Broadband Satellite

wildsaffy

Hi,

Some fella locally is going to put up a satellite free to air thingamibob service in for us this Saturday.

In the meantime I have tried all routes to get broadband but it's impossible where we live: the best advice I have got so far is "move".

I don't understand how this works; but will I be able to use the satellite dish for receiving broadband?

I asked the installer but he doesn't know; he just sticks the things in and he's off.

wildsaffy

listermint

Satellite free to air is just for TV? if someone else wants to correct me.... Satellite broadband is very expensive not many installers in this country.

L1011

The dish will be a: too small and b: aimed to the wrong satellite for satellite broadband.

Frisian

The dish will be a: too small and b: aimed to the wrong satellite for satellite broadband.

What makes you say that? Nobody mentioned any size and sat, yet.

wildsaffy, go, and check out these guys: Astra2connect in Ireland
Not the cheapest way, but if you're after broadband ...

L1011

Its a standard "FTA system" being installed by a local installer who knows nothing about satellite broadband - suggesting they know little beyond what they install. Its going to be a 60cm or smaller dish aimed at 28E.

However, I was unaware that SES were now offering internet capacity on 28E - as up until last year, they didn't.

HOWEVER - looking at KingOfSat to see where "Astra2Connect" is carried shows that its actually on 23.5E - meaning you need a dual LNB to receive it and anything off 28E, and a bigger dish than 60CM.

Zaphod

Frisian wrote: »

Astra2connect in Ireland

Amazing how the same the 256/64 "triple play" bundle (FTA channels + VOIP) which is €65 per month in Ireland is only €30 in Switzerland.

If someone was interested in Astra2Connect, it would be worth their time checking if it was possible to get a contract with one of the other European resellers considering the differences in prices.

The installation of the equipment isn't much more difficult than installation of dish for Sky.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2005534759981808149

watty

Draw a line from waterford city to Sligo. 80cm dish to North East side of line. 90, 110, 1.2, 2m as you go toward SW corner.

To SW the dish size rises rapidly for A2C.

I have it on test on a 90cm dish. (23.5E) along with 13E, 19E and 28E to a Sat distribution TV system.

Unlike traditional Vsat, the ODU (two coax back to modem) is designed to fit a regular dish.

It's not really triple play. Just two way satellite on 23E. VOIP is not great with satellite latency, though you can talk clearly. I'd rather use a mobile phone to talk.

My employer has a more expensive system, but it's faster and uses 70cm dish everywhere in Ireland.
Astra2Connect is talking about 28E beam, but then you could NEVER use the same dish for Sky, and the Modem's RX LNB can only do 1/4 of the channels as it's polarity and band is fixed for Modem Transponder.
In any case you can't use the same polarity for RX & TX. The TX is opposite polarity to RX always. I think 500mW 18GHz transmitter on A2C

wildsaffy

The price for Astra2connect for a business package is:

BUSINESS BROADBAND
Our two way satellite broadband is an always on service which does not require a telephone.
Download speed is 512K. Upload speed is 96K.There is no cap on the amount you can download subject to a fair usage policy.

TELEPHONE
Get rid of your Eircom phone line and immediately save €26 per month line rental. Our VoIP telephone package includes all local and national calls to landlines at any time of the day or night. Compare our call charges to Eircom's and see the huge savings on call charges.

TELEVISION
Our television service provides 250 satellite television channels including BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, ITV 1, ITV2, ITV3, BBC24 NEWS, CNN, SKY NEWS, FILM 4, FILM 4+1. plus countless other entertainment channels. We also provide 150 satellite radio channels.

Our service does not include RTE 1, RTE 2. TV 3 and TG4 as these are receivable on local aerials. The cost of this bundled service exclusive of VAT
is €75 per month.

INSTALLATION and COSTS
Rather than ask you, the customer to outlay large amounts of money on
hardware/registration/ installation fees - we have developed a rental scheme
to offset some of these charges. The scheme functions as follows :

We will rent the customer the equipment for a fee of €15.00 per month.
We will require a €200.00 security deposit which is totally refundable upon
the return of the equipment after the contract period.
The non refundable outlay for the residential package therefore is €224.50.

Question: (A) Is the download / upload speed reasonable? (B) And how do I get Channel 4?

deaglan169

i came across this website in the past by accident when looking up astra satellite info might be of interest http://www.skydslireland.com

watty

The download & upload speed is slow
You can't get C4. Of course you could add a Sky sub & box to the system instead of the FTA receiver.

SkyDSL is a download accelerator for dail up. Almost a waste of money.

In reality the 2way Satellite (A2C) and LNB for Sky / Free UK channels are simply sharing the same dish. The basic A2C gear is nothing to do with TV or phone and simply provides and ethernet socket for PC or router.

It's really a bit of a stretch to call it "triple play".

watty

Moved from Satellite TV to Broadband as this is more about Internet access than Satellite TV.