Rural residents angered at poor internet service

By Brock Ormond

TRENTON –  Residents from the Quinte region living in rural areas voiced their frustration Tuesday night at a public information meeting about broadband Internet access. 

The meeting, held at Quinte West City Hall, featured technical experts from Internet service provider Xplornet and the Eastern Ontario Regional Network. EORN, created by the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus, contracts Xplornet to provide high-speed services to rural areas in eastern Ontario from the Quebec border to the Kawartha Lakes. Members from Quinte West’s city council were also in attendance.

Residents told representatives from EORN and Xplornet about their experiences with internet services in the area. 

“My internet has been spotty and I certainly haven’t gotten the kind of service I signed up for,” said Bob Williams of Quinte West.

Quinte West resident Bob Williams give his presentation to experts from Xplornet and the EORN at a public information meeting Tuesday night. Williams is a rural resident from Murray Ward and says his internet service from Xplornet has been spotty and that he “certainly has not gotten the kind of service I signed up for.” Photo by Brock Ormond, QNet News.

“All I hear from Xplornet is excuses,” added Tom, a Stirling resident. 

“They said when they put the new tower up on the Glen Ross Road, that my speed was going to increase just like that and it did. It went up four or five megabytes per second. Within three months, down it went. So, you can’t tell me it’s just the signal.”

“When there are three meetings about these issues – Brighton, Belleville, Quinte West – doesn’t that tell you that it’s not just that the cat sat on the router, there has got to be something else when that many people are dissatisfied,” another woman said.

Other residents, who did not want to be identified, told QNet News about issues they have had with the service.

“I’ve done some research into different options and the only one that can service us is Xplornet. Bell just cannot get service to where we are,” one Xplornet user said.

“We have times where it will just turn off and then a couple hours later come back on. We have asked the company to come and take a look and they don’t want to. We are basically stuck,” he added.

“We’ve upgraded to their top packages and have a ton of bandwidth but it’s always down, or is brutally slow,” another user said.

“We have a package that allows us to have everyone using it, gaming and watching videos and you’d never guess that we did because it’s impossible to load a YouTube video 80% of the time. When we wanted to upgrade our package, they put us on a wait list for several months, almost a full year until we could upgrade.”

Representatives from EORN and Xplornet told the public they are improving services in the region.

“People’s expectations and demand for service keeps growing,” said EORN CEO David Fell. “We need to continue to look for ways to meet that demand. So I help with the planning and the strategy and looking for new sources of funding for the region.”

EORN just completed a $170 million high-speed rural broadband network project in 2015. The network covers 90 to 95% of eastern Ontario, according to Fell.

Fell says he has gotten positive feedback from multiple sources with regards to funding for the project.

“The Warden’s Caucus, the 13 counties of eastern Ontario put $10 million into the project. The Ontario Provincial Government and federal government put in $55 million. And so far, we’ve raised $65 million from the private sector. We look to see them make ongoing investments in the future.”