North West Electronics BB

CelticTigress

I live in a remote area of north west Donegal not served by Eircom broadband or the NBS, and unreachable by any mobile broadband provider. (Can't even get a phone signal half the time.)

I've recently seen ads for North West Electronics satellite BB ("Blue Box") but have also seen a post on here in which it was basically rubbished and warned people to avoid it like the plague because it had become as bad as dialup.

Has it improved at all? Any comments welcome.

It didn't seem madly expensive (for satellite) so if there's any hope at all of finally getting some kind of broadband to my home I'd give it a go, but don't want to outlay the cash if it's not worth it.

bhickey

Maybe another thing to think about is that no matter where you are in the country there is always the option of connecting to someone else's broadband via a wireless link. So if you can see any house (no matter how far away) that has access to broadband and is willing to share it then the technology is already there to connect your house wirelessly to theirs.

CelticTigress

bhickey wrote: »

Maybe another thing to think about is that no matter where you are in the country there is always the option of connecting to someone else's broadband via a wireless link. So if you can see any house (no matter how far away) that has access to broadband and is willing to share it then the technology is already there to connect your house wirelessly to theirs.

How would a house near me have access to broadband if there is none available in the area?!

The nearest houses to me are holiday homes occupied, on an infrequent basis, by visitors from the North. Unlikely they'd have any super-duper satellite system installed.

If I drive 2 miles and take the laptop I can get access to wi fi at McGrory's in Culdaff... but not much help when I'm sitting here at my desktop.

Anyone have any thoughts on the NWE Blue Box?

jor el

Satellite is not broadband. If it's cheap, then it's probably one way (requiring dial up or something else for the upload), and therefore just a download accelerator.

There are lots of satellite providers, most of which just re-sell the same service, and any provider should be available in your area, as it's not exactly a localised service.

watty

Basically Tooway is the only Satellite Capacity left in Ireland. Might be cheaper or better next year if Kasat launch is OK

Digiweb and Satellite Broadband Ireland are the two main resellers. Digiweb is the only Major Wireless + fibre + DSL ISP that is also a major satellite installer/Reseller.

Cap is low unless you pay about x4 regular BB prices.


BUT
North West Electronics seem to be mainly a Wireless provider.

http://www.nwewn.com/coverage_maps.php
http://www.nwewn.com/cns/cns_project.php

Quote
"ITS NOT SATELLITE ITS WIRELESS BROADBAND"
http://www.nwewn.com/company.php

However if they have a poor reputation for quality of service you want to check it out more.

bhickey

CelticTigress wrote: »

How would a house near me have access to broadband if there is none available in the area?!

I said "if you can see any house (no matter how far away) that has access to broadband". By that I mean ANY distance (e.g. up to 10-20 miles). As long as you can see it (or its roof) from your roof then the option is there. If, on the other hand, your house is deep in a hole in the ground then it won't work. Line of sight is the most important thing.

CelticTigress

bhickey wrote: »

I said "if you can see any house (no matter how far away) that has access to broadband". By that I mean ANY distance (e.g. up to 10-20 miles). As long as you can see it (or its roof) from your roof then the option is there. If, on the other hand, your house is deep in a hole in the ground then it won't work. Line of sight is the most important thing.

Gotcha...

There are 3 towns with broadband not far away, 2 are behind hills so not in line of sight, and the 3rd might provide a possibility if I could find out who lives in the houses I can actually see from mine!

TheCelticWizard

bhickey wrote: »

Maybe another thing to think about is that no matter where you are in the country there is always the option of connecting to someone else's broadband via a wireless link. So if you can see any house (no matter how far away) that has access to broadband and is willing to share it then the technology is already there to connect your house wirelessly to theirs.

My Mother's house is in a situation where this would work, what's involved in setting it up?

bhickey

TheCelticWizard wrote: »

My Mother's house is in a situation where this would work, what's involved in setting it up?

The equipment required depends mainly on the distance between the two houses. What is the distance between the 2 houses? Typically, a unit like this would be mounted on a pole or a wall at each end :



An ethernet cable would be connected from the broadband router inside the house to the unit outside and similarly at the other end an ethernet cable would run in from the other unit to the inside of the house to provide broadband at the other locationn.

Now the bad news : the units can cost about €150-200 each and of course mounting them correctly and aligning them is not a trivial task, especially if you have to mount them on something like an aerial pole.

However, given the monthly cost of broadband, the cost of setting a link like this up would pay for itself within a year. Also you might even decide to share the broadband again to your own neighbours who are no doubt in the same pickle as you.

macrubicon

Having personal experiances of NWE they are greatly improved, but like any wireless provider it will all depend on location, line of sight and how many people are in your area etc.

A lot of the negative stuff up here is several years old but they have been investing hevily over the last few years and a lot of the old issues have been resolved.