Sunseeker1st

Yet another week goes by and we are still without MEO landline and internet services in the area of the N264, south of Messines. Meo continues to ensure that service will be restored (normally by 20:00 hours, each day) but they have consistently failed to live up to their promises.

There are comms cables lying on the ground at the Frutas Martinho warehouse on the N264, and in spite of advising MEO of this, no action appears to be underway.

The first failure occurred around 13 November. It was 'repaired' by 20 November. Failure of service again occurred around 30 November, and no service has yet been restored, in spite of repeated (almost daily) advice from MEO that this will occur.

We are at our wit's end with them.

liveaboard

They shut mine off; no more copper laneline service to this area, and the fiber isn't working yet.
Yet; how optimistic.
I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if I'd have gotten the letter they sent about it (my neighbor got his) or the GSM router they supposedly sent a couple of months ago through CTT.
I bought a GSM router but it only works if I tape it to the window that faces the tower. And then the wifi it emits won't reach the other half of the house.
No TV on this system. they say the boys will come to install a sat dish for that, wait for the text.

I should have found another provider,
I should have found another provider,
I should have found another provider,
I should have found another provider,
I should have found another provider,
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

sportpix

Well, living in a modern apartment I can't complain about the Meo service as I have a fibre optic line that gives me a strong and stable internet connection. I've just renewed my subscription for another two years and price-wise I can't complain either as for internet, TV, mobile phone and a land line (for which Meo has never given me a hand set or advised a phone number) I'm paying 40.9 euro per month. For the same four items here in Hong Kong I'm paying well over 100 euro per month, and living in a village the system is not especially stable. One thing that did shock me with the re-subscription to Meo was the terms and conditions, which stretched to a whopping 34 pages!!! There should be a law against such stupidity. Two sides of A4 would have been plenty.

Sunseeker1st

I don't think we are going that advanced here. The copper lines are just down between two poles.

Sunseeker1st

In the meantime we are paying about 40 Euros a month for nothing. Hubby got an actual telephone call from them last month apologising and making false promises but said we would not be reimbursed. We'll see!

liveaboard

You can ask for big bandwidth for your mobile to compensate, and they usually do that (it costs them nothing). You can use your mobile as a hotspot and it will provide a connection to all your other devices.
Or you can get a dedicated GSM router to do the same thing, but for that you need another SIM card.

"Sim" card; sounds good in Portuguese.

That's the system I'm forced to use now. It's actually very fast, but the router has to be at a window on the side of the house facing the tower to get signal.
Then it's too far from the computer at the other end of the house to work.
So it goes...

Sunseeker1st

We are connected via mobiles at the moment ... but that is costing us! We are in an atrocious location ... we pay for 4GB and get 1,5 at the most when connected but often ,8!!!

liveaboard

MEO will usually comp the mobile data charge for you if your normal service is down; but you have to phone and moan.

They just deactivated my mobile SIM again!
Probably when the tech guys said they can't install fiber here, the contract went to satellite dish department and my contract got canceled, AGAIN.
I can't even call MEO assistance.

They say there is no fiber line, except there is. Then they said it isn't switched on yet, but it is.
Small town, we hear things.

Sunseeker1st

A woman actually telephoned Husband last week with false promises. He asked about recompense and she said no. Quite some years ago we were down for a couple of weeks in December (big storms). They fixed on 26 December and recompensed fir downtime.

There was flatbed truck and three bods at the site yesterday but not sure what they do in the rain.

How are you communicating?

wellinever

same as in the sun...........not a lot, one working and 6 `aving a fag!!

Shanorme

We us a Mikrotik SXT LTE6 for our internet. It's mounted on a pole on the roof terrace and points at the nearest Vodafone mast. We use Vodafone as the mast is closer to us than the Men mast.https://mikrotik.com/product/sxt_lte6_kit

wellinever

So what sort of difference did it make.
Presume you connect that to your smartphone (android or apple) then use Hotspot inside, or some router or other.
For sure I get a much better signal on my roof, but I seem to be equidistant from 3 masts and my phone (using Network Cell Info Lite app) and it switches from Band 1 to 3 to 20 almost every minute, but I never get less than -105dBm.and proper 4G starts at -100. Down in the town I can get -7odB (if only I could up here)...

Shanorme

Connects to 2 routers in the house (one for either end) and has its own data SIM card. Internet speed tends to be a consistent 45 to 50 mbps download, Varies between 12 and 15 mbps upload. I browse a bit - the OH has loads of Teams meetings and it works consistently. Occasionally, we will watch a Netflix movie, which works perfectly. Just to add, we are extremely rural and the phone line is simply not an option.

Sunseeker1st

Are there options for landlines?

wellinever

Just for comparison, what would a Speedtest give you with same sim in a mobile phone at the location, without any external aerial?