aynishamansbus

Hi
we have just bought the internet everywhere from orange, £15.99 a month for Uk & europe... so far so good have tried it several places in UK also quite rural places. it lets you know the coverage you have by putting in a postcode and of course signal strength indicator. We are happy with it, though it is slower than normal wireless. hope this helps

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Jules & Paul

moandick

Now to throw a real spanner into the works - just for fun!

Talking to a friend, Christopher Dean, recently he has told me that a young satellite 'guru' he knows, has stated quite specifically that it is now possible to convert your ordinary Oyster satellite dish into an internet reciever as well as a sky reciever. Apparently the technology already exists, it only needs a minor attachment to the Sat Box - and all is up and running to get broadband wherever you may be, through your oyster dish. The reason that it is not yet on the market is that 'Governments' have yet to work out how to charge for it.

Any Guru's on here know anything about it?

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Mark&Sue

Hi Moandick,

I have been reading up on the present satellite technology and found that to the general public you would need to be rich or daft to have it set up, the speeds are apallingly slow and it can be very difficult to receive.

I am still reading but this is the first that I have heard about standard Satellite Internet availabillity. I know an engineer that fits to offshore rigs etc so I'm going to try to find out if he knows anything, watch this space.

Best Regards,

Mark.

moandick

Hi Mark

We have only just said goodbye to the McBride Family from here in Cornwall - Paul is/was an Australian Journalist who full-timed all over Europe with his young family whilst running a monthly magazine - which he produced on-board wherever he was hooked up and then 'beamed' back to the printers for production.

He used a 'datastorm' sat dish with two reading heads, one for TV and one for Internet, which apparently was tuned into the NASA satellite. Paul claimed to be getting true download speeds in excess of 3½mb - for a cost of £75 per month. Downside, he tells me was the installation cost well in excess of £5000.

Given the cost of installing a normal 'auto' sat tv dish (approx £3500) I didn't think that was too excessive - and Paul was adamant that he could get decent reception from virtually anywhere in Europe.

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Jim

This will do the same, but it will cost around £3500 fitted, but there after the on costs are very reasonable

ALDEN __NETMASTER 90__ SATELLITE SYSTEM from RoadPro

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Blue Skies
Jim
A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu

The Motorhome Checklist
Full colour, specially laminated check-list that you use with pen or pencil again and again
>Buy one today <You will wonder how you ever did without it! >more info<

Braunston

Hi, Does the £15.99 allow you to use it in Europe or do you have to pay extra

Thanks

moandick

Hi Jim

Although the system you quoted is very good and quite cheap - it doesn't do the same as the datastorm - i.e. get Internet access and TV signals at the same time.

quote: Based on Alden’s 90cm "Platinum" satellite TV system, the Netmaster is simple to operate and can also be used to receive TV signals, although not at the same time. Additional hardware consists of a special 2-way LNB outside and a specially designed modem on the inside of the vehicle.

That was why I was so taken with Paul McBride's system - it did both simultaneously.

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Jim

I nearly bought a Netmaster a while ago, even had a fitting date arranged. Something came up and I had to postpone the fitting. Two months on and I have not rung to make a new fitting date. The thing is, the dongles I have (Orange & Three) are getting better and better, where one has a bad signal the other is good. (apart from my home in West Wales where neither work ) This coupled with more and more sites getting Wifi fitted, its making that £3k outlay for the netmaster look pretty expensive.

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Blue Skies
Jim
A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu

The Motorhome Checklist
Full colour, specially laminated check-list that you use with pen or pencil again and again
>Buy one today <You will wonder how you ever did without it! >more info<

moandick

Hi Jim - bit cheeky, I know, but it is a serious question...............

Interesting reading that you have two dongles - Orange and Three - is one of them 'Pay-as-you-go' or are they both on contract?

The reason I ask is that I was considering getting another one separate from Three, which didn't work at Shepton Show - whereas Orange did a couple of years ago.

I have been told that if you get a 'Pay-as-you-go' Orange dongle you can buy top-up time and use it at anytime - i.e I could use it at a Show put it away for a couple of weeks then use it again until I run out of 'down-time'

Is that how it works?

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nomadic

[quote=gypsylady;87980]Has anyone tried the 'new' internet dongles?

We are thinking about changing our Internet provider to one of those dongles from the mobile companies.

That way we will still have Internet access when 'tripping'.

Have looked at the carphone warehouse deal for a new laptop with dongle at £29 per month.

How much access will this give? Are there any other charges to consider? What sort of UK coverage is available? Any problems on campsites like tuning the TV seems to cause us?

Any help gratefully accepted.


Hi Gypsylady,

What an interesting thread....as you can see many of us use dongles, ours is also a 3 mobile, an early contract at £15.00/month over 18 months. We have used it all over the UK with only the occasional failure to contact, and usually that was with poor weather conditions.

3 Mobile can be used at the contract rate in countries with 3Mobile branches, Denmark, Sweden, and others. They said they would have a branch in France by July 08, havent seen it yet!!!

Its true, there are more wifi outlets available, many for free, in France, but we tend to use the local libraries, they arealso free, and usually very comfortable and fast.

Now, the offer of a laptop and dongle, may I suggest, a) what will the outlay be, is it 18 months, or 24 months at b) £30.00/month or £25.oo/month (what ever) = cost of laptop and dongle.

Now look at the specification of the laptop, and see what is available at your local Comet or PC World, for the same specification. You may find a higher specification for the same price, or evan less. Also take note of any antivirus software that may be built in, its not a major issue if there is none, there are some very good free downloads available.

Sorry to go on, but "free laptops" is there ever a "free lunch"

Good luck with your research.

Nomadic.