Satellite Broadband. Is anybody using it?

[brucemillar]

Friends We live in a comms "dead" zone. Where BT land Line Broadband is unworkable due to distance from the exchange. Mobile Broadband works but you cannot get an unlimited package which leaves us exposed to extortionate additional data charges. As a family of four with me working from home and two teenage daughters, with A-Level studies this is now a real showstopper. Satellite Broadband appears to offer hope. Charges are dropping and government grants for installation and hardware are available in my area (dead zone). There are several companies offering their services under the government grant schemes. All of them, as you would expect, say they are the best value, speed etc. All of them seem to hide their data limits behind glossy web pages, which makes me nervous. Is anybody using satellite broadband that can give me some mentoring? I need a bundle that will not bankrupt me (looking to spend up to £50pcm) I need data and voice (if possible) so that I can get free from BT. I have asked BT to provide my current usage numbers. But this will be skewed as download speeds are so slow that you eat data just waiting on the speed. My last TV upgrade was 29 hours!!! We did not bother with the upgrade.

Edit. Current monthly data usage is 143.97Gb.

 

[grober]

thinkbroadband :: Satellite Broadband Guide

Your problem isn't going to be speed so much as data limits altho some providers allow unlimited downloads overnight.
You might want to think about point to point wireless link -like wifi only longer distance.
AN EXAMPLE
DIY broadband: how one remote not-spot went wireless | Alphr
AND ROUGH SETUP GUIDE HERE
[YOUTUBE]ISUSlTcgWks[/YOUTUBE]

Remember you will need the co-operation of someone in a line of sight
[ can be some distance away as exemplified by the example ] who has a fast internet connection [ Virgin fibre? ] prepared to share their bandwidth you or alternatively just house your setup for a fee. Technically you could have a local network of surrounding houses if your neighbours were interested to share costs but there would be potential bottlenecks depending on the "base station" speed.

 

[Codger49]

Bruce, have you looked at Vfast wireless broadband?

According to their coverage map, you should be able to get unlimited data at 24Mbps for £36.99 /month.

Think they also offer voip for phone calls.

 

[grober]

Bruce, have you looked at Vfast wireless broadband?

According to their coverage map, you should be able to get unlimited data at 24Mbps for £36.99 /month.

Think they also offer voip for phone calls.

Think that's basically a commercial version of the DIY setup I described.
A FEW THOUGHTS
The line of sight restriction to the broadcast repeater still holds. You might have to stick a mast up in the garden/house .
While my example in the Angus glens appears to work very well there would not be much radio interference around in that location.
There may be a degree of speed throttling depending on how many people are using the service at one time in an area [ like no of users on a LAN]
The Vfast wireless people do have the dreaded " speeds up to" type caveats on their website.
Certainly worth looking at their £36.99 package as suggested by Codger49
some user feedback here:-
Is VFast the only wireless broadband in Kent? :: Wireless Broadband ISPs (not wireless ADSL routers) :: think broadband

 

[davidjpowell]

Think that's basically a commercial version of the DIY setup I described.
A FEW THOUGHTS
The line of sight restriction to the broadcast repeater still holds. You might have to stick a mast up in the garden/house .
While my example in the Angus glens appears to work very well there would not be much radio interference around in that location.
There may be a degree of speed throttling depending on how many people are using the service at one time in an area [ like no of users on a LAN]
The Vfast wireless people do have the dreaded " speeds up to" type caveats on their website.
Certainly worth looking at their £36.99 package as suggested by Codger49
some user feedback here:-
Is VFast the only wireless broadband in Kent? :: Wireless Broadband ISPs (not wireless ADSL routers) :: think broadband

A village where my daughter goes to school has just had their first high speed connection delivered by this technology. Speaking to people in the village it's working well for the early adopters.

 

[Alfie]

Friends We live in a comms "dead" zone. Where BT land Line Broadband is unworkable due to distance from the exchange. Mobile Broadband works but you cannot get an unlimited package which leaves us exposed to extortionate additional data charges. As a family of four with me working from home and two teenage daughters, with A-Level studies this is now a real showstopper. Satellite Broadband appears to offer hope. Charges are dropping and government grants for installation and hardware are available in my area (dead zone). There are several companies offering their services under the government grant schemes. All of them, as you would expect, say they are the best value, speed etc. All of them seem to hide their data limits behind glossy web pages, which makes me nervous. Is anybody using satellite broadband that can give me some mentoring? I need a bundle that will not bankrupt me (looking to spend up to £50pcm) I need data and voice (if possible) so that I can get free from BT. I have asked BT to provide my current usage numbers. But this will be skewed as download speeds are so slow that you eat data just waiting on the speed. My last TV upgrade was 29 hours!!! We did not bother with the upgrade.

Edit. Current monthly data usage is 143.97Gb.

I deployed a satellite broadband system in France a few years ago. It worked very well but was limited to download speed. It seemed to have a maximum bandwidth that applied to the first few Gb and then it plummeted. That said it was fine for browsing and email/voice which is very low bandwidth anyway unless you are looking at images etc. The biggest problem though was the latency. If you don't mind clicking 'send' and having a pause then its okay.

