3G in rural Cork

JimDiGritz

Hi,

We are househunting at the moment and will be visiting some rural cottages with a view to moving to a fairly rural location around Co. Cork.

I'm expecting DSL broadband to be unlikely (though as here in the UK you can get lucky with the local exchange), so my plan is to buy a couple of Pay as You Go sim cards (Meteor and Vodafone?) and test the 3G reception.

How would you guys suggest I do this? Would buying a dongle and a couple of sim cards work to test 3g reception on my laptop?

Can anyone help with some suggestions?

Jim

smellslikeshoes

Honestly for the most part 3G is poorer here than in the UK. If you need broadband, make it an important part of the decision which house you buy. There are plenty of decent rural fixed wireless providers in Ireland, if you have a rough idea what area of Co.Cork you're hoping to buy in maybe some people could give you some companies to check with.

watty

The problem too with 3G is that performance today is no indication of performance next week. It only needs a handful of additional users to make the system crawl. The quoted "up to" speeds are for ONE user with perfect signal. If the signal is 1/2 as good and there are 5 simultaneous users the speed can be 1/20th!

A decent data connection needs more than 500x the capacity of a single phone call.

JimDiGritz wrote: »

... my plan is to buy a couple of Pay as You Go sim cards (Meteor and Vodafone?) and test the 3G reception.

How would you guys suggest I do this? Would buying a dongle and a couple of sim cards work to test 3g reception on my laptop?

So your plan is really not reliable.

JimDiGritz

watty wrote: »

The problem too with 3G is that performance today is no indication of performance next week. It only needs a handful of additional users to make the system crawl. The quoted "up to" speeds are for ONE user with perfect signal. If the signal is 1/2 as good and there are 5 simultaneous users the speed can be 1/20th!

A decent data connection needs more than 500x the capacity of a single phone call.



So your plan is really not reliable.

Ok...

Do you have any other suggestions? Or should I just spunk €80k and cross my fingers????

watty

Buy a house that HAS broadband. It's the only sure method.

JimDiGritz

watty wrote: »

Buy a house that HAS broadband. It's the only sure method.

Yeah, that is a fair point, however we are looking at semi-derelict or unfinished properties.

I could ask the neighbours I guess.

Thanks for all the replies, this is a frustrating issue but I guess there really is no simple way to tell when the property doesn't currently have a phone line.

Ah well.

If anyone has a brainwave I would be interested to hear it!

Ta

Jim

watty

There are some very good Fixed Wireless suppliers. But you never know if that will work (and unlike 3G it's usually real broadband) until they install.

lucernarian

You can tell if you can see the base station from the house, for example. It's not a guaranteed method but it would work in most cases.

As for mobile internet services, using this link http://www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/siteviewer.273.LE.asp to see what mobile phone base stations use 3G, along with using google maps to show terrain information, may give a good idea of who offers the best mobile coverage for a particular location. As far as using it to gauge internet performance, rural areas where fixed broadband is also generally available would offer the best chance of more decent performance from the mobile providers, and coverage becomes a more important factor. For example, if you were in Dublin city centre, you could enjoy full bars of coverage on a 3G handset but internet performance would be poor because so many people are using the network infrastructure in the area.

A better bet to gauge performance would be to use the payg method or else ask for a free trial of the internet service off whatever provider you wish to use. I'm not sure what they offer nowadays but I think you can get a trial period of 7 days from them. If the house is in an area where there are numbers of new houses being built etc then you'll find the internet performance deteriorating dramatically over the space of a week even. Though rural areas in general offer a more stable, if possibly poor, mobile internet experience. The evenings will be an issue as more people use the internet, causing slowdowns etc but I suppose that can't be avoided if you can't get actual broadband.

Another thing that can be done is to find some nearby phone numbers and stick them into the line checker on eircom's website. Though asking the neighbours if they can get broadband is a more reliable method.

If you get a house that's higher up on a hill say, instead of stuck in a valley surrounded by trees, you'll have a much better chance of getting fixed wireless broadband.

watty

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

You can tell if you can see the base station from the house, for example. It's not a guaranteed method but it would work in most cases.

As for mobile internet services, using this link http://www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/siteviewer.273.LE.asp to see what mobile phone base stations use 3G, along with using google maps to show terrain information, may give a good idea of who offers the best mobile coverage for a particular location. As far as using it to gauge internet performance, rural areas where fixed broadband is also generally available would offer the best chance of more decent performance from the mobile providers, and coverage becomes a more important factor. For example, if you were in Dublin city centre, you could enjoy full bars of coverage on a 3G handset but internet performance would be poor because so many people are using the network infrastructure in the area.

A better bet to gauge performance would be to use the payg method or else ask for a free trial of the internet service off whatever provider you wish to use. I'm not sure what they offer nowadays but I think you can get a trial period of 7 days from them. If the house is in an area where there are numbers of new houses being built etc then you'll find the internet performance deteriorating dramatically over the space of a week even. Though rural areas in general offer a more stable, if possibly poor, mobile internet experience. The evenings will be an issue as more people use the internet, causing slowdowns etc but I suppose that can't be avoided if you can't get actual broadband.

Absolutely pointless
1) 3G isn't Broadband anyway.
2) There is NO WAY to predict performance tomorrow

lucernarian

Christ watty, what do you suggest he do if he can't get FWA or eircom DSL?! Carrier pigeon?!

In the real world watty, people have to make the best of bad situations (e.g. financial or availability problems) and even if a 3G dongle were to stop working in the morning, the service could be cancelled then. And just because it may happen, doesn't mean it's likely to. Severe slowdowns are a regular occurence and there are clear technical reasons for this but this doesn't mean they are not a solution for some people. To say you can't expect any internet service from one day to the next is extremely disingenuous.

No one here has described the mobile operators as providing broadband anyway.

Seloth

Live in somewhat rural Cork(I say somewhat as I live in east cork 4 miles outiside a town and 20 mins away from the city)

The broadband here for the lack of better words is terrible....Dont get me wrong it works but it is slow at best.

3G...not a hope.While reception is great(With 02 atleast) mobile internet we were told not to even bother trying.

There has been talks for years of upgrading the lines in my rural area(Just outside cobh town on Great Island area) which are apparently coming into effect soon...but again this has been going on for years.

bealtine

Seloth wrote: »

Live in somewhat rural Cork(I say somewhat as I live in east cork 4 miles outiside a town and 20 mins away from the city)

http://www.munsterbroadband.ie/
http://www.airwave.ie/coverage.html

Are just two suggestions...

JimDiGritz

bealtine wrote: »

http://www.munsterbroadband.ie/
http://www.airwave.ie/coverage.html

Are just two suggestions...

Thanks for these!