satellite broadband

Brucem: I have a property in Mangawhai with no landline service and very poor mobile reception - I want to avoid the huge expense of putting a land line in.

We were in the same situation in the Bay of Islands when we moved here 6 years ago. I have been using Kordia's Extend network for the past 5 years, but I've just checked the coverage maps and unfortunately, Mangawhai is well outside the area where service is available. Satellite would be the only option for you.

Brucem: I've been looking at the satellite technology provided by rocket broadband -- www.rocketbroadband.co.nz. Has anyone had experience with them

This is the same company who offer Farmside broadband, which has been around for several years. By all accounts, the service is good, but it is expensive and you only get a very small data cap unless you want to pay quite a high monthly charge. If you are careful with how much you use, then it should be OK. I would suggest avoiding any form of streaming video e.g. YouTube and the like, or your monthly data cap will be exceeded in no time.

Brucem: ...would I be able to use voip with it instead of the voicelink... Not being familiar with the options can any one give me some guide.

Farmside's VoiceLink is a form of VoIP which has been optimised for the satellite connection. Various people have tried to use VFX over satellite without much success due to the latency. As Knoydart has pointed out above, this is a serious problem with satellite connections.

I expected to experience serious amounts of lag when I tried Farmside's VoIP service (forerunner to VoiceLink) at the Fieldays in Hamilton. But much to my surprise, it wasn't too bad. So I would suggest giving VoiceLink a try and see how it works in your situation. It will save the expense of a landline connection which could be more than $1000 initial installation fee in your case, not to mention the ongoing monthly charges of around $50. If VoiceLink does the job for you, then it would be worth paying a bit extra to increase your monthly data cap to 2 - 5GB or thereabouts. Even so, it will still be much cheaper than paying for a landline.

We run a VoIP phone service here after disconnecting the landline about 3 years ago, and have never looked back. 2GB of data per month is enough for a decent amount of internet usage for myself and my wife, as well as probably 10 or more hours per month of VoIP calls.

Farmside / Rocket Broadband is a well-run company staffed by helpful people. In your situation, I would recommend giving them a try. Let us know how you get on.

Cheers,
Grant.

Brucem

CYaBro

knoydart

grant_k

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