Unplugged
With Xplornet, we are accustomed to frequent interruptions of service — generally an Internet experience that can best be described as slow, unreliable and expensive. I continue to hope that one day we will have an alternative in our rural area.
On Friday of last week, Lorraine told me that the Internet was down again. Not uncommon. Usually it is just symptomatic of an oversubscribed tower and, with everyone home for the holidays, I just assumed that the service would come back.
It did not.
We have been unplugged since then. After spending a few hours with Xplornet’s support line — I loved the greeting message: “please note that we are experiencing higher than normal volume of service calls” — we have to wait for an onsite service call. As we are traveling, it means no Internet for at least a couple of weeks. At least not from home. And my oldest son, who is back at home, is not too happy about the lack of Internet access.
I am in Montreal right now — in the lobby of the Loews Hotel Vogue — jacked into Loews free WiFi service. I will try to make arrangements for the onsite visit to happen as soon as possible.
Frankly, I am a bit surprised as to how dependent we have become on being connected. As we are traveling to Montreal and then on to Quebec city, even the most simple of tasks, like booking and confirming hotels, online banking, managing investments, all become somewhat more challenging when there is not an Internet connection.
Fortunately, we will be back online later today once we arrive in Quebec city. We’ll be frozen as the temperatures have dipped into the Arctic zone but if my fingers can still function, I will have an Internet browser back up in the hotel room.
Richard, I am with WTC (originally with Ockham, but they were purchased by WTC). They have coverage in your area now. I have been quite happy with the speed and can assure you their customer service is much better than that of Xplornet.
My only gripe with WTC is when they purchased Ockham I went from having unlimited data to being capped at 20GB/month (a 40GB option is available, and overage is $2/GB). I have otherwise not noticed a speed difference nor throttling and I use internet-based TV (WMC, NetFlix, etc) without issues.
I’d suggest giving them a call. My service has only had one significant outage in nearly 3 years, and that was due to vandalism at their facilities which took out some lines, pretty unusual circumstances.
Here is the coverage map link:
https://wtccommunications.ca/residential/internet/wireless/map
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the update! I had called them last year and they did not have coverage in our area at that time. Looks like things have changed. I hope so. I sent them a site assessment request and I will find out if they can help.