The internet is iffy. Sometimes its amazingly great. Pages load instantly, netflix works like a dream and itunes download in seconds. In as little as 30 seconds the internet is gone completely. Web pages say they can’t load, net flix quits, itunes downloads take ALL day! Usually we just hit the off button then turn it back on again. We have moved the box all around the house to try and find the best place for it. So far it doesn’t seem to matter where it is placed. Our box looks a lot different then the two pictures you showed…it looks a lot more like a regular wifi box…so we can never tell how strong the connection really is. Both computers always say its “average”. Anyways, we hope to be able to get regular high speed internet one day. So far our local providers have “no plans” in heading out our way. The funniest part is…less then 5 minutes down the road people have regular high speed internet. Sheeesh. I wonder about looking into an antenna. That might be really really helpful!!!

Last spring, I drove back to Alberta from the west coast and two of us in the car who weren’t driving were connected to the ‘net sufficiently to get lots of work done, even in the mountains. My only issue is the way Rogers bills for data without providing accurate and timely usage info. It is possible to run into the next “tier” just a day or two before the end of the billing month and pay $10 extra for another 2 GB, most of which expires before it can be used.

The hubs do log their throughput locally at 192.168.1.1 (login required – see manual) under the “Internet” page, but the logging seems to be by the calendar month, so some computation is required,but it is possible to monitor consumption in real time. Rogers also provides a current usage number at “My Rogers” on their website, but it is not updated reliably, lacks a timestamp, and take multiple clicks and waits to reach.

All this is good, but I recently bought a Galaxy Tab, activated it on Bell’s $35 5GB one month prepaid plan and discovered I can use it as a wireless access point. It supplied data to three other computers wirelessly, with no antenna, no heat, and no fuss. I know exactly what my bill will be, since I turned off auto-renew and will receive three emails informing me as I approach depletion of the 5 GB. I’ll be sure to run the plan dry by the end of 30 days and get full value. Moreover, I bough the Tan for mobility and it is always with me traveling and always on, so I don’t need the Hubs any more for traveling. I can just use the Tab’s data and tether to it wirelessly from my netbook! The Tab speeds have been lower than the hub, but pretty fast and plenty fast for my needs.

Last Result:
Download Speed: 3451 kbps (431.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 726 kbps (90.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 70 ms
Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:12:54 PM

I did order the optional external antenna through Rogers(the little small one that sticks to the window) for $59.99, and this helped a tiny bit, but one roger’s tech support guy told me it was basically 1db higher than the antenna that was on the hub, so it was sort of a waste of money, so I returned it. So now I am scouting the bigger external antenna that rogers mentions they sell for $159 and Nerds onsite sells for around $250, but the guy said he would give it to me for $189. I will try looking on kijiji and see if I can find this Yagi-02 18DB or another site that sells it maybe cheaper. I just hope I don’t get stuck paying more trying to do this on my own. The nerds on site and roger’s tech support mentions it mounts to the roof.

The first two hubs I had overheated and just stopped working altogether after about 5 hours.

The tech support and service have been horrendous. They have finally admitted that it is likely a network issue. Evidently if you live near a highway, all those blackberries sitting in cars driving by gobble up the network. They are having network issues all over Ontario. Even so, they will be taking another month to investigate my issue (it has already been 3 weeks since they said someone would look into it and get back to me that day!). If it isn’t fixable (which it sounds like it isn’t) then they will let me out of my contract.

Another word of warning – they do not give you any details about data usage. You just get a bill at the end of the month. How it is possible that I can be getting bills for 5GB of data when I am using it for light email and occasional browsing is beyond my comprehension (and that of the tech support people). I suspect their network issues are causing excess usage, but I am the one that is paying for it.

I don’t know how common these issues are, but they are deal-breakers! I will be breaking my contract as soon as they confirm that they cannot fix the service. My advice would be to ensure you have good speed (not just bars) in the area you plan to use a hub by checking with a blackberry or iPhone in the area you want to use the hub before you buy it.

Honestly, after 3 months on the Rocket Hub, I can tell you that it really and truly is completely unreliable!

We are just outside of Orillia ON and our coverage is terrible. Despite Rogers telling me that we are in a full service area. I have spent hours on the phone with them (from my Bell cellphone, no less!) when our service goes out completely for several hours at a time – which is about twice each week.

It doesn’t take much of anything for us to lose our signal. Even in beautiful clear weather, day or even after midnight, we have “burps” that put us down for 5-10 minutes at a time about 6-8 times every single day. And there are probably more – we only use the computer casually and for school work.

