haut-debit by satellite

[misterderek]

I live in the commune de St. Julien le Petit in the haute-vienne where we have the dubious honour of being one of the very few areas in france without haut-debit !! An alternative is satellite connection.
I should like to ask if there is anyone elsewhere in france who has experience of accessing the internet using the bi-directional satellite system. e.g.Nordnet. It is more expensive I know, but our choices are severely limited !

I'd appreciate any comments

Derek

[ChrisandJulie]

We can't get ADSL here in our part of the Correze, either. We've been using a hybrid system of dial-up uplink, and satellite downlink. Generally, it's been mediocre, some days better than others, but they really only want your money, and the only way to get faster downloads with this particular supplier is to pay through the nose per Megabit. So when you add the costs of this to the cost of the ISP for the dial-up link, AND the cost of an extra telephone line (to free up the original one for phone calls), it becomes pretty expensive.

One alternative we are considering is Numeo wimax, which is now available here, but an unknown quantity. Numeo are apparently also introducing a bi-directional satellite service at a reasonable price in September, so we're waiting to see how much that might be.

It's all a bit of a pain in the bum, really.

Chris

[misterderek]

Chris et Julie

Thanks for the reply - Numeo is a Wimax option here too, but having visited a couple of french forums where Numeo were discussed, I can only suggest that they should not be touched with a barge-pole ! The connection is a lot slower than advertised (sometimes just 10% of quoted speed), suffers many disconnections and to cap it all, contacting the "help" desk is a huge test of patience, the agents when you finally get to them unhelpful and often rude, and will hang up on you if the going gets tough !
I would definitely not go down that route and would be similarly skeptical of their satellite option.
As you rightly say - c'est chiant !

[Timco]

It's too soon to say at the moment, but I've just been contacted by a friend who lives in the 'back of beyond' in dept 14. He's been offered a deal in conjunction with the local council to get ADSL via satellite through a company called Nordnet. All the kit arrived last week - parabol,modem etc. He's asked me to go over and get it all up and running and I think that this may be some time next week.
If I get a chance I'll post back details here of how we get on.
Regards - Tim

[Clyde]

Thinking of going for Vivéole satellite broadband? Take my advice – think again!

I applied in January and eventually got online in late May. At first it was fine but now after mid-day I’m lucky to get dial-up speeds, 61kbps as I write this. After around 11am it is pretty useless. The problem? Who knows. The status tests show my connection is fine and also confirm the slow speed. My download usage at 1100Mb is nowhere near the ongoing limits of the Vivéole Fair Use Policy. I can only think that since its launch Vivéoles’ resources are stretched to breaking point and perhps they can't cope. If you do anything other than read some emails, forget it.

I’m supposed to have 512kbps which costs me 29.99€ per month and the initial cost was 350€. In my case there was an additional 100€ for finding the satellite due to the inaccurate instructions. I won’t bore you with the details but my setup and I assume anyone else's who has my model of iLNB looks nothing like any illustration of an Astra2Connect dish you will see!

I was a postman for 27 years and my lifestyle was a daytime routine of getting up at 4.00am and going to bed around 9pm. If I want to use my broadband connection I’ll have to start again - so much for retirement!!


Incidentally, I'm having trouble actually sending this post. I've tried three times so far and it keeps timing out

[Clyde]

It's 8am and my connection is running at 373kbps

So why not this speed all day? But it still isn't up to the 512kbps I pay for. This seems to be a worldwide problem so why is it allowed to continue? We don't accept being short changed at the super market or petrol station and anyone trying to do that could be prosecuted. So why not the broadband suppliers who sell us far less than we pay for?

Don't you love the Fair Use Policy? Its an admission from the supplier that their resources are lacking so they tell us that they will share it out to us equally, how kind, well that's fair innit? Really, but aren't we still paying for the full resource? Presumably we should be grateful for the few scraps we are getting

[Sylvia]

We also are on a non-dsl pocket (every single village around us has ADSL....sigh...) We are on bi-directional satellie with Filiago (German version of Astra2Connect) and it works really well. 49,90 a month for 1Gig. Right now 993 down and 246 up.

The "rush hour" traffic slows it down around noon and then again around 5-7 pm. Other than that we can stream music, watch video, use Skype (with 2-second blackouts every few minutes).

But if you compare with the alternative (we were paying 33 Euros for dialup plus the phone connection 19Euros), this solution is far superior. We have now cancelled the FT landline.

Sylvia

_________________
"The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself."
Oscar Wilde

[Clyde]

Cor, perhaps if I pay much more I would get the same? Just can't be sure.

Just to clarify the Vivéole FUP situation. It’s not possible to see the Vivéole graphic which depicts the manner in which the FUP is applied. You have to have signed on and paid your subscription!

The graphic is very vague but tries to shows how the connection speed slows down the more you download. So applying my 1100Mb downloaded so far this period I should still be able to get a speed of between 320 and 160kbps. As I have explained, only in the early hours of the day can I get anything approaching 320kbps and by 9am nothing approaching 100kbps.

The next period starts on 19th August so I will be able to check from that date just what happens. We will see.

But although there are references to the FUP in the commercial blurb its only after you have joined up that you get to see the nitty gritty.

[angelweb]

Don't know if it helps but there's an explanation of Nordnet's FUP here

[Clyde]

and 'quota' is a much more transparent concept. Judgiing by the figures on this site this is pretty much what I get except that those speeds quoted are only available at the crack of dawn - I'm writing this at 7.30am to get some emails out - and hardly any connection after 3pm.

My connection was not operating after 4pm yesterday and that was confirmed by the Status page test.

[misterderek]

Well - it would seem to me that the kind responses and comments emanating from my original question do not inspire much confidence in the only alternative that we non-ADSL sufferers can choose (Wimax included).

Next steps ? Not sure there are any; I certainly can't afford to throw lots of money towards our intrepid satellite providers for higher theoretical download/connection speeds which simply don't happen ! Just have to wait I guess until either the technology improves or France telecom cough up more for 100% ADSL - don't think I'll hold my breath !

Thanks for replies in any case and keep them coming if any new info becomes available.

Derek

[Clyde]

I'm posting this in the first couple of hours of my new FUP period. It zeroed at midday today.

I notice from angelweb's post and link to the BigDish/Nordnet page that the upload figures are given clearly - that's not the case with Vivéole. They indicate that I may have 'damaged' my quota in the last FUP period by using Mozy to backup my computer uploadng around 500Mb.

It will be interesting to see what effect the fact that I'll only be uploading the updates - only about 20Mb per week - will have on my Vivéole system.

I have effectively abandoned my ADrive backup as my picture files are on average 3Mb each and I have hundreds, so back to the DVDs.

If there is any noticeable improvement in performance I will post the results.

[maxspeed]

Hello Clyde.
I acknowledge the convenience of an on line back up, but Cd's. is it not worth an external drive, these are so inexpensive now per gig.

Max.

_________________
If all the worlds a stage .. where does the audience sit.

[Clyde]

Hi Max,

I've also got a Western digital 400Gb external drive but soon after I started using it it crashed so I'm not relying on it exclusively. Got it sorted out but there is always that niggling doubt. I agree that there is also a hidden cost using 'free' on line storage due to the extra broadband resources you need.

Mike

[maxspeed]

Makes you want to print off and keep albums again........
blimey all those little sticky corners

Is it raining up your way

Max.

_________________
If all the worlds a stage .. where does the audience sit.