Review by ottawa_guy 
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 4.4 years, 396 visits, last login: 179 days ago
 Ottawa,ON
 $52 per month
 about 45 days
 "Clean installation,"
 "Tech support non existent.... Connection problem? They snuff you off"
 "Use if DEAD ONLY option available."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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In early 2003, I heard of Storm Wireless providing rural high speed to our service area. Being Casselman, Ontario, Cable did not provide HSE and DSL was non existent yet. I inquired about Storm Wireless and a tech came out to do a wireless survey, I was not eligible, so I left it at that.
I then moved away from Casselman, and into Ottawa. Rogers cable and Bell DSL were both available, and since I do alot of upstream traffic, due to hosting streams, I purchased both services. They run very well....Of course you have a bit of down time and a quick tech out to resolve the problem fixed that quite quickly. Those connections run my 1mbps upload requirement being load balanced without issues.
As the cost for monthly expenses in Ottawa became higher, and I am unemployed, only counting on streaming revenues, I thought maybe I would be able to move back in with relatives and get Storm Wireless high speed. I contacted the sales dept and they assured me now since they have a AP on the next street I would be eligible for 3mbps symmetrical service. They did a site survey in April of this year and confirmed that I am eligible. They then booked an install date for late May, since they were backed up for a while.
May came and went, and they did call us to confirm the installation, but since I didn't assure my relatives that I would be coming back to Casselman, they set the install for a September date. As the weeks went by, I decided that I needed to do some testing on the connection, to make sure it can handle 1mbps upload 24/7. I tried to push the install date up to no avail.
I then called another storm rep at customer service, and I have to say it depends on the customer service representative you get, some are very nice and some want you to get off of the phone so fast. He was amazing and was able to push my install up to a Saturday, but for an additional $100.00 charge. I agreed and charged the extra to my account.
He then came the Saturday, nice and early in the afternoon like he told me, he then did a speed test and told me I can get full 3mbps! Considering that I have alot of trees around the house and alot of brush I was amazed! He then proceeded with the installation.
We agreed that he would hook up the antenna to the hydro pole on our property. He aligned it like a satellite dish and all that is installed is a 16inch square wireless transmitter with a CAT5e ethernet cable coming to the house.
He took pride in the installation, and made as little mess as possible, all he had to do is drill a hole on the side of the house to get the CAT5e cable inside. He then connected a Power Over Ethernet (PoE) connection and I setup the PPPOE connection on the laptop and boom, I have high speed internet.
He then handed me the bill, and it was a little less expensive than the $400 install fee on their website. It was $212.00 with taxes, which is very reasonable considering the equipment he needed to install, and the 100ft of CAT5e cable he needed to run
Speedtests are very nice, download came in at around 2700-2900kbps and upload anywhere from 1700-2500kbps. I was able to download files at 307KB/s from Optimum Online's test server in NYC and upload to a server at The Planet in Texas at a varying 130-175KB/s! You cant even get that upload speed on Rogers or Bell!
A gripe I have with the connection, is the dismal 20GB a month throughput limit. A chimp can eat through that, heck its been about 18 hours and already a gig has been put through. There data overage is $1.00 a GB which is quite costly. I phoned customer service explaining that I would need alot more throughput since I would be putting about 1mbps upload out of there constantly. I explained my situation and that I would need 300gb - 400gb a month. He explained that 200gb packages of overage is $100.00 a month extra and I should talk to sales to see if I can get some sort of a deal on the overage.
Overall the connection has been rock solid, streams and webpages come up lightning fast. I could use a bit more downstream but the upstream is amazing for a wireless connection. I will be testing the connection in the coming weeks to make sure that it can handle the load with the weather and the connections going through to it.
I will definitely keep you posted.
EDIT: 7/17/2007 - The wireless service cannot be used as a reliable upstream host. I am looking into dedicated servers to do the brunt of my work, but for casual browsing, this is great
EDIT: 7/28/2007 - Already problems with the service. During the day the disconnects are random...been for a week now...load IE, pings to gateway die, radio reboots, reconnects, refresh page in IE, pings fail, radio reboots, etc... Been with tech support on this for a week, they sound like they don't care two cents about your business.. They better fix this soon or I will fix it with canceling.
EDIT: 8/5/2007
Where do I begin
Well It seems that I am on the "Storm Internet Nights And Weekends Plan". My internet works great with minimum latency on the evenings (usually after 5-6PM) and all weekend long with no problems. Downloading at 340K/s and uploading at the high 200's are great. Speedtests come in at around 2500kbps down and 2100kbps up on average and all is fine.
During the weekdays, that's another story.
Sometimes I cannot load a 128k audio stream, as soon as it buffers, or starts to load the stream, the connection dies. No pings, nothing. Cannot ping gateway or anything of that nature.
