Xplornet Sucks
Too many users. Not enough capacity.
Over Christmas, my “high-speed” Internet service, provided by Xplornet, became remarkably slow. Even slower than the ridiculous traffic management policy finally revealed on the Xplornet site.
Download speeds were hitting point 2 to point 4 megabits. Translation? S-L-O-W.
The service prior to Christmas was acceptable. Certainly not consistent with the marketing pitch but good enough for casual browsing. I would get upwards of 5 megabits down although the traffic management would cut in and reduce the speed to 20 percent of the 5 megabit rate after 6 to 8 megabytes of data. So, even though I spend 65 dollars a month for a 5 megabit service, I am only getting a fraction of that service for typical Internet usage.
And now, I am getting a fraction of that fraction.
After measuring the service over the past 24 hours, and after spending a couple of hours with multiple levels of support, I was able to confirm the obvious: an oversubscribed tower.
The third level support conceded that there was a “traffic problem” with the tower and that a request for an upgrade had been received. However, there was no ETA for the upgrade. 3 months? 6 months? A year?
No idea.
I told the support person that it seemed odd that I should be paying 65 dollars a month, or almost 800 dollars a year, for a service level that was not being delivered at the rated speed.
He tried to tell me that the service was achieving at least the 1 megabit down during peak time. Which apparently is acceptable in their usage policy. What a joke. Sure, the first 2 or 3 megabytes of data now come in at the new “high speed” of 1 megabit, or 20 percent of the 5 megabit service. And the remainder comes in at about .2 megabits, or 20 percent of the 20 percent. Which pretty much makes the Internet unusable in our household of geeks. Which means that I am being charged for a service that I am not receiving.
Avoid Xplornet if you possibly can. The service is an absolute rip-off.
I am absolutely disgusted with xplornet!!! I signed up with xplornet on Friday, March 13 after several conversations with one of their sales reps. The technicians installed all the equipment and then I discovered I had to buy a router for $80 (almost twice the retail value). Still I was optimistic as xplornet said I would be able to stream video to my television via a Roku stick – this did not happen – I tried for several days to stream and the video kept buffering. In addition, the internet on my computer was very slow. The third issue occurred when I lost my internet capability completely – after over an hour on the telephone with an xplornet technician, the internet was up and running again.
The clincher occurred when I telephoned xplornet to cancel the service (one does have 30 days for this). I inquired about the removal of the satellite dish, modem and all the wires & cables – the response – throw everything out. Is this a testimony as to how cheap and expendable the equipment is??? Rather than remove the equipment, the customer is told to dispose of all the equipment. Is this good for our environment – not!!!
Here is beam 313’s breakdown, checkout the overselling. That is proof from the viasat customer count tool located at 192.168.199.52 internally. http://postimg.org/image/kenplzvcp/
I just had explornet installed and couldn’t believe how slow 5 meds per second is. I then tested it and it was coming in at .1, .16, 1.5 at it’s best. The time it takes to load a page is insane. Unfortunately I read the complaints after the system was installed. I turned to complain right away to the crtc and next thing you know, the internet went down. Now I have to start over. What a waste of money. Live and learn. Unbelievable how big companies are still treating us like cattle.
They came in March 0f 2015…my regular internet was down for two weeks…I live 10 km from Moncton. They said I should upgrade and I would get 25mb/sec service and be so happy beyond description. Then at teh end of April they informed me I went over a Cap neither techs nor CS mentioned as I was gleefully signed up.
Now it is Feb 2016…I get Speed Of Me tests at 1.5 to 2.2 mb/sec and the techs at support are telling me I should be happy. If I try to download or stream it starts fine then the buffering takes longer than the movie.
They tell me they see me operating at 8mb/sec and “that is not bad.”…but it is not the 25mb/sec I pay for.
Speed of ME gave me 25mb/sec results in March but by June as the network became loaded beyond reasonable capacity it started to slip and now the feeling is, “You got something so be happy.”
Xplornet gets these caps so their VOIP service can work well while those paying for the few to have VOIP are getting shit on my anyone and everyone at “THE X”. When they built the LTE system they shoul dhave known what was going to happen and they could have doubled the install but did not. Either they have engineers from a comic book course or they just do not know how it is supposed to work in 2016.
