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Thread: Satellite Broadband - Anyone have any experiences to share?

  1. #1
    Master Maysie's Avatar
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    Satellite Broadband - Anyone have any experiences to share?

    I am in the process of moving home to an area where the broadband connection through the phone line is very slow and is unlikely to be improved in the near future. As I work from home, I need a reasonable broadband connection speed and it is looking like satellite broadband may be the only way to go. Mobile phone signals don't exist there either, so a 4G connection is unlikely to be a viable option. VOIP, cloud filing and video streaming will all be required daily.

    Does anyone have any experience of these systems and whether they are actually any good?

    I am told they have moved on a lot in the past few years, and the cost has come down, but is that all a load of old flannel?

    Do they grind to a halt when it is cloudy/windy/raining etc?

    All experiences, good or bad welcomed. TIA.

  2. #2
    Master
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    I've looked into just about every option as BT won't install fibre to cabinet to our area because we're so remote from the nearest village.
    There is a Government scheme you can apply to for a grant to pay towards your installation if you're below 3Mps .
    This is the company we're waiting to hear back from with a quote who operate in Derbyshire but at least it will give you an idea of relative costs.
    Satellite access costs a fortune if you need anything other than occassional use
    Hope it helps:
    https://derbyshirebroadband.co.uk

  3. #3
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    what about your own 4G booster? prices have a large range depending on what you want, but it could work out a lot cheaper.

  4. #4
    Master Maysie's Avatar
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    The speed of wired BT is 0.5mb/s. I did see that there is a government grant for the dishes, so would be easily below 3.0mb/s. Apparently they can be around £20-50/mth excl installation costs (which may be recoverable by a grant?).

    I am not sure if 4G is viable. My iPhone showed a 3G connection at the house, but even that didn't work when it came to using it (neither did the 3 bar phone signal either). Unless I misunderstand it, boosting a crappy signal will still be very flaky?

  5. #5
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    Sometimes you can get 4g even when you can't get 3G, for some reason. I assumed they'd be on the same antennae

  6. #6
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    VSAT is the type I think you'd get for home use, has higher bandwidth. On paper it does suffer from rain fade but I'm told in reality modern VSAT just cranks up the power and burns through it. Don't know much about home broadband satellite I'm afraid. I thought it was very expensive but these don't seem too bad (just found via Google so no idea on quality etc) https://www.satelliteinternet.co.uk/new-packages

    Latency is high, for stuff like web browsing they have wan optimisation that can help but you'll never be playing games and doubt Skype will work!

    Edit: you can do voip but the satellite is 35000km away so delay is 1-3 seconds and you could only really do it with people who are expecting that. For normal phone use I wouldn't think that suitable. We use it for emergency comms.
    Last edited by wombleh; 27th June 2017 at 19:15.

  7. #7
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    since we moved to a farmhouse in darkest Leicestershire the broadband (lol) was about 1meg.

    so with 5 people in the house it was not really a choice so I opted for avonline and paid for a dish to be fitted, router and £100 per month for 100 gig of download.

    never noticed anything change around the weather.

    there is a longer delay when pages are loaded. and its no good for online gaming where speed is important, (chess would be fine :)

    movies are fine, facetime is a bit crappy but works. so not the best but if you cant use a 4g router then its perhaps the only option....

  8. #8
    Craftsman
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    Yes, consumer grade two-way satellite internet suffers from rain fade, and is very sensitive to movement of the dish (in the wind). The subscription cost is often multiples of land-line internet services, and the hardware cost is much higher. You are also typically responsible for your own installation cost and maintenance of the equipment. It can also be a godsend when nothing else is available.

    I usually recommend my clients keep their existing slow internet service, and we wire it in as a backup for the times when its needed.

    The first thing you should ask is if ADSL2+ is available in your area. Its a newer version of the DSL service you probably have now, and is much faster. You can also ask if there is a speed improvement for commercial accounts. Residential customers often get a variable amount of internet bandwidth, but commercial accounts can get a reserved allocation. It can make a big difference.

    Another trick in difficult markets can be subscribing twice. When the available bandwidth is limited, some providers only allow so much data per account. One way around this is to get 2 subscriptions and 2 modems, and bond them together. This also works if there are multiple service providers in your area, but none meets all of your needs completely. You can install hardware that links DSL, 3G/4G/LTE, and VSAT together into a single virtual service.

  9. #9
    Looked at it, before Gigaclear decided to kick BTs butt in our area, same as said really long lag. Can cause problems with VPNs, Skype, Google Hangouts or anything that needs a response in a short time. Gaming was the worst, not sure it is the best solution, unless you really have no choice.

  10. #10
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    Found this list of National Providers hope it helps:
    http://www.digitalderbyshire.org.uk/...me/default.asp

  11. #11
    Master Maysie's Avatar
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    Thanks for the advice chaps - all very useful.

    It sounds like I need to do a bit more digging into 4G availability with other providers before I head down the satellite route.

    When I checked our current usage yesterday, we are hovering around the 100-110GB per month, which is much higher than I expected. I cant find a 4G package that offers much above 40GB PCM inclusive.

  12. #12
    Master senwar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maysie View Post
    Thanks for the advice chaps - all very useful.

    It sounds like I need to do a bit more digging into 4G availability with other providers before I head down the satellite route.

    When I checked our current usage yesterday, we are hovering around the 100-110GB per month, which is much higher than I expected. I cant find a 4G package that offers much above 40GB PCM inclusive.
    I'm in a similar situation - my BB is 2-2.5mbps. I can get 40-50mbps 4g in the house but can't get a package that suits due to the low inclusive data. I use netflix daily so am at a similar usage to you as well

  13. #13
    Craftsman jamesianbriggs's Avatar
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    Satellite Broadband - Anyone have any experiences to share?

