Rural Internet Speed

Started by StefanV, February 11, 2018, 21:25:30 PM

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StefanV

I am living in Triquivijate, which is considered to be rural area.

I enrolled with a company that specializes in rural areas.

I opted for the most expensive rural option and pay nearly â,¬50 per month for a service that promises 10 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload speed.

Sometimes (but very rarely) that's what I get.

The last couple of weeks, 5% of the promised speed is the normal download speed here (500 Kbps)

I know there are some "satellite alternatives" these days.

Anyone here who has some experience with them (movistar, etc ...)

What speeds are you getting?

Thank you so much!


fatherted

2.2mbps tonight (Sun) in Caleta. Not been good all day!

TamaraEnLaPlaya

currently 11.36 download, yippee! (satellite service through Movistar) and 0.73 upload.

spitfire58

We have netservice & had contracted for 6mgbt download but found it to be only about 2 so upped it last time to 10 & got about 5, this is in the evenings, sometimes still as low as 2 but generally fine during the day

Johnrgby2

We are in Caleta, firstly all the ISP services use Movistar, they own all the hardware on The Island, we use a company called Eurona, previously Hablaya, when we first enquired they asked for our address, and came back 30 mins later and said we would get between 6 and 15 Mbps, we get 8/9 consistently very occasionally it will drop to 5/6 but not for long, so I assume it is the area in which you live that dictates the speeds rather than the company you use, but â,¬50 per month does seem excessive, we pay â,¬37 and that includes all phone calls to land lines and mobiles to anywhere in Europe and Canada, why Canada I Have no idea, if you are interested let me know and I will dig out their contact details, may or may not improve your speed but will be cheaper.

StefanV

Quote from: TamaraEnLaPlaya on February 11, 2018, 23:35:16 PM
currently 11.36 download, yippee! (satellite service through Movistar) and 0.73 upload.
Hi Tamara,
Are you living in a rural area as well?
Is this "speed" something you have sometimes or most of the time?
TY,
Stefan

TamaraEnLaPlaya

#6
Hi
Just retested and got 14.70 and 0.75. We're in the sticks in Tindaya, no landlines down our end of the village. The Movistar router was set to 3G but we changed the settings to 4G which we get most of the time. Occasional hiccup (once a week perhaps, or when bad atmospherics) takes it back to 3G but a quick turn off/on brings it back again, so pretty consistent. We also got Movistar to install a booster thingamy/aerial/receiver? up by the roof. The speeds and stability have definitely improved in the 2 years we have had the service.

In our experience Movistar will only install their 3/4G Sat Service if there is no land line option available to you and it costs us around 44/45â,¬ per month

spitfire58

Quote from: TamaraEnLaPlaya on February 13, 2018, 00:51:20 AM
Hi
Just retested and got 14.70 and 0.75. We're in the sticks in Tindaya, no landlines down our end of the village. The Movistar router was set to 3G but we changed the settings to 4G which we get most of the time. Occasional hiccup (once a week perhaps, or when bad atmospherics) takes it back to 3G but a quick turn off/on brings it back again, so pretty consistent. We also got Movistar to install a booster thingamy/aerial/receiver? up by the roof. The speeds and stability have definitely improved in the 2 years we have had the service.

That must be similar to the net-service system then Tamara, we have an antenna on the roof as well 🙂🙂

TamaraEnLaPlaya

Thanks Spitfire, that was the word I was searching for, antenna

StefanV

Quote from: TamaraEnLaPlaya on February 13, 2018, 00:51:20 AM
Hi
Just retested and got 14.70 and 0.75. We're in the sticks in Tindaya, no landlines down our end of the village. The Movistar router was set to 3G but we changed the settings to 4G which we get most of the time. Occasional hiccup (once a week perhaps, or when bad atmospherics) takes it back to 3G but a quick turn off/on brings it back again, so pretty consistent. We also got Movistar to install a booster thingamy/aerial/receiver? up by the roof. The speeds and stability have definitely improved in the 2 years we have had the service.

