Wi-fi for village hall

ElefantEd

I'm the treasurer of a small village hall in a rural area. We've decided to look at offering wi-fi for users, but I'm not sure the best way of going about this, or how much it might cost.

There isn't a landline at the hall, so I guess we are looking at some sort of mobile wi-fi using a phone network signal. Any help or suggestions gratefully received!

Olinda99

One way is to get a line installed and pay for business broadband - look around and see which provider gives you what you need.

ElefantEd

We don't really want to have a phone line installed cos it would have a high ongoing monthly cost.

Robin9

Are you a member of Community First -  they are the support group for Village Halls etc ?

We have it in our hall but in reality only a couple of organisations use it.

Rodders53

ElefantEd said:

We don't really want to have a phone line installed cos it would have a high ongoing monthly cost.

https://www.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/ doesn't seem over-expensive to me (prices plus vat no doubt).  They might even install a line at reasonable cost if asked nicely.
Other ISPs offer business lines, too.

A (business) mobile broadband (with wifi) solution if one exists would also be expensive.  But that h might not support the number of simultaneous users you want to in a village hall scenario due to lack of signal/bandwidth from the nearby mast(s).

That's assuming your rural village hall has mobile signals at all.

Domestically you'd go for an unlimited data sim in a mifi or router with wifi:  
https://www.three.co.uk/store/broadband/home-broadband  (if available) is one example, other service providers are available.

Alternatively just let the hall users make their own arrangements for internet access if needed.

ElefantEd

I must admit that I'm not really sure whether it's worth it. Most of the groups who use the hall aren't doing the sort of thing that requires the internet (pilates, ping-pong, kids' parties, that sort of thing). The idea is that we might attract a different sort of user. Though people mostly have their own phones anyway with data plans.

Some of the networks have a reasonable signal, others don't, so we would obviously go for one that was reasonable.

Community First seems to be for halls in southern England - we're in Scotland - but we are members of the equivalent body here!

Mister_G

I'm a Trustee of our Village Hall (Hampshire) and I put broadband in to it earlier this year.

I went with BT with their normal domestic offering.  I did check with them about using their domestic service in a Village Hall and they said that was quite acceptable.

There was no phone line, so they had to install one.  Luckily the Hall is in the middle of the village and Openreach overhead cabling runs past it.

We pay £27 a month for the basic broadband (32Mb) (no phone attached).

Our mobile coverage is pretty poor and would not have supported a MiFi type solution.

ElefantEd

Thanks for that Mister_G. It looks like that's about as cheap as it's likely to get so for us I don't think it would be worthwhile.

marcaskye

I work in IT for a local ISP and we cover some extremely difficult to service areas. I also record a podcast specific to village halls and I recorded an episode with my colleague last month. I can't post a direct link but it's The Village Hall Podcast, Season 5 Episode 7
It covers all options from 4G to Starlink. 
I'd say the minimum speed you should be trying to achieve is 30mb for an average sized hall. If you go outside with your phone and see what speed you get with 4G - Use Google Fibre Speed Test it'll tell you what you get. The other option (besides physical line) is Starlink. Speeds vary but you'll pretty much always see a minimum of 100mb for £75 per month. 

Cheers,
Marc

iniltous

marcaskye said:

I work in IT for a local ISP and we cover some extremely difficult to service areas. I also record a podcast specific to village halls and I recorded an episode with my colleague last month. I can't post a direct link but it's The Village Hall Podcast, Season 5 Episode 7
It covers all options from 4G to Starlink. 
I'd say the minimum speed you should be trying to achieve is 30mb for an average sized hall. If you go outside with your phone and see what speed you get with 4G - Use Google Fibre Speed Test it'll tell you what you get. The other option (besides physical line) is Starlink. Speeds vary but you'll pretty much always see a minimum of 100mb for £75 per month. 

Cheers,
Marc

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