Wireless dialup and broadband in Ireland

I have been asked to help someone get internet broadband connection. A the moment I am working on third hand knowledge of their setup. I am told they have a "normal" pc, nowhere near their telephone socket and a telephone line.

The telephone line is rather far from the exchange as they live in an empty part of south West Ireland; you have to walk up the hill to see your nearest neighbough. Does anyone know how I can find out if they can get broadband? An Irish checker?

In the meantime I would like to get them started with dialup. Once a wireless network card is installed in the pc a wireless router can be used with broadband but what can be done with dialup. Is it possible to run dialup through a wireless router then later replace with the broadband connection?

Started to answer my own questions.

Hardware. It seems that there may not be any wireless dialup units. There is a unit available in the US but availabilty and compatibility in Ireland unknown.

Broadband. Found an Irish checker. Only wireless or satellite available for phone number.

Short term will see how feasable is hardwiring from existing socket to pc then use dialup. Long term?

Any other advice appreciated.

I've just come back from Kerry (Tralee Area) and was doing some similar research for family with similar (rural exchange) problems to yours.

You might find it interesting to check out www.clearwire.ie as they seem to have some reasonable Broadband packages which covers parts of southern Eire via local Cellphone towers/repeaters ... Priced in the region of 25euro for a 512k/1meg connection with a 5gig cap (for comparison local 150hr-per-month "anytime" dial services cost about 15-18euro) ... They don't seem to have a huge coverage range at present, but are apparently expanding.

Another good alternative is to use local Libraries with a wireless laptop as most of these seem to have a fairly good (free) 4mbps network (and my experience was that none of the networks are switched off when closed, and I quite enjoyed sitting outside the library in my car or the grounds on evenings & weekends downloading the stuff needed to fix & upgrade their old PCs

Or alternatively, lookup local ISPs with www.google.ie.

Another tip is that if your friend/family need ANY hardware, buy it in the UK and post it to them as PC kit in SW Eire is WAY overpriced and most local PC-shops seem to be total rip-off merchants. (for example ... 56k internal-modem card =

Edited by Gold_Shogun (Sat 21-Oct-06 01:03:35)