Sasktel selling xplorenet to rural sask as an answer to high speed.....

[Blackroc]

What a joke by Sasktel trying to sell Xplorenet to people in rural Saskatchewan. Their Finally Get Faster Speed for Less mail out tells me they could care less about rural Sask. 64.99 a month for 5mbps down with a CAP of 20GB..... or 84.99 a month for 10mbps and still the 20GB a month CAP. City folks would be screaming if they had to pay that much for service like that with such low data caps wouldn't they? I truly feel sorry for rural people that are outside the footprint of yourlinks, canwan, and little loons towers. You know it is a good service when there is a forum dedicated to them. http://www.xplornetsucks.com/forumss/

[jmasterfunk]

What a joke by Sasktel trying to sell Xplorenet to people in rural Saskatchewan. Their Finally Get Faster Speed for Less mail out tells me they could care less about rural Sask. 64.99 a month for 5mbps down with a CAP of 20GB..... or 84.99 a month for 10mbps and still the 20GB a month CAP. City folks would be screaming if they had to pay that much for service like that with such low data caps wouldn't they? I truly feel sorry for rural people that are outside the footprint of yourlinks, canwan, and little loons towers. You know it is a good service when there is a forum dedicated to them. http://www.xplornetsucks.com/forumss/

Actually, the real answer is this LTE based Fusion service:

http://www.sasktel.com/about-us/news...12-towers.html

[Blackroc]

Actually, the real answer is this LTE based Fusion service:

http://www.sasktel.com/about-us/news...12-towers.html

I noticed there was no mention of a data cap in that article? I guess you in the city would be happy to pay 80 bucks a month for 5 mg service........ Good to see they are trying to do something other than xplorenet.

[nwotraveler]

Why is it that people who chose to live in densely populated rural areas feel they have the right to demand the same services as those who live in cities and towns? You obviously know nothing about the cost of doing business. No company is going to spend millions to satisfy a handful of customers in rural areas when there this is zero chance of ROI.

It would be fiscal suicide to spend millions of dollars to acquire thousands of dollars in annual revenue. No company is going to waste those millions in rural infrastructure when those same millions can make them 10's or 100's of millions in urban settings.

[Blackroc]

Why is it that people who chose to live in densely populated rural areas feel they have the right to demand the same services as those who live in cities and towns? You obviously know nothing about the cost of doing business. No company is going to spend millions to satisfy a handful of customers in rural areas when there this is zero chance of ROI.

It would be fiscal suicide to spend millions of dollars to acquire thousands of dollars in annual revenue. No company is going to waste those millions in rural infrastructure when those same millions can make them 10's or 100's of millions in urban settings.

Regarding the first bolded area.
dense
[dens] Show IPA
adjective, dens·er, dens·est.
1.
having the component parts closely compacted together; crowded or compact: a dense forest; dense population.
2.
stupid; slow-witted; dull.
3.
intense; extreme: dense ignorance.
4.
relatively opaque; transmitting little light, as a photographic negative, optical glass, or color.
5.
difficult to understand or follow because of being closely packed with ideas or complexities of style: a dense philosophical essay.

Regarding the second bolded area. Odd how private companies put up fixed wireless towers to serve not "densely" populated but sparsely populated area and who would have guessed they make money with their service.

[nwotraveler]

You are correct the term is sparsely, not densely.

Show me a company making money in a rural only setting that isn't government subsidized, charging 2 or 3 times the rate of fixed line services, throttling speeds and/or capping download limits.

You'll never get fixed line speeds and unlimited downloads in a rural setting. The customer base just isn't there to justify the expenditures.

It's not just the telecommunications sector either, rural hospitals are rarely equipped with the same high tech gear as health science centres. Big box retailers never build in sparsely populated areas, rural municipalities don't usually have water and sewer systems. Services in general are not at the same level in rural settings, there just isn't a large enough group paying into the pot to provide big city services to rural communities.

[Blackroc]

I take it you are in or near Thunder Bay by your other posts. Here is Sask there are a few fixed wireless providers and some do have no caps or download limits. Anyway being that you are an industry insider what is the cost to put a DSLAM into and existing telco building in a small town of say 30 houses.

[nwotraveler]

Not something I'm directly involved with, but there's more than just cost of the DSlam to take into account. Backhaul could be pricey depending on the location. Is there sufficient bandwidth in the area or would new infrastructure need to be built?

These would be questions you would need to ask a planning engineer and a purchasing agent, someone with direct costing knowledge.

There are rural locals in Northwestern Ontario mere minutes from cities and towns still being serviced by dial-up because of the costs associated with setting up copper line service.

Bell has decided against building DSlam's with deferral money, instead forging ahead with plans to build HSPA+ sites to services customers in rural areas.