xplornet connection speed

[tommie gorman]

Very nice speeds there Jay2D2, and welcome to the forum. 

[Xplornetsuck]

http://xplornetsucks.blogspot.com/

This is the link to my speed test and the general complaints which is apparently growing..

Link saves taking up message board space for a long subject...

[Xplornetsuck]

So got replys from the CEO and their consumer affairs person today after a few emails....So extended the 30 guarantee. And now we shall see what happens with the speed till march 24....So I will update then...And they replyed to the better business burro saying there was a "fap" on the account from start..But they don't keep data for more than 10 days supposedly...

[RolandHaley]

Back on February 5th, I had a call from a supervisor at Xplornet telling me that they were upgrading the equipment at the tower that services my area and it would be about four weeks before all the tests would be complete and fully operational. I know we have four more days to go, and I thought I would do another test. Here are the pitiful results...

:::.. testmy.net test results ..:::

Download Connection is:: 323 Kbps about 0.32 Mbps (tested with 386 kB)

Download Speed is:: 39 kB/s

Upload Connection is:: 403 Kbps about 0.4 Mbps (tested with 748 kB)

Upload Speed is:: 49 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net (Server 1)

Test Time:: 2007/03/01 - 10:29am

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-8CS5WX36Q

U-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-WTALHJQVY

User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2 [!]

[Xplornetsuck]

Had 'fap' kick in a 19 megs and also at 10 megs. No warning on 'fap' threshold being changed.  24 megs as told by a technition for actual 'fap'. Techs on other systems go "wtf? Why such a low threshold?".

Heres a speed test this morning at pacific time. Tested an Anikast site a 9:45 am pacific time and testmy is at 9:55 am pacific time and it came out at

File size transferred : 1.04 MB (1090681 bytes)

Total time taken      : 23.84 seconds (23844 milliseconds)

Throughput            : 45.0 kB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]

                      = 0.05 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]

                      = 360.0 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]

                      = 0.36 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]

And testmy speedtest.

::::::::::.. Download Stats ..::::::::::

Download Connection is:: 429 Kbps about 0.4 Mbps (tested with 579 kB)

Download Speed is:: 52 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Server 1)

Test Time:: 2007/03/05 - 10:55am

Bottom Line:: 7X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 19.69 sec

Tested from a 579 kB file and took 11.062 seconds to complete

Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 40.97 % of your hosts average (barrettxplore.com)

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-RS0VZB3HN

These are fairly good speeds for this time of day. Come the later afternoon and into the evening,The speeds drop significantly. And when satellite goes under 200k ,there are page loading errors. Pics won't load or some sites that have multiple feeds, time out on some of those feeds. kirotv.com is one site that will take 4 times as long to load. satellite delay is the culprit and slower bandwidth causes the system to forget about your data stream.

Imagine whats going to happen in the summer when the kids get out of school and start to go after downloads that are not blocked by default by the server at Xplornet.  Had it happen before on another wireless isp and it brought the system down to no bandwidth to use for even surfing pages.

[Xplornetsuck]

Just adding another speed test..I am even having problems just loading this forum with the choppy speeds this evening.

9:22 pacific time

:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Download Connection is:: 152 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 386 kB)

Download Speed is:: 19 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Server 1)

Test Time:: 2007/03/07 - 10:20pm

Bottom Line:: 3X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 53.89 sec

Tested from a 386 kB file and took 20.797 seconds to complete

Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 14.64 % of your hosts average (barrettxplore.com)

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-FQZ1UV78S

[pbicp]

my speeds again..on 3meg business

:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Download Connection is:: 2971 Kbps about 3 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)

Download Speed is:: 363 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Server 1)

Test Time:: 2007/03/08 - 5:30am

Bottom Line:: 52X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 2.82 sec

Tested from a 2992 kB file and took 8.25 seconds to complete

Download Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 69 % faster than the average for host (152.138)

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-CSUVA7P9I

User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2 [!]

