Remote Internet – Internet Reveiws
Working in a rural area, I have had the chance to try 2 remote internet technologies: Rogers Rocket Stick (wireless mobile internet) and Bell Portable Internet (electricity wired portable internet). They are both 2 competing technologies for rural locations. In layman terms, the Rogers Rocket Stick transmits internet via a non cable/DSL/Sattellite/WiFi technology and does not have to be plugged into an electricity outlet. It is powered by your USB port, and looks a lot like a memory stick – Bell/Telus and Rogers all have the technology. It transmits information via an internet digital signal via cell phone technology so it’s not as fast as high speed Rogers. This means, anywhere you get a wireless signal via a blackberry or cellphone for example, you should get a internet signal if you own a Rogers Rocket Stick. After taxes my bills for up to 3GB is approximately $65 – you can get variable plans up to 5GB. Bell Portable Internet is my backup and just got it in the mail last week. So I will further post after I have a chance to use it a bit in upcomming weeks.
The pros of the Rogers Rocket Stick having used it now for 8 months are: rated 1-10 – 10 being the best
- Loading and download speeds (7) – note: speedtest internet Sattellite will always win, then Cable/DSL/WiFi
- Price compared to Cable/DSL (8)
- Price compared to Sattelite – (priced at $100/mo.) (9)
- Texting (6) – note: I give it a 6 since you have to be on the internet to see your text messages, and you get a unique phone number which your friends need to remember in order to text you. I don’t use it much.
- Coverage in remote Canadian locations (8), note: before the Rogers infrastructure upgrade in Sept. 09 - was a (3) – so if you owned a stick before then, it’s so much better.
- Coverage in restaurants and closed areas (3) - however since the upgrade in Sept. 09 I have not tried it in a restaurant yet – will know and update my post when I try it again.
- Coverage in the US (9)
- Travelling to the US pricing plans (9)
The cons of the Rogers Rocket Stick having used it now for 8 months are: rated 1-10 – 10 being the best
- Cost compared to DSL / Cable (7)
- Cost due to bandwith used for streaming music and large files download – e.g. Sirius Sattellite Internet and downloading big files(3)
- Reliability in new areas not tried before (6)
- Ability to use on multiple devices (2)
- Breakability (3) note: due to portability it can be broken especially the USB jack or lost
Summary of pros and cons: in general this is an amazing little compact technology. Especially if you live and work in a rural location where there is no DSL/Cable running to your business/house. It’s next to impossible to convince DSL/cable providers to put a line in just for you unless 100s of people and businesses in your location (e.g. w/in a 5-10 mile radius) are needing it. I’m about to join an internet council for my location to convince the city to convince telecom providers to install cable/DSL infrastructure (but that will be another post topic soon). Rogers Mobile Internet is a good technology for the money and in my opinion can even be used as a replacement for DSL/Cable especially if you travel and work on the road alot – it’s the best value but you might comprimise speed a little. I was impressed with how little it cost for me to get a plan to use it in the US at a $10 upgrade per months. Upon my return, the bill after using it for 2 weeks was only $10 extra (I thought there might be a catch but no, but as long as I didn’t go over my alloted 3G usage I was good). This is amazing since my Telus Blackberry phone after 2 weeks and paying a $40 US roaming plan was $400 upon my return (shocker).
The only issues I had with the Rogers Rocket Stick were before Rogers upgraded its stick to I believe they told me a Nokia infrastructure/hardware in August of 2009, the internet did go down 1-2 x per day, and didn’t work at the cottage in Rural Quebec. It is a viable option now for vacation internet. Where my friend that had Bell Internet Stick that used it at my cottage did work. After polling the cottage community: some said Telus worked but Bell/Rogers didn’t, some said Bell worked but Rogers/Telus didn’t, some said Rogers worked but Rogers/Telus didn’t. It was rumoured that depending on how many trees block the wireless tower you relied on, would indicate how well and which branded technology worked (e.g. the Rogers tower might work, but the Telus tower might be too far and blocked by too many trees). Now our cottage has some of the biggest pine trees in Canada being Norway Pines and the Ottawa river spanning the towers. But now after trying the new upgraded stick (Rogers did this for all users that had a stick prior to Aug 2009, if you got your stick after then, you are on the new upgraded stick) it works very well at the cottage. So in summary, those that had a stick and a bad experience with it prior to Aug 2009, the bugs are fixed. The only other issue I had was upon going to a restaurant where I had a presentation, I could not get the stick to work. However this was pre-Aug. 2009 upgrade. I will be trying out the stick over the next week in restuarants to see if the bugs have been fixed with the upgrade and repost my findings. I ended up getting Bell Portable Internet, and am about to activate it as a backup to my Rogers Rocket Stick since I broke my stick a month back. I realized I needed internet backup since my web development business came to a standstill without internet. PS I learned if you can’t get internet – the best places to get it free is your local library and some coffee shops (but in Canada, it’s harder to find coffee shops with free wireless internet – the US has them everywhere).
In general after the upgrade of Aug 2009, my stick works very well and I’m impressed with the service. If I were able to give it an overall satisfaction rating, I would give it a (9). It’s still not as fast as DSL/CABLE but I work on websites and am downloading and uploading all day long so I would be called an “above average user” and I still this it works very well. There is a minor delay when trying to access a website (1-2 second compared to DSL/cable) but that’s not bad compared to the fact that the payoff is greater – being able to use it for my own rural home internet 24×7, client sites, for presentations, on the road in my car, at the cottage and really it’s one of 2 options available for me at the moment. The other 2 being Portable Internet which plugs into the wall (which I will compare in my next post since I just purchased it - check back) and Sattellite (which is too expensive).
If anyone has other experiences with Sattellite, Portable Internet etc. please share your experience.
Cheers!
Dana