I have worked for Telephone and ISP’s all over the world and amazed how a fourth rate system was ever allowed to operate as they wish.
When I worked in Calgary for Rogers an inquiry was made to Xplornet to get 100 mb/sec for expanding service in Northern Alberta. They agreed but I dug deeper and found they could only give us anything close to this “AFTER FUCKING MIDNIGHT.” It took me weeks to convince anyone of what I found because they didn’t think anyone in charge of a company would want cell-service only after midnight and none during the day.
It never worked out just like their internet service will never give you what you want. They are putting the fee up 4 dollars a month so you are getting a 5% fee rise for 80% degradation. Xplornet sucket biggeth.
Hey Guys, i usually don’t post, but this is ridiculous and if someone is thinking of getting xplornet well here me out. So first they will try to get you on this 25.mbs package that sounds great and the sucker i am i sign up for it. The guy comes to install, him being very friendly, and he told me to check if i like the connect,. My ping was around 40 ms and speed 15 mbs. Me knowing a little bit about traffic management i thought it was acceptable considering you will never always get the speed you ask for all the time. I said thanks. One month goes by, the month you have to cancel, no problem and then after all the crap starts happening. See what xplornet will not tell you is this. They do not throttle ( purposely slow down your internet to be fair to the commune) you in your first month, for obvious reasons. Once they have locked you in a contract, by taking either a credit card or your bank info, they will basically shit on you. Their technology is horrible, to the point where rain, clouds, wind, will effect it. They will overbook the tower your on, and if your like me no t.v, just internet, and a gamer, well your in big trouble, Why? Well you use the most amount of internet no matter what, which means that you will be throttled constantly; it says in their policy that you have to read in the fine lines or find out by going through pages on their site. I paid for 25 mbs and i am not even getting one right now. I will barely 1 or 2 mbs during peek hours such as 4pm to like 1 am because those are the times the whole community use the net. I’ve called them twice, this being the third time, and you won’t believe what happened to me next. The technician, who was also the accounts guy, don’t ask me why, then tries to his best explain this and that, but its like gibberish mixed with some tech language, and was basically talking to him for an hour. So i told him that this is unacceptable and he agreed and he said if this keeps happening we wil bump you down to ten mbs. i said no, thats not what i want i will take my needs somewhere else, and he basically was telling me that i couldn’t get out of my 3 YEAR CONTRACT, without paying 600 dollars, even though i wasn’t even getting 10 percent of my signal 75 percent of the time. They were basically extorting me, and legally they can because lobbyists have paid out or government and we, the satellite internet crowd, are so few in numbers and separated they think they can get away with it. Which they are. That is why they say “up to 25” and never say you “will get 25”. So now they can actually take me to court or ruin my credit. I pay 100 dollars a month; just got laid off, and now am borrowing money from my sister to pay this internet. Currently im trying to figure out how i can get out of this contract and stop being extorted, To be honest, its really deep this whole corrupt system is and im very pessimistic for change. I really hope none of you guys go through what i have. Sorry to sound so down, but my other job was being a gamer. I can’t play online tournaments, prize pools of 500-10000 dollars, without going to a internet cafe/computer store bringing all my pc stuff and then paying them for the day. I told them, explornet that i was happy with the original signal, 15mbs, 40 ms ping, even though i was paying for 25 mbs. They basically have told me to call back. Xplornet has basicallly almost ruined my income and life; yes it is like that if some of your income is based upon internet. Im bipolar, so stuff like this really really hurts, Sometimes i cry.
This is EXACTLY what happened to me less the contract lock in… Worked great for 10 months or so and then in June, started to get really bad. Avg .75 to 1.5Mbps on a 25 Mbps service at $106/month all in. It’s horrific. Son can no longer play online games. We cancelled cable to use Netflix and it no longer works properly.
I’ve had them in a total of 4 times since June. First they replaced the modem. Then they re-aligned for a better signal. Then they updated the firmware. Then they came again and started replacing parts. Still the same.