And, of course, when the system is down, our home phone is down.

When the phone is down, there is absolutely NO INDICATION that the system isn’t working until you try to dial out. Picking up the phone when it is “down” will still give you a normal dial-tone and the display on the hub appears normal. Even when the system is working, calls are regularly dropped.

I have had quite the run-around with Rogers as only a few of their tech-support people are trained to deal with the Rocket Hub. As someone else pointed out, it seems that Rogers rolled out the system before they were ready.

I am so regretful that we signed on for the full 3-year term with Rogers. I’d go back to a Bell land-line phone in a heartbeat, if I didn’t have to continue paying for the Rogers system. The $465 cancellation fee from Rogers is a bit much to stomach!

My advice? Of you have ANY trouble whatsoever in the first 15 days … run right back to your store and return the darn thing for your money back. We tried shortly after the 15 day period (about 22 days) and were told that we were SOL. ~sigh~

If I had actually bought the d@#n thing outright, rather then taking Rogers’ word for it that we had full-coverage in the area and going for the 3yr plan with $100 down + $200 deposit, I would be selling it ASAP.

Residing east of Cambridge, we right now have conventional Bell landline and Sympatico dial-up service, and Rogers Rocket stick. I would like to leave Bell services, and if it works, phone and internet via the Rocket Hub should save a significant amount each month.

While my inquiries to Rogers have so far been much more limited than you previous posters, I can so relate to your comments about their knowledge of and response to specific questions about the hub.

You have confirmed my question about the effect of terrain and especially trees on signal strength. Our Rocket Stick, which has worked OK on 1-2 bars of signal strength for a year and a half, has now begun to disconnect frequently, closer to town it works fine, this disconnecting problem since the trees filled in with leaves. I assume that I will need the Hub external antenna, and I appreciate the sources that many have provided. Rogers store was very vague on my inquiry about the external antenna, with no information except a $240 price over the counter. I am not averse to putting together my own antenna system, as some have done, and have an existing 40 ft. tower with is unfortunately not high enough to clear the surrounding tall trees. I an not sure about the distance to their tower, although I suspect it is in the 3-4 km range and not really line of sight.

I was interested in comments that while internet service could be good, that phone service could be poor or even unusable at the same time. I had not foreseen this possiblity and would like some better opinion on this before making a commitment to voice service (which is where I really SAVE) and dropping Bell phone service.

Thank you all for your posts and info. I especially enjoyed the humour of the inital post!

I estimate it took about one minute out of the box to get it connected and working wirelessly here at home to confirm it worked, but the main reason for buying it was to replace our dial-up access at the cottage on the south end of Lac Heney, near Mont Ste-Marie, Quebec. No disappointment there either, although distance from the cell site in Kazabazua means that location within the cottage is critical.

I contacted Nerds-on-Site to inquire about an external antenna, but after two weeks have had no return call. Instead, I found an antenna designed for the Ericsson W35 for sale on eBay.ca out of China for US$18.00 including shipping.

Best results based on a Westman speedtest showed 4.8 Mbps down and 250 Kbps up, which is fantastic without an external antenna, but foliage is a speed killer, and wet foliage even more so, so after a heavy rain the speed at our tree-surrounded cottage dropped noticeably. We love the trees, so cutting them is not an option. I am hoping the external antenna will solve that problem. Either way, for $35.00 a month for 3 Gb is in my view very reasonable. I have combined the Rocket Hub account with the account for my Rogers home phone, HS internet and wireless – will be interesting to see if I get the bundle discount applied to the Rocket Hub as well.

This morning we are back to 3Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. Over the last two months we have noticed some degradation but attribute that to another user in house – going from 4 to 5 machines seems to have degraded the wifi. I guess we are all now sharing out of one “straw” After some in depth searching we acquired the external antenna Yagi-02 18DB through Powertec’s website and are in the process of up putting it to work – hopefully completed this weekend. We have five laptops, 1 PC, PS3 and xbox all connected and when it works it is a great solution for us. I am going to try to plug an Airport Extreme into as well after reading the posts to improve the wifi in the house.

Overall a nice piece of technology but the IP going stale is still a problem so I’m hoping Rogers is still working on this. The home phone and long distance plan make this a good investment for my small office application. Sometimes the bell to rogers cell phone service is nonexistent.

I now have 2 of these so something must be right. lol