Farmside: Is it really that bad ?

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › Farmside: Is it really that bad ?

jaybeedee

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#152116 16-Sep-2014 14:59

Hi all,
My mother in law has had a stroke and the family is working out how to get her home and roster ourselves to look after her. Having basic broadband suddenly becomes important so the family can be with her for reasonable periods of time while still staying in touch with all their responsibilities in town.

Our options are Satellite and ADSL (RBI not available in our area on Auckland's west coast).

ADSL is on a waiting list and we are hearing stories of 1 year waiting lists (as well as lots of problems with relaibility, cabinet needing to be rebooted, not to mention the farmhouse is a looong way from the cabinet, as well as the basic phone (POTS) having outages reasonably regularly).

So satellite seems to have the benefit of being reasonably quick to install, and offers some redundancy in terms of communications if the phone line is out of action (if it isn't raining too hard).

The consistent feedback from locals is that rain fade is a real problem.

Is that to be expected or is it poor installation ?
Can it be improved with a bigger dish (I see WirelessNation promotes a bigger dish) ?
Should we just go with wireless nation and pay a bit more ?

We think we understand all the other issues in terms of low data caps, latency etc but figure we can live with those, as well as the cost, but we do want to know that it will work consistently.

Love to hear from anyone who knows

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#1130029 16-Sep-2014 15:29

Where abouts on the West cost of Auckland? Vodafone have turned on a new RBI site not that long ago that covers Huia , Whatipu and in around those areas

throbb

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#1130033 16-Sep-2014 15:44

I think Farmside and Wireless nation use different satellites with the Farmside one lower in the sky and is affected by rain fade more?

coffeebaron

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#1130049 16-Sep-2014 16:14

I know West Auckland well, so feel free to flick me your address and I can do some coverage checks for you. Cheers, Fraser.

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wally22

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#1130070 16-Sep-2014 16:52

I was on satellite broadband with Wireless Nation for about 3 years until RBI became available. I chose them over Farmside at install time and they consistently bettered or matched Farmsides offerings on Broadband, except for middle of the night downloads. Wireless Nation were the only ones to offer acceptable speeds (I started with 2Mbs down 1 Mbs up) when all I could have got out of Farmside was 256kbs)
I have to say that I have stopped tracking the differences since getting RBI early this year.
I also want to say that Wireless Nation were always there during their published hours and were always very helpful.

[edit] spelling

jaybeedee

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#1130081 16-Sep-2014 17:06

>>I think Farmside and Wireless nation use different satellites with the Farmside one lower in the sky and is affected by rain fade more?

Hi Throbb, you're right. Wireless Nation is now on Optus D2 and I know we get good line of sight to that (even I was able to aim a dish at that for Freeview/Sky). The lower angle to the IPSTAR Satellite would presumably explain it being more susceptible to rain fade. Interesting that Wirelessnation seem to have a bigger dish as well.

jaybeedee

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#1130092 16-Sep-2014 17:11

johnr: Where abouts on the West cost of Auckland? Vodafone have turned on a new RBI site not that long ago that covers Huia , Whatipu and in around those areas

hi John. Bethell's Beach so a fair way away. Certainly plenty of demand there.

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hio77

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#1130093 16-Sep-2014 17:13

jaybeedee:
johnr: Where abouts on the West cost of Auckland? Vodafone have turned on a new RBI site not that long ago that covers Huia , Whatipu and in around those areas

hi John. Bethell's Beach so a fair way away. Certainly plenty of demand there.

generalizing bethells? or right down towards the beach?

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johnr

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#1130095 16-Sep-2014 17:14

jaybeedee:
johnr: Where abouts on the West cost of Auckland? Vodafone have turned on a new RBI site not that long ago that covers Huia , Whatipu and in around those areas

hi John. Bethell's Beach so a fair way away. Certainly plenty of demand there.

