by: Bobby Zimalis 
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When Covid hit Montreal in March of 2020, I packed up all my stuff and headed to the cottage… I knew that Bell’s rural internet service wasn’t very good but I had to learn to adapt. This article details what I learned about browsing today’s web on download speeds not exceeding 2Mbps.
The Reality of Slow Cottage Internet Download Speeds
For most of the modern world, slow internet speeds are now a thing of the past. Major Internet providers, throughout the world, are now offering download speeds in excess of 1gps, but for some of us however, the luxury of having a super-high speed Internet connection is an unreachable dream, at best.
The vast majority of ppl that live in Northern parts of major cities – in my case, two hours Northwest of Montreal – are faced with the sad reality that the highest download speeds available in the area are usually less than 5mbps.
You read that correctly. ‘Up to 5 MBPS!’ and usually it tops off at about 2.7 mbps.
Basically, old-style DSL connections sending small digital packets of information through the phone line.
Oof.
And as you can see from the image above, the prices ain’t cheap either.
For comparison, in Montreal (130km away), you can find Internet providers that offer 25Mbps Down + 10Mbps Up for around $25 a month.
A few miles away from me, in the small town of Chertsey, you can get Internet packages of similar specs (25+10) at 35$ per month.
TechSavvy, for example, offers a Cable 5mbps download speed package but they charge $29.99 for it where Bell’s Rural / Cottage Internet comes in at 69.99$ per month.
A: 100% YES
Little competition = Costly Monthly Bill.. If they can get away with it, you know they will.
There’s very little competition that covers the area so Bell can pretty much charge whatever their customers are willing to pay.
It’s not a highly complex technical issue either – they connect to the phone line – so it’s just basic DSL service routed through their Wifi HUB.
As long as the Hydro Quebec pole is not too far from your home, the installation is pretty basic.
At my place, a Bell technician had to re-wire the phone line leading to the house – after many issues w/ signal drops – and the entire process took him about 15 minutes to complete.
Where I live, the only other competition to Bell is an Internet Satellite company called XPlorNet .. they offer a 10Mbps Internet Satellite package at 80$ per month but for my geographic location unlimited data is not available and a data cap doesn’t suit my needs – at all.
So, patiently waiting for Bell to expand it’s FIBE network to the Lanaudière Region, is where I currently stand.
Not holding my breath for any fast solution either cause the Bell FIBE expansion project is inching itself along.
My local municipality (Metawinie) is pretty transparent with their community projects so all information about the Bell FIBE network can be found here.
An unwillingness to open the rural Internet market to competition has prolonged the network from being built.
Government folks have been talking about expanding fast broadband Internet to the rural parts of the province for what seems like 10 years now.
The funding is there, so why the long delay?
Talking to the various Bell technicians that have come to my place in the last couple of years to fix some issue (they happen often), I was told in so many words that Bell is just taking their sweet-as* time about it cause they don’t want 3rd Party Internet Providers using the infrastructure to undercut Bell’s profits.
Monopolies gonna monopoly, I guess.
Once the communication lines have been expanded to the area, more competition should enter the landscape so prices will eventually have to drop.
In the area where I live (Chertsey, Quebec), a cooperative has already been established named COOPTEL and they will be servicing the area and their packages and proposed prices listed are incredible:
Unfortunately, in the Matawinie municipality (made up of 27 subdivisions within the Lanaudière Region: Rawdon being the base) the Bell FIBE Project has only just begun.
The two little Green areas shown in the map below are the only areas where FIBE has been connected and the service has been rolled out to the lucky customers.
The Blue Areas represent the areas where Bell FIBE is currently under-construction and the Yellow Areas represent the areas where Bell FIBE is still in the ‘planning’ Stage.
Needless to say, I live in one of the Yellow areas.
UGH!
With the current slow rate of construction, I predict that sometime in 2024-2025, I will see the Bell FIBE technicians & trucks working on the Hydro pole outside my door.
Until then, Bell will continue to be price-gouging its rural Quebec clients and no one, apparently, can do anything about it.
