High Speed Fi - Wi?

I'm fed up with poor download speeds (500Kbps) and drop outs at the end of a very long BT line (ADSL+ upto 8 Mb) to my home. A newish local company called 'Boundless - The Rural Broadband company', based in Chorley, Lancashire, seem to be offering something called 'High Speed Fi-Wi Broadband. Can anyone explain the pros and cons of this technology and whether Boundless is a company to be trusted?

As a newbie to this forum, any comments would be appreciated

Thanks

Paul

Had a quick gander on their site, they look all right to me.

The only thing that concerns me with any microwave kind of transmission is how it performs during bad weather, like a heavy downpour of rain. For example, where I work in London, we have a dish on the roof feeding the TV signal and that just dies completely during a heavy downpour.

Having said that, the technology that boundless are using is probably far more sophisticated than standard satellite feeds. I've heard now days they don't just use a single microwave channel between you and the base station. They use several, and the technology is so stable now, that even with rain particles in the way, it can flip between channels and always adapt to small moving obstacles that may hinder the signal. I'd ask them about this, specifically, how it holds up in poor weather conditions (you might just lose a bit of speed, but nothing too serious).

Edited by deleted (Sun 27-Nov-11 11:08:50)

With your download speeds you don't appear to have a lot to lose.

Wi-Fi can provide very decent speeds in both directions when set up properly.

Our old Sky dish used to struggle in bad weather.

Another option might be 3G.

We use 3 and that doesn't seem to be radically affected by weather conditions, returning 6Mbps most of the time (11Mbps on an exceptional day). Not sure how the transmission and dynamics of that compare to Wi-Fi except to say that Wi-Fi has a lot more bandwidth on tap (potentially) so while congestion may or may not be an issue (3G's Achilles heel), it would be hard for it to be worse than you have now.

Haven't checked out the company you mention but I'd pay attention to setup costs and contract length. On the other hand 3G can be had on a month to month basis, and if you can get a decent signal it would be very difficult for it to be worse than you have now, but data transfer allowances are fairly meagre.

Important: Service delivery is not the usual Wi-Fi as in b/g/n but more likely to be a WiMAX type service

In any case of a serious down pour a satellite dish may not perform at it's best. But there are different satellite dishes which perform better. The problem which occurs a lot of the time is people expect technology to work constantly. and the technology companys sell it as that. But in certain circumstances (usually when you need it the most) the technology may fail.

What you want to ask them is, if they can increase the signal when bad weather occurs. This will send a more powerful beam to the dish and hopefully give some speed...which is better than nothing at all.

Also ask them about contention ratios. sometimes prices can be altered and made cheaper if the company share your line with more people. This will also affect speeds during peak periods.

Anything else you would like to no just ask.

Have a good day

This isnt using satellite anyway so the problems with rain should be less as the signal, hopefully, should be stronger and the aerial (is it a dish?) would be orientated very diferently.

I've used a fibre backhaul WISP (fixed wireless) service for 2 years now. The backhaul is critical, my ISP uses Easynet and it's more reliable than BT wholesale on my other FTTC connection - with 1 brief 10m early morning outage in the last couple of months.

My service is advertised at 25Mbps shared both ways, in practice I get up to 12 down and about half that upload, and it's fairly consistent with no noticeable peak slowdown. The latest MiMo technology is very reliable, and no slowdowns due to weather or interference. I'm about 5 miles from the transmitter (of course line of sight is the key factor) though some customers are double that or more. (It can run up to double that speed, but this is the basic cost service). Usually there's an install cost comparable with a TV aerial (though small receiver about half the size of A4 sheet of paper can usually be attached to an existing pole), and service cost is about £13pm in my area. Pings can vary a bit from 15 comparable with the FTTC service up to 60+ or so - but that's better than I ever got with a mass market ISP on ADSL at 3.4km from the exchange, and throughput speeds are x3 at least.

It needs a cable (not ADSL) router unless you connect direct by ethernet cable from the supplied modem to a single PC.

EDIT: this is the equipment I have for instance (though the installer will supply as they need to configure for your service) http://www.msdist.co.uk/product_NanostationM5%20.php . It reputed that torrential rain can be an issue for any wireless signal, but I've never noticed a problem in the east (and fog and last years snow no problem), and the internet keeps its signal even when the Sky dish temporarily loses its signal in poor weather.

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Nov-11 14:02:28)