Satellite Internet

[carbine]

Has anyone come across, or does anyone know anything about the Eutelsat TOOWAY satellite internet provider. Apparently it is a French company that is available here in Spain, they are supposedly offering download speeds of 3.5Mbps which should increase to 10Mbps next year for something like 30€ a month inc!!

Just about anything has to be better than the current crop of overpriced snail paced providers but this sounds stunning, any information would be most welcome, or about any satellite providers.

[El Jefe]

After 7 years of satellite connection I've just swapped to one of the local "WIFI" providers who I'm much happier with in all ways. Cheaper, faster and a lot less latency.

So before you get too excited, be sure to check out their contract carefully.

Satellite providers usually have a very strict FAP (fair access policy). Although the speeds might seems attractive you'll likely be limited by how much you can download in a day/month, which I imagine would be very little for 30€ / month. Also you'll need to buy the kit and have someone install it which usually isn't cheap...

[sabio]

http://www.eutelsat.com/news/compress/en/2009/pdf/PR2509-El-Corte-Ingles-Tooway.pdf

El Corte Inglés will be the distributors in Spain.

[carbine]

Thanks for the replies. I am surprised at El Jefe's rather damning response, I have used satellite in the UK and found it great. As far as the Fair Access Policy is concerned, this doesn't restrict your weekly/monthly dowload, it just means that if you are a heavy user you may on ocassion find your speed reduced particularly during peak hours.

When it comes to capacity you get what you pay for.

My feeling is that if I can get reasonable download/upload speeds it has to be a good thing. From what I have experienced the current providers in this area are charging extortionate rates for an abyssmal service that is generally slower than dial-up anywhere else in Europe.

They all offer what appears to be reasonable speeds, but in reality none of them guarantee anything more than 10% thus a supposed 2mb download, if you can get it, in reality is nothing more than 2kb, even basic dial-up, again if you can get it is 512k.

[El Jefe]

Here's another link...

http://www.internetsatelite.net/paquetes.html
Looks like their basic plan allows for is 1.2 GB / Month...

Perhaps FAP varies from company to company, but I'd be checking it out carefully before committing to anything...

BTW: My current plan is 1Mbps (megabits). I typically get around 120 kBps (kilobytes) download rate - which seems pretty good to me...

[sabio]

Thanks for the replies. I am surprised at El Jefe's rather damning response, I have used satellite in the UK and found it great. As far as the Fair Access Policy is concerned, this doesn't restrict your weekly/monthly dowload, it just means that if you are a heavy user you may on ocassion find your speed reduced particularly during peak hours.

When it comes to capacity you get what you pay for.

My feeling is that if I can get reasonable download/upload speeds it has to be a good thing. From what I have experienced the current providers in this area are charging extortionate rates for an abyssmal service that is generally slower than dial-up anywhere else in Europe.

They all offer what appears to be reasonable speeds, but in reality none of them guarantee anything more than 10% thus a supposed 2mb download, if you can get it, in reality is nothing more than 2kb, even basic dial-up, again if you can get it is 512k.
10% of 2MB is 200kb isn't it?
Basic dial up is 56kb.
...and remember there are 8 bits in a byte.
But I feel sure that you must know that already.

[carbine]

I have had a bundle of information on this matter sent to me via another source.

It seems there are 5 distributors of the Tooway Satellite Internet system in Spain, none of which advertise it particularly well, and probably the main dealers are El Molino Systems SL, they are a large organisation with a base in most European countries.

There cost to purchase the system is €450 this includes set up and connection charges, plus €29.99 monthly fee.

This is only €150 difference in the first year from local providers charging €120connection plus €45 per month. by year 3 you are saving.

The system gives a download speed of up to 3.6Mbts with a 1Gb monthly cap, this NOT the most you can download in a month, but the level at which the FAP, Fair Access Policy, kicks in and reduces the speed of your download, even then it only does so at peak times or if bandwith is full.

1Gb is probably enough for most people unless downloading games, videos or large amounts of data. (The cap is increased by 50% on overnight downloads.) The upload speed is high enough to be able to use Skype clearly without breaks!

The speed will be increased to 10Mbts next year when a new Hotbird satellite comes on stream, and they have promised to increase the download caps in line with the increase in speed. Higher, full speed download capacities are available and having seen some Spanish providers who are asking over €70 a month for speeds like 4Mbts such a system starts to look even more attractive and something like the rest of Europe is use to, especially when they state that you should receive at least 50% of the stated speed 90% of the time!! This has to put it way ahead of anything currently on offer in Spain.

Friends in Australia are using the system which has proved so successful that many people on wireless are changing over.

I am still looking for catches but can't seem to find any!