Internet speeds / streaming viable?
 

I've recently bought a holiday villa which I will be spending around 3 months a year in, rest of time I will be renting it out. I haven't yet connected to telephone, cable or broadband, but will need all three.

I have little appetite for TV myself, so I want cheap, cheerful, reliable (well, to a point), with proper 'brand' channels - US channels would be ok if UK ones were not really an option, but I'd prefer UK (both would be nice). Usage is likely to be very light, I imagine, as villa gets lots of repeat guests who are more interested in sundowners than TV, but there may be the odd week where there are kids in situ with Tv on all day...

Internet speed is more important, and I want as fast as I can get for my money, bearing in mind that I don't want to be crippled with something I'm only going to use myself for part of the year. My experience to date in Barbados has not been great, with speeds seemingly very slow relative to what I'm used to in UK, but I may have been unlucky in staying only in places on very cheap deals.

If I were in the EU I wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a large download allowance, and I'd confidently sign up to catchuptv or similar. BUT does anyone know if that is feasible in Barbados? If not, I'd be interested in other people's experience of how they got their telecomms sorted without costing the Earth, and to a standard that other people (very valued paying guests, for example) would be happy with...

Many thanks in advance for replies

Re: Internet speeds / streaming viable?
 

Personally I have a LIME package at home and they have just doubled the line speed. I find the service very reliable, much better than the Telebarbados service we used to have.

We also have the multi-choice TV package.

However I have also signed up to a VPN service which I can and do use to download and access UK tv online, generally on a "catchup" basis. I sometimes use this to watch live UK tv.. for sports mostly.. and find that at some times of the day and for some UK channels this can be a bit hit and miss.

Hope this helps

Ian

Re: Internet speeds / streaming viable?
 

If you don't want to pay for a VPN there are many out there that are free and give you a uk IP address, I've used Expat Shield and it works reasonably well :)

http://s11.flagcounter.com/count/Hrn...0/flags_0/.jpg

Re: Internet speeds / streaming viable?
 

I believe, but am not certain, that Expat Shield is a Windows only program. The VPN I use can be set up on Mac and iPad too.

Ian

Re: Internet speeds / streaming viable?
 

Very good point! There are a couple of others I think but they don't come to mind, I'll wrack my brain to remember!

Re: Internet speeds / streaming viable?