I like some of the suggestions on the thread though. Have you thought about mobile broadband?

 

[brucemillar]

Folks

Thank you for your replies and suggestions.

When I say we live in a "dead zone" I do mean a "dead zone" you have to be able to satisfy local government that this is the case to qualify for their grant.

V-Fast came out and surveyed us. But we knew we were on a loser as our immediate neighbour had already had his V-Fast Service cancelled by V-Fast when it was shown not to work.

They came out anyway and surveyed us, but stated that we were not "line of sight". To get to "line of sight"we needed to install, at out cost a 100ft high antenna. Cost £1500 and no guarantee that it would work and no money back if it did not. Our neighbour had already tried a 50ft pole with very poor results.

Mobile BB is pants as the data bundles are just too small for a family of four. On 3 my daughters used a months of data in two weeks just on homework. We were then charged £15 per day for exceeding our limit.

The local council (under the governments - rural fast broadband scheme) are offering grants to people like us where the download speed is than 2Gbs or non-existent.

The main issue us chronic and sustained under-funding by BT in rural areas. They are trumpeting about their super high speeds etc but cannot and will not deliver up a 1 Gbs in Central Kent. We have waited for 16 years for them to deliver on their annual promise that they will deliver BB but they have not and I suspect will not.

So it's sell up and move or try satellite - Hence my question(s)

Oh. V-Fast got a £100k grant from our local council. It has been spent and appears to have benefited people who found it cheaper than BT's service but who actually could get decent speed from BT.

 

[PobodY]

There may be a degree of speed throttling depending on how many people are using the service at one time in an area [ like no of users on a LAN]

There is a protocol for this, written by a friend of mine for the Perth Wireless Freenet (in Australia) it's called frottle:
frottle

We were running old Galaxy satellite TV antennas for the nodes with line of sight peer-to-peer networking.

Since it's microwave band it doesn't work very well when it rains, nor if foliage gets between the nodes. - Fun project for a WAN, but not a great way to share internet.

 

[grober]

Folks

Thank you for your replies and suggestions.

When I say we live in a "dead zone" I do mean a "dead zone" you have to be able to satisfy local government that this is the case to qualify for their grant.

V-Fast came out and surveyed us. But we knew we were on a loser as our immediate neighbour had already had his V-Fast Service cancelled by V-Fast when it was shown not to work.

They came out anyway and surveyed us, but stated that we were not "line of sight". To get to "line of sight"we needed to install, at out cost a 100ft high antenna. Cost £1500 and no guarantee that it would work and no money back if it did not. Our neighbour had already tried a 50ft pole with very poor results.

Mobile BB is pants as the data bundles are just too small for a family of four. On 3 my daughters used a months of data in two weeks just on homework. We were then charged £15 per day for exceeding our limit.

The local council (under the governments - rural fast broadband scheme) are offering grants to people like us where the download speed is than 2Gbs or non-existent.

The main issue us chronic and sustained under-funding by BT in rural areas. They are trumpeting about their super high speeds etc but cannot and will not deliver up a 1 Gbs in Central Kent. We have waited for 16 years for them to deliver on their annual promise that they will deliver BB but they have not and I suspect will not.

So it's sell up and move or try satellite - Hence my question(s)

Oh. V-Fast got a £100k grant from our local council. It has been spent and appears to have benefited people who found it cheaper than BT's service but who actually could get decent speed from BT.

Have you got anyone local who has got good BT/VIRGIN fibre access who is in decent line of sight to your property. Can be some distance away. Remember that V-fast will be looking at your line of sight to their broadcast mast/repeater . With DIY you can chose where your wireless signal comes from with a better line of sight. Its more involved obviously but might be a possibility?? There would be initial equipment costs, BT line rental and possible a small rental cost in someones garage shed or outhouse perhaps - power use would be small and could be covered by rent - but for that you would get exclusive internet access---- you could share costs and bandwidth with a neighbour to half costs-- remember you wouldn't need your present ISP account on your own premises anymore just at the broadcast end.

 

[rockits]

Yup, just got an Avanti satellite connection in to test at home via Bentley Walker. It is £47.50 in VAT per month for 15mb down & 2mb up with sticky IP address. It has a 50gb full speed cap/bandwidth limit but unlimited downloads midnight to 6am that doesn't count to your 50gb. That is the best you'll find.

I'm in the business & we do this partly for a living. We have 2 other copper lines with ADSL2+ as well. One for the SIP phone system & one for unlimited broadband.

Your problem is 100gb+ is going to cost tons more than £50 per month. Tooway do a 100gb package but is throttled to 128kb/s after 40gb I believe. Bonding can work/help to give you twice bandwidth on 2 lines for 2.5 times cost.

I have firewall that he's the lines in different ways. Browsing on Satellite, iPlayer etc. on Satellite, phone & other traffic on copper lines. We use 40-50gb on Satellite.

