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Wireless Internet For a Rural Community
Posted: 29 May 2008 05:15 PM   [ # 31 ]  
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We had Telefonica up until we moved to Monda 6 months ago. Telefonica were fine, their service was good and they installed in quikck time, until…............we tried to cancel our contract with them. Our line is still connected despite phone calls and faxes confirming we no longer wanted the line because we were moving.

We have now received a letter stating they want to collect over ?237 for un paid bills - laughable! Of course we will NOT pay as we have all the details confirming that we did indeed cancel, typical of Telefonica. I have come to learn that there are many customers out there with similar problems. Telefonica have just lost many small claims against them for this type of service (on Spanish news), I cannot remember the amount in ?s that was mentioned but it was a considerable amount lost.

We then decided to use Connecta4, they came to the house we wanted to buy and confirmed internet could be installed in the house, and also confirmed we could have 2MB line that we wanted and needed to run our business.

Since then we have had nothing but trouble, they installed and then told us we could only have 1MB line (not on), they then started charging me too much from the bank account, the people on the telephone are rude and couldn’t care less if the internet is down or not, I seem to spend a lot of my time calling and complaining the internet is down. We got to the end of our tether a few months ago and have just had another internet supplied and we now run the 2, we are testing a new service for InfoCasa and so far the service has been great, we now get 4MB, their service and installation is cheaper than Connecta4 and their monthly fee is less than Connecta4 for 3MB a month more!

Unfortunately, they are only supplying the Marbella and Fuengirola area at the moment but I know there are plans to expand but they want to get the service right before they start handing it out to clients (which is what every company should do!), I imagine we will test for them for a further month and then InfoCasa can start rolling it out.

It is strange because we get better internet in our campo house than we ever did with Telefonica, who would have thought that would ever be possible!

I will ask Jason about the time scales for providing his service to one and all and let you know.

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Posted: 30 December 2008 11:14 PM   [ # 32 ]  
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Does anyone know where I can find coverage maps or information for areas of good 3G coverage online, specifically for the Loja/Huetor Tajar area of Granada?

3G is about our best bet for anything fast enough soon in our rural location, providing that as suggested Orange & Vodofone collaboration with upgrading antenna’s is still in progress.

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Posted: 30 December 2008 11:55 PM   [ # 33 ]  
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Hi,

3G is normally quite bad outside centric places. At granada, covering too Loja and Huetor Tajar areas we could provide you with Iberbanda Wimax access. PM for futher info.

heath1974 - 30 December 2008 11:14 PM

Does anyone know where I can find coverage maps or information for areas of good 3G coverage online, specifically for the Loja/Huetor Tajar area of Granada?

3G is about our best bet for anything fast enough soon in our rural location, providing that as suggested Orange & Vodofone collaboration with upgrading antenna’s is still in progress.

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Posted: 31 December 2008 01:56 PM   [ # 34 ]  
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I gave up on all these promises from various suppliers after I had tried a few and experienced botht the erratic connection and terrible service support, and eventually fitted a SatSpeed system,,
Install cost was relatively high 950?, but service has been 100%, and the phone (VOIP) is excellent.
This type of system will work in virtually any location as it is direct Satellite Transmission/Receive.
Cost per month vary on usage, but typically from 30?(2GB) to 100?(10GB) per month.

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Posted: 05 January 2009 08:21 PM   [ # 35 ]  
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Hola

I live in Monda, we also have a property in Torreblanca that we rent out. When we lived in town we had Telefonica (nightmare as I am sure most of you are aware!).

Anyway, we used Connecta4 when we first moved, they came round and looked before we bought the property and said “tep we can give you a 2MB line” - this was a complete lie! They couldn’t provide 2MB at all, we spent 6 months with them being frustrated, annoyed and upset, they didn’t care that they told us we could have 2MB but knew full well they couldn’t provide, we needed a strong connection for our internet business so connection was/is vital for us.

We moved over to Mercury Internet 6 months ago now and we have not looked back, we have a permanent 2MB connection that I can even use Skype with, fantastic!

Skype was nigh on impossible before and with majority of our clients using Skype it was imperative that we could use it to save money on calls!

Since joining Mercury’s service we have saved over ?20 per month on our internet, it is even cheaper than what we had with Telefonica which was a shock, our internet has been down twice when they have installed new equipment, they have battery back ups so when Connecta4 lost their service 2 months ago we were still up and working.

Should you want more information from me I am happy for anyone to contact me off or on the board, I think that Mercruy can connect most people in majority of areas now, they certanly have Marbella, Fuengirola, Monda, Co?n etc covered anyway.

Happy New Year to one and all

Fruity 😊

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Posted: 28 January 2009 10:44 AM   [ # 36 ]  
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Mike,
What is the quality like on the SatSpeed system? I mean do you experience any packet loss that would disrupt VOIP communications? I need a rural solution that lets me run my VOIP business phone.

