Xplornet a bad buy, deceitful company: pick an alternative

Xplornet

Reviewed and Updated April 26, 2018

Xplornet’s TV ads misrepresent the company. There are much better alternatives than an exploitive and deceptive corporation.

NOTE: This reprehensible corporation is now getting into the telephone business as well as satellites. Don’t expect them to be any more honourable in that enterprise.

Cellphone companies are already notorious for stinging their customers. Xplornet would likely be as awful to you.

A review of the Xplornet satellite experience: I had the Xplornet satellite at my country house in Port Colborne on Lake Erie. We visit the house three weekends a month from our newspaper publishing business in Toronto and paid well over $70 a month to Xplornet.

A 4G hotspot is cheaper and more dependable than Xplornet AND 5G hotspots are immminent!

Yet after a couple of hours online, Xplornet slowed down the Internet to the point where it was barely online for the rest of the day. So it was $70+ a month for a total of 16 hours of moderate-speed Internet and the remaining time a frustrating drag at dial-up pace from a grasping, deceitful corporation.

The better alternative to Xplornet’s satellite, both cheaper and more dependable, is to use a 4G hotspot from the Internet oligarchs. Rogers doesn’t work so well where we are, but the Telus tower is in a better position for us so our hotspot is cheaper, faster and more dependable than anything from Xplornet. In other locations, the Rogers tower may be better situated.

In addition, the hotspot, which simultaneously puts up to five Internet devices online, travels back to the city and serves as an effective Internet connection for our cellphones and Ipads when we’re out of the house or office.

Xplornet review: Satellite was a good idea, sadly Xplornet is a bad company from my perspective and experience.

The CRTC enables this exploitation (Xplortation?) as a standard government practise. Whenever the feds pretend to “regulate” an industry, you can be certain they are advocates for the corporations they supposedly oversee. We sorely need an honourable federal government that actually governs on behalf of the citizenry, not the corporatocracy.

It’s not just we who’ve had issues. Check this article from Maclean’s.

As an August 2014 postscript to the review above, the reprehensible Xplornet had announced it’s going to spread to more satellites and try to be the only such fast Internet link in all of Canada. We can only hope this spurs more competition against an outrageous monopoly that mistreats its customers. (Not to say that any company “regulated” by the equally reprehensible CRTC will treat you much fairer. For a comedic view of the electronic communications outrages, I recommend the 1968 film The President’s Analyst: The film fights back against the phone company and defines it as the enemy. There was only one phone company in those days. Now there are many and all are abusers of their customers in my humble opinion.

—Frank Touby

As a further postscript May 12, 2016, Ottawa is being pressed to halt the ripoff to those saddled with Xplornet:

CRTC URGED TO ADDRESS RURAL BROADBAND CHALLENGES

The Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN) and the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (EOWC) are pressing Canada’s telecom regulator to better recognize the critical need for high-speed internet access in rural communities.

Representatives from the organizations spoke at recent hearings held by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on basic telecommunications services, including whether high-speed internet should be a basic telecom service for all Canadians.

Currently, the CRTC only deems touch-tone phone service, a printed phone book and a low-speed internet connection as basic services. The basic telecommunications services policy was established in 1999 and last reviewed in 2011.

The EOWC, which represents 13 Counties and single-tier municipalities in rural Eastern Ontario, created EORN in 2010 to address the digital divide in the region. Through some $260 million in public funding and private investment, EORN helped to create a 5,500-km regional fibre optic backbone and nearly two dozen local access networks, improving broadband access across much of Eastern Ontario. EORN continues to work to expand and leverage broadband access across the region.

“The CRTC has to reflect the reality of modern life – both urban and rural. In our communities, as in most Canadian communities, high-speed internet must be considered a basic service,” said EOWC Chair Peter Emon, Warden for Renfrew County. “It must also include mobile broadband access, given how smartphones and tablets are commonplace in every home or business.”

The Eastern Ontario delegation urged the CRTC to guarantee minimum internet service levels, so that ISPs were required to provide reliable speeds and service standards to meet what internet users actually need today, as well as goals for the future.

“We know first-hand the challenges that rural customers face in getting affordable, reliable broadband speeds,” said EORN Chair David Burton, Reeve of Highlands East. “Frankly, recent CRTC reports suggesting that Canadian ISPs are meeting or exceeding their marketing promises fall flat in rural areas. That is simply not the experience for all rural subscribers.”

The delegation also urged the CRTC to develop a way to fund improved rural connectivity. They asked that ISPs be required to invest some profits into rural internet connections in order to guarantee basic communication services across all communities.

Also, see this earlier news item on Xplornet: https://thebulletin.ca/harperites-enric…net-isp-monopoly/