In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
I know people in similar situations who use satelite. Expensive at E100 per month so probably only for "hard core" or business users. It certainly works a treat though - my friends spend hours online - mum doing internet scrabble, dad backgammon and kids no doubt visiting unspeakable sites!
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
As far as I know, the only satellite service offered ('Alice Sat') is unidirectional, in the sense that the dowload speed is lightening-fast, but you still need a fixed telephone line to connect to the service in the first place, because your dish can't beam instructions up to the satellite. Its far from satisfactory.
If any knows of a truly bi-directional satellite service, I'd love to be put right on that!
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[QUOTE=Marc]
If any knows of a truly bi-directional satellite service, I'd love to be put right on that![/QUOTE]
There is a bi-directional satellite system which used to be run by a company on Hayling Island (Hampshire) with europe wide coverage. The footprint of the satellite should include Italy since it's a geostationary satellite. The bad news is that such satellite links are highlu unsatisfactory, the latency (time it takes to transmit a packet before a response is received) is measured in seconds rather than the milliseconds that it takes over a landline.
As to mobile phone internet, I use it, and through my IT industry friends in Italy I can get a SIM card that permits high speed mobile internet, but it's not cheap. I used one a couple of years ago while working on a big contract in the UK during the olive harvest in Italy - I needed to be in two places at once. I got the job done, and the cost was worth it, but it was running at about £200 a month.
I just checked and the satellite coverage of Italy is still offered by the same company on Hayling Island with bidirectional broadband up to 2MB/s. See [url]http://www.bentleywalker.net/[/url] for details.
There are also Italian companies covering the same area, and there is a collection of reviews of service providers here.
[url]http://www.satsig.net/ivsat-europe.htm[/url]
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
My friends use this service - and as I say it does everything normal broadband does
[url]http://www.satlink.it/[/url]
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Hi
We use the TIM Edge to run a remote VPN managing 70 PC's, and numerous servers, in England for an average of 30 Euros per month. This gives us 400mgb of use over 30 days. Although some months we have to renew early, the cost to run a major business back in the U.K is extremely cheap.
Go to you local TIM shop and enquire about their internet card, it works great for us, anywhere in Italy.
I tried a similar thing (with Wind) using a GPRS phone and a Bluetooth connection. The deal, unlimited airtime for about €30 month was good, but the speed was slow and the connection dropped-out frquently. In the end I gave up.
The newer technologies; GPRS 'Edge' and UMTS may be more reliable. We have a friend locally who uses hers for picking-up email, and she seems happy with it, but for internet use, well, I just don't know.