Julianna Yau’s blog

A while ago, I was complaining about internet access to Russell McOrmond, and he mentioned Wireless Nomad to me. They’re an ISP co-op offering broadband/highspeed internet access through your phone line, with no caps, and also shares part of your unused connection as a free WiFi hotspot.

The system is fantastic, but it took me a while to switch from Rogers to Wireless Nomad. The reason? I loathe Bell. Really, really, loathe Bell. They wholesale the internet service to Wireless Nomad, and probably to any other phone company I could use instead of them. For the past four to five years, I have been living with only a cell phone because I rarely get calls (thanks to the internet and, again, because of my dislike of Bell). But supporting Wireless Nomad was really something I wanted to do, so the big B is now getting my money.

Getting setup with Wireless Nomad was painless, and David from Linux Caffe even brought my modem and router to me at CopyCamp! I plugged them into their respective ports, and everything was up and running in a few minutes. It was refreshing to not need to configure anything, and to have the option of wired or wireless access.

The speed of the connection is noticeably better than what I was getting with Rogers at their Express level ($44.95/mo, compared to Wireless Nomad’s $36.95/mo). The only thing which might be an issue for people is needing to log into your account to actually start your session if connecting wirelessly. I’m guessing this wouldn’t be an issue for most users who save their usernames and passwords in their web browsers, but I’m too paranoid to do that and am not bothered by having to log in every time.

Cancelling my service with Rogers was surprisingly painless. The “customer relations” guy asked me why I was cancelling, I said I switched to another provider, and he didn’t even ask who my new provider is. He just made sure I already had the new access setup, asked me whether I could return the modem or whether they should pick it up, and told me what the remaining balance was. When returning the modem, there were no hassles, no questions. It was actually refreshing to see that they knew how to handle cancellations properly.

Timeline:

• requested to be added to their membership list at the beginning of March
• received an email saying that they were ready to start the signup process in early April
• phone line setup with Bell mid-April; signed up with Wireless Nomad; received confirmation the next day
• the modem and customized router was ready for me two weeks later
• I got the modem and router a few days later
• time from first email to using their service (including setting up a phone line and going to get the modem & router): 2 months

Comparison of service prices and speeds:

The following information is accurate as of May 2, 2008 from the providers’ websites.