Freedom Mobile has set November 3, 2026, as the date it will shut down its 3G network across Quebec and the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
Freedom Mobile has set November 3, 2026, as the date it will shut down its 3G network across Quebec and the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
They better keep their grubby hands off my H+!!! At least until more direct-to-cell satellite options pop up.
It’s OK, if you lose it, you’ll roam on ROBeLUS in your area without paying extra. :D Just make sure your data roaming is activated in your phone settings. I do see the “R” now and then when I’m in bad coverage spot in the GTA.
Never heard of this before and I used to always have roaming on with my can-us plan. But my use case is a lil weird as I actually need the longer range. When H+ is all I’m getting that’s because I’m many KMs offshore with land just barely in sight after raising my phone half way up my mast. Excited for Bell’s direct to cell service so I’m not supporting Starlink through Rogers when I’m 100km from shore in between NB and the Magdalen islands.
Their network setup in Atlantic Canada might be different than Ontario. Don’t know if they have their own infra or whether they’ve always roamed on the existing carrier’s network. Here in Southern Ontario they have their own infra but it only covers cities and major highways. Once you leave those spots the phone shows Roaming, as if you leave the country, but in fact you’re roaming on ROBeLUS. Years ago that would ding you at their “Away” usage rate but for a few years now since the “Nationwide” coverage which is what “Away” was is included in the plan so it no longer matters whether you see the little R or not.
The interwebs seem to claim that Freedom does indeed use ROBeLUS in Atlantic Canada. If that’s true, then you’d never see R cause there’s no switching between their own and the third-party network. Which also means you H+ will work for as long as ROBeLUS keeps it going. :D
Nice. How’s Meshtastic out there?
Ohhhhhhhh the acronym is what threw me off. I understand what you meant now.
As for meshtastic, it’s essentially unused. I haven’t checked out meshcore yet but I barely get any traffic with a 1W node even on the Halifax peninsula and haven’t heard anything sailing around the maritimes so far either.
Kinda miss the CN tower nodes. Did they ever iron out the issues with those?
Nope, the guy that installed them - blacksam - disappeared from Reddit and mesh, as the nodes went offline. I’m guessing he ran into trouble with permission. Maybe whoever allowed them didn’t quite have the authority to do so.
Still we have pretty good coverage with more 1W nodes around. I’m linking South Mississauga with Toronto for example. There’s a guy in Grimsby that links the West end to dt and East end over the water. I can reach Oshawa from South Mississauga through him in 1 hop. So while losing the CN Tower nodes sucks, the mesh is pretty usable these days.
E: Some dedicated bastard has hosted the ROBeLUS logo at https://www.robelus.com/ for 10-15 years now. Still up. 😄
Bummer! I was there when they went up and even got to catch them while out on the lake in the cell service dead zone directly offshore from Toronto. Seems like the mesh is pretty healthy at least! I remember carrying a lot of traffic across the harbourfront when I would anchor out there.
Once I’m back in Halifax I’ll see if a newer version of meshtastic can fix the reboot issues I was having with my RAK 1w node. Next time my mast comes down I’ll run 12v up there and have it permanently mounted 17m above sea-level.
I have several RAK 1W and haven’t had software related reboots. I’ve seen them reboot due to insufficient power though. At some point I fed our balcony node with an outdoors USB-C PSU along with a battery and it hasn’t rebooted since. So yours might be a power issue too.
I had tried all my power sources and even tried powering the transmitter block using a second supply without luck. Thinking about it, the issue wasn’t reboots, it seems like it would get stuck and the heartbeat light would stop flashing (sometimes on, sometimes off) and then I’d have to reset for it to work again. It was cool seeing the range it had whenever I could get it to work for 30 minutes lol
Damn, interesting way to avoid leaving the French provinces.
I wonder what it’s like going from the Magdalen Islands to St Pierre et Miquelon.
That’d be a crossing twice as long so somewhere around 2-5 days of sailing if you don’t stop in NS or NL.
And it’s not the English provinces I’m avoiding! It’s the Canso causeway lock. That darn thing stresses the crap out of me!
The Alluring Arctic has faced greater odds traversing around Greenland.
Oh definitely. Even I have done sails twice that long single handed in the fog. No way I’d go past the iceberg line in my fiberglass boat tho.