Well, those of you who have read some of my posts before, not always in this thread mind, will know that I’ve also had fun and games looking for “the” rural internet solution to suit my needs. We are in a location that’s about as rural as they come.
I opted for 3G via Telefonica earlier last year and initially it worked reasonably well. Although the signal strength shown on the Escritorio Movistar software, never went better than 2 of 5 bars, the connection speed was actually quite good. Latency was also pretty good, with ping tests rating an average of 200ms, which I didn’t think was bad for something other than a land-line connection.
Unfortunately however, through the course of the year, the quality of the service got progressively worse. In the end, the only way I could even get 1 bar signal strength and any connection, was if I wrapped the USB extension cable (which is only 1m length) around my leg… my body acting as a sort of earth plane!
Fed up of this and continued lack of any support….
Telefonica: “You’re not in a 3G area”
Me: “But why do I often pick up 3.5G then?” (Which is impossible if you’re “not in a 3G area”)
Telefonica: “You’re not in a 3G area….”
Me: “Ok then… if that’s the case… why was I sold this, if I’m supposedly not in a coverage area in the first place?”
Telefonica: “Sorry, you’re not in a coverage area”
...you guessed it, sod Telefonica!
So the search began again! I spoke to a few people I know and did a little research, then got in touch with Inland Computer Services. http://www.inlandcomputerservices.com/
They were very helpful, came and installed the system within a week. Although I’ve yet to need any support from them, I feel confident that if I do have need to speak to them with an issue, they are but a phone call away. They are a British run company, based in Sevilla Province, but will generally travel throughout most of Andalucia.
Some things that people need to be aware of if considering this type of system though, is circumstances such as my own. This option, albeit more costly overall than most options out there, ended up as the only option available to me at this moment in time. I’ve every confidence that Simon at Inland Computer Services will also advise people that this is the case, offering other options if he knows they’re available in your area, such as 3G.
I opted for the Tooway KU Band system and the Silver package, at a cap of 6GB per month/4 weeks. Although the newer KA Band systems are advertised as available, I’ve been advised that currently this system is “full” and that there’s no set date for the next satellite launch (supposed to be November 2010 acording to some sources), which will enable more users. Inland Computer Services aren’t therefore offering the KA Band system, as they don’t believe that people will be entirely happy with it, until there’s more capacity available with the satellite launch. As yet, they’ve no confirmed date from Tooway as to when the launch will be. In all fairness, I got the impression that they would actually prefer to use this system, as it’s the better system for the future, but at present, it’s not fully available and therefore don’t advise it.
My system itself is great when it comes to download speeds, but very sluggish when it comes to upload speeds. The contracted up/down connection is 3.6mbps/325kbps. Using http://www.speedtest.net I’ve been finding my latency (ping) is around 800 to 1000 milliseconds (500 equates to half a second, 1000 a full second delay), download speeds are around 4mbps to 5mbps (above the contracted 3.6mbps), but upload speed has been pretty sluggish and only scoring 0.01 to 0.02 on speedtest. Hopefully this will pick up as the weather conditions improve both here and in Turin, Italy, where the Tooway earth station is based for the Mediterranean basin.
I’ve yet to try VOIP or SKYPE, or anything like Ventrillo (commonly used for online games communication), but will give you feedback once I have. I’m told they should work fine though, even if there may by some occasional delay in the transmission.
On the whole though, general browsing of the internet is fine, as are downloads. Uploading images and such at the moment (as I need to do with my company website, or emails to clients) is very slow. Online gaming, which I have participated in for a number of years (I’ve played Ultima Online MMORPG) on and off for many years, is very difficult depending on the platform due to the poor latency, so anything where latency is very important, then this type of system is not ideally suited. That said though, when it’s the only option available for your location, then overall it’s actually a pretty good setup. I’ve not lost connection at all and during installation, I was shown how to reset the system and router should I ever lose connection in severe weather conditions.
So to recap, if you’re off the beaten track and no other type of system is proven to work, then this is the last resort that may work for you. My own personal recommendation would be to examine the options in the following order:
? Land-line ADSL or cable through your phone line where the local exchange is capable.
? WiMax (In my area, via Iberbanda or CableSur)
? 3G (Via a USB dongle from Telefonica, Orange, Vodafone, etc…)
? Satellite (Via providers such as Tooway)
