High Speed Rural internet ADSL or Fiber??

[Titanite]

Hello,

I live on one of the several hundred acreages in E. De Winton and I have a telus phone line into my home, however I am not able to get high speed ADSL. I am not sure where the hardware limitation is along the line to get us HS data, but there is a huge market out in our area for HS internet. Currently there are a couple of very poor options with high fee's for 1999 speeds with data caps. If you upgraded the hardware or installed fiber out our way, you would have an instant customer base of several hundred people. Alternatively, how does one find out what it would cost to run, and possibly have a 1 time fee upfront to help fund the expensive infrastructure. I've asked this of customer service reps and the stock answer is, "Its very expensive". Can anyone be contacted to quantify what 'expensive' is?

Thx

[NFtoBC]

There is a great graph showing ADSL distances at this site. Basically, if you are greater than about 3.5 km from the Telco internet switch (DSLAM), ADSL is no longer high speed.  

In-building fibre installs are reported as being highly variable in price, but between $1 and $6 per linear foot. Outdoor installs could vary considerably as exterior fibre cable is more expensive, but there is less work per linear foot to complete the install if poles are available. 

Copper telephone was subsidized by the government to ensure service in rural areas. So far, fibre is not, so will not reach as far, as fast, as did copper.

Is there a local government or community association which could spearhead a community install?

[Albertasky]

Quoting another Neighbourhood member, "I live on one of the several hundred acreages in E. De Winton", and we desperately need broadband internet. ADSL is out of the question as the exchange is too far away to provide any benefit to acreage owners. We currently have only one option out here, and that's Xplornet's LTE towers. While the signal strength is good and bandwidth has the potential, they've completely oversold the number of customers on their towers and we're now experiencing speeds similar to what was widely available in the 90's! To make things worse, I'm paying $100/month for what's supposed to be a 25mbps package (avg bandwidth is 1 to 1.5mbps!! Did I mention $100/month?!).

It would be of certain benefit to Telus to bring in another option for the hundreds of acreage owners here...and I'd sooner support a Telus product! This seems like such an untapped market and only one player is involved?!

[NFtoBC]

The market is wide open for point to point ISP to compete with Xplornet. There are many in rural Canada to model one after. Why not determine the interest in your area, and invite one to assess your neighbourhood?

[Qualikim]

Despite having Telus fiber run within 100 meters of my rural driveway just outside Qualicum Beach... today I had to sign up for two 2-year 100GB satellite internet contracts with Xplornet for a total of $240/month - just to get 200 GB of data! What a rip....

[Squirrel]

Does anyone know if the mobile internet boxes work in the Dewinton area?  Coverage map says yes?

[WestCoasterBC]

@Squirrel the smarthub https://www.telus.com/en/bc/internet/new/smart-hub is reasonably priced considering in a rural location and much better reliability and speeds then explorenet as an example..

Follow the guide here to be sure you can use the service.  https://www.telus.com/en/bc/support/article/telus-high-speed-internet-with-smart-hub-self-test

As long as you receive a good download/upload speed there shouldn't be an issue. Use the speedtest app to check your U/D at the location where you setup the smart hub.

[Fisherguy]

Westcoast, that is not true at all.
You could get good speeds when you run a speed test on your phone but if the tower you're getting service from is not fed by fibre you will not be eligible for the Smart Hub service, there's not enough bandwidth at that tower to offer it.  They will give you a smart hub but you'll have to pay regular mobility rated for your data, not an affordable option for most of us.