Lake Waseosa Ratepayers' Association

Spurred on by Jerry's initiative, I have contacted a number of takeholders and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The Waseosa area should be receiving wireless high-speed service no later than this coming September.

There will be 2 primary alternatives:

The first is through the efforts of Muskoka Community Networks. They are a volunteer agency formed to co-ordinate the effort. They receive the Fed-Nor funds and hire the contractors. The old muskoka.com (now Core Broadband) is the contractor, having given up their ISP business. They will construct the infrastructure and subcontract bandwidth out to the various local ISPs for end-user service, so pricing will depend on the specific ISP. At the moment, Vianet and Surenet are signed on as Service Providers. It appears both Vianet and Surenet are charging $50 per month, including $10 equipment rental, plus installation fees starting at $180. That fee may be higher, depending on whether your immediate terrain necessitates a tower on site. Neither one has a hard cap on monthly data transfer. They will not sell you the equipment, you must rent it from them. You must sign a 1 year contract (full time service) or 2 year contract (seasonal service, minimum 6 months per year). Seasonal residents must still pay the $10 per month equipment rental fee during the off-season months when your service is suspended.

The following is copied from Vianet's service agreement:

"New Wireless enrolments have a 1 or 2 year contract. By signing below you authorize that once your installation has been completed and wireless service is confirmed at your location, a one year contract will begin for Standard Residential service or a two year contract will begin on the Seasonal Residential service. On the Standard Residential service you agree to pay in full the monthly price of your service for a minimum of 12 months as well as a one time installation fee of $150.00 and $10.00 hardware rental per month plus applicable taxes. On the Seasonal Residential service you agree to pay in full the monthly price of your service for a minimum of 6 months per calendar year for a minimum of 2 years as well as a one time installation fee of $180.00 and $10.00 hardware rental per month for 24 months plus applicable taxes. There is a penalty for canceling wireless service prior to contract closing date. If you choose to cancel before your contract closing date you will be responsible to pay 100% of the charges for the remaining months of the contract. Cancellation fee of $75 applies to all cancellations unless someone else will be taking over the service at the same location. I understand that monthly payments must be made by automatic credit card billing or automatic bank withdrawal."

Surenet's agreement is very similar with the addition of a requirement for the customer to disassemble and return all equipment at their own expense on termination of the contract. (In addition to the $75 cancellation fee, of course. I'm not sure how they can possibly justify that!) For your convenience, I have posted both forms on our website:

Vianet: www.lwra.net/hispeed/vianet_corewirelessform.pdf
Surenet: www.lwra.net/hispeed/surenetWIRELESS_REQUEST_FORM.pdf

Wireless is primarily "line of sight". It will penetrate vegetation, but not much rock and soil. There will be a main site for Huntsville that transmits to local "base" sites that act as repeaters. They have provided me with a map showing the "Lake Waseosa Base" location. If the map is accurate, they will be erecting a new tower rather than leasing space on the existing one. It will be near the existing radio tower, but further west along East Waseosa Lake Road. Looking at a topographic map, their location will be slightly higher and better centred around our 4 lakes, but they did not provide me with the height of the proposed new tower and that of course may have a huge impact on eliminating radio "shadows". The only way to know for certain if you will be able to receive service at your cottage (or if you will need your own tower) is to have them conduct a site survey after the base tower is in operation, but if you can see the current tower (especially now when vegetation is light) then there's probably a good chance you will receive a decent signal without a tower.

Speaking of additional costs, bear in mind that you may also want to purchase a firewall router for your own protection, as this service is "always on" just like cable.

Wireless equipment speeds are rated up to 3 megabit per second but realistically, I'm told to expect speeds of ~1 mps, upload and download. So it's more expensive and about 30% slower than DSL, but cheaper and faster than satellite. I currently pay a similar monthly total for a separate phone line and dial-up service.

Bell Mobility was ordered by the CRTC to use excess user fees previously charged to customers to extend Internet coverage to rural areas. They have come up with their own wireless internet service called "Wimax Unplugged". They have not been nearly as forthcoming with information, and in fact the individuals charged with answering the phones may not know much. I was initially told it was available to me now, but when I tried to get more information about the service it seems it is not yet available here. They cannot/would not provide much information as to when it would be available but they did say that it is expanding by the month. So, what follows includes a certain amount of conjecture and reading between the lines: Bell is using their existing cell tower infrastructure to provide the service. They are currently deactivating their original analogue cell phone network as they simultaneously upgrade their CDMA (digital) network. They have indicated that this process will be complete by September and they have indicated that they will be using the analogue frequencies for other purposes. My guess is that this means they too will be able to provide wireless internet to this area no later than September.

Bell's pricing is a bit confusing, as they offer a wide variety of price plans based on bandwidth and total data transfer caps. Bell seems to have 3 rate plans, based on speed. All these plans are based on a 2 year contract:

$45 per month provides a maximum of 512 kpbs (1/2 megabit per second) download speed and 128 kbps (1/8 mbps) upload speed. This is still much faster than dial-up, which can't achieve 56 kbps (1/16 mbps).

$50 gets you 2mbps download/ 256 kbps (1/4 mbps) upload and

$60 brings 3 mbps download/ 384 kbps (1/3mpbs) upload.

(bear in mind that Bell is famous for, um, *overstating* connect speeds.)

Bell has a hard cap on total data transfer too. Exceeding the monthly cap looks like it could get expensive fast! For example, a package with a monthly cap of 10GB will be charged $1.50/GB. 10GB is about 14 CDs of data, so if you are a heavy user, it could get expensive fast.

You can either buy or rent your "modem" from Bell. The purchase price is about $200, but may be discounted as low as $79 in a 2 year contract. The
other option is to rent, at $5 per month. There are no installation fees per se: the Bell system doesn't seem to use outdoor antennae. You just plug it in and fire it up. However, there is a shipping and handling fee of $15 and an activation fee of $30 (sounds like they've been taking lessons from their cell phone division!)

One advantage of the Bell service is that you can plug your modem in and use it anywhere in the province where they have service available. You couldn't use it while driving, because it will not hand your signal off to the next tower, but it might be a useful feature in an RV, where you are parked in different locations each night.

I will also add that when I was talking with Surenet, the fellow indicated that Bell is currently installing DSL lines down Ravenscliffe, and he thought that they might be able to provide DSL at least part way down South Waseosa Lake Road in the near future. However, Bell won't confirm the extent of planned future service.