Castanet

I found this, Cable internet for $19.95.
http://www.lightspeed.ca/personal/ratescable.html#table
Seems too good to be true, unless just the intro pricing. But I don't see any other price points.

The next most affordable is Okanagan Valley Internet starting at $42.95

Still cheaper than $60-70 per month that the big players charge.

Anybody deal with these companies?

For $19.95 I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they are using the term "high speed" rather loosely.

I'm paying three times that for high speed 25, which in today's world is basically the bottom of the barrel for speed.

In Japan, you can get 100Mb internet for roughly $40 CDN a month. Of course you can't get that here yet because we are all busy being hosed :-) $19.95 sounds like it is likely 5Mb which is good enough for browsing, e-mail, etc. I wouldn't try streaming movies (unless the movies are the really old hong kong martial arts movies) or game play.

We have 50Mb. Shaw came to our place when they were installing the digital boxes, and they solicited my wife to reduce our 50Mb down to 25Mb telling her "You don't need 50Mb, but if you don't like 25Mb, you can always go back". We were grandfathered in to a great price of $50 or something around that. That night internet seemed slow to me and I discovered what happened. We asked to go back to 50Mb but Shaw of course, bumped the price up immensely. The account wasn't even under my wife's name. So, yes, they are here to screw ya. lol.

Oh yeah, and b.t.w, gas in places in Ontario (Bear Creek Gas Bar) is $0.839 cents.


<<This is in Japan as of 2014>>
1. So-net Flets Hikari with Flets S Mansion, 3,057 yen per month, 100 MB per second
2. OCN Flets Hikari with Flets Mansion, 3,528 yen per month, 100 MB per second
3. Biglobe Flets Hikari Pack Neo with Flets Mansion, 3,528 yen per month, 100 MB per second
4. Plala Flets Hikari with Flets Mansion, 3,213 yen per month, 100 MB per second
5. @nifty Flets Hikari with Flets Mansion, 3,407 yen per month, 100 MB per second

You're a fool if you think comparing Japan's infrastructure to Canada's(let alone Kelowna's) means anything.

The reason they can charge was appears to be "so little" is due to population per square kilometer.

Population density is a huge factor.

That said, we are still getting hosed and it can/should be much cheaper to the end user. Sadly all ISP's/mobility providers are basically colluding with each other. It's just absolutely ridiculous.

You're a fool if you think comparing Japan's infrastructure to Canada's(let alone Kelowna's) means anything.

The reason they can charge was appears to be "so little" is due to population per square kilometer.

Take a look at Norway. Some of the most distributed and geographically isolated communities in the world, and they still have Internet that makes ours look like 2400 baud dial-up.

Population density means everything when you have an oligopoly looking to maximize returns to shareholders at the expense of customer experience. Take that out of the equation, implement true market competition (by leveling the playing field between the oligopolies and new entrants) and you’ll see just how fast the market improves itself.

Speeds in Canada are *bleep* because we don’t have the political willpower to reduce the massive power that the incumbents have over new entrants.

opinions of speed compared by country aside.... Shaw is currently offering Internet 150 at $80 per month. Yes, it's not cheap, but for the bandwidth, it is a much better deal then the Internet 20 I had which was only approx $10-$15 cheaper.

youjustcomplain wrote:opinions of speed compared by country aside.... Shaw is currently offering Internet 150 at $80 per month. Yes, it's not cheap, but for the bandwidth, it is a much better deal then the Internet 20 I had which was only approx $10-$15 cheaper.

Yeah and that price is good for a whole 6 months right? After which they'll double it.

Actually, it is $49.90 for 1 year and then $79.90 for the second year of a 2 year commitment. The "regular" price is $135, but you only pay that if you want to pay that. Otherwise you switch to Telus at the end of the 2 years. Rince and repeat.

