Satellite Broadband. Is anybody using it?

[camerafodder]

Yes grober it does indeed seem territorial and Kencomp is a local South Lakes provider for some 10 years now. I wasn't sure if the licence provisions for the providers was territorial or not and whether competing services could set up, much like they can on landline based services?

 

[brucemillar]

Gents

Thank you for your help and continued suggestions. To further explain.

V-Fast & BT along with some of the mobile providers have called my area a "dead zone". We are in the perfect storm, in terms of bad location for signal.

We live on the inside wall of a heavily wooded bowl (Stockbury Valley ME9 7QP). Please do not tell me that you have looked at a coverage map and it is a great area for signal ;ˆ) This means that most signals pass over us by some height. The very tall and thick trees cover takes care of any signal luck enough to get low and into the bowl.

We have three mobile 4G masts that are less than 1 mile away (as the crow flies). However these are all on flat ground above our roof height by about 150 feet. They are behind a tree line.

VFast (who now control most of this area) offer a high speed service. Their main transmitter is on the Church tower with a series of repeaters placed strategically around the area in circles. that radiate from the church tower.

Our immediate neighbour had V-Fast installed. But to get "line of sight"of the nearest repeater. He had to install a 75ft Pole and a dish. This failed when the summer arrived and the tree line foliage increased to a point that it blocked his like of sight. V-Fast don't do complaints. They cut you off (that is in their T's & C's) He was cut off for "not having line of sight"

Now as we are higher than our neighbour and at a slight off-set to the transmitter from him? V-Fast brought out a huge Cherry Picker and a receiver. Parked it up next to the highest point on our land (my garage) and went up 75ft. The signal was good but was being chopped by the trees. AT this point V-Fast gave me several options.

1) Get the trees chopped down. We live an AONB so that is never going to happen.
2) They are not my trees and they are protected.
3) Pay V-Fast to survey and possibly install another repeater that we can see?
This failed when V-Fast discovered that they had previously surveyed this for my doomed neigbour.
4) Install a 100ft pole that requires planning permission and a substantial foundation along with extensive guy ropes etc.
V-Fast offered no guarantee on service with this and stated that they cut me off if it did not work, with no money back. The cost of the pole etc was close on £2k to me.

4) Use another house as a base station then take a signal from them. This didn't work for a combination of all of the above.

Now...... Vodafone 3 & 4G works well here, with some minor disruption due to trees. Vodafone's frequency penetrates trees and building better then the their opposition.

BINGO you think!!!!

Wrong. Vodafone do not offer an unlimited package. Their data bundles are small (by design) and are not designed for commercial use/home working and a family of four. Exceeding their data limits would bankrupt a Sultan in no time at all.

So the solution is there, but I cannot afford it.

I have ruled out satellite now with the local council and other users advising that the latency would make it untenable for home working. Fine for downloading but not for browsing or voice.

Go for a hybrid solution? Messy to manage and difficult to control spend and switch overs. Also by default that is expensive as I would still be paying for BT on a service that I would rarely use but pay full price for.

My ideal would be for Vodafone to step up and offer a deal as loyal multi-user customer? They won't. I tried this and they were sympathetic but would not do a deal.

So I am stuck with BT who just will not invest in rural areas for broadband.