No ADSL available here!

[Mauhoum]

Is there anyone else out there like me, who live in an area of France which is unable to receive ADSL? I don't live in the back of beyond, but after a bit of research, found that I live just too far from my local telephone exchange (over 7kms telephone line distance) and as a result, the power/signal is too weak. Most of the commune can get it, but only a measly 512kbps. Seems that the closer you are to the exchange, the quicker the speeds available.

There is a website on which you can test your line at http://www.123adsl.com and if you can't access ADSL by 'normal' means, it suggests satellite as an option. This actually works out pretty expensive, as bi-directional (send and receive emails) systems start at about 100 Euros/month! Mono-directional (receive emails only) systems start at around 10 Euros/month, although the 30 Euro packages would work out cheaper. The problem is that you still need a dial-up link to send messages, so that's more expense!

Does anyone have one of these satellite packages? If so, are they any good? Or is there another alternative?

Tony

[Martin963]

I did some preliminary research on this (sat down link,  dial up up link) as I thought it might be useful,  living as we do both in Devon and France (the satellite signal covers both from Atlantic Bird 1).  However,  what I failed to spot was that there was a very low free-usage threshold included in the basic sub before extra charges kicked in.  

We are over 6 kms from the exchange and our recently installed ADSL runs at about 500 kB (it may be measly but it's 20 x faster than dial up).   You would't think that the extra km would make a difference,  do all the testing sites give a "no"?   If so you've probably no choice,  which is very bad luck.

[Pierre ZFP]

I too am 5Km from a switch and with the line attenuation I would only get 400Kbits, so I haven't bothered, probably will eventually.  ADSL has problems over about 2Kms, ADSL2+ is a lot better but is not rolled out to many places yet.  I have friends in Germany who use the satellite option.  Sat for download, IDSN for upload, don't even think about Sat upload.  It works OK but as you say, it is expensive.  As for alternatives, when I was in the UK years ago I couldn't get broadband as BT said it was not viable for so few users in my village.  Another company was going to install radio masts (essentially a big wifi net) and was on the point of doing it when BT got their act together so no need for the masts.

[Mauhoum]

You're right Martin, although 500kbps is measly, it is still ADSL and much better than the laughable 33.2kbps I'm running at present!! Yeah for the cheapest satellite option you pay for everything you download, and that includes all pages, so although it seems cheap, the costs could run away with you. Yes all the sites, including France Telecom say there is no other option. Actually there is another option, but at a price that would only be covered by the mairie if the mayor thought it would benifit the commune. It is indeed WIFI. The village of Maumusson in the Gers had the same problem as me, they couldn't get ADSL. Most of the top producers of Madiran wine live there, and they needed ADSL to function properly, as I think any business should. The commune paid for a transmitter called Wifi Max to be installed. The good thing about Wifi transmitters is that they apparently run at true ADSL speeds, and don't drop if loads of people in the same area use the net at the same time. Is ADSL2+ what the French call READSL?

Tony

 

[Pierre ZFP]

ADSL2+ is different from READSL in a couple of ways.  They both have the same theorectical limit, 24 Mbit but ADSL2+ allows bonding so 2 lines and you can have 48Mbit etc.  READSL has the advantage of using more power at lower frequencies so the distance from a switch can be increased to 7Km.  Don't know of anything at the moment for > 7Km, sorry.

I don't know what you mean by 'true ADSL speed' as there is a theorectical maximum but no real minimum (commonally accepted to be 512Kbit though)WiFi services can run at fast speeds but you will definitely get contention and speed drop if lots of people are connected.  Maybe not too noticeable if the WiFi is connected to a big fat pipe but I can't imagine too many communes being able to afford a T3 link so it probably all goes down one 8Mbit line, albeit a dedicated one

[Judyc]

I live 9,6 km from our exchange and obviously have NO chance of getting any ADSL.  I did visit our local maire to see if there would be any change to the current set up but he shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyes heavenwards.  Think I get the picture.

The only suggestion that was made was 'move'!

Ironically, our neighbours-across-the-valley are able to get their ADSL as they are linked to a different exchange.

[Pierre ZFP]

Hmmm, how far are they away, in direct line and are you on good terms with them?  What I'm thinking is that you get one of them to instal a WiFi booster to their network of say 10 watts then you connect onto that.  If you're say 2 Km away you should get a good signal.  Probably not legal but hey, who on earth is ever going to find out?

[AnOther]

You wouldn't need 10w !

Given an unobstructed line of sight coupled with a properly engineered system with high gain directional antennas and VERY short runs of low loss cable you can easily "shoot" the nominal 100mw most WiFi devices work at into the 10's of kM. A couple of kM across a valley wouldn't present any problem at all.

