Airband poor service

Hi I signed up for a 2 year contract with this company who target's rural communities with their beamed WiFi. It advertised 40mb speeds an engineer surveys and passed property as suitable. You have 30 days to cancel and funnily enough the first 30 days speeds were close to max. Not long after this speeds dropped to 10mb and less, I promptly contacted support but apart from automated email saying we're working on it nothing has changed for 7 week's. I complained to customer services asking why I was being billed for 40mb which is on the invoice but only getting a quarter of that.They replied asking me to read the terms and conditions which states speeds are variable. I find this totally unacceptable, I understand speeds can vary but getting a quarter of what I'm contracted for for a sustained period of time is surely breaching the contract.I have now as per their terms and conditions asked for a deadlock letter so I can take this up with the communications ombudsman, they have not replied.Where do I stand here am I locked in? As they say I have to pay the full amount for 18 months, or should I stop the direct debit and take my chances fighting it in court if they want it any appreciated
Sivy28

What speeds did Aiband say that their service would provide and did their offer conform to this Ofcom requirement?

Not that long ago Ofcom introduced a rule stating "Your provider should always provide a minimum guaranteed speed for your broadband service."

I am also in the miserable position of having to be an Airband customer. They are unreliable and speeds variable and rarely geeting anywhere close to advertised. I have what I would consider fairly good evidence (I am an IT veteran) that they are prioritising traffic to some popular speed tests sites (fast.com in particualr and Ookla) so their service looks faster than it is. My own investigations have shown that they basically don't have the capactity in their final link to the internet to support the customers they have at the speeds they have sold.

Airband was "introduced" to my area through a subsidy via Connecting Shropshire (which makes me madder still - not only are they taking my money directly they are also having a bite at my taxes). I have raised my issues through them (Connecting Shropshire) and that is having more effect than contact to Airband direct. Unfortunately for me there is little alternative where I live - too far from our cabinet for FTTC and because Airbad are here other USO paths are blocked because I can supposedly get "Superfast" broadband from them. They are so unreliable that I have had to keep my old (slow) ADSL link too so I am paying twice (well 3 times as Airband are really expensive ... make it 4 because my of my taxes going to them too!).

Over the few years I have had the misfortune to be an Airband customer I have had all sorts of promises about improvement but the service is still rubbish. So if you have any alternative I strongly recommend you cut your losses and change supplier. If you are in contract with Airband I would just cancel you payment method with them and leave it to them to try to pursue you for a beach of contract - if they are not providing speeds as advertised you have rights to cancel through Ofcom. I doubt they would actually bother but if they do just be as public as possible (local paper and forums etc.) and they will probably slink off.

If like me you have no real alternatives let me know - you might like me be able to approach your council if Airband received any subsidy through them - and I can let you have names and email addresses of people higher up in Airband you can at least badger.

I know 4G can be incredibly patchy in Shropshire but is it not an option for you?

You may struggle with a mobile phone but a proper 4G aerial and suitable router would probably perform better than Airband.

Sadly I need a fixed IP or at least steady IP not CGNAT for a fixed VPN I run. 4G signal even outside is poor - a proepr 4G aerial migh make it an option if it waasn't for the need of a static IP as that pushes prices on 4G to rather silly levels.

Our internal 4G signal is very poor, but at aerial mast height it is very usable, we used it for 18 months with SMARTY getting 20-30Mbps. I believe with a Three SIM you do get a public IP address, but not static.

Do you have a static IP with Airband? Our FTTP line with them uses CGNAT, AIrband website does say that static IP is available at an exorbitant £10 per month.

Tim.

In reply to a post by tarka_the_otter:

If you are in contract with Airband I would just cancel you payment method with them and leave it to them to try to pursue you for a beach of contract

Not the best advice, especially for anyone looking to take out a mortgage or other lending. As stopping payment method. Will show as a non payment on your credit history. With the way getting credit is at the moment. Lender are even more cautious with black marks.