Comment Re:Still won't fix monopolies (Score 1) 153
I don't have much problem with Xpolorenet itself, though they do get raked over the coals by those who don't appreciate the nature of satellite service. This '4G Satellite' launched relatively recently with much greater capacity than what's been available before (one shot it doubled north america's total available bandwidth from space), but satellite availability is dependent on 'spot beams' and this 4G one aims mostly at people who will have other options. Most places in Canada where satellite is the only option altogether will be on the telestat satellite, whose traffic management policy is here: http://www.xplornet.com/traffic-management/telesat-ka/
The 3mpbs packages, all except the slowest, were upped to 5mbps in August. Based on the traffic policy link it seems they have also doubled the amount you can transfer before 'recovery mode'. It had actually been getting better, as they have switched as many people as possible onto the new ("4G") satellite, as well as to terrestrial wireless. I can't speak for the new satellite myself, it was never available here, but definitely I'd take reliable low-latency ~500-700kpbs connection with all the ATM overhead over the old-timey telesat 3-5mbps satellite connection which spends most of the time @ 3% (150kbps)!!!
One thing I will give to Xplorenet - despite throttling, there is no caps. That was enough to switch from Telus with their huge overage charges (had one bill in the $1000 range) or later the hard caps (service would cut out entirely at 5GB/mo); If you have a computer system or two with automatic OS updates (or other auto-updating software: i.e., chrome, firefox, flash, java...) and a cloud enabled cell-phone (Android, iOs) or two, a cap dwindles fast should a few updates coincide within a given month.
The 3mpbs packages, all except the slowest, were upped to 5mbps in August. Based on the traffic policy link it seems they have also doubled the amount you can transfer before 'recovery mode'. It had actually been getting better, as they have switched as many people as possible onto the new ("4G") satellite, as well as to terrestrial wireless. I can't speak for the new satellite myself, it was never available here, but definitely I'd take reliable low-latency ~500-700kpbs connection with all the ATM overhead over the old-timey telesat 3-5mbps satellite connection which spends most of the time @ 3% (150kbps)!!!
One thing I will give to Xplorenet - despite throttling, there is no caps. That was enough to switch from Telus with their huge overage charges (had one bill in the $1000 range) or later the hard caps (service would cut out entirely at 5GB/mo); If you have a computer system or two with automatic OS updates (or other auto-updating software: i.e., chrome, firefox, flash, java...) and a cloud enabled cell-phone (Android, iOs) or two, a cap dwindles fast should a few updates coincide within a given month.