It needn't cost a fortune either, €200 or €300 perhaps.

I don't know if anything like this exists in France yet but in UK T-Mobile have introduced "Web-n-Walk" which gives you 2mb on the GSM network either on a mobile phone or laptop.

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/personal/pages.do/our-services/internet-on-the-move/landing?ref=homepage_promo

and

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-devices/review/2006/06/30/T-Mobile-Web-n-Walk-Card/p1

This has to be the future and offers a glimmer of hope for those moribund in the digital wilderness.

 

[Pierre ZFP]

As you say, 10 watts is too much.  I only used it as an example as my boy and his friend 'alledgedly' got a couple of these and 'theroretically' set up a link between their 2 houses, about 3KMs distant and not line-of-sight and had 'planned' their own private network running at huge speeds. His bedroom looks more like NASA Mission Control nowadays.   One day the thought police will come knocking.......

[Wisigoth]

Has anyone tried "Onspeed"?  It's about £25 and is supposed to speed up your internet whether you have dial-up, broadband or even using a mobile phone.  The review I read was full of praise and some big names (Computer Active Magazine I think) were endorsing it.

[Mauhoum]

Hi, I don't know if this is the same thing that Tiscali offered me or not, but it was dreadful. Basically it reduced the size of the graphics, thus making pages download quicker. Trouble was that the quality of the images was awful, and I reverted to what I had before.

 

Tony

[AnOther]

Perhaps similar but not the same.

Onspeed is quite good and CAN speed up surfing but a lot depends on what you are doing.

Basically what it does is when you request a page it is first directed to their own servers where the content is compressed then re-transmitted to you.

The problem with this is that many files and elements of web pages are already compressed so putting them through Onespeed will not result in any improvement, and can in fact even slow things down fractionally.

Files such as .jpg .exe .zip .mp3 .mpg, and others, are already pretty fully compressed and as most of what you are likely to actually download will probably be in one of these formats you will see no improvement in speed.

[Judyc]

I used Onspeed for a year until about three months ago.  It made no difference whatsover to the speed - although it always 'showed' it was working, the speed did not improve, nor did I see any difference when I stopped using it.

As regards the neighbours, yes on good terms with them, but they are about to move house and I will have to ingratiate myself with the new family!

Thanks for the replies, as it has given me food for thought

[Charlotte3]

Mauhoum,

We're in the same position as you, and we have unlimited diall up internet access from Orange (Wanadoo) for only 25 euros per month.

We have currently 3 computers networked in our house, and we have had no real problems with speed etc.

Hope you get sorted,

Aly

[Mauhoum]

Hi Charlotte/Aly

So you receive emails via satellite and send emails via Orange dial-up? If so, who supplies the satellite equipment/service? I've only seen Sky packages[:@] but surely there must be others.

 

Tony

[Martin963]

http://www.teles-skydsl.fr/

(after a lot of trawling).   Note the very low (500 MO) download limit per month before additional charges kick in

[AnOther]

Or, if cost is no object.............. 

http://www.europeonline.com/

Even at that price it's still only 2mb (up to!).

Mind you, if you had the opportunity to share this with neighbours over WiFi perhaps, it might make sound sense.

Somebody has already done a similar thing and writes about it in another forum.

Google for      Taking control of the dernier kilomètre

Note that this type of system is not really good for telephone calls because of the delays.

[Charlotte3]

No Mauhoum, we don't receive our emails via satellite, we both send and receive them through dial-up.

We have considered ADSL but we really are very happy with the service we alrady have, and of course the cost!

Aly

[Mauhoum]

Hi Charlotte, well each to their own. I for one find that at around 33kbps, the speed is frustratingly slow. Coupled with the fact that there is no way I can view sites with either music or video, and if friends send me photos of anything over 300kb then the outlook express blocks. I have better things to do other than sit around waiting for pages to slowly download!

 

Tony

[AnOther]

Not to mention that with ADSL you don't tie up the phone line and will probably be able to make most of your calls for free as well.

When we were house hunting the very first thing we did at the various agents was look up the phone number of any houses of interest and instantly dismiss those which came up with under 2mb.

You may think what you like of that but having enjoyed a full 8mb in the UK there absolutely was no way we were prepared to consign ourselves to an Internet wilderness for what could be the rest of our days...[:-))]

But, as you say Tony, each to their own... [8-|]

[Charlotte3]

Hi Tony,

As you say, each to their own....I don't really watch sites with music or video, although myOH downloads lots of music and no2 daughter loads lots of music videos onto her blog. We do have the odd problem with big photos, but our family send us photos on disc now so we bypass that one.

We don't have free phone calls, so no problem there either....in fact we rarely use the phone, usually text by mobile (card) phone so dead cheap!!!

Aly