Has anyone used Wi-MAX Broadband yet?

baby_frogmella

Hi

I'm thinking of cancelling my E7 broadband internet (cannot get >512Kbps) and signing up with telebria (skylink.telabria.com), for 3Mbps broadband @£29.99 per month. Telebria use Wi-Max (works like Wi-Fi but covers a much larger area) technology to deliver broadband thru a small antenna installed on the roof. I would like to know if anyone out there is using such technology for broadband and if so, have they experienced any problems?

Thanks in advance.

Phil

I'd like to know about this as well...if anyone has any information about it!

baby_frogmella

Hi

I finally cancelled my e7even broadband and also BT landline (no tears shed) and got 3Mbps skylink Wi-MAX broadband with telephone service installed (from skylink.telabria.com). Wi-MAX Antenna which they installed on my house is very small (measures only 5" x4 ") and has been discreetly installed on the existing TV aerial pole...you hardly notice it. They gave me a small router, from router one ethernet cable goes to pc, the other 2 sockets are for a normal telephone.

What do i think of the service so far? excellent!!! Believe it or not when i do a speedtest on adsl.org.uk i constantly get download speeds of 3.4-3.5 Mbps and upload speeds of 650-700 Kbps...and this is on a connection of 3Mbps download and 512 Kbps upload speeds!!!!!!!! Connection is very stable, no delays or high latency...very good for online gaming

What about the telephone service which uses the same Wi-MAX network? Again, excellent overall. After phoning a few friends using my cordless handset, i was told the voice quality was better than before...ie when i was using a BT landline. You get caller display enabled automatically, answering machine also. On the negative side, you get an 0845 XXX number but apparently Telabria are in the process of securing geographical numbers from BT for their network so hopefully i'll get a proper number soon. Another minus point, when someone calls you, they hear an american style ring tone, this is due to the fact that most of Telabria's hardware is American...again they hope to change this to a standard UK one.

All in all, very pleased with the service and i would recommend this to anyone who's thinking of using a Wi-MAX network for internet/phone.

chris73

Call me Mr Pessimistic, but will this sort of service be available to the entire UK in our lifetime?. It seems that these sort of services bubble up in one small corner of the UK, and never seem to spread outwards!. Shame that the Government or some communications giant can't inject some money into the technology to assist in it's roll out. In this area, we are unlikely to see LLU until 2006, so I guess Wi-Max will be here sometime around 2050.

baby_frogmella

Hi Chris

Well according to http://www.wimaxforum.org, instead of Wi-Fi, laptops and PDAs will be equipped with Wi-MAX from 2006 onwards. Since Wi-MAX has a range of up to 30kms away from transmitter (as opposed to 100m thru WiFi), this will be inevitibly mean more companies being set up to offer wireless broadband access once Wi-MAX becomes widespread....which will be soon. I was a bit pessimistic about WiMax at first but after speaking to someone at University of Kent in Canterbury (where Telabria conducted their WiMAX trials before launching it to the public), i was convinced that WiMAX really works.

Hope this helps

chris73

Hi Thanks for the information, but Wi-Max would need about a 400km range from Kent to reach the areas I'm thinking of!.

Fortunately, we have 2meg Broadband in this area, but it is likely to be well into 2006 before we get LLU and experience speeds of over 2 meg.

More importantly, I asked the question on behalf of friends on the Staffs / Derbyshire border who are on tiny village exchanges with no chance of getting anything other than dial up if left to BT. There are little pockets of non broadband areas with 40 or 50 houses, farms, businesses and pubs on them who would benefit greatly from high speed internet with a 20km range or even half that, and this looks like a good solution, but sadly only currently a pipe dream, and if it rolls out as fast as other technologies we are a long long way away from ever seeing it a reality in the Peak District.

I know that these little countryside exchanges are dotted about throughout the UK, especially in Scotland & Wales although BT would perhaps perfer not to admit to them!. My thoughts were that it would perhaps be a good business acumen for the likes of Wi-Max providers to consider these non broadband areas as well as areas in the South in their roll out, since there isn't any competition from conventional broadband, and so could be a lucrative decision to at least research the viability, not to mention a good test of the technology in rural / valley areas!.

baby_frogmella

Hi Chris

If you go to: http://www.adslguide.org.uk/qanda.asp?faq=wirelessisp#Q242
this lists most (if not all) wireless broadband providers in the UK. However this list is being updated all the time, so check frequently to see if you or you friends can get wireless in the area. Many of these wireless services operate in rural communities of the UK, where people live too far from BT exchange to get broadband/high-speed broadband.

I completely understand your frustration because in Kent most of us live too far away from BT exchange to get 'super fast' ADSL broadband speeds...and unless BT start building an exchange next to each and every house in Kent, it will stay that way for a long time. Honestly i used to think i would be stuck with 512Kb ADSL for life until Telabria turned up. Could this signal the end of BT? I hope so

lofty_2

They have some sort of wireless broadband down the road but it cant be Wi-Max as its less than 30km away but i do live in a valley so that might have an effect on the distance the signal travels.

Matt