In our experience Movistar will only install their 3/4G Sat Service if there is no land line option available to you and it costs us around 44/45â,¬ per month

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation, Tamara.
I do consider making the switch to Movistar Satelite Internet.
How long did you have to wait to get that booster antena?
Also, is there an option to cancel their service? How many weeks or months are required to cancel.
Thanks again!
Stefan

TamaraEnLaPlaya

We got our booster antenna about 2 weeks after the original install as our original speeds were pretty appalling! Friends who had it installed last month asked for the antenna when they signed up for the package and theirs was put up as part of the install.
Cancellation - really sorry but I can't remember or find the contract  ::)
In the Corralejo shop there is a girl who speaks excellent English - she was very helpful to our friends. There are all sorts of extras as part of the current contract.
If you take out a Movistar contract you have to give them a Spanish phone number on which to contact you re the install - if you haven't got one you need to involve a friend/neighbour who can relay messages!

Lexeus

#11
It's been a few months but any chance you can point me at some more info on this service TamaraEnLaPlaya, I get the feeling you may be getting the different technologies a little confused, but given that this is spain I could be wrong. What does the "antenna" look like. The most likely modern possibilities are shaped as either 1.Stick/Rod 2.Flat Rectangular box 3.Satellite dish...Sky-dish sized 4. Much smaller Mini-dish

spitfire58

Ours is just a stick antenna

Windermeregolfer

Ours is a white minin dish with a stick antenna in the middle, we use Fuerte Wifi and get 13Mb down and 2.5 to 3.5Mb up

TamaraEnLaPlaya

Quote from: Lexeus on June 14, 2018, 19:00:18 PM
It's been a few months but any chance you can point me at some more info on this service TamaraEnLaPlaya, I get the feeling you may be getting the different technologies a little confused, but given that this is spain I could be wrong. What does the "antenna" look like. The most likely modern possibilities are shaped as either 1.Stick/Rod 2.Flat Rectangular box 3.Satellite dish...Sky-dish sized 4. Much smaller Mini-dish

It's not easy to get a pic of the one we have so I've looked online and this is the nearest I can see:


Lexeus

#15
Ok, so I think I see the confusion here. Firstly, of all the regularly advertised internet services in Fuerteventura NO services are satellite internet. You can use Satellite Internet almost anywhere in the populated world (your account wouldn't even need to be with a Spanish company), but they are not cost effective when there is an alternative service.

The three common Internet service options in Fuerteventura are: 1.Telefonica cabled connection (ADSL or Fibre) 2.Mobile Internet (3G/4G Service) 3.Rural Broadband (WIMAX Service)

1. Telefonica cabled connection (ADSL or Fibre)

This could be a contract with Movistar, but equally with Vodafone, Orange, Jazztell etc. The key considerations here are that a Fibre connection is only available in Puerto del Rosario (areas like Coralejo are having fibre laid) and that ADSL connections are all running on the same cables (Telefonica), but depending on the company you contract with you will see a different speed. For example, I had a vodafone ADSL connection down south in Pajara and I found my self lucky to get 1Mb/s because only Movistar get access to the full speed of the line, which is about 7Mb/s. Vodafone pay Telefonica for the line, and they allow them upto 2Mb/s, but Vodafone don't pay Telefonica for a voice service, so they run the landline phone over an internet service, which eats in to your internet bandwidth. Anyway the lesson here is, whichever company, you need someone to try it to know what you are going to get :) but Movistar get access to the best speeds.


2. Mobile Internet (3G/4G Service)

These services are just mobile phone contracts, using an identical SIM card in an internet box. Most importantly this uses the SAME mobile phone towers as your mobile does, so before you take out the contract, check if you receive mobile phone service from that operator when standing outside your house. Movistar, Vodafone, Orange, Jazztel any of the providers can be used for this service, but the COST varies tremendously. Movistar, Vodafone and Orange I know offer tariffs much cheaper that are sold specifically for use in your house, and you are not allowed to use the SIM card away from your registered address.
The big down side is, unlike the WIMAX rural-internet service, these are all limited to a monthly usage, but the benefit is that the speed is much faster (if you have a good signal). I have Vodafone it's 80Gb usage a month on a 4G 30Mb/sec connection and I never get less than 5Mb/sec but usually around 20-25Mb/s, but I can see the mobile phone tower from my house so it doesn't get any better than that.

The following is a 3g/4g Modem+Router+WiFi access point, all-in-one box. Sometimes called MiFi it includes it's own internal antenna, similar to the omni-directional antenna pictured below, but you wouldn't want to put this box on your roof. It has external antenna connectors on the back for the case where you need an antenna on your roof because of weak signal. Vodafone provide this box free with their service.



