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Hi Bill, I have also noticed a drop in throughput  (probably 2/3 decrease)  with Xplornet in the last couple of weeks  \

???
Mike

I am on their McGregor tower just  outside windsor, I bought their 1.5 meg service, at the best of times I could only get <5 meg of connection after several calls and emails to tech support, including 2 weeks of test logs from here, I finally got a tech that found the configuration problem on their end. I took 2 months to get this straightened out and the first thing all the tech support people did was blame me for having spyware, virus and trojans on my machine (which I dont) this monh the service has been terrible again, went for over 24 hours with no service because hydro one had a problem, I guess they don't have any back up or contingecy plans, like a ups or generator. today no service for 3 hours and now i have .3 megs Now I know why they want a $250 CASH only installation fee, They have to try to keep you here by not wanting to forfeit your money. Ther is a new game in town and one they get their feet wet for a few months all I can is  goodbye to this uncaring unreliable ISP.

Yesterday I spent over an hour on the phone with tech support because they wouldn't admit there was a problem between the tower and the net. They kept telling me the problem must be on my end claiming I had some kind of spyware or trojan, wrong, my machine is clean. I told them the problem arose right after the tower went offline, It never fully recovered. I had 56K dial-up speeds all day. All I wanted from tech support was to let them know there was still a problem if they didn't know and if they did know what kind of timeline for resolution. I though that was not unreasonable. tech support either knows nothing or they are unwilling to share. I have been to the "level2" tech several times and nothing ever comes of it. Oh BTW my computer must of healed itself because my speed is back this morning, well back to 75% anyway.I like how they tell me if I buy 1,5Meg I should be happy to get half of that. WRONG I pay for 1.5 meg I want 1.5 meg, particularly since I'm on line mostly at Off peak times like 4 am.

Hey Bill:

I noticed your post and felt compelled to add my 2c worth.  I recently became an Xplornet customer too.  Early on, before they signed many customers onto this tower, bandwidth seemed OK.  It was clear to me that we were not reaching the 3MB speed that was advertised, (I never read the fine print) but our connection speed was acceptable considering the cost.

After calling Xplornet a few times to see what's up, I was finally able to get out of them what is going on:  The advertised 3 MB bandwidth is for the first 5 MB, after that they cut the speed back to 0.7MB continuous.  If you are simply surfing the net pages will load fairly quickly, however if you attempt a large download, it definitely will not come to you any more than 0.7 MB/sec if you have a 3 MB package.  0.6 MB/sec continuous if you get the 1.5 MB package.

A very simple way to see this yourself is: if your internet connection has been idle for a while, do a 3 finger salute to bring up the task manager on a Windows system, then click on the networking tab.  Start a fairly large download and see what happens….  This will play havoc with streaming media and quite possibly voip.

So yes the advertised speeds are technically correct, but don't expect those speeds for any more than 1.66 seconds at a time.



JoeBarns

Hah The Plot Thickens
The subscribers to xplornet canopy in my are have had a large circular dish installed on their homes. There is a large rectangular paddle like receiver in the focus.
When Decastris installed my dish they installed a small oval dish with a small modem in the focus. When questioned, the installer said that because of my location, I could use the high frequency receiver since the transmit tower (which is 10 miles away) has direct line of sight with no obstructions. It seems that the other subscribers have trees obstructing their view of the tower and the high frequency modem would not work.
The installer said that my service would have much more consistant speed because of this and continued use has proven him right.
The upshot is this. If You can see the lights of the tower where your transmitter is located, you might be better served with this updated receiver.

Well bricklin. congrats. looks like you have this one licked. good luck to you when your ip connect number changes (if you have a floating ip). i usually get everything back in order by turning everything (including both modems) off and on. it usually takes several minutes to reaquire the ip.

Welcome to the forum maverick214 
Enjoy your stay.