::.. Upload Stats ..:::

Upload Connection is:: 451 Kbps about 0.5 Mbps (tested with 1496 kB)

Upload Speed is:: 55 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Server 1)

Test Time:: 2007/03/08 - 5:28am

Bottom Line:: 8X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 18.62 sec

Tested from a 1496 kB file and took 27.141 seconds to complete

Upload Diagnosis:: Looks Great : 1.81 % faster than the average for host (152.138)

U-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-NZEXFT67K

User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2

[stewartlittle12]

March 22-007

This is my speed test as of today and its one of of the better one i had lately, Im presently on 3mbps and its very sad when you have an average between 230kbps and 430kbps and on a really good day 640kbps and that is maybe ounce or twice a month, during peek hours connections kicks out, no connection expecially on weekends and peek time when there are more people on, must be someone to complain too and if anyone knoews would be much appreciated if you could let me know, talk to xplornet 150 times since before christmas, and even thoe they have nice staff it just doesn't go know where. same old story all the time.Would love to know how the guy from McGregor got 2.4ghz tower on 3mb package. but what i see is that they just don't have enough Bandwith  and when logged in too Canopy i can see the settings are set to 700kbps Sustained Downlink Data Rate

  700 (kbps)  And Downlink Burst Allocation

  30000 (kbits) Somehow this does not make sence to me but if someone can explain,

[stewartlittle12]

[stewartlittle12]

Speed Test

::.. Download Stats ..:::

Download Connection is:: 244 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 386 kB)

Download Speed is:: 30 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Server 2)

Test Time:: 2007/03/22 - 7:28pm

Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 34.13 sec

Tested from a 386 kB file and took 12.968 seconds to complete

Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 56.88 % of your hosts average (134.73)

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-P38JX72K6

User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3 [!]

[brokersdad]

:::.. testmy.net test results ..:::

Download Connection is:: 491 Kbps about 0.49 Mbps (tested with 579 kB)

Download Speed is:: 60 kB/s

Upload Connection is:: 93 Kbps about 0.1 Mbps (tested with 386 kB)

Upload Speed is:: 11 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net (Server 1)

Test Time:: 2007/03/23 - 2:35am

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-U38QZTM41

U-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-9QFPUJA0B

User Agent:: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) [!]

[Xplornetsuck]

Xplornet sure is looking to screw themselves over..If they don't have the bandwidth then stop selling new connections. Its that simple...Contact your local provincial government agency To get them to legislate minimum bandwidth for wireless/satellite providers..It's not regulation of the internet., It's having a useable speed..

Why pay for high speed internet when all you have is sluggish internet syndrome.

I've also gotten rid of the Xplornet KA band satellite service..Not worth the hassles..

You just don't know how stable dialup is until you try wireless/satellite providers.

[rebel]

I have had this crap xplornet since January 07.... I want out of three year deal. I want to go back to slow dial up ... it works. This crap works when it wants to.... under canopy I see sinking, scanning, registering, over and over and over. When I do get on I get dropped in three clicks some times. Phone for service ha ha ha. I need to get a 4x8 sheet of plywood and make a warning sign for the front yard, to worn people passing by.  Ruthven Ontario.  One rep said they can not get a signal and we will have to wait for a new tower. But we still get money removed from my account every month for crap.

Anyone reading this stay away from them. :tickedoff:

[unclbill3108]

Hi Explornet Canopy Customers.

I started this forum a while ago and for the last year, I have NOT been an explornet customer. However I do have some suggestions for those of you who are still using canopy for your high speed connection.

About 3 years ago a second canopy tower was installed 31/2 miles from my home. The old tower was over 15 miles away however since I live on the water I had direct line of sight to this tower as well as the new tower. The new tower was so much more powerful it would not allow me to connect at all with the old tower. So I got up on the roof and moved the dish to pick up the new tower. I phoned explornet afterwards to make sure that they would send the local installer (Decastris in Belleville) to check the new alignment. They were never sent.

For the next 2 years I lived with 500 k connections (I had been paying for 3 M), dropped service and really poor performance of my Vonage VOIP. The coup de grace occurred last August. I sent a paper for publication to an American company and got back a rather cryptic response that the paper made no sense and was wrong with its calculations. I sent it several times with the same response from the publisher. Finally I asked the publisher to send it back to me. The original 22 MB paper had been chopped by explornet to just 10 Megs. The paper did not make any sense to me either and I wrote the thing! I did many download tests from testmy.net and provided the data to explornet. They WANTED ME TO PROVE TO THEM THAT IT WAS THEIR SYSTEM THAT WAS AT FAULT!. I had had enough of explornet. What started our as a really good service company had degraded to a sick joke.