The following are both Omni-directional Antennas i.e. You may want to use this to pickup a signal outside your house, because thick walls mean you get no mobile signal inside your house:



High-gain Directional Antenna, you point it at the phone companies broadcasting tower so that a weak signal becomes a strong signal and interference from other directions is not picked up.




3. Rural Broadband (WIMAX Service)

In September 2017 the only frequency-licensed (3.4Ghz-3.6Ghz) provider Iberbanda (Telefonica) closed their WIMAX service saying it cost too much to run. I have taken out a WIMAX contract myself, but this is what I know about it.
The main WIMAX service provider, who I believe now control the old Iberbanda broadcast towers is Netservice, you can check your potential coverage through their tower locations here: http://www.netservice.es/mapa-de-cobertura/ (I am sure last year JRM said they were taking over the Iberbanda business but their website closed when NetService merged with JRM, http://www.netservice.es/fusion-con-netservice/)

This service predated 4G internet and is essentially a wireless link from your house to a transmitter that is connected to a fixed line internet connection, eliminating the need to have a cable for the last few miles to your house. In Fuerteventura this service is operated with a roof-mounted directional dish antenna pointed directly at the broadcast tower, requiring line-of-sight to the tower. The main benefit of this service is an unlimited monthly bandwidth usage, but the speeds you get are not always so good. If you don't need alot of monthly GB's in bandwidth, then I would suggest this is an expensive choice with little benefits of a mobile internet connection.

From reading about Iberbanda, I understand that most of the transmitters were fitted on existing Telefonica towers. These towers will therefore all have a good fibre connection or similar, the problem will be between the transmitter and your house. You may find their is radio interference in the 3.4-3.6Ghz frequencies used, and whether too many people are using the same channels at the same time, because unlike mobile phone providers, the frequencies used are neither licensed for use by only a single provider or protected for only WIMAX. Also unlike 4G, it isn't designed first and foremost for lots of users going online/offline regularly.
As others have said, some providers may not even have a good fixed line internet connection on their transmitters.



spitfire58

Hi Lexeus,
Without meaning to diverge. Your last post is the first time I have had pictures come up since God knows when !! I got the pic with the MIFI unit, the one with the antenna that looks like a car aerial (sort of) & the WIMAX “dish”. But not any of the rest !!
Can you tell me if those pics were a different format, just trying to suss out why I can get them & not others,
Cheers . . Ron

Lexeus

#17
Thanks for letting me know, how does it look to you now? I updated the image links on the ones you weren't seeing. Those ones were all hosted on imgur rather than their original host

spitfire58

Quote from: Lexeus on June 16, 2018, 20:16:59 PM
Thanks for letting me know, how does it look to you now? I updated the image links

Got them all now 🎉🍾🎉🍾🎉🍾
Woo Hoo 🎉🍾🎉🍾🎉🍾

Thanks Lexeus. Tamara`s post, below yours, I have seen no pics for yonks, or any others 😁😁😁

Lexeus

#19
Hilarious, I was posting links from their original websites and then noticed Tamara was using Imgur and thought maybe this forum blocked certain image links so I replaced half of them with imgur links like Tamara.... but then I got lazy :). So the half that worked were all NOT on imgur.

I can see Tamara's posted image fine, but maybe people should avoid using Imgur?

spitfire58

Thanks. It appears the problem may well be imgur !! I know a lot on here use it to post pics. I haven`t had any pics since it came back after the last crash !!

woe10

I'm with NetService in Rosario. They have and Antenna on top of Chipmunk Mt. I pay 45â,¬ for 10 mb but quite often have 11 or 12.
For a while I was on their Empresa Server (which serves some of the complexes in Caleta) and had 20 mb download. They do up to to 60 mb download if you pay for it.

spitfire58

We have Net Service as well. Antenna on the roof & get 10mbt dowload foe 45â,¬ as well. Generally good service, tends to drop to 4 or 5 in the evening but no great problems

beara man

Hi Stefanv

We are in a similar position to you as we are renovating a house in Triqui which hopefully will be ready for us to move in to by October. Which system did you go for in the end as the more I read the more confused I seem to get. Not a teccy person I happily admit. We want t start the wheels moving on installation as soon as possible so any advice would be appreciated.