Bethell's is on the RBI plan

hio77

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#1130099 16-Sep-2014 17:21

johnr:
jaybeedee:
johnr: Where abouts on the West cost of Auckland? Vodafone have turned on a new RBI site not that long ago that covers Huia , Whatipu and in around those areas

hi John. Bethell's Beach so a fair way away. Certainly plenty of demand there.

Bethell's is on the RBI plan

few RBI cabinets being done too.

Closest to Bethells (beach end anyway) is WAK/B (on the T of Bethells road and Te Henga road) so Wireless RBI would be the way to go down the beach end.

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JohnButt

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#1130280 16-Sep-2014 21:54

A pity we cannot help with performance data, we are trying to get volunteers from the rural sector without sufficient success to publish ISP comparisons. We are publishing a quarterly report covering rural very soon, but still cannot compare ISPs

jaybeedee

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#1130315 16-Sep-2014 22:31

hio77:
johnr:
jaybeedee:
johnr: Where abouts on the West cost of Auckland? Vodafone have turned on a new RBI site not that long ago that covers Huia , Whatipu and in around those areas

hi John. Bethell's Beach so a fair way away. Certainly plenty of demand there.

Bethell's is on the RBI plan

few RBI cabinets being done too.

Closest to Bethells (beach end anyway) is WAK/B (on the T of Bethells road and Te Henga road) so Wireless RBI would be the way to go down the beach end.

Thanks JohnR and Hio77.
The property is right beside lake Wainamu. My reading of the RBI map on the Vodafone site showed no coverage (but that could be my interpretation).

If there is RBI available, the community group who are lobbying and trying to organise improvements out that way don't know about it. (Of course they are not to be confused with the group in the community that want to ban cellphone transmitters and people from having wireless routers in their homes in the valley).

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#1130339 16-Sep-2014 23:02

Yep, thats down the WAK/J end. which unfortunately isnt looking good for a fixed line.

JohnR should be able to give some idea on RBI though..

Atlest you are happy to pay for Satellite! very few rurally people looking at their internet options seem to consider it, wouldnt know why at all...

The Community group down there have good intentions.. And knowing the area, i can see why they arent big on RBI options - it can be rather hit and miss signal wise after all.

As it stands, WAK/J is not Scheduled for an upgrade, like WAK/B And WAK/C (although that one isnt Bethells way.) June 2015 is the date thats set for that roleout.

Hopefully they are aware of that atlest..

funny story about the Bethells Valley, at one point we looked at getting a Wireless Mesh like connection.. The guy was very interested in our place, as we were in a perfect position to beam out most of the area.... In the end, he just stopped responding to us however.

So was a lost cause on both sides... we ran dialup for a few more months before getting coils off our line to manage dsl, and the potential for more locals to join up on the mesh was lost.

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coffeebaron

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#1130409 17-Sep-2014 08:23

jaybeedee: (Of course they are not to be confused with the group in the community that want to ban cellphone transmitters and people from having wireless routers in their homes in the valley).

Which will be 100% why there currently is no local tower giving good RBI coverage. Vodafone would have had a tower here years ago if they could.

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meesham

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#1130447 17-Sep-2014 09:09

coffeebaron:
jaybeedee: (Of course they are not to be confused with the group in the community that want to ban cellphone transmitters and people from having wireless routers in their homes in the valley).

Which will be 100% why there currently is no local tower giving good RBI coverage. Vodafone would have had a tower here years ago if they could.

Vodafone should just supply them with tinfoil hats during the rollout, that should sort them.

grant_k

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#1130484 17-Sep-2014 10:16

JohnButt: A pity we cannot help with performance data, we are trying to get volunteers from the rural sector without sufficient success to publish ISP comparisons. We are publishing a quarterly report covering rural very soon, but still cannot compare ISPs

It's no wonder you don't get many volunteers as you want 3GB of data from people on Wireless Broadband. That is a sizeable chunk of their monthly cap, so would act as a significant disincentive.

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