Satellite Broadband

sirrah

Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for satellite broadband, need to do something as we are in the country & no sign of eircom to bring broadband here anytime soon

demanufactured

Are there any fixed wireless providers in the area?

sirrah

We just have the normal landline, asked SKY and they said we couldn't get broadband

ElNino

Check the Ireland offline map to see if you have any Fixed Wireless operators in your area and ask for opinions on them here
http://irelandoffline.org/map/

Satellite Broadband should be your absolute last resort.

Roynie

We have the same problem. We have tried Ripplecom, but they have no weekend support and that's when the service is very flaky so we dropped them. We then went to Vodafone and tried 3, but Vodafone is the best around here abd we get the 4G signal quite strong. The 3 signal was poor and we were in the NBS area so they installed satelitte dish for free. The probelm then was that we were switched to Digiweb who doubled the cost, and the signal wasn't that good and it was slow. It would suggest finding the best 4G signal and go wireless broadband.

Jimllfixit

Hi

I live in S. Cork, tried a local provider, the dish was installed, the installer professed himself happy, and showed me a download speed of 7 Mbps as he was tidying up to leave.

I thought this was a little lame compared to the "UP TO" 20 Mbps so over the last few weeks, so I started keeping a note of the up- and download speeds using Ookla.

To my horror & amazement, I never saw better than 8.2 Mbps day or night, and most of the afternoon & evening it was under 0.4 Mbps, which is WAY worse than my Eircom phone line at a reliable 1 Mbps.

The provider said they could not explain why the speed never got to 20Mbps and volunteered to remove the dish with a full refund without even being asked.

I got onto other providers, and they ALL immediately got cagey when I asked about the maximum speed they could actually achieve, even thought their websites all claim "UP TO" 4, 8, 10, 20 or 22 Mbps depending on how much you decided to pay.

One of the providers actually admitted that there was a huge amount of congestion on the satellite they use, which causes the average speed to drop drastically.

So I have come to the conclusion that the satellite operators have sold more bandwidth than they can provide, and that the resellers are similarly relying on people being delighted with the speed when they first try it, compared to their 1MB Eircom broadband. Phones and PCs etc are obviously much more athletic at even 8 Mbps compared to 1 Mbps from the phone line, but wait until 6 - 10 PM, and you might as well use a carrier pigeon.

In conclusion: don't bother with satellite unless you plan to use it from 11PM through to 7AM. And IF YOU DO, make sure they can demonstrate the maximum up-to speed AT LEAST ONCE in the first week.