Mobile Broadband (non 3g) is it worth it?

genie

I've been living in the UK for a year but I'm moving back to Ireland in the next couple of months. In Ireland I was on IOL and was getting 33kbs and I really don't want to go back to that if I can at all help it.

I will be living in SE Sligo near Geevagh and as far as I know the telephone exchange is at Ballyfarnon, Co Roscommon and isn't broadband enabled.

I've been looking at wireless as Broadband.ie says I can be served by fastcom and last mile. Looking at fastcom's website I see that they don't cover anywhere near Geevagh so I e-mailed them to see if they would be extending their coverage to the Geevagh area anytime soon.

I've been reading bad review of last mile on boards.ie and I don't think I'm in line of sight of their mast at Carran Hill anyway as it's over near Ballyfarnon and I have a hill in the way! Satellite is too expensive for me which leaves mobile broadband.

Geevagh is in a non-3G area GSM area. According to askcomreg.ie there are two Vodafone masts near Ballyfarnon, one O2 mast up on Carran Hill and another O2 mast at Riverstown. The two Vodafone masts are the nearest to me, I think - about 5-6 miles as the crow flies, but I am more or less in line of sight of the O2 mast on Carran Hill (near the wind farm).

My question is, and sorry to be so long-winded, what kind of speeds can I expect in a non-3g area? Will I be on dial-up speeds or will it be a bit higher? And what is non-3G Vodafone like?

Many thanks!

Sponge Bob

also look at westnet.ie from around Knock airport

genie

Thanks for that but I don't think they cover my area.

Frank Grimes Jr

Am using it in a GSM/GPRS area and the speed is usually consistent with 56k diallup. Sometimes more (70), sometimes less (40). Am about 1.5 miles from a Vodafone mast, no line of sight. Full 5 signal bars on the phone tho'.

genie

I'll be five miles from the nearest Vodafone mast so the speeds I'd get would probably be slower. And as I'm getting a phone line in anyway, I'll probably go with ordinary dial-up until a miracle happens!!

Thanks for your reply!

Frank Grimes Jr

aye,
if you're going to be using a lot of daytime dialup go with EsatBT or UTV as an internet ISP they have unlimited dialup packages available. Onspeed www.onspeed.ie may help speed up webpage load times, but it ain't for downloads

genie

Yes, I'll probably go with UTV as they give free calls to Ireland and the UK for up to an hour along with the 180 hours of internet per month. I was with Onspeed before, will see how (bad) things are in this new location before going with them again.

Will have to find a download manager thing though as I suffered a lot from breaks in connection during a download. :rolleyes: Will certainly be turning automatic download off when I move back!

The internet situation is the only thing I'm not looking forward to when moving back to Ireland. Not much we can do about the weather but the internet situation, well....:rolleyes: When I tell people here in the UK how bad things are, I don't think they believe me...:(

GG66

I've got a mate in Geevagh village who was excited to tell me a few weeks ago that his line passed for Broadband. You might want to double check and see for sure whether you can get DSL there or not.

I looked into all other options such as wireless and satellite. Too many hills and not enough providers around for wireless to work right now although you should check directly with Fastcom as they are putting a new transmitter up around that area very soon if not already.

I'm close to Riverstown and my line passed for the first time this week after waiting for what seems like a liifetime.

genie

Wow, thanks for that! :eek: I'l be a couple of miles outside Geevagh village - Lough Bo area - but once I get the phoneline sorted out it'll be one of the first things I'll do! I did e-mail fastcom last week enquiring about whether they'll extend their service to the Geevagh area but haven't heard anything back from them.

Many thanks!