Eagerbeave

This is my first post so please be gentle.

I'm looking at buying a holiday home in Hungary but the place we have found doesn't have internet/telephone.

Can anyone advise what the best mobile broadband solution is? How fast and reliable can it be expected to be?

Many thanks

Eagerbeave

I think I can now at least part answer this now. It looks like T-mobile and Vodafone offer the best service. There are pay as you go and monthly contracts available. I'm not sure how good reception is if you are a distance from a major town but I guess the thing to do is to try PAYG first.

tonydilihaz

Hi, I live part time in Szentgyorgyvolgy, near Lenti. I work here writing software for irrigation control systems and designing hardware. Internet broadband is essential to my work.

I started out with a Pannon USB mobile broadband stick, but being a rural village, we only get EDGE here. A horrible 60,000 BITS/second down and 8,000 BITS/ second upload...almost unusable. In Budapest the same stick gives me 3megabits/second down 300 kilobits/second up!

I started to despair, but called into the mayor's office in the village and got onto his office's computer, did a speed test and they had a whopping multi-megabit service. It was provided by a company called Antennaworld and uses microwaves.

A couple of weeks later, 2 Antennaworld engineers arrived at the house out of the blue, climbed onto the roof, peered around looking for the local microwave tower, smiled and signed me up on a 2 year contract. For 3435 Ft/month I get a quite acceptable 2Mbit service, which for more money could go as high as 8Mbit. The aerial is the size of a 200 pack of cigarettes, on the roof; not a nasty dish. No monthly download limit; bloody marvellous!

Depending on where you are going to live, it might be worth giving them a bell 06-30-9575-856. Kovacs Bela. He only speaks German (and Magyar of course!)

Good luck

Tony

Rural Hungary

Hi Eagerbeav, it really depends where you intend on buying and if internet is important to you then please check that you can get it before buying. In many rural villages, as Tony said, the speed for mobile internet is slow, so slow that it really isn't a viable option. Even mobile coverage can be a bit dismal in many villages.
I have a long post on my blog about our problems trying to obtain broadband so won't go into great detail here. Basically we couldn't get it through the phone line as being old lines they had a capacity for two internet supplies in our street, both were taken. Wireless was no good as we did not have line of sight to the mast and mobile was too slow. Our saving grace was our village mayor who had a spare connection in the old village library and allowed an extension to be taken from there and wired through the village to our house. Otherwise we would not have had internet for the foreseeable future. So, if it's important to you, check it out before you buy.

tonydilihaz

I've found Antennaworld's website, where there is a coverage map.
http://antennaworld.hu

if all else fails, there is Satellite Broadband.
http://www.satsig.net/ivsat-europe.htm
Expensive, but not outragously so. Read the small print first.

Rural Hungary

Satellite - ouch expensive, we looked at that Tony and the initial cost was prohibitive.

Wireless - our local wireless isn't the same as yours but it does state that they cover our village. The reality however is that they cover the properties in the village that have line of site. We had the same problem in Ireland with our wireless provider; after cutting down several trees, we received a signal yet our neighbour 200 yards away couldn't.

We were told by t-home that broadband would not be a problem and it was only once we had purchased our property and relocated here that we discovered otherwise. So if anyone is dependant on broadband, have everything checked out before buying.
Glad you found a solution Tony

fidobsa

I will see how things pan out with my place when I get it. There are 3 dishes on the house, one of which is apparently the T Mobile broadband. The owner of the house says she was paying 4000Ft / month but I don't know about speeds or download limits. Hopefully cost will gradually drop, as happened in UK.
Just buying a sim card involves reams of forms here so I don't like to contemplate what is needed for a broadband contract. One thing is for certain though, they will want to know my mothers maiden name!

tonydilihaz

The AntennaWorld aerial is the same size as a 200 pack of cigarettes, sitting vertically. The installers took a while to orientate it, and spent 10 minutes wandering round the roof looking for the best place to locate it. There was a kind of angle bracket which slid under a tile and was screwed inside to one of the rafters. The antenna was then mounted outside.

On comissioning, they initialy esablished communications (through my Ethernet Base100) at 8Mbits/sec down and UP (yummy yummy, none of this ADSL Asymetric Digital Subscriber Link), but I am only paying Ft3840/month for 2048Kbits/sec down and 256Kbits/sec up; the entry level, but good enough for me. They then tweaked the software on my PC to give these speeds, but I know I can have 8M/8M SDSL if I want it.

Rural Hungary

Hi Tony, am I right in thinking they only cover the Zala hills area over towards Lenti, Nova, Guterfolde etc
Nice area over that way, some lovely villages

fidobsa

Thanks Tony, sounds good. If I don't have success with the existing setup I will check that out.

tonydilihaz

I don't know. My magyarul is still embryonic. Here's their website

I've found Antennaworld's website, where there is a coverage map.
http://antennaworld.hu

Rural Hungary

Yes, I believe their mast is over Lenti way and only covers the Zala hills area.

tonydilihaz

microwave is line of sight. there are repeater masts all over the place if you know where to look. frequently on the Faluház. the mast near my village is about 1Km away; you can just see it if on my roof. You are right about trees etc. Bit hit & miss (literally!)
With hindsight, if I was buying a house again, I would say, no broadband, no purchase. I'm absolutely lost without it.

tonydilihaz

Got it. The list of vilages covered in under the title
Egyéni előfizetői csomagok in the menu dijcsomagok in their website. You are right about the area.

However...are there not others like AntennaWorld in other parts of Magyorszag?

Rural Hungary

Know exactly what you mean, we had similar in Ireland and it was a nightmare - especially when windy. That's why I advise people to check, then check again! Heard numerous cases now of internet being available but when asked to be connected they are told "no capacity" Another is being told internet is in the house or can be reconnected, only to discover their guaranteed speed is nowhere near what they expected and actually rivals the dial up speeds of yesteryear One of our neighbours has this problem and there is nothing he can do about it!