I called them on 7/21/2007 notifying them of the issue. Customer service is a crock of shit, they did some testing and told me anytime I load data, the radio reboots and PPPOE needs to be re-established. Once that is done (5-6 packets timing out) I can get a reply to the gateway and get out to the internet.
As soon as I load something (IE Window, Firefox, Winamp, download test, anything at all, even MSN sometimes!) the connection craps out and I lose packets to the gateway, the radio reboots, etc etc.
The guy at customer service escalated it to the slow-ass "Wireless Team" which takes about 50,000 years to get to your ticket.
I finally got a call a week later (7/30) from the "Wireless Manager" after about 12 calls to customer service that week. He agreed that the radio installed initially is defective, and that someone would be out "Sometime in the week to fix it". I am sorry, but sometime this week is not acceptable. I am not waiting around all week all day every day for a technician. I want an appointment!
That week came and gone, and no tech out, no radio replacement, no manager callback, customer service is doing nothing, nada, zippo!
I am expecting a call on 8/7 or else I am calling the credit card company to dispute my $307.00 charge that they billed me.
I think also I will call another wireless ISP and do a site survey, if I can get them... I will ditch this god awful garbage of an internet connection right now. I would be content if someone made the effort to come and rectify the problem, but it seems no one cares about nothing.
UPDATE: December 10th, 2007:
As I write this updated review, I can not get to websites correctly, so I hope this posts. This week the node went offline, again, sigh. I have to imped on relatives in a metro area with a cable or DSL hookup to actually get things done!
When it works, it works well...upload and download 320KB/s or so... when it dies, it dies for a long period of time.... weeks.
The "wireless team" is still very very slow, taking 2 weeks to respond. They show up magically without calling before hand.... there in the neighborhood and think people don't have a life and work.
There typical resolution is, call them, explain the problem, they tell you theres no problem. hang up.
Call again, tell them theres a problem, run a speedtest on their end, see the radio goes away, run another speedtest on the node, ok, reboot the radio, run a speedtest, not good....give customer a useless ticket number, and tell them the wireless team will investigate (which takes 2 weeks or so).
All while they take their monthly charges without issues.
Good lord, they are bad bad bad! Got a nice flyer from Xplorenet, call this number 1-866-841-6001 and it's $99.00 installation fee! I think I will take them up on their offer.
Here is my internet connection today:
Ping statistics for (one of my server IP addresses):
Packets: Sent = 15, Received = 8, Lost = 7 (46% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 81ms, Maximum = 304ms, Average = 176ms
That's very high speed!!!! wow amazing! NOT!
Followup comments:  
Rory
@storm.ca
| Storm Internet Problems I am outside of Russell and have had alot of problems over the last month. Sometimes I can't connect other times I can but it is very slow and keeps dropping. I have talked to customer service a half dozen times over the last three weeks. They have told me twice that they can't see my radio and since the power pack and radio are all outside why they haven't fixed this I don't know. Next week I will be chasing them - this has got absurd. | |
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BigAl67
@gc.ca
| Connectivity I have been having connectivity problems with Storm Wireless since installation, which was for $500. I'd be downloading the proverbial and perpetual Window updates and I'd loose connectivity, I couldn't update with large file downloads. They say that they can see my router but I still can't connect. Other times I would have access but Outlook couldn't connect. A really hit and miss service; reliable, easy or seamless is not an adjective to describe this service. I'm considering cancelling the service iterating that they breached the contract by failing to provide the service, maybe a BBB complaint if I get more trouble. | |
| StormClient
join:2007-11-03
| Storm Internet Service Oh boy where to start,
Well I live in St-Pascal Baylon and since getting connected to Storm internet on sept 2006 I have know only 4 good months of service. It all started out with the Clarence Creek water tower being demolished and Storm Internet not telling us anything about it. Took a full week for the service to be rerouted and from then on the problems just kept pilling up. Modem disconnecting, bad modem, not good line of site, installing 10 foot tower on my roof, good speed for 2 months than bam down to dial up speed again. Service is none existant with Storm. Never know when they will make a house call and when they do they expect you to be home. Sorry but I am about to contact a few officials to encourage installing better service in our area. Can't wait to divorce myself from this service.
Unhappy Storm Client | |
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GaminKake
@storm.ca
| Storm Internet I have to agree with everything I've seen written about this service. It is the only option I have avalable in Arnprior and it is weak at best. I have ab X-Box Live account and gaming on line is not an option with this service. Tried to get issue addressed but tech support isn't interested and responce I got was "X-Box Live is not supported" Was alos told my router might be the problem but I've tested with 5 different ones and have gotten the same results with all; crap. I currently have a D-Link Gamers Lounge and it is having issues with connection. Keep dropping or speeds are slow; last test was 345/91!!!
Keeping my fingers crossed for Bell or Cogico but it doesn't look like I'll have anything for the next couple years but Storm.
It still beats dial up; just  | |
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