Wireless Broadband Network

LocalLad

Does anyone have any experience of using a wireless network broadband company to get internet? I live in a rural area where there is no cable and the telephone exchange is over 7 miles away with the nearest cabinet over 3 miles away. This allows me internet speeds of 100 Kbps!
The Wireless Network is supposed to be the only option to get high speed broadband.

I would appreciate anyone's views on this.
Thanks

pogofish

Don't hold your breath expecting any kind of high speed connection form one of these things - You may get better than 100Kbps occasionally but most of the time it will be awful - esp in rural areas or it can even be flakey in line of sight of a mast less than a hundred yards away. 2-25Kbps is more like the speed of the ones I keep for mobile use/work in remote areas.

Oh and compared to a real broadband connection, the costs are staggering, esp if you go over the measly monthly allocation they all seem to have.

The only way I can suggest is you find the network with the nearest mast/best coverage in your area and try a PAYG dongle first and throw it back at them if the reception is not up to scratch.

GunJack

or take a look at the satellite-based broadband services....not many around admittedly, but if your area's covered it may give you an alternative


http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/

will show you locations of phone masts

ChiefGrasscutter

Jeez, those distances are bad.

7 miles (11Km) to the exchange is way beyond the max reach of conventional broadband ASDL1/max & ADSL2+.
.......and 3 miles (4.8km) to the nearest cabinet is probably beyond the reach of fibre to the cabinet broadband (FTTC) even if it was installed.

LocalLad

Thanks for your replies. The option available to me is "Fixed Wireless" which quote down speeds of 10Mbps/50Mbs/100Mbps.

The satellite option is very expensive and not feasible for casual home use.

The distances are terrible, FTTC was rolled out to our cabinet but you have to be within a distance of 1.7Km to benefit.

I am unsure as to the monthly usage allowance so will chase that up, as I would prefer unlimited at that price.