Serendipity intervened. My cell phone provider asked if I wanted to try their air card. Since I only have laptops, I thought this might be a good option. I got the air card and sent the paper with this and this time it went through. I then disconnected my explornet canopy service. I have not looked back.

What did I learn from this. DO NOT CALL EXPLORNET IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. Keep the phone number for your local system supplier and call them. They make a percentage from your monthly fees, so they may be more than happy to help you if you have a problem especially if you say that you are considering disconnecting your explornet canopy service.

I have learned much from this, Grasshopper and I hope that it will help all those who are still struggling with canopy problems.

I wish to state now that I am really sorry I had endorsed the explornet canopy option in this forum way back. I apologise to all of you for this.

Bill

[Veritable]

Stickler but it's Xplornet anyway...

Ya there are a lot of problems with speed. You brought back an old thread lol.

Most of the problems are due to Xplornet not knowing the amount of load in any given area, and they don't look ahead. Poor planning but, anyway, it happens to everyone.

I saw the first thread which was about vonage etc. ... right now, Xplornet's VoIP is on a QoS. It still doesn't work properly if your internet connection isn't great. So you still want to make sure your internet speeds are really good on the upload as well as the download. If your upload doesn't hit something around 60-70Kbps, don't get VoIP and stick with a landline or cell phones.

As for the Aircards. the HSPA network will be awesome if they get an aircard. It will offer higher speeds than even the big 3 in Canada can provide anywhere you can get the service. I am really REALLY hoping they get an aircard out soon for hspa nearing the end of October 2009.

Edit: sorry, about your last post. Just because a tower is closer, doesn't mean you'll have better reception. Think of a football spreading outwards. If you are closer to the tower, the likelihood of the signal hitting you closer to the tower decreases as you go closer. As far as you aiming the dish and they never coming out to "check it out" well... Personally, you're not supposed to touch the equipment. Call them to issue a work order if you need it fixed... unplug the power supply and tell them it won't connect. you'll get a work order if they can't connect to the module (Cannot connect to AP. May be problem with the PSU or Module/Cabling). etc. etc.

Call the dealer locally, pay them to look at it if you're impatient. Most dealers installers will do it without a work order if you pay them for their time. I get calls all the freakin time: "Next time you're in the area can you swing by?" and I'm like no... it's a business and we need to get paid to survive. If it's broken then we'll fix it. Get a work order or pay for a service call. Freebies aren't allowed if you want to bypass the system.

Oh ya, and the % of the monthly fees is nothing. It's like $0.10 per customer per month for the term of the contract. Then like $0.50 for going on a higher package than the "regular one" etc. It's nothing to be proud of. Besides, the customers that call in with technical support after their internet is installed call the dealer instead of xplornet (which is free tech support), and expect a call to me to be free. I find out what the customer needs, and if it's something Xplornet does (or takes more than 5-10 minutes to explain), I schedule a service call at $80/hr. CAD to solve the issue at hand. If they don't want to pay, they can call into Xplornet. You would not believe the amount of time I spend on the phone in the morning, instead of processing new installs, lining up peoples installs, billing through recent installs, filing away and faxing work orders... only to be interrupted by someone who needs their Email setup in Outlook express. It's on the website. You can call 1-800-841-6001 and get support for it for free. That's what they're there for.

I have better things to do around the office, than do Xplornet's trouble shooting.

[Pepper]

Just got it today.  25/20 power ratings.  3Mbps package with 50MB file:

:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Download Connection is:: 2830 Kbps about 2.8 Mbps (tested with 51195 kB)

Download Speed is:: 345 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Main)

Test Time:: 2009/10/14 - 9:39am

Bottom Line:: 49X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 2.97 sec

Tested from a 51195 kB file and took 148.192 seconds to complete

Download Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 105.97 % faster than the average for host (132.6)

D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-6PAJEOH4T

User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009082707 Firefox/3.0.14 [!]

[zalternate]

Just got it today.  25/20 power ratings.  3Mbps package with 50MB file:

Is that wireless? You must be on a new tower with a good bandwidth backbone.