For those that don't want to do the math, the average price is $64.90 per month over the 2 years. That's pretty damned good for 150 down 15 up. But more than that... they give you a full TB of data, which is the first time we've seen a Canadian provider offer reasonable data allowance since they started metering. The odd thing is in the fine print, which is more good (but strange) news... those that go over the TB allowance specifically WONT be charged! Why they put that right in the terms is beyond me. Why not then just call it "unlimited".


My phone and TV are both over Internet now, so I only pay for the one service. That makes it really easy to swap between services to get the latest greatest deal of the day.

I'll be jumping on this Shaw deal pretty soon I think.

al56kelman wrote:I found this, Cable internet for $19.95.
http://www.lightspeed.ca/personal/ratescable.html#table
Seems too good to be true, unless just the intro pricing. But I don't see any other price points.

The next most affordable is Okanagan Valley Internet starting at $42.95

Still cheaper than $60-70 per month that the big players charge.

Anybody deal with these companies?

5Mb download may be fine if your needs aren't too great. Really, that's functional for even streaming like Netflix, etc. Where you'll get hampered is with the very low 512Kb upload. Internet tends to be a two way street. If you saturate the upload (which will be very easy to do with only 512Kb) it can kill the download as there's nothing left over for AWK packets to get through to the sending side. Unless you have a router that can do some effective QoS (Quality of Service) controls, you're likely to run into troubles with 512Kb upload.

Even their next plan up is 15Mb down but still 512Kb up. That sucks. It should be at least twice that (1Mb up). Their lowest cable plan I would recommend to anyone is their 30 down/2.5 up @ $41.95. But if you look at their ADSL side, they have 6Mb down and 1Mb up for $30 which I'd recommend over the cable 5/0.5.

There's a bigger difference than you know between 512Kb and 1Mb. One is barely functional and the other is usually sufficient.

There's also a significant difference between cable and ADSL. Cable shows you the "average expected speed" - but the problem is that during peak times you may actually only get a fraction of what you're paying for because you are most likely sharing bandwidth with your "neighbors" (everyone downstream of the nearest substation - could be hundreds of homes). ADSL does not suffer from that, however the speed you get is determined by your physical distance from the nearest substation. They may advertise 6/1 and you may only get 4/1 (upload is usually attainable) but at least you know you'll always get that speed regardless of your neighbor's surfing habits. Mind you, with the lower packages I'm sure they'll be able to service you with the advertised speed. Ie. they say 6, you'll get 6 but if they say 100 you may only get 70 (or whatever).

Unless you get into bigger packages where it really doesn't matter if you only get a quarter of the advertised speed during the day (which is why I'm considering going to Shaw's 150/15 plan)... I would strongly recommend ADSL over cable.

5Mbps sucks. Mine is 27 times faster than that, and I sure as heck don't pay 27 times the price!



https://www.google.ca/search?site=&sour ... i-ecVX0u80

Yes, 5mbs isn't fun.

But let's put it in perspective - I have the best service telus can currently offer to my house. 1.5 Mbs down/0.15 up

It's enough for general browsing, tho some sites like facebook are a little slow and annoying. 1 person can watch netflix at standard def but if anyone else is using the net at the same time netflix is often buffering. We get by with it. I fine that 1.5 isn't enough - but 5mbs at over 3x our current speed would certainly suit our needs.

Yeah, speed is really good. though i didn't try it yet. But I think $19.95 per month is bit high. I am also using the broadband connection for over 6 months $10 per month. Speed isn't bad though. Happy to use this.

Caberry98 wrote: I am also using the broadband connection for over 6 months $10 per month. Speed isn't bad though. Happy to use this.

What provider are you using that gives broadband for 10 bucks? Is that like 1 mbps down; .125 mbps up?

Why'd this old thread get dug up?

kelownman wrote:

Caberry98 wrote: I am also using the broadband connection for over 6 months $10 per month. Speed isn't bad though. Happy to use this.

What provider are you using that gives broadband for 10 bucks? Is that like 1 mbps down; .125 mbps up?

I use broadband connection from my location provider.