The CRTC states on its own website that the ‘minimum‘ Internet speeds that Canadians can expect in 2021 is 50mbps download & 10mbps upload.
Bell is being allowed to offer 1/10th of that minimum requirement and charging exorbitant amounts for the privilege.
lol
Technically, if all you can offer to a region is a basic DSL connection, then don’t charge crazy amounts for it!
The phone lines are ALREADY THERE!
Now that my mini-rant is over let’s see what you can and can’t do on a crappy rural Internet connection.
Rural Internet speeds can be frustrating. These are the BEST & WORST websites for slow internet speeds.
People working remotely from home is becoming more normal with every passing day.
To save unnecessary costs, a lot of people are moving to the cottage on a permanent basis.
Faster internet speeds, even for remote locations in Canada has to be a major priority moving forward.
50mbps & 10mpbs has to be the standard.
All is not lost though.
Living and working online for the past two years with Internet speeds averaging 1.5mbps has afforded me some wisdom to relay on that matter.
Some Internet activity (basic web browsing, eMail sending & receiving, social media apps/websites, video chatting, ZOOM conferencing) will feel pretty much the same but it will be a little bit slower w/ the occasional signal drops.
Once the page or app loads, the usability will feel the same even on a slow connection.
Some internet activity, however, will be totally non-functional or unusable w/ slow Internet speeds.
So, if you’re moving to a remote location any time soon, keep reading this article to see what you can’t do w/ a slow (under 5mbps) download speed.
These are the BEST websites for slow internet speeds.
YOUTUBE, is still the KING of video streaming platforms .. pretty sure if you still had a dial-up connection, you’d be able to watch videos all day long.
The reason is simple:
EVERY video that is uploaded to Youtube automatically goes through a compression process that creates multiple video resolutions. If your speed is fast enough, you’ll be served the original video quality and if your internet speeds are brutal, then Youtube will serve you a lower SD version of that video.
As long as your Youtube video player ‘Quality‘ settings are set to ‘Auto’, you’ll barely notice a difference on smaller devices like: cell phone, tablet, laptop or regular-sized desktop.
Even Youtube LIVESTREAMS are watchable w/ rural Internet speeds. You might encounter the occasional buffering if your signal loses or gains strength -the video player will shuffle between video qualities- but overall, even long 3-4 hour livestreams will play fine.
TWITTER – the website and the app – perform incredibly well w/ rural Internet speeds.
TWITTER is basically a text-based platform but it does contain a lot of rich media: images, gifs, videos that can slow down the user experience if the Internet connection is slow.
But it’s NOT.
All TWITTER media uploads go through a conversion/compression process to ensure that they load quickly even on slow, Internet connections that you may encounter with rural Internet.
The most surprising part of TWITTER on slow Internet speeds is their LIVE video events.
The video player detects your speed and instantly plays the LIVE video event w/ hardly any buffering hiccups.
So, if you’re a TWITTER addict – like myself – you don’t have to worry: you won’t find yourself out of the social loop and you can still tweet your silly tweets to your heart’s delight.
If you’re working remotely from home, there’s a good chance that you utilize LINKEDIN as your networking platform.
LINKEDIN is a must website for the millions of professionals that work remotely from home.
The good news is that it doesn’t require a super-fast Internet connection to function smoothly.
Since most of LINKEDIN’s features are text-based: messaging console, job portal, etc, even a slow rural Internet connection works well.
But it’s NOT.
Other social media websites / apps also performed well w/ a slow rural Internet connection.
FACEBOOK – even though I don’t use it often – performed relatively as well as can be expected. Once all the bloat on the page loaded, the functionality was usable.
INSTAGRAM – use it even less than I use FACEBOOK – was similar.
I really don’t use any other social media websites like TUMBLR or others so I can’t offer a direct user experience but I assume they all work fine on an slow Internet connection.
REDDIT, the popular social media news aggregator website, is infamous for their ‘server issues’ at the best of times.
