olivefarmer

The time has come to switch suppliers.

I am currently with Movistar 3g. Max of 1.5 Meg to a Min of nothing(quite irritatingly regularly now). No cable or copper for miles.

I cannot see any of the 3G providers(or 4G) being any better in the future plus they are limited in how much bandwidth you can consume each month. I get through 5GB each month but could use a lot more especially if Sky TV goes in Andalucia and I have to download favourite programmes .

So alternatives?

1. Satellite Tooway looks the best easy bet but has monthly limits too.

2. Iberbanda Wi max. Have had them out twice to survey. Both times we could have service if we erect a twenty foot mast on our house. Don't want to do that on technical and aesthetic grounds. Could possibly erect a mast 150 feet away but how do I get the signal to the house? Part of our land does have "green coverage" on their website map. Just how would one go about getting repeaters or bounced off service off someone elses house with direct line of sight? Anyone done any of this?

3. Something else.

Any comments please?

Casa Santo Estevo

So what is more important 6 metre long pole and internet or aesthetics? This option is more pleasing tho the eye than a dish.

andyrich666

Explain the mast further as the way you describe is you have a mast with a Dish of some kind and that would be wired to the house ?

so the 150ft away would just be a long cable from the mast to the house.

I also understand the aesthetics but for me I am one of them people that would suffer it, as it may be more important the internet than the looks, but I am one of the people that love anything that gets in the way be it a skyscraper or a wind farm, so long as I can see the sun........

pete_l

I have a WiMax connecton (I'm using it now).
Essentially you have a small (30cm) dish with a fair amount of electronics where the LNB would be in a satellite dish - enough electronics that the unit gets warm when operating. The dish has one cable running to it. This sends ethernet back to the house and also acts as a Power over Ethernet (PoE) supply to provide the head unit with juice.
In the house are 3 black boxes: One deals with the ethernet connection, one provides the PoE supply and the third is a WiFi/router as per. usual.

My cable run to the dish is about 15m. I don't know what the upper limit is, distance-wise. My dish points to a "node" (some sort of repeater) tied to a local electricity pylon that forms part of the local network. It appears to "bounce" the WiMax signal towards my and a neighbour's house and then sends it onwards, through a chain of repeaters to a main "node" about 15km away in the closest town. Each repeater needs access to mains electricity.

This setup also gives me a "landline" phone.
Everything has to be line of sight: one node to the next - no trees or other obstructions. You also need to be aware that if WiMax coverage to your property is marginal, you might only be able to have a reduced service. Because of the distances involved, I am only able to get a 1MBit/s internet connection - so slower than 3G, but no transfer caps.

flotsum

I have been using tooway in the campo for 18 months, we had the dish sited on a patio corner wall slightly away from the house but pointing in the right direction. the cable only has to run about 3 metres into the house We have 20gb a month which is the second smallest package, however we do not use it to watch TV very often. It is through a UK provider so we have a UK Ip address which means that we can get BBCi player etc. Wii Max said they could give us service but on the day they actually came to fit it they changed their mind! When we do watch live TV via the internet the amount of download it uses is staggering, we just wait to the end of the month and then use up our allowance on the last couple of days. We also have a VOIP phone though the satelitte reciever, the literature says it should not work but it does! We do occasionally find the internet drops out for a few seconds but still much better than the dongle option we were using prior to this.

JB80

I find it hard to recommend satellite unless you absolutely have no choice, I can't speak for tooway however so maybe they are better.
We have a 22GB allowance which frankly is a pittance, forget watching any type of video unless you want your allowance gone in two weeks. Skype is useless due to latency, it might be doable if you actually get an upload speed over 1mb but you don't.

I also have no idea where they pulled their speeds from because I'm lucky to get 10% of the quoted speeds, it was nearly 20% but seeing as the original package was not suited when you upgrade to 22GB they slow it down a bit.

It's fine for general browsing though if a bit slow and twice this week it's dropped out for a few hours.
All in all though we are going to get a Wimax guy to come and test and if possible like he claims we will install that and pay for two contracts until we can cancel the satellite.

flotsum

We use skype daily it has good days and bad days, on the whole more good than bad providing we remember to wait until the other person has finished talking! On a bad day we find taking the video option off usually sorts it out these days are usually when my husband has poor reception where he is based. Our download test last week was 18.3, upload 5.72, latency 756, jitter 127 and packet loss nil I do not know what all the tests mean! I was doing them to investigate our dropout, the company says these are expected norms for our service I did 4 tests in 2 hours these were the average. Turns out the dropout was the wifi router! With the telephone we do get more unconnected calls, however we tell everyone to ring straight back and they get through the second time .

JB80

With 18 down and 5 up that should be fine for resolution, as you say you need to wait for the other person when using skype which is doable but our provider doesn't give us anywhere near those speeds although they claim too. If we got those kind of speeds I'd nearly be happy but I can't live with capped internet.
You just can't send enough data with an upload of .15.

pete_l

I considered Tooway as they offer faster speeds than my WiMax connection. However they are too inconsistent in what they call a "heavy user" (greater than 5GB/week during peak times, subject to the satellite provider's whim) and how they limit their "unlimited" usage (again, dependent on the satellite providers arbitrary decision). So I opted for the certainty and integrity of a provider who delivers what they say, and didn't contradict their own advertisement claims with * style "small print".

Cats-R-Us

Your location says Andalucia but it is a big area. We are in the north of Granada Province and a few years ago a new provider appeared to challenge Telefonica (movistar) and Iberbanda. In this area a lot of us have gone over to Habland. It is, I believe, a microwave connection but we are having no problem with our internet or phone (which they can also supply with or without the internet set up or the other way round). Telefonica were charging us 70 euro a month for a landline and rural internet service. Habland are charging us just under 24 euro a month. We can also upgrade (as friends have done) to a higher internet download so they can download films or tv. We have had no problem with their service and would recommend then to anyone who can use them.

olivefarmer

I'm bang in the middle of Andalucia on the edge of Malaga/Cordoba/Granada provinces.

I had never heard of Habland. Interesting offering. Their coverage doesn't reach this far West sadly otherwise I would be tempted.

I wonder if there is a similar company covering our area>. I will drop Habland an Email asking if they have plans to expand.?

I think the Iberbanda with a house "mast" is a non starter so that leaves Tooway with its limits.

Cats-R-Us

Habland e-mail address is: [email protected] and you can send it in English as the boss there, although Spanish, speaks very good English.

olivefarmer

Already had a reply from Antonio.

They don't cover our area(and no plans to) but he said he would have a look out for anyone else covering it and let me know. Switched on