Or are you on a Hughesnet business plan? And watch out for the Daily FAP. But FAP free period from 2am to 7am eastern time.

[Pepper]

Yeah, fixed wireless, it's a new tower and I have good signal.  What's the deal with a new tower?  Once more people sign up and log onto it, my speed falls?

Those speeds are sustained with little to no torrent throttling.  Got 160kB/s average on a torrent with a lot of seeds.  I had blips into 250-350, even crossed the 400 mark for a very brief period.  I don't plan to be too heavy on it, but when I do download a torrent which I don't do often, it does help for it to actually work.

I hope it stays like this for a while anyways.  I'm actually nervous posting this on here.  I hope they don't crack down.  Any risk of that?  

[zalternate]

I hope it stays like this for a while anyways.  I'm actually nervous posting this on here.  I hope they don't crack down.  Any risk of that?  

Well there is the roughly end of 30 days speed drop(happens somewhat randomly).  Even Hughesnet(in the States) has been caught pulling it as well. http://www.testmy.net/forum/index.php?topic=26554.msg307263;topicseen#msg307263

Just keep a note on your speeds for a couple of months and when you might start to get throttled. Since some users on more popular towers do have speed throttles. But it all depends on the bandwidth capacity of the tower.  So if new users get signed up more slowly, you stand a better chance of a tower upgrade before the bandwidth gets over maximum(user bandwidth purchased plans, compared to tower bandwidth available).

[Veritable]

far from me being able to predict the inner workings of Xplornet... Why your speed drops over time.

Lets say you are on an Omni (a 360 degree wireless antenna). Everyone who connects is using that one access point (not unlike a router in a household).

Now, lets say an Omni can hold 100 people. If you are subscribing to a 1.5mbit service, that means, that 100 people are sharing (up to) that 1.5mbit download.

Same thing applies to a panel system, where there are 8 panels, each covering a 45 degree sector. Each panel may be able to hold 100 people, but they are still sharing that 1.5mbit in that one direction.

Yes, a panel system is better than an omni, as it is dedicated to a specific direction and not an entire area for one access point.

I have never seen them do this "after 30 days your speed drops so you are outside of your 30-day guarantee." deal. Honestly, over the last 5 years or so, I have never seen this happen. Maybe it's different where you are, but maybe it's just the shear number of people that are signing up? I don't know how to calculate the probability of these occurrences.

Not saying that it's not totally out of the spectrum of possibilities that they are doing such a thing though, it is a corporation after all.

I know that there are people that have had 3mbit connections for 3 years, and over 1.6mbit connections (on a 1.5mbit line) for longer. So, why would they single out specific people?

Is it a usage per 30-day limit they pose on people then?

I will state, that there are weird situations, where 2 people separated by maybe 500 feet, have had completely different experiences. One person hasn't had a slow-down for 5 months+, while the other person has non-stop connection issues. The closest I have been able to figure out, is they're on that angle where it bounces back and forth between the 2 access points on the tower, and that's why. The solution is to force their module to connect to the frequency of one of the AP's on the tower, that way it won't try to connect to the other. You basically change the module's settings on the customers house, to scan for X frequency, and not Y (Y being the panel you don't want it to connect to).

Anyway... Any other questions, post up.

[Pepper]

Yep, I have another question indeed.

They set up your speed based on the strength of signal needed to give a certain bitrate, right?

If they installed it on a clear sunny day, and set up the max signal usage to represent 3mbit/s (which they did), on a rainy/snowy day that needed more signal power to achieve 3mbit/s, your speed would fall; correct?

The reverse is also true and would be the better scenario; if they installed it in the rain/snow, they would set up the account with the signal strength needed to hit 3Mbit/s in the rain/snow.  Then when it clears up, since the signal strength is set higher, you'd get higher than 3Mbit/s speeds?

They installed mine on a relatively clear day.  There was some cloud cover but the LOS was clear.  Can I expect my speed to fall in the snow? (somewhat expecting that)  and would it be to your advantage to have them install on a cruddy day? (even though it's not feasible, plannable, and it's too late)

[Veritable]

Well, here's how Canopy is setup.

A few months ago, the older software was setup to use 3 numbers to determine the quality of the signal. RSSI, DB, Jitter.