PM me if you need help or further details. Where are you based & do you get any ADSL now? If so what speed? Any 3g or 4g coverage at all? A mixed/multi line approach across mobile, fixed line and satellite can work.

 

[brucemillar]

Folks. BT tell me that my "average" data usage is working out at 145Gb per month.

That seems an awful lot of data for a family of four? We do not stream movies as the connection is so poor. It is mainly email traffic. Is 150Gb per month excessive for a family package?

Remember that my average BT speed is less than 1Mgb

 

[DavidL]

Bruce, that seems huge. I know kids spend a lot of time online but even so, especially if you're not downloading films or streaming all the time.
I think the 2 of us use about 15 gb a month!

 

[Dec]

Try NetWorx, it’s a free bandwidth monitor, easy to use when you get your head around it.
https://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

Dec

 

[grober]

Seems excessive according to this. High data rates are usually down to video downloads or streaming or gaming.
Broadband download limits: how much data do you really need?

You could install a free NETWORK MONITORING PROGRAM like networx.
https://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/
If you are wireless make sure that one of your neighbours isn't nicking some of your bandwidth?

dec beat me to it

 

[brucemillar]

All. Thank you for taking time to help. A big shout to Dean (Rockits) who took time to call me and discuss.

Here is where we are at now:

BT now accept that there is a fault on my line that is causing drop outs and wild fluctuations in the already slow speed. They cannot locate the fault or even guess at it's cause? They will visit again this Friday to have another go at finding the problem.

We have checked everything that is using out Wireless Router and will continue to do so. Everything to date checks out.

The 150Gbs per month average data (as quoted by BT) we with BT are looking at this. BT claim (and this seems to be supported by others) is that this is NOT excessive for a family of four all with smart devices and one (me) working from home. Indeed they suggest that it is almost "minimal"?

I am using a Macbook (we are an Apple family) the packages suggested- thank you all - are all Windows based so of no help.

BT are looking at possible cross talk on the line itself as opposed to wireless hacking. That would seem to check out given that we so no naughty devices on the router.

Satellite will most likely not help:

1) The latency is so poor it will just kill me when browsing.
2) It is poor on voice (conference calls etc)
3) For anything over 20Gbs per month the costs are huge (£70pcm)

What a mess.

 

[camerafodder]

Bruce, we have suffered like you for years with rubbish service and obfuscation of facts from BT. We are now on a radio broadband link. The service is excellent and we get 10Mbps although we could have double that speed if we wanted. We pay £25/month for 40gig package although we can upgrade to 100gig for an extra tenner. We can up and down our data allowance on monthly basis and we can even suspend our service if away which can save money. Our local service provider is Kencomp internet. I know that you have had some rather unhelpful discussions with a local radio broadband company and this is disappointing. Is there any alternative radio BB company available to you? Our local providers mount repeaters on people's houses to beam the signal around rather than using masts. People that accommodate repeaters (as opposed to just receivers) get internet for free as part of the deal. There are grants available for people in disadvantaged broadband areas of £350 per household to assist with installations costs.

I also use skype for conference calls, no issues with latency.

Additionally we have ported our BT number across to a voip telephone deal. £10/month for 1000 landline minutes and 100 mobile minutes/month.

 

[grober]

All.

We have checked everything that is using out Wireless Router and will continue to do so. Everything to date checks out.


I am using a Macbook (we are an Apple family) the packages suggested- thank you all - are all Windows based so of no help.

https://peakhourapp.com/

Peak Hour 3 free trial for 10 days ??


Another thought is that many APPLE DEVICES rely on remote server iCloud storage rather than local hard disc. If your Apple devices are set up for automatic backups of various apps data they may be using bandwidth as and when if set up for this. Apple does a lot of this stuff under the radar so to speak. One suggestion is the following
Most often BitTorrent, iCloud or some other cloud-data application is involved in cases of mysterious bandwidth use by a Mac. If you use iCloud, uncheck at least Photo Stream and Documents & Data in its preference pane and see whether there's any change. If you use third-party network backup software, disable that. If you use a torrent client, remove it.

 

[camerafodder]

Speedtest.net by Ookla - My Results

This may seem slow to you townsfolk but for bumpkins like Bruce and I its like lightning, believe me!

 

[camerafodder]

I've just read through the thread more thoroughly and noticed that much of what I have said had already been mentioned by grober! Ho hum +1 I guess!

 

[grober]

I've just read through the thread more thoroughly and noticed that much of what I have said had already been mentioned by grober! Ho hum +1 I guess!

No Harm no foul. I get the impression that the country has been divided up amongst the radio broadband providers on a sort of territorial basis . Whether this is on a first come first served basis or official government allocation I don't know. Your provider Kencomp internet ssems to be based in the lakes area? Superfast Broadband for the South Lakes rather than national. Vfast seem to have the monopoly in KENT? I tried to find other providers in the area without success- hence my suggestion of a DIY WAN solution?

ps If Bruce could get a few neighbours together willing to participate another "out of area" commercial company might be prepared to provide a WAN system on a one off basis - the only problem there would be one of support if they were headquartered far away geographically?