frexpt Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 The thunderstorms and heavy rain of the past couple of days have just about seen off our Orange broadband service. Supposedly "up to 2 mbps", it runs, at best,at 0.4 mbps and often not at all.It appears that the only viable alternative is a satellite system and I was wondering if anyone had experience of these?Many thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marmite Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 I would be interested as well as our French neighbour has satellite broadband and is not in the least impressed with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave21478 Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 Someone I know has a satellite connection and while the connection is fine and their down and up speeds are an order of magnitude faster than my pathetic landline, they are crippled by the data limits of their subscription package. Apparently fine for general web browsing and email, but watching youtube, downloading large files or even streaming radio is out of the question unless done with care in small amounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyA Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 We have had satellite for four months and would agree with comments above. We have 25gb a month which is fine for two of us, but my granddaughter managed to use half of it in three days. Pretty much everything works fine and download is fast, but the latency can be a bit of a problem at times. We decided to keep our 1mg ADSL line as well and having two networks seems worth the extra 25€ a month to us. When the landline got cut off for a week, we were the only people with phone / internet in the village. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frexpt Posted August 15, 2015 Author Share Posted August 15, 2015 Download limits a major consideration for sure and I am struggling to work out what we might need.I must admit to being a football junkie and like to watch the odd streamed game on a Saturday afternoon in the winter, as well as the packaged highlights etc which are available on most clubs' websites. The "Player" system adopted by English league clubs has been upgraded to HD this season and the video will no longer run on our pathetic Orange connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyA Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 A lot of money I know, but may be worth keeping both. I think about an hour of TV per gb on satellite! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frexpt Posted August 15, 2015 Author Share Posted August 15, 2015 [quote user="EmilyA"]A lot of money I know, but may be worth keeping both. I think about an hour of TV per gb on satellite![/quote]Just done a little research and standard definition TV is 0.7 - 1.0 gb per hour, but HD gobbles up 3 gb, so at least 4.5 gb for a live footy game........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyA Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 We pay about 50€ a month for the 25gb satellite and 25€ a month for the ADSL. We use the satellite or the ADSL for streaming (we have about 1.5mb depending on who is in the village). We use the satellite most of the time for browsing, for telephone and for FaceTime or Skype for calls to family. It is a lot to pay but it feels like the price we pay for living in rural tranquillity! The Nordnet service has been pretty good. I realise a lot of people would be horrified by the cost of this but it works for us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Looking at a certain quite well-known and indeed well-respected supplier in 87 I note that Tooway are no longer accepting domestic subscribers in the south west of France.Is this a sign that there's already a contention issue on satellite?Our Devon ADSL is getting worse and worse (whole village up in arms, BT Openreach refusing to add any more ADSL customers, internet off for hours at a time, terrible speeds when it does work) and I'm wondering whether I could buy two sets of sat equipment and use the service (not at the same time) for both France and England, thus saving the costs of copper ADSL at both homes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyA Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Interesting. Before we signed up for Nordnet a neighbour said that the service slowed at 8am when people started work. We actually find that the mornings are the best time and we get pretty much the full 20mb download speed then. The only real slowdown has been occasionally on weekend evenings, especially bank holiday weekends, so I suspect they may have upped the number of domestic users. This happened the first weekend we had it (not good) and made us realise that it might be useful to keep the ADSL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Thanks Emily. Satellite would be a last resort for us as although there does seem to be the possibility of using Astra SES in both countries the up front costs for two sets of equipment is going to be very heavy. I have also read a few horror stories about even generous monthly limits being exceeded in a few days, and when investigated the "meter" has been turning even when the sat box is disconnected. The company involved apparently "didn't want to know". Worrying....At least in Devon we've now discovered who is sharing our copper line, we realised this morning we had a crossed line and managed to shout loud enough to attract the other party's attention and exchange numbers, so now we're both on the warpath against the hopeless BT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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