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Posted: 28 January 2009 04:36 PM   [ # 37 ]  
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Hola davyjones

We use Skype on our wireless connection (we live in campo Monda), we have Mercury Internet, we moved over from Connecta4 some time ago

A lot of our clients use Skype so it was a necessity for us to have this so we could continue to keep our business costs down 😊

Hope that helps a bit

Simone

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Posted: 25 August 2009 01:07 PM   [ # 38 ]  
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Does anyone have up to date information on how to get decent, cheap broadband in Spain that would suit someone who only spends 3 to 4 months a year in Spain?

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Posted: 05 September 2009 03:16 PM   [ # 39 ]  
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Hi there,
Having had enought of Telefonica and my TRAC telephone I have just had TOOWAY satellite installed.
The system is up and running with good connection, it says 100.00Mbps speeds,
But think my pc is too old to cope!
Has anybody else have this system and encountered any problems?Any help would be most gratefull
Thanks, Gill
ps.
Having reall problems trying to install SKYPE too!

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Posted: 13 November 2009 02:59 AM   [ # 40 ]  
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gill brown - 05 September 2009 03:16 PM

Hi there,
Having had enought of Telefonica and my TRAC telephone I have just had TOOWAY satellite installed.
The system is up and running with good connection, it says 100.00Mbps speeds,
But think my pc is too old to cope!
Has anybody else have this system and encountered any problems?Any help would be most gratefull
Thanks, Gill
ps.
Having reall problems trying to install SKYPE too!

Hey Gill,

Would you recommend the company you are with now ?  I depend on having fast internet for part of my job
and could do with a good hassle free company. What is there customer service like if you don’t speak Spanish?

Thanks

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Posted: 13 January 2010 10:52 PM   [ # 41 ]  
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Hi
We have a tooway system from TARIAM and we are on the campo. It actually runs at 3.6Mbps all the time Rental depends on the amount of data downloaded/uploaded but as we have no langline or 3G there is no other option.
Nigel

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Posted: 16 January 2010 11:47 PM   [ # 42 ]  
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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)

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Posted: 17 January 2010 06:44 AM   [ # 43 ]  
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Heath…

re-this satellite service…

In a word…OUCH!

1400 Euros initial outlay for a capped service?

Whilst I know that you are stuck between a rock and a hard place in your location that seems a hell of a lot to pay out. Guess its ‘short and curlies’ time!

For us I think we will stick with our Telefonica DSL service; it may be a little slow at times, when the rest of the village are online and it may die occasionally whilst they carry out upgrades or routine servicing but for 39.99 Euros for a totally uncapped service that is ideally suited to our needs its pretty good value.
And according to Pieter Voss (in another thread on this forum somewhere) T’fonica are in the throws of upgrading the current 3Mbs service to 6Mbs whilst retaining the uncapped service.

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Posted: 18 January 2010 11:54 PM   [ # 44 ]  
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Yes Foxbat, Telefonica are in the process of offering upgrades. Friends of mine in many of the villages locally have started getting stuff through the post from them about the upgrade. Some of the WiMax suppliers are offering similar upgrades as well.

Unfortunately, anything other than a land-line connection or WiMax, are capped. These include 3G and Satellite options.

Unfortunately I’ve had to bite the bullet and go for the Satellite option, simply because the location of our house won’t allow anything else to work. There’s no land-line, we’ve no clear line of site for the main Parapanda antenna or any repeater stations for WiMax, plus although the 3G option started out well, it just got progressively worse unfortunately. It is a big layout for the satellite, but when it’s a requirement for both personal and business communication, then it’s a “need” rather than a “want”.

Interestingly, late last year, I read in a small column of Granada Hoy, that Junta de Andalucia are supposed to be investing heavily in both urban and rural internet and supporting service providers, which will provide high speed access to 99% of homes and business’ in the region, by November 2010…

...we’ll believer that when we see it 😉

That wasn’t actually meant to be sarcastic. It’s just that given the largely rural nature of much of the region, the landscape and the distances between rural properties, I just don’t think it’s logistically viable, admirable though the intention may be. Clearly it’s not just our region, but the whole of Spain that’s lagging (excuse the internet pun…) behind when it comes to east of access to faster internet options. Most towns and cities are well connected, but I think it will be a good few years until high speed internet in rural locations becomes more widespread.

Unfortunately, living in the “now”, one can’t afford to wait for something that’s as yet, years away…

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Posted: 11 February 2010 09:31 PM   [ # 45 ]  
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Fruity - 28 January 2009 04:36 PM

Hola davyjones

We use Skype on our wireless connection (we live in campo Monda), we have Mercury Internet, we moved over from Connecta4 some time ago

A lot of our clients use Skype so it was a necessity for us to have this so we could continue to keep our business costs down 😊

Hope that helps a bit

Simone

Hola,Simone
I live in Guaro.Do you happen to know if Mercury also works here?We have Vodafone,and we have just signed for another 18 months with them and if I want to give them up now,I will probably be penalized,but I am interested in Mercury since I am not totally happy with Vodafone.
I am also looking for a job in the area,preferably part-time 😊.
Thank you !!

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