VFast in Maidstone - how good are they?

Hi

I live in the Downswood area in Maidstone which is Market 1 exchange area and max speeds are 3mbps so I am stuck with BT and I really want to move away from them. I use my internet a lot for normal surfing as I work from home and my Husband sometimes work from home too using remote access.

Question is I like everything I have read about VFast but being something I have never heard of I am a bit skeptical. For a start how big is the Satellite dish, I already have a SKY dishbox and my house is small so I dont want it to look too cluttered.

Finally but most importantly how good and fast is the service? We don't really download a lot of stuff and I wonder if all these major speeds will show and impact on normal internet surfing or its mainly when doing uploads and downloads when these are more useful?

I really would like to give them a try but would appreciate any feedback and would we be able to connect several PCs too at one go? I am sold on VFast but just need these few question answered to convience my Husband who seems to think its some sort of gimmick.

Thanks
FED UP WITH BT

Hello from another Market 1 victim near Maidstone.
I have previously looked at Vfast, but they did not cover my area, so now I had another look and they still don't !
However I note that the cost went up considerably, IRCC it was ~£15 p.m.
So, even if they did I would find it too expensive...

I don't think you need a dish, it would be some kind of antenna.

Meanwhile all I can suggest is switching your BB and phone to PlusNet (who are owned by BT),
yes, you will get some speeds / service, but at lest you would be paying less !

The only other alternative is Mobile BB, which does work well, but it's only economical for low usage - up to 3GB p.m.
Regards,
Martin

Thanks for your reply, I really hate BT at this point I must say. I am so disappointed with their customer service and I have looked at Plusnet which still works out at £21.49 and I will be stuck on speed of around 2.5m. Vfast will cost me about £25 monthly so I am hoping if I get better speed and service then it may be worth it. I still have to fork out the £99 for installation though

I have just checked my speed and download is 2.56mbps while upload is 0.38mbps

Another question, as I dont download that much just normal browsing, will these VFast make a difference to how fast I surf and view websites? I understand websites depend on their host for speed too but any slight diff in speed will be much appreciated.

You'll get marginally faster website load times. You don't use much bandwidth when just loading web pages so most of the speed gain if the connection is decent would be through a faster browser or ping time.

At least this is what i've read.

VFast is very good though, if you can get it and aren't happy with BT you're likely to get a much much better performance out of their stuff. The antenna is really small too so it doesn't look horrible.

Regards,

William Farren

Hi

I've answered this directly today through your e-mail into Vfast.

For the benefit of others that may ask the same questions:-

Our service is wireless, much in the same way as standard analogue/freeview TV with an antenna that points back at one of our masts. It is not a Satellite broadband service and the antenna we install is much smaller than a Sky dish measuring just 29 x 3 x 8 cm (compared to a 74 cm Sky dish).

You should be able to get 15Mbps or 24Mbps depending on the package you select. The lowest signal we allow connections to be installed should give between 8~10Mbps throughput.

Ping times are very good, often better than ADSL at about 10-20ms so remote desktop, VoIP etc will work well.

We can supply a wireless router so you can connect multiple computers and wireless devices. Or you can use/purchase your own router, which will need to be a cable broadband router, not one designed for BT."

Thanks William!

Always good to get positive feedback form customers