# Satellite internet & VOIP phone.



## el romeral (May 8, 2012)

Due to living in the Malaga countryside, we have to use satellite internet and a VOIP phone. This is supplied by Conecta4. Currently paying 72.60E per month  for "up to 2Mb/s" upload. Lately (when the speed test works) we have been getting 0.3Mb/s with a nearly unusable phone. Perhaps this is partly weather related?:confused2:
Not terribly amused with situation and wondered if anyone could recommend somebody else? Have heard of a company called Twoway so will give them a try.


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## whitenoiz (Sep 18, 2012)

Conecta4 are principally Wimax suppliers which is something completely different from Satellite internet.

So the question is are you sure you have _Satellite_ internet? Does your system have a real satellite dish antenna? If not then its Wimax... Wimax antennas are much smaller and look nothing like a Sat dish...

Wimax is subject to various limitations, distance from the Wimax mast, the terrain between your base station and the mast, the number of people using the system at any given time, all kinds of variables. Plus Wimax systems have a Fair Usage Policy which severely limits download speeds once a given monthly allocation of usage has been exhausted.

Tooway_ is_ a Satellite system, better than Wimax in terms of usability once correctly installed and set up but like Wimax there is a strictly enforced fair usage policy.

Internet via 3G or 4G systems such as Movistar, Orange or Vodafone is also limited in use by preset limits and the all too familiar Fair Usage Policy'

Wimax, Satellite or 3G/4G, internet is very expensive, read the small print before entering into any new contract.

The only truly 'unlimited' internet is via ADSL phone lines from Telefonica... beware of any ADSL company offering 'up to' 10Mbps or 20Mbps service, be they BTin Spain, Jazztel or any other such company; they all use the Telefonica infrastructure and are limited by that infrastructures shortcomings.

Back to you!


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## el romeral (May 8, 2012)

Thank you for your reply. 

We have a small squarish dish on the roof which receives a signal without any cables coming into it, so I believed it to be a satellite system. Perhaps this was not the correct technical term?

We have no "fair usage policy" that I am aware of, we can use as much as we like - just never more than 2Mb/s and lately, a lot less than this.

Phone lines in our area are not suitable for ADSL, so this is ruled out. 

Awaiting a reply from Twoway.


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

el romeral said:


> Thank you for your reply.
> 
> We have a small squarish dish on the roof which receives a signal without any cables coming into it, so I believed it to be a satellite system. Perhaps this was not the correct technical term?
> 
> ...


I think you have WIMAX then and not satellite.

I'm not technical but I thought all phone lines were capable of getting ADSL provided you are less than 5Km from the nearest 'box'. Certainly they're all 'suitable' it's just a matter of distance.

We use WIMAX and have not been informed of any download restrictions (same as you) - they may well exist but we never get near to them:clap2:


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

snikpoh said:


> I think you have WIMAX then and not satellite.
> 
> I'm not technical but I thought all phone lines were capable of getting ADSL provided you are less than 5Km from the nearest 'box'. Certainly they're all 'suitable' it's just a matter of distance.
> 
> We use WIMAX and have not been informed of any download restrictions (same as you) - they may well exist but we never get near to them:clap2:


It is 4 km from the exchange. It also depends on the telephone cables. If they are like ours, twisted together to join cables; hanging all over like Norah Battys stockings , it's not worth bothering. You are also dependant on the state of the local telephone exchange. I had two lines with them but gave up after 7 years. I 've got wi-max ; 4 Mb/25€ per month +iva.


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## whitenoiz (Sep 18, 2012)

Done a bit of digging...!

Conecta4 is administered by a company called Eurona. (website is eurona.net) Satellite systems used by both companies use the tooway system, so if yours was a sat system as opposed to Wimax then it would be supplied