Imagine what it must be like on slow Internet speeds.
The website’s magic is still mostly text-based (comments section, AMAs, etc) so that part is perfectly manageable even on a slower Internet connection BUT REDDIT’s ‘Front Page‘ is mostly .gif heavy nowadays so scrolling & viewing the listings can be time-consuming and frustrating.
The frustration grows depending the image (.gif) server location.
From best to worse: IMGR -> REDDIT -> Gfycat -> Streamable
*The following video is an example of what you might encounter browsing REDDIT on a slow, rural Internet connection.
Video conferencing apps like ZOOM, MICROSOFT TEAMS, SKYPE, GOOGLE HANGOUTS and WHATSAPP are all designed to work w/ even slow Internet connections.
If you’re working from home and video conferencing is an important part of your day, Bell’s Rural Internet will not be able to handle anything beyond a 1-on-1 video call.
The graphic above will give you a better understanding of what you might be able to accomplish w/ a 1MBPS -2.5 – not too much.
The websites to avoid and the wifi-based luxuries that will be sacrificed w/ rural Internet speeds.
If one of your hobbies is relaxing by playing an online video game for a few hours a day, well, you’ll have to find a new hobby.
Usually, 3 to 8 Mbps is considered decent for online gaming. Some games – usually multi-player – require 10mbps or higher.
Rural Internet speeds, especially what BELL offers as part of their ‘Rural Internet’ package will not be able to smoothly handle the bandwidth load required by those games.
Unless the event (sporting event, entertainment event or LIVE TV) livestream is being streamed through YOUTUBE, the chance that you’ll be able to view it w/out frustrating buffering issues is slim to none.
Millions watch their ‘TV shows’ and LIVE sporting events streamed through the web. Though acceptable channels or somewhat ethically murkier ones.
Well, with a rural Internet connection that tops out at about 2-3mbps, you can kiss that convenience goodbye.
Occasionally, you’ll find a livestream at 800kbps but most are 1.5mbps and higher so watching a live sports event can be a buffering nightmare if you can’t find a website that offers a video player that automatically buffers at a download speed that your connection can handle.
Netflix recommends a 3 Mbps connection for one standard-quality stream and 5 Mbps for a high-definition stream. Two simultaneous HD quality streams would need around 10 Mbps, and so on.
Unfortunately, NETFLIX’s min requirement for a decent streaming experience is a min of 3MBPS or higher – and that’s for ONE device.
Bell’s Rural Internet speeds usually averages about 1-2.5 MBPS so buffering all night is what you’ll be experiencing.
Media streamers are electronic devices that connect to your Internet and stream digital content, such as movies, TV shows, music, and more, to your TV or other display screens.
Whether your media streamer of choice is an Android TV Box, an Amazon Fire Stick or a ChromeCast, your viewing experience is going to be VERY poor.
Unfortunately, from my experience a 10 MBPS download speed is the min required for media streaming devices to function smoothly.
What Cable TV News websites are viewable w/ slow Internet speeds & which are a waste of your time.
You’d figure that a major News Network like CNN – a global name – would have a pretty snazzy, modern website infrastructure, right?
Well, you’d be wrong.
Of ALL the major news websites that I visited, CNN ranks at the bottom of the list.
Worst culprit is their antiquated video players that ONLY contains the original HD version of the video file.
So, if you enjoy watching Anderson Cooper on CNN, well, you can forget it on Rural Internet.
ALL the other main MSM News network websites worked perfectly well w/ even slower speeds: NBC, ABC, CBS & FoxNews
Rural Internet has come a long way in the last 10yrs but it has a LONG way to go still…
Hopefully, my personal journey w/ Bell’s Rural Internet Service has given you a better understanding of what you might expect if you live in or move to an area that only offers this option.
It’s not great but it’s not the end of the world either.
Having a slow Internet connection in 2023 – regardless of location – is a digital handicap, for sure but it can be overcome if you know what to avoid and more importantly lower your overall expectations.
Thanks for stopping by ..
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