Tag Archive for: Kingston Online Services

Too Fast

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The installation of the high-speed wireless Internet service from Xplornet happened over lunch today. I had a chance to speak with one of the installers. And, naturally, I asked him about the performance.

“Will I get close to the 5 Mbps?”
He chuckled. “No sir. The service starts at 5 Mbps.”

I got hold of the speedtest.net results for the new service. First up is the before service where my Internet access had crawled to a halt. I was averaging on a good day about 750 kbps although there was one brief moment where the service peaked at 1.3 Mbps. More often than not, the service was running below 500 kbps. Which meant that the web was unusable for anything other than email. Even simple web page loads were taking 20 to 30 seconds to render on the browser.

With Kingston Online:

With Xplornet:

On some of the servers, I was getting over 8 Mbps! Imagine getting a service where they deliver more than what they promised. Kingston Online capped me at 20GB per month. Xplornet provides unlimited bandwidth — for the duration of my contract. That could change over time but it is wonderful to be back on a high-speed unlimited service.

HOORAY!

On an unrelated note, I have canceled all further sessions with my therapist. And many thanks to the folks who wrote to me and suggested Xplornet. That suggestion really paid off.

Total Internet Performance

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The Internet is just not happening with Kingston Online Services. They told me to expect 4 – 7 Mbps and I am achieving somewhere in the range of 300 – 400 kbps. That level of performance is just way too S-L-O-W.

So what to do? We live in the country and Bell’s WiFi service is rated at 2 Mbps. However, after almost a week of raising concerns with Kingston Online Services and getting no action, I decided to relook at Bell’s WiFi.

As I brought up Bell’s Internet page, which took several minutes to load, I noticed that there was a dialog box on the page where you can enter your telephone number to determine service availability. And so I punched our number in and up came this page.

Can’t be.

High-speed DSL? Right to our country estate?

I called Bell right away. And yes, our area supports high-speed DSL over the phone.

In denial: “I just moved and when I spoke with you a few weeks back you told me that there was no high-speed Internet service in our area. Are you sure that we have DSL?”

Bell sales desk: “Yes sir. We just recently upgraded the lines. Your phone supports high-speed Internet.”

The price is cheaper than Kingston Online Services. The bandwidth cap is much higher. And the speed. Well, let’s just say that accessing the Internet on dial-up speed is so old.

Thank heavens I wasn’t on a long-term contract with KOS.

I get my modem from Bell on Monday.