the big pipe

I wrote the above subject line in lower case so as not to scare you. Yesterday, I got the new Rogers Extreme Plus high speed broadband.

I had been struggling with Bell's portable 3Mbps WiMax service. Recently, Bell had serious problems with the service in my area and were shocked when I called and said I was blazing with 162kbps down and 112 kbps up. I tried for two weeks to fix the problem with endless calls to call centre in India and Markham before I finally got to a tech who said that they were having big problems with too much traffic. Gavin strokes chin - interesting. So I bailed.

Back to Rogers. I had Extreme a few months ago but took it back cause it was always less than extreme -- I was supposed to get 10Mbps I regularly got 7 but mostly 5. Sad.

However, with Extreme Plus I am consistently getting 10Mbps when I am supposed to have 18 but I'm on an Apple Express wifi system and there is some over the air loss. I bought an Apple Airport Extreme with n frequency. I will let you know if that helps.

Overall, it is blazing with the Extreme Plus compared to my WiMax. Begrudgingly I say I love it. Ack. However, I work faster, I type faster, I am just faster all round...and a better person for it. Should you pay $50 extra per month for all this speed? If you can afford it yes. If not, well, there is always petty crime to pay for your broadband addiction.

Extreme Plus

* Our fastest residential service for those who want the ultimate in speed. Music, video streaming, downloading large files and playing games. 18 Mbps 9 $1.25/GB 95 GB $99.95 (includes modem charge of $3 per month)

Extreme
* Blistering speed, for sharing large files and much more. Music, video streaming, downloading and playing games. 10.0 Mbps 9 $1.50/GB 95 GB $54.95