They “Attempted” to suggest I drop down to 10Mbps as the service would be better. I called them out and stated that it’s the same system, same tower, etc… ??? How would that be better? I then said that they just wanted me at 10Mbps as the shitty speeds are then closer or almost within acceptable ranges (As opposed to on a 25Mbps). The tech would not comment but I could that was EXACTLY what they were doing…
I don’t have any other options in my area. I am now screwed all because of their shitty business model and overloaded infrastructure.
I don’t know about other provinces but in Alberta they had a big push to bring the rural areas into getting the internet claiming people wanted it soooo bad that the province should subsidize it. I wrote my MLA and the county councilor asking why the taxpayer should subsidize the internet? No reply. I phoned the county and they said people were demanding it.
That was the first I had heard of anyone “demanding” it. The whole thing is a scam started by the industry. They get subsidized by the government to put in a third rate service. If it were just slow that would be annoying enough but it will go out for hours at a time. I have to reset the password at least once a month and reboot the modem every couple of days. It isn’t much better than dial up.
As soon as the contract is up I am getting rid of the internet totally. It used to be a great thing but now the search engines are so filtered that if you want to look up something technical it takes 10 times longer than when the internet first arrived. Everything defaults to Google and Bing. It has turned into a time wasting needless expense.
I junked the cell phone 5 years ago and dumping the internet will be equally liberating I think.
Up to 12 mbps XplorNet promised me after they took over the only other internet provider this year, just south of Calgry. 0.5 mbps they often deliver during prime time ( 3 pm to 12 am, but longer on weekends). I contact them often to remind them that people in Rwanda have FASTER internet service than us. And we pay 100X time more. Read the article on http://www.bloomberg.com. The clerks are nice. And I remind them that as soon as there is another choice, they will be gone in seconds.
Guess what it’s 2017 and xplornet has never changed
I’ve read all these sad stories before on my last adventure for 3 years with this company. When I finished, they sent a person to remove their equipment, (which they partially did) and I thought I would go elsewhere for a faster better service in our area.
I tried using vianet with our library but, it was also very slow. I tried Bell stick service with no contaract it too was no hell.
I spent 17 years of my winters in Southern Texas and at no cost had a service where I could mirror download a Linux OS in short time.
Folks, your complaints are on DEAF ears, organize to a group and scream at the useless CRTC.THEY HAVE TO GET OFF THEIR ASS AND STOP THE BULLSHIT SERVICES IN CANADA. AMEN. AMEN.AMEN.
So I have a slightly different story, I wanted LTE but they couldn’t provide where I am in Alberta, but they could do satellite, I didn’t want Satellite but was told that a new Sat was coming and speeds would match LTE speeds and latency would be as low as possible given it was satellite, and if I bought in early, I would be first on the list to change over.
6 months later, not the 3 months like I was quoted and I come to be told that the new Satellite doesn’t service my area, it services northern Alberta not Central Alberta.
So now I have an internet service that is horribly slow, and can not be upgraded, they have agreed to let me out of the service without early termination penalties, however;;
I have paid an install fee that I will never get back
I have paid 6 months of service that I will never get back
They continue to bill my account for two months waiting for the installer to come out and remove the equipment, PS Still waiting
The lost my cancellation the first time, had to recancel, they provided inaccurate information which caused me to buy into it, and then the removal is taking forever to get addressed.
Stay away from this horrible company.
I live in southern Ontario… what crap I am getting from Xplornet. I am paying around 67.00 per month for the 5 meg service and in the past number of months I can barely squeek out 1.5 megs, with a ping of 1. Very frustrating and I an seriously considering switching to another provider,,, a better one. How can this company improve by lying to us who complain and have their heads up their ass to mute any response. The CRTC is missing out here.. Get a good grip on this company and give them a good shake.
I believe that if the CRTC feels that they don’t have a clear enough mandate to immediately correct this problem up for customers then seek more powers so companies like this can be forced to get off their asses and really do something about this problem and many others. I don’t use other devices with this service but I am clearly being persecuted daily for not doing so. Its pure crap and as soon as I can find another provider I will go to them ( maybe that will bring the speeds up a tick or so .)