So you may have heard us mention a few times already that oxio is a TPIA provider. Well, in case you’re still wondering what the heck that means as a customer, we’re here to help remove that shroud of mystery.
TPIA stands for Third Party Internet Access.1
If you first want to know more about the history of this in Canada, you can read about it in our article “What’s the deal with Canada’s internet?"
For the purpose of this article, we are going to further clarify what that means for YOU as an oxio internet customer - or non-customer just looking around. Either way, you may find this helpful.
Let’s get to it!
Does oxio own their own lines?
The short answer is no.
TPIA providers like ourselves will use existing line infrastructures put in place by the big telco players in Canada. Some you may recognize include: Cogeco, Rogers, Bell, Videotron, Telus, Shaw, and Eastlink.
Our service operates on these lines to your home and we pay a sort of “rental/lease fee” per customer to use them and access that last mile to your home. In a way, this also helps prevent Canadians from having too many lines or cables running to their home, which can just cause more headaches and confusion than having just a couple.
Wait, does that mean if there is an outage for one of these providers, will my oxio service cut out too?
Unfortunately, yes.
Some of you may remember the great Rogers outage of summer ‘22. Because the Rogers network was down, that also meant any oxio customers who had our service on the Rogers line to their home, also experienced loss of service. While we don’t enjoy pointing the finger anywhere, many issues with service can occur due to damage or degradation of these lines to your home or a nearby node.
Just note that loss of service is considered irregular and should not happen. If this continues after resetting the equipment, our customer care team should be reached out to for further diagnosis of the issue:
https://oxio.ca/en/support.
Is there such a thing as an oxio technician?
While we do have a wicked in-house Tech Support team that operates remotely, there are no actual “oxio technicians” that will come to your home.
Why?
Well, as mentioned in the section above, the lines are owned and operated by the big telcos. That means anything related to the lines including activations are handled by technicians from the line provider. Plus, not having the added cost of owning and operating an entire technician team across Canada plays another factor in helping to keep the cost of our services at sustainable rates for customers!
So who activates my service?
Your services are activated by the line/network provider. In particular, their designated TPIA department. When you sign up with us, we send an activation request to the provider, and they will process and confirm the activation.
Don’t worry, it’s the TPIA provider like us that will contact you and keep you updated. No need to worry about a sales department of a big telco reaching out to try and lock you in some sort of term contract.
Ew. Term contracts…
Can’t you just flip a switch and turn my service on?
If that were possible, we’d be more than happy to do that for our customers. Because our service uses the lines of big telcos, they are responsible for “flipping the switch” and processing activations for us.
So for example, if you’re a new west coast customer of ours in big, beautiful, British Columbia:
- After completing check out we send an activation request to the line provider for this province (Shaw), and they will be handling the activation of our oxio internet services on the line to your home.
- Once they have confirmed the activation date that this will take place, we send you an automated message with the date.
- Then you will know when to connect your shiny new oxio equipment and start surfing the web, binging Succession (or whatever HBO show is currently trending when reading this), and anything else you do online!
Well, what are the advantages then of choosing a TPIA provider like oxio?
We don’t say “Internet without all the telco bullsh*t” on the homepage of our website for no reason.
No more having to wait on the phone for hours to get a hold of someone at a big telco, only to be transferred to another department, then put on hold again. We take care of this part for you. Just send us a text and go about your day!
No more term contracts where your monthly rate suddenly doubles without you knowing. Since we have no term contracts that also means you can cancel anytime with zero cancellation fees… but we’ll still be sad to see you go!
No more bargaining, installation fees, hidden deals, or extra costs. The internet was made to be shared, and that’s without all the extra baggage. When the CRTC implements changes and the “rental/lease rates” go down, TPIA providers like ourselves will actually drop your monthly rate at times, instead of keeping the extra profit. Can you ever remember one of the big telcos doing this? We don’t.
Having TPIA providers available in the internet market fosters competition which means better and more affordable pricing for you!2 As well, having a little friendly competition between independent ISPs and big telcos ensures everyone is constantly innovating so customers can get the latest and greatest of internet tech. *ahem, eero 6 routers.
The choice is yours! Whether you choose to go with a TPIA provider like oxio, a big telco, or take to the skies with satellite internet, we’ll still heart you either way.
Thank you to the rest of the marketing team for their continued support and David for always being able to spice up the thumbnail!