    I have Avonline - the 'best' commercial package they sell.

    As mentioned, latency makes Skype/VOIP and gaming a no-no.

    It can be very patchy and they will throttle access if things get busy or they think you're using too much.

    It's also horribly expensive.

    We have kept BT broadband as an oft-needed fall-back.

    Sadly, though, it's the only game in town!




    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by senwar View Post
    I'm in a similar situation - my BB is 2-2.5mbps. I can get 40-50mbps 4g in the house but can't get a package that suits due to the low inclusive data. I use netflix daily so am at a similar usage to you as well
    in ireland three have a 20 quid a month pay as you go sim (not meant for BB really) thats unlimited.

    Im using that currently, any similar in the uk?

    heres one for £25 a month

    http://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Pay_As_You_Go

  15. #15
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    I pay 180 quid a month for 30GB limit

    Its as slow as hell however... I am in the Falklands!!!

    By law I cannot use another service provider (Monopoly) therefore you can imagine the Telecoms provider down here is not too popular and when the latest OS updates for phones, iPads blah blah get pushed to a device (practically forced nowadays since most companies assume unlimited data) people get crazy bills!!!!!!!

    When I pop back over briefly its great to have decent broadband however im too busy catching up / socialising to actually use it and hammer the downloads!

    They use the excuse that we are heavily restricted being so remote and using satellite however many friends in the tech word tell me its bull in this day and age, we are getting fleeced for sure!
    Last edited by kultschar; 28th June 2017 at 14:06.

  16. #16
    Master senwar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyrusir View Post
    in ireland three have a 20 quid a month pay as you go sim (not meant for BB really) thats unlimited.

    Im using that currently, any similar in the uk?

    heres one for £25 a month

    http://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Pay_As_You_Go
    Do you ever get pulled for this?

    I used to be on the One Plan which gave unlimited data and tethering but three stopped that. I'm sure they can track/understand your usage and trigger the fair usage policy?

  17. #17
    Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by senwar View Post
    Do you ever get pulled for this?

    I used to be on the One Plan which gave unlimited data and tethering but three stopped that. I'm sure they can track/understand your usage and trigger the fair usage policy?
    not yet

    and if they do all that will happen is that they limit your usage, ill only be down the 20 for that month

  18. #18
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    Have been with Avonline for the last few years since moving to the sticks and tbh they've been pretty good. The downsides have been mentioned before (latency, data limit) but their tech people are good and the call centre is usually quick to answer and helpful. I had a period of high usage and they were happy to send charts showing when and where we had used the data.

    I pay £50 per month for 100Gb and speed is about 6mps download. So we've tried not to stream much, especially HD.

    Coincidentally Avonline appeared outside the house recently and it turns out they were installing FTTP which should go live in the next week or so. Meaning a leap from the dark ages to the 21st Century in one go (previously BT's offering was less than 0.5mps), Zen mentioned 300mps capability this morning!

    If you have no workable alternative then satellite is ok, and never had a problem with rain or other weather conditions. Just choked back a couple of times when we'd run out of data for the month.

  19. #19
    I did some digging around this a few years ago. We had ADSL with about 150Kbit/s speed.

    Pretty much nothing worked, and there wasn't enough throughput to use an add on mobile device, which was then a 3G sure signal, as that needs about 1Mbit to work properly. VSAT wouldn't support voice over one of these devices either, due to the latency of the signal path up and down.

    In the end I just waited until we got fibre to the cabinet. Previous to that, for about 4 years I did most of my work when I needed a mobile signal in car parks or layby's when I had to

    I feel your pain though, as it's so difficult to get anything done without either broadband or mobile of any quality

    Regards

    Tim

  20. #20
    Master TKH's Avatar
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    Well after 30 years with BT I am now free

    Contacted them to look at 76mbps Infinity and weekend and evening calls they quoted £43.99 & & 20.00 setup & £3.80 add on for calls.

    I asked if I could take advantage of the deal they had on web £34.99 no setup fee and £75.00 store voucher !

    The answer was : NO that's for people new to BT not you - " you loyal customer of 30 years" crazy crazy way to do business

    Switched to Plusnet £30 for 76mbps & £4.00 for calls free setup and router will take 10 days to switch

    Feels very liberating


    Hey ho no more Busby
    Last edited by TKH; 28th June 2017 at 20:04.

  21. #21
    Master Maysie's Avatar
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    Does anyone know if there is a way that I can visit the property and then 'test' the 4G signal/speed from different mobile providers?

    Do the different providers/phone shops have 'loan sims' for that purpose, or do I have to reply on the rather optimistic (AKA bull$h1t) maps which show 4G coverage? My phone is locked to EE, so I guess that wont be as straight forward as it may initially sound...

  22. #22
    Grand Master JasonM's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maysie View Post
    Does anyone know if there is a way that I can visit the property and then 'test' the 4G signal/speed from different mobile providers?

    Do the different providers/phone shops have 'loan sims' for that purpose, or do I have to reply on the rather optimistic (AKA bull$h1t) maps which show 4G coverage? My phone is locked to EE, so I guess that wont be as straight forward as it may initially sound...
    You could ask local friends and neighbours what network they use?
    I would suggest a local Facebook community group to ask the question but that requires internet

  23. #23
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    Pick up a few pay as you go sims from other providers and a cheap unlocked smartphone would be the easiest way, I'm sure if you asked round friends and family etc someone would have an unlocked one you could borrow for a couple of hours. Nothing scientific aside from personal use but Ive found when EE signal is bad voda is really good hopefully it's that simple for you.

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