in improving the rural cell infrastructure above basic services.

16 million kids with cel phones in urban areas,couple hundred of us country hicks;only makes sense.

 

[Tchetek]

I finally had enough with my crappy explornet.

Got a Telus smart Hub a month ago. Had 30 days to decide if it worked or could return it.


It's not great, but it seems to be better than my explornet was/is. My Telus trial period is now over so looks like the explornet is gonna be canceled.

It slows down in the evenings. But so far the Telus hub at its worst is about equivalent to my explorenet at its best.


Seamed like every time I got a message from explornet that they were doing service on the system to improve things, in reality it would get worse every time.

Telus hub cost me $300 for the unit. Then the cheapest plan was $60 for 50 gig, or $75 for 250 gig. No contract. No antena on the roof.

I retract my statement about Telus hub working better. Everything sucks!


Now 6 days after my 30 day Telus trial period. No fawking service for last 2 days.


Didn't cancel my explornet yet so keep switching back and forth to get some office work done.


F'n country internet will drive a person crazy.!

 

[Tchetek]

X2 for the Rogers rocket. Just don't go over because that gets pricey

Tried rogers stick thing before the whole wireless thing.

Didn't work out.


Friends with rogers phones can barely make a calls from my place.


6 minute drive out of spruce grove and the 3 cell towers are about 1 mile from here, yet shatty service on every brand.

 

[Ronaha]

One thing we all know.....all of them are crooks,I choose none of them, I will up my phone plan if I have too.

 

[Rotax_Kid]

It's not just you guys. Here in Sask, I either go with Xplornet, who used to be Yourlink, or SaskTel. Yourlink was decent. Now that Xplornet bought them out, even though we were promised our plan would be maintained, we've gotten progressively slower. Their service sucks balls. The best upload/download speed we can get is 0.3mb/0.1...we live 25 mins out of Regina...it's ridiculous...If Xplornet ever tells me to unplug and plug back in a modem again I will strangle them with a Ethernet cable...

 

[DRD]

Telus hub officially sucks. Called support and they admitted there was a problem with no solution and no plan or ETA to fix the problem. Maybe after labor day and all the campers go home it will pick up. Again, wish there was a 3rd solution.

 

[ABMax24]

Check to see if there is a local company. In Grande Prairie there is GPNetworks, they have reasonable internet. My parents get a consistent 1mb upload and 2mb download on a legacy plan with no data cap. They could upgrade to 1.5mb up and 5mb down with a 100gb per month cap for the same $50 a month, or $100/month for 1.5mb up 7mb down with no data cap. They do have a small antennae on the house to a tower in their neighbors yard like explornet has, but the service is infinitely better than explornet.

 

[craggar2011]

We couldn't get telus hub because it was full in our area so we tried explorenet with the same results as most have already said. So we just added to our phones and use our hotspots. Works much better and and only cost $20.00 each for unlimited. The battery in the phone takes a hit but that's the only complaint we have.

 

[team dirt]

I have had explornet wireless for 2 years now and it's been awesome. Plan is supposed to be for 10mb/s download but I consistently have 15 except for obvious hi traffic times but it still doesn't ever seem to go below 5 during peak times. When I do notice it consistently slowing I just unplug the antenna so the blue light shuts off for about 5 seconds then turn back on. Speeds right back up. Had to do that 3 times now. First time I called in and they hit it with something then told me to turn power off in the future. All the times I have called there I have had perfect English speaking people which is very rare these days.

 

[puddle]

I have had explornet wireless for 2 years now and it's been awesome. Plan is supposed to be for 10mb/s download but I consistently have 15 except for obvious hi traffic times but it still doesn't ever seem to go below 5 during peak times. When I do notice it consistently slowing I just unplug the antenna so the blue light shuts off for about 5 seconds then turn back on. Speeds right back up. Had to do that 3 times now. First time I called in and they hit it with something then told me to turn power off in the future. All the times I have called there I have had perfect English speaking people which is very rare these days.

X2. I’m on Viasat 2 with xplornet but run at 35-40 for dl speed. Didn’t have a choice as we are surrounded by trees and in a valley by the lake. A little pricey, but has ever failed. Only reboot once in 2 years

 

[rknight111]

I have the new Telus Hub, got it about 4 months ago, 250G for $75.00, live in the beachcorner area, new tower went up in early august and I have full bars and no issues.

 

[Jobu]

Just an FYI for those on Xplornet. They have upgraded their plans LTE speed and removed the data caps. I phoned them yesterday to ask them to upgrade me to their new plan and they did it no problem (other than sitting on hold for 20 mins). Old plan - 10MB LTE with a 500G cap for $110/month. New plain 25MB LTE with unlimited data for $100/month.

 

[DRD]

Does Xplornet buy space on Telus towers? I think part of my problems is I'm in the middle of a couple big campgrounds who are sucking up bandwidth.

 

[Ronaha]

Does Xplornet buy space on Telus towers? I think part of my problems is I'm in the middle of a couple big campgrounds who are sucking up bandwidth.

You will definitely have your answer after sept long and all the glampers are long gone.

 

[Ronaha]

We have had great success with Telus hub for a couple of years now,wish the price would come down we pay $75/month

 

[teeroy]

We have had great success with Telus hub for a couple of years now,wish the price would come down we pay $75/month

ours has been good too, had to go with the 500gb plan once we hooked up a camera system tho. it's not as fast as it was when we first got it, but still a hell of a lot better than what we had out here in the country. right now we average around 25mbps up and down.