The folks showed up last evening with their PC tower along for the ride. I unplugged my machine and set up theirs to see what kind of error messages they were getting that had Mom in enough of a panic to drive three hours on a whim. I worried a trojan had gotten a hold of their machine but all it seemed to need was an updated version of Avast. I also installed and ran Spybot for kicks. If it turns out to need something else, it can wait until Christmas, hopefully.
They’ve recently signed up with Xplornet for rural high speed internet and so far they’re more than unhappy with it. They’ve signed up for Sasktel’s 1.0 package advertising a download speed of “up to” 1.0 Mbps and upload speed “up to” 128kbps. An asterisk is included on Explornet’s site about this.
Actual speed online may vary with your technical configuration, Internet traffic, server or other factors. When compared to a standard dial-up modem speed of 40 kbps. 1 Limited time offer. Click on the desired package for more information.
Who ever asks about other factors?
Who’s heard of a Fair Access Policy? I sure hadn’t. I can’t recall if the folks ever mentioned a Fair Access Policy, either. If they were told about it, maybe they didn’t understand what it was and had I known how it worked yesterday, I could have installed a monitor on their machine so they could watch how much bandwidth they use in day. All Xplornet gives them per day for their 1.0 connection is 200 MB. Dialing in, it may have taken 16 hours or something to get close to that (if my math is accurate. I’m willing to assume it’s not). If Mom’s burning through it in three hours, no wonder she’s freaking out. And apparently they only have two speeds; cranked or snail. I don’t know if anyone told them what “bandwidth” means, either, and I know my folks would have been too embarrassed to ask. Even I had to look it up so I could explain it for them in an email.
But still, if people don’t know they’re responsible for monitoring their bandwidth use and nobody bothers to suggest they have to, then no wonder people are surprised when Xplornet throttles them once they go over this allotted daily allowance. And it could be a day, a few days, or even a week before they get another speed boost, depending on how many subscribers want their turn.
Now I’m wishing I’d found this stuff while I had the computer in front of me. I could have installed a monitor for them. This from Xplornet’s legal :
To ensure fair access for all Xplornet subscribers, Xplornet maintains a running average fair access policy. Fair access establishes an equitable balance in Internet access across all broadband services by service plan for all Xplornet customers regardless of their frequency of use or volume of traffic. To ensure this equity, customers may experience some temporary throughput limitations.
How can a company advertise high speed without advertising how they plan to dole it out? They sell their image as if users will get high speed any time, all the time. Instead it turns out to be akin to 20 people under one blanket but all trying to use the same pillow. Why yes, you can use the pillow, but you can only use it for 20 minutes and you won’t have it again for a week… I don’t know about you, but I call rip off. Considering the equipment costs over $200 plus a per month fee, there is a valid assumption that you’ll get your money’s worth each day.
Xplornet Internet access is not guaranteed. This policy applies to all service plans including “Unlimited” plans where customers’ use of the Service is not limited to a specific number of hours per month. Xplornet indicates that approximately 5% of subscribers are responsible for a disproportionate share – often as much as half – of the total Xplornet service traffic.
5% might be a low estimate if they all play with Facebook as much as my mother does. I’ve just discovered that they offer a lite version which might help matters a little.
<blockquote?Unfortunately, many of those subscribers are not using Xplornet for its intended purpose.
Intended purpose being what, web searching via Lynx so you never have to waste bandwidth getting images? Checking email once a month? What? The guys who set up my folks never even set up a mail account program like Eudora or Thunderbird that would only need bandwidth for sending and receiving because Xplornet accounts are entirely web based through Google Apps. How much bandwidth will that hog, I wonder?
Sasktel’s FAQ about this is as expected.
How reliable is the SaskTel Satellite High Speed Internet powered by Xplornet?
Although there can be minor interruptions of satellite service during severe weather patterns, the latest satellite technology has proven to be very resilent [sic] in our Canadian weather. Any type of satellite service disruptions can be typically measured in a collection of minutes throughout one year. Satellite service is recommended for users active in internet usage for: e-mailing, research and surfing, banking, chatting, photo sharing, uploads, blogging, and not typically recommended for certain quick response or real time on-line gaming.
I think service disruption will account for a lot of minutes in a month, let alone a year. But back to Xplornet:
To ensure that all Xplornet subscribers have fair and equitable access to the benefits of the Service, Xplornet has enacted a Fair Access Policy (FAP) to prevent abusive consumption of bandwidth by a handful of users.
The Fair Access Policy (FAP) is straightforward. Based on an analysis of usage data, Xplornet has established a download data usage threshold well above the maximum typical usage rates. When a customer exhibits patterns of system usage, which exceed that threshold for an extended period of time, the FAP may temporarily limit that subscriber’s throughput to ensure the integrity of the system for all subscribers.
The Fair Access stuff is hidden under a little grey link labeled “Legal” that’s all the way down at the bottom of their pages and not that obvious. Obviously they want to sell this service to people who not only don’t read the fine print, but don’t notice there’s any to be read.
I can see why they’d put this into play, obviously. I’m not arguing against the need for it. What it needs to be is visible and out there, not left to caveat emptor. What they should be forced to do is print average expected usage so a person knows that up front. Don’t advertise the “Up to” all the time if 95% of the time it’s down to 50kbps or worse. There should be more a lot more truth in their advertising.