RSSI is the signal quality basically, DB is the power level of the signal, and the Jitter is how much movement there is between your module and the tower. THe old standards were "1400+ RSSI, -79 or higher DB, 1-3 Jitter". That's what we used. When we first started, the DB was -82, then about a month after, it was -80 and now it's -79. There's so much interference in the area that they had to restrict the quality of the install standards, otherwise your internet would basically not work at all.

Now, they operate on a 2 level basis. Power Level and Jitter. This was on Sept. 2nd I got the email, and the upgrades were going out for Aug. 31st I believe.

The Power Level is now Actual, Min, Max status, so it tells you the lowest, the highest and what it currently is for the db level.

The Jitter is the same. Actual, Min, Max.

What the installers do when they set it up, is do a link test from the module itself. It basically does a speed test between the module and the tower's AP, and tells you that, with your distance from the tower, and the current status of your connections power level/jitter, what the maximum speed you could possibly attain from the connection. After that, your system is taking into effect the weather, interference from other carriers, certain oil company monitoring equipment, etc.

Yes, the weather affects it, especially heavy wet snow, heavy rain. Tree's also suck cause they have Iron in them and Iron reflects/absorbs wireless signal.  So to answer your question about if your connection will degrade in the bad weather. Yes and No. Ya, the power level will probably drop, meaning that any interference that you may have that doesn't normally affect the signal, could potentially cut your net out if it's bad enough.

I mean, if you are concerned about it, try to run your own link test on your module, to see what the max speed is. There is even an el-cheap-o spectrum analyzer built into each Canopy system. You can look at your status, and it'll tell you what frequency you're currently connecting with at the tower. Then you go into the analyzer and see what the spectrum shows for signals.

Lets say you're on a 900MHz Canopy, and you're connecting to a tower at... 912.5MHz

In the spectrum analyzer it's going to show you something like a wave. It'll have peaks at certain frequencies like 905, 907, 910 etc. things like that. What you're looking for is you find your frequency on the side, and see if it does a U shape down to another frequency near it. The sharper the curve, the clearer the signal. If it's a solid line with like 911.0 to 913.0 with barely any curve, then your frequency is pretty much saturated with the frequency, and your internet connection probably sucks. If it doesn't now, in bad weather it'll probably just cut out altogether.

[Pepper]

I mean, if you are concerned about it, try to run your own link test on your module, to see what the max speed is. There is even an el-cheap-o spectrum analyzer built into each Canopy system. You can look at your status, and it'll tell you what frequency you're currently connecting with at the tower. Then you go into the analyzer and see what the spectrum shows for signals.

How would I access this spectrum analyzer?  I believe I have a 3.5 GHz module.  There are 5 green LED lights on the bottom of the module.  I assume each light represents how many Mbits/s the connection can handle.  I have a steady 4 lights, sometimes the 5th one will light up.

They didn't provide me with any software at all.  I sure would like that Java applet.  I asked them about it but they said they're not supposed to give it to me, and they didn't.

Is there any online download source for such a coveted piece of software?  I searched but didn't find anything.

[Veritable]

I'm not as familiar with the 3.5's inner workings, but to my knowledge it's the lights on the bottom, and xplornet themselves that can read what the connection is like.

There's probably something on the status page, but you can't adjust anything. You won't have to worry about 3.5 anyway. Not too many people use 3.5GHz spectrum. And if you're in Alberta, Xplornet purchased Pathcom, so they are the only ones who can modify settings.

http://192.168.0.230 i believe is the address of the module itself. So you'd have to hard-code your nic with a static IP in order to access it since most routers are 192.168.1.1. The subnet won't be the same so it won't even know it's there

If you are using a router, you will have to connect directly to it and hard-code your computer to see.

I don't know what to tell you to look for though, I don't install myself, so I've only seen the screen a handful of times. I wouldn't worry too much about the weather affecting the 3.5 system. I mean, not that it won't do it at all, but at least you only have to deal with the weather for the most part, and not interference from other providers.

[Pepper]

Well, my bubble burst.  There's many times especially in the evening, like right now (8pm) that it slows way down.  My upload speed is just fine, but my download is around 0.6 Mbps with the 3Mbps package.  It was unstoppable when I first got it.  We'll see where this goes.