Cdnshaz

Ok another question, we will be living in God's land...broadband not an option I am finding, even Bell satellite won't work...

what do you do for internet that isn't dial up or slow as a snail?
I had dial up when I left 10 yrs ago, surely Canada you have upgraded a bit since then?
In Hastings County area in Ont...

clairemarie70

hi, we are living in the back and beyond..we used to use dial up but it was so damn slow...we brought a 3g stick it gives u high speed internet it is $300 then $70 a month but worth it for your sanity...we got our from a internet shop...beleive me we tryed everything else

dbd33

The options for rural internet are:

- dial up

- satellite

- microwave line of sight

- stick modem

Bell confuses matters by sometimes calling their line of sight offering satellite which it isn't.

Dial up is slow but quite reliable depending on the quality of the phone line.

Satellite is faster but very weather prone and expensive to set up (around $850 three years ago). It cost $130/month for the service until I cancelled it (2009).

Microwave, such as is offered as "Bell Rural" requires site of a tower (or a silo with the gubbins mounted on it). It's faster than satellite, more reliable and has a lower set up cost ($250 iirc). The Bell bill is about $225/month but that's both internet and TV.

A wireless modem as offered by Rogers and Bell is faster than the above and more reliable. I don't know what it costs but suppose that depends on the data plan. Note that this depends on cell phone infrastructure. Don't pay for it until you know that it works where you are, great chunks of Ontario have barely usable cellular service.

R I C H

My only option is satellite. Set-up was free as I inherited the previous owners dish/modem. I negotiated a monthly contract, so I'm not tied in long term if/when cable becomes available (sometime later this year apparently).

It's been reliable (weather here is pretty benign), though pretty slow. $90 p/mth gets me download speeds about 2/3 slower than I used to get with cable (and at more than twice the price).

iaink

Unless you are unlucky (like me), either the microwave line of site (explornet) or the bell/ rogers stick modems will work for you where you are heading.

Im unfortunately in between the only two hills for miles around, so no internet at home. (dial up was not worth the effort)

Once you get a few km outside the towns the options for hard wired hard speed tend to drop off. The government is supposed to be investing in improved infrastructure. When that is to be rolled out is not at all clear though, rumour has it we may get hi speed cable in two or three years...but Im not that far from civilisation, Im within cable TV range...

ireland2canada

Does Amnesty International know about this?

Cdnshaz

I have spoke to many of the companies that you all mentioned. I cannot believe the money they charge for internet that is inferior to what we get here for a tenner a month! How can they justify charging so much?

spoke to Bell, they wanted me to sell my first born to be able to afford internet, Rogers and Telus, KOS and every other one, has a download limit..if I am paying those costs I don't want a limit that is ridiculous.

It just amazes me that what we take for granted in UK we have to sell our souls to pay for in Canada. It's not a 3rd world country for pete's sake. How can they be so backwards when it comes to electronics and technology?

maybe a bit of negotiation with one of these companies can be done.

el_richo

I'd love the inability or financial restriction as an excuse to be "off the grid".

dbd33

Alternatively, one may wonder at the white heat of technological progress taken for granted by the population of the UK, Japan, Europe in general, Australia, parts of Africa and so on.


Ha!

Cdnshaz

I just begrudge paying 5 times as much for something I have been paying for at a reasonable price.

R I C H

You mean paying the local market rate, compared to something you're used to getting cheaply

Alan2005

Is the internet subsidised in the UK then?

The additional costs associated with a sparsely populated country are often touted as the reason for the difference. Whilst this is probably true in part, I suspect the real reason is that they charge what they do simply because they can (which actually does make it the market price). How much does somebody in the rural US pay for their internet?

Cdnshaz

I don't have a problem paying for good service, I am not a stranger to paying higher then average bills in Canada

Bell Canada penalizes us b/c we live in the country, the lines are there, so why should I pay 3 x's as much for a monthly phone line as someone in the town or city? It is not costing bell any more to give me a phone then someone else, they do not even need to come to house, they turn a switch on from an office....

There are pros and cons to living in any country....and high utility bills are one in Ont. I paid enough of them in the past.

iaink

Because that line is used by a third as many people and has fixed cost to maintain at a guess?

Out of curiosity what were you quoted by Explorenet etc? 40, 50 bucks a month minimum or so?

R I C H

I tried Xplornot's minimum package and gave up after 2 days - was hitting the download buffer after 15 minutes of general surfing, and having to wait 45 minutes before the server re-set to give me a new hours allowance.