Are satellite phones any good?

vet8

Our new house, which is half built, is some way from the road and BT are quoting really silly prices to connect, either using 3 poles, which they say all the neighbours will object to anyway or underground by digging up our driveway again.


I am thinking of getting broadband and phone by satellite. Has anyone used them, are they any good? Broadband in our area is not very fast anyway as we are in the country so could it be as fast as normal broadband?


Any comments will be much appreciated. Thanks.

cootuk

I thought satellite broadband still needed a landline for your link to them, their data being sent via the satellite.
How about a 3G mifi so you use a mobile phone signal?

vet8

The trouble is the mobile signal is RUBBISH where we live which is a joke as we are hardly in the middle of nowhere.

afzaal1988

broadband is quite expensive http://www.avonlinebroadband.co.uk/packages/

And as far as satellite phone is concerened its not going to be be connected to your dish. but its like mobile phone and you have to be outdoor for it to work.
Calls from normal mobile phone to your satellite phone would cost upto £6 if not more.

However you dont need to have phone line to get satellite broadband

Buzby

vet8 wrote: »

The trouble is the mobile signal is RUBBISH where we live which is a joke as we are hardly in the middle of nowhere.

It's not an option you want to explore - poor bandwidth and very expensive, especially if you have no phone line for the back channel. You talk of mobile as if it was a single option - there are at least 5 networks licenced to provide coverage, get a PAYG SIM for each and try it yourself - online maps are a guide only, nothing beats your own test.

Colin_London

I think some of the comments here are a bit out of date. There are now several higher speed satellite internet services available including an upload channel (no need for phone line).

This company offers services from three of them:

http://www.europasat.com

Tooway offers 20Mbps down and 6Mbps up.
Of course once you have a broadband connection you can get a VoIP connection and a phone with a local number. However satellite services can have low data caps, and there will be an unavoidable satellite delay when conversing.

Buzby

Most certainly not 'out of date'. Use of a landline cuts the cost of the connection by 60% due to the fact your satellite service is a downlink only. A two-way connection requires considerably higher power as your dish needs to be able to transmit UP to the satellite.

The round trip distance means the ping times of the connection are unrealistically high, gaming and streaming video are pointless due to speed and data transfer costs.

Colin_London

Buzby wrote: »

Most certainly not 'out of date'. Use of a landline cuts the cost of the connection by 60% due to the fact your satellite service is a downlink only. A two-way connection requires considerably higher power as your dish needs to be able to transmit UP to the satellite.

The round trip distance means the ping times of the connection are unrealistically high, gaming and streaming video are pointless due to speed and data transfer costs.

Buzby - with the greatest respect please update your knowledge before posting like this. Current generation KA-SAT satellite broadband like Tooway is bidirectional - hence the quoted max upload speed of 6Mbps. Any quick google would have confirmed this to you.

However as their user base has increased contention has come into play and the average performance on Tooway is now 5Mbps down and 2Mbps up. It seems people are now moving to SES Broadband if they want faster than that.

vet8

I do not do gaming or streaming video. I only want to access e-mail and look at a few internet sites.


Buzby, all mobiles are rubbish around here. I have been trying for years to get a good signal, but every network appears to be as bad. There is certainly no 4G at all. I would happily use a mobile broadband link if I could.


Everyone on here has said it is expensive, but certainly looking on the web I could get a satellite phone and broadband for less than I was paying BT before. I just wondered if it worked effectively.

Colin_London

For your usage requirement it sounds like a a Satellite Internet service would be fine for you. Just do your research first from forums as it sounds like they can become congested at times.

But it's people who historically signed up to unlimited packages (who are big downloaders) who appear to be complaining most. Web surfing shouldn't be a problem.

Im_just_careful

Have BT given a figure for "Excess costs" or something similar ?


It sounds like you are some way from their existing infrastructure.


Are you in a rural area covered by some sort of "self help" Internet service ?


The least bad option in the long run might be to pay the BT install charge.