Help Please Understanding Satellite Broadband!!!

long_b · 13-04-2015 5:37am

CreativeAnto wrote: »

Thanks for your comments Long_B... I have tried all around the house... and yes we can get a slight signal... it flicks between Edge and 3G... 1-2 bars maximum... I'm kinda stuck with Vodafone with contracts... we have QTY 3 x iPhones in the house... all on contract... so another year or more before I can get out of those.

Is there professional service providers available that could harness this type signal and turn it into a workable 3G or 4G signal It is in our area for sure.... my brother-in-law is less than 1km up the road from me and he has it... I'm in a low lying dip where I live... and it's just the pits with getting a signal.

I used to have the Vodafone SureSignal... it worked great.... but stopped one day and I couldn't get it to connect again. Vodafone don't really recommend using their equipment with Wireless and my broadband provider tried everything... opening ports etc to get it to connect but no luck. They send out a new one and still no joy. So now I have no mobile signal inside the house... except for 1-2 bars of Edge and sometimes 3G over in a corner by the kitchen window.

Thanks again for you comments.

Ah nuts. Sounds really familiar to me. Especially the "corner by the window". Had to move mine outside eventually.
I'm not aware of any professional services who do 3G/4G work but there must be some out there.
Doesn't sound like you have a whole hell of a lot of service as a starting point though.

ItHurtsWhenIP · 13-04-2015 9:39am

CreativeAnto wrote: »

Thanks for your comments Long_B... I have tried all around the house... and yes we can get a slight signal... it flicks between Edge and 3G... 1-2 bars maximum... I'm kinda stuck with Vodafone with contracts... we have QTY 3 x iPhones in the house... all on contract... so another year or more before I can get out of those.

OK so you're stuck with your phones, but you could get a 3G/4G router from some other company (Three or Meteor) and see if that works. Check their website's coverage maps and see what kind of signal you can get at your house (it's indicative only). Whichever seems to give the best connectivity then get the router from them and trial it - you have 14 days AFAIK in which you can return it without penalty - if it works

, if it doesn't return it.

In order to maximise your signal, it might be an idea to get a Router with a connection for an external antenna which you could put up on your chimney or some other high point to pick up the best 3G/4G signal. Search the midband forum for threads on this.

FAILSAFE 00 · 13-04-2015 9:56am

CreativeAnto wrote: »

Thanks for your comments Long_B... I have tried all around the house... and yes we can get a slight signal... it flicks between Edge and 3G... 1-2 bars maximum... I'm kinda stuck with Vodafone with contracts... we have QTY 3 x iPhones in the house... all on contract... so another year or more before I can get out of those.

Is there professional service providers available that could harness this type signal and turn it into a workable 3G or 4G signal It is in our area for sure.... my brother-in-law is less than 1km up the road from me and he has it... I'm in a low lying dip where I live... and it's just the pits with getting a signal.

I used to have the Vodafone SureSignal... it worked great.... but stopped one day and I couldn't get it to connect again. Vodafone don't really recommend using their equipment with Wireless and my broadband provider tried everything... opening ports etc to get it to connect but no luck. They send out a new one and still no joy. So now I have no mobile signal inside the house... except for 1-2 bars of Edge and sometimes 3G over in a corner by the kitchen window.

Thanks again for you comments.

Get a signal booster installed. My brothers business was in a black spot with regard to phone signal. They could barely make a mobile phone. Installer came out to install the unit and calibrate it and now they are full signal with 3G/4G.

mass_debater · 13-04-2015 12:40pm

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

Get a signal booster installed. My brothers business was in a black spot with regard to phone signal. They could barely make a mobile phone. Installer came out to install the unit and calibrate it and now they are full signal with 3G/4G.

Be aware, 3G signal boosters are illegal for me and you to use. The provider can issue them, they have a licence to use the frequencies.

FAILSAFE 00 · 13-04-2015 12:50pm

mass_debater wrote: »

Be aware, 3G signal boosters are illegal for me and you to use. The provider can issue them, they have a licence to use the frequencies.

All done, bought and installed by an 02 rep company years ago. The difference was incredible.

The Big Gun · 05-05-2015 2:33pm

CreativeAnto, I live in Fornaught, vodafone are doing me no favours.
My nextdoor neighbour recently installed satellite broadband, didn't get a chance to ask him yet what it's like.
KN Network services were installing cables near Josies last week, should help. Really does look like Eircom are the best bet.

CreativeAnto · 05-05-2015 5:36pm

Hi Big Gun....

I'm just down the road near Regina's & Will's burnt down bungalow.... I have had everyone out here.... literally... Eircom also... but I'm on carrier lines and even if I sign up for new install, an extra number in my house they won't run the proper cabling to my home.

I recently got a Meteor Mobile Broadband unit as there is one window in my home where I can get 3G signal... I can get 5 bars of 3G there and the speeds can range from 5MB to 8MB to 10MB and all the way back down to 3MB and drop off altogether.... it's only as a Plan B for when Cork Community Broadband's network goes down mostly due to battery power outages. But that's an extra €25 on top of the €73.80 I'm already paying... it's a nightmare... all in a quest to try and get a modern connection, sooooo frustrating. Cork Community Broadband do a great job but I just don't think their network was built to deal with the high demands of modern and multiple devices and streaming services that homes all now have.

I was going to go all Satellite as a final resort... but I spoke to a rep at Eurosat and he even advised me with my 3MB down and 2MB up that their 20MB down wouldn't deliver much of a difference speeds wise and there are lots of other limitation also. So I would love to know how your neighbour is getting on. I would be a heavy user as would my family of what little we have.

I think our only hope is to wait for the whole Vodafone/ESB partnership to rollout... but that could be closer to 2020. eFibre is coming to Donoughmore.... as I was looking up the Governments Broadband's Strategy and Eircom's recent announcements and definitely it's on the way.... but it will be for people living within 2km of the exchange. Again, so disappointing.

Thanks again for your reply and comments and I will keep you posted if I hear of any developments.

Regards,
Anthony

The Big Gun · 06-05-2015 10:37pm

Our neighbours are with Nova Broadband, for settup of €150 & €47/month they have upto 10 Mb download, today it was 9.96Mb, & it's stable. Their dish has line of sight to the transmitter in Bweeng (there's another in Whitechurch)

They've no problem in you getting in touch, so PM me for number if you want more detail, they're great people.

At the mo in our house, our download is 0.89, usually around 2.0.

The work that was done by KN Networks on that pole that I was on about looks promising, if they put in a box there, we could all be laughing.

If you have any more queries, just give us a shout, this area is wonderful to live in.

Vic.

CreativeAnto · 07-05-2015 9:01am

Hi Big Gun...

I'm very pleased for your neighbour and that have been able to secure a solid connection.... I was Nova's first new customer to sign up when they launched their new mast.... and their first installation call.... but alas... again I was faced with the dreaded... "very sorry.... we can provider you with our service" due to a small forest located directly in the line of sight of my home.... I really hoped after all the other rejections... that this one would work... even with just the law of averages.... but not to be.

I spoke to my wife about that work you mentioned KN Networks were doing... and she reckons that's only to do with a fault on someone's phone line up near Josie's... as Sean O'Shea, a local painter, decorator guy that we have used many times only met and spoke about the issues he was having with his phone line with her only a week or so ago.... he's located a few houses back our way from St. Joseph's Church.... is that the same KN Networks activity you are talking about ?

I totally agree about your comments about this area.... we love it too much... to have a good quality broadband connection would just be the icing on the cake. Someone suggested I move back into the City.... but that's never going to happen... I know in time a high quality system will arrive... it's just a matter of riding things out for now. We are here now 14 years and it's the best move we ever made... our daughter is very happy and loves the local Firmount NS with all her buddies.... so a move is never going to happen.

Nice to meet you Vic... and Vive La Donoughmore!!

Regards,
Anthony

ED E · 07-05-2015 10:35am

Its possible that Eircom have KNN running fibre in preparation for NGA services in the next ~year. Or they could just be doing repairs.

Donoughmore

Estimated date for first Live Fibre Services is 2015/16

BTW it sounds like if you could rope a neighbor in you could get Nova from a nearby point and then Point-To-Point it to yourself.

CreativeAnto · 07-05-2015 10:49am

Cheers ED E for your comments and suggestions... )

I will try and find out from Big Gun where this neighbour is... it might be worth checking for sure.

Regards,
Anthony

keithclancy · 08-05-2015 12:40am

Hey OP, why not just install a Parabolic Antenna on your roof ?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-ANT2424B-2-4GHz-Parabolic-Antenna/dp/B002EIF2OK/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1431041845&sr=8-14&keywords=3g+antenna

The Big Gun · 10-05-2015 8:44pm

CreativeAnto,
I believe KN were upto a lot, the pole is just left of Josies, scribed with all kinds of techno code, we are the other side of the Resource Centre, at Crois Na mBan (that'll test ur local knowledge!) only joking, I'm a blow in, house name "Sliabh Daire", gimme a shout anytime if u like, more than happy to say hi, u know me to see alright.

Vic.

CreativeAnto · 12-05-2015 11:05am

Since I started up this thread I did try out a Meteor mobile broadband device that I have stuck to a specific corner of one window in our home that is giving us 5 bars of 3G signal... it's now costing me €29.99 per month for a 30GB cap... but it is a working Plan B incase my main network goes down. The speeds with the 5 Bars can differ.... but I can get anywhere from 3MB to 8MB download speeds... and sometimes I even get 1 bar of 4G and my speeds can dramatically increase up to 12MB downloads. Still.... so frustrating that I can't have a high speed connection.... just little sniffs of one!!

Thanks again for everyone's helpful comments and suggestions. It's been a very well worth exercise getting to hear what other people think and the advise of one contributor to even explore that mobile 3G route is what delivered me a viable solution...

So thank you again to everyone that commented and contributed.

Roll on the Vodafone/ESB initiative... that will hopefully be all our salvation when it finally arrived in 2020!!

Anthony

Knasher · 12-05-2015 1:34pm

You mentioned your brother in law is about 1 km away. If he has better broadband that yours and you can see his place, it might be worth considering setting up a wireless link between ye.

The Big Gun · 04-08-2016 9:22pm

Hi Anto,

We installed Imagine LTE broadband today, incredible result, highly recommend them.

Help Please Understanding Satellite Broadband!!!

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