Oxy298 and Oxygen298 - two accounts?

Tailing back to my earlier question - what did the National Broadband Map say? Is there a local WISP you could connect to?

Talkiet:

 

Unfortunately it's not as simple as what your phone says or whether someone closer to the tower can get service. The tools used by the frontline to determine availability are directly tied to the engineering and capacity planners rules.

 

Nothing to do with mobile networks is as simple as it can seem unfortunately :-(

 

 

 

Cheers - N

 

Oxy298: Hi,

Live in an area that says that 4G wireless service is not available, we are currently o. ADSL 6mb/s down 1.0mb/s up.

Using a 4G modem and an external antenna ill aligned but we are able to get 25mb/s down and 20mb/s up obviously a big improvement on ADSL.

Now the guy on the phone suggested that the cell tower was at capacity and had to wait till someone cancelled to get the service..

A second house closer to town allows me to sign up with the service so the cell tower capacity is out the window.

What options do I have or is there someone within skinny that can actually understand my situation?

Thanks

While a Stop Sell is common during holiday periods in your case it may be that Skinny don't offer Rural WBB plans.

We live just outside town & are in a similar situation -  technically we can't get Spark 4G Metro even though the celltower is 250m from our lounge.

Solution is to use an address in town. As you can see below our connection is rock solid.

K8Toledo:

 

Oxy298: Hi,

Live in an area that says that 4G wireless service is not available, we are currently o. ADSL 6mb/s down 1.0mb/s up.

Using a 4G modem and an external antenna ill aligned but we are able to get 25mb/s down and 20mb/s up obviously a big improvement on ADSL.

Now the guy on the phone suggested that the cell tower was at capacity and had to wait till someone cancelled to get the service..

A second house closer to town allows me to sign up with the service so the cell tower capacity is out the window.

What options do I have or is there someone within skinny that can actually understand my situation?

Thanks

 

 

 

While a Stop Sell is common during holiday periods in your case it may be that Skinny don't offer Rural WBB plans.

 

We live just outside town & are in a similar situation -  technically we can't get Spark 4G Metro even though the celltower is 250m from our lounge.

 

Solution is to use an address in town. As you can see below our connection is rock solid.

 

Yes i was just going to sign up with the town address and then take the modem out, Mimo the antenna's and point them to the cell site in question, after all if the modem was still in town the it would have gone to the strongest one or flip. flopped to the one higher up on a hill.

I'm only less than 12kms away and can see both towers with my own eyes.

I'm on Vodafone Wireless 4G broadband as our ADSL network was only 6mbps and frequently dying on us, we're 3km outside our nearest town.

The Vodafone address checker told me that I couldn't get Wireless 4G, but ringing them and speaking to them directly I could get it.

It turned out our rural address was not working with their database, something that I have noticed on other address based web databases.

I'm considering switching as congestion seems to be worsening in the evenings, but the Skinny website tells me it is not available at my address, although it is available in town. 

Spark has 3 cells in our area, Vodafone only one.

I have tried ringing them, but gave up after half an hour on hold.

This is all general and not specific to any companies polices but gives you an idea of their thinking:

Regarding capacity: Spark and Skinny sell the same bandwidth, but Spark has fatter profit margins. Companies are there to make money. If a cell site has heaps of spare capacity, they will have a fire-sale and hock-off bandwidth via Skinny rather than let it go wanting. If a site has some capacity but not lots, they will only sell in through Spark where there is more profit to be made (you've heard people moaning that they can get Spark but not Skinny - ?). If a site has no spare capacity, you won't be able to get fixed wireless on it at all. Yes, your Skinny mobile will work on it but you pay a much higher premium for that data than fixed wireless. Fixed wireless data is effectively discounted which is why it is subject to capacity, and more profitable customers take precedence. This also explains why fixed wireless may have been available last year but not now - all the bandwidth is (now) spoken for. 

As you have observed, capacity on a tower isn't necessarily a constant for all users at all distances. An address nearer the tower could be on a completely different band to the one further out so don't face the same capacity constraints.  The lower frequencies (B28 - 700 MHz) have longer range which naturally encompasses more users but can't re reused on neighbouring towers as much and therefore provide less capacity per user, which makes them more precious (and saved for more lucrative rural broad band/mobile customers). Higher frequencies are more abundant but have shorter range (B3 - 1800 MHz, B40 - 2300 MHz, B7 - 2600 MHz) so provide more capacity, but at less range. This can be why fixed wireless may be available for an address close to the tower but not an address further away. 

I contacted Skinny via live chat and the issue is congestion in my area, so I'll be sticking with Vodafone...

Yes i was just going to sign up with the town address and then take the modem out, Mimo the antenna's and point them to the cell site in question, after all if the modem was still in town the it would have gone to the strongest one or flip. flopped to the one higher up on a hill.

I'm only less than 12kms away and can see both towers with my own eyes.

1024kb:

 

Yes i was just going to sign up with the town address and then take the modem out, Mimo the antenna's and point them to the cell site in question, after all if the modem was still in town the it would have gone to the strongest one or flip. flopped to the one higher up on a hill.

I'm only less than 12kms away and can see both towers with my own eyes.

 

This is the right answer. This solution works, I have multiple examples of this situation that have been operating just fine for over 12 months & others that started just last month. Order to an address that their database allows, take modem home, use it.

This won't always work, and breaches the T&Cs. It's not the right answer.

Cheers - N

Talkiet:

 

1024kb:

This is the right answer. This solution works, I have multiple examples of this situation that have been operating just fine for over 12 months & others that started just last month. Order to an address that their database allows, take modem home, use it.

 

This won't always work, and breaches the T&Cs. It's not the right answer.

 

Cheers - N

 

 

 

Knowingly breaching Ts&Cs and using a product in an unintended way is never the right answer. Don't be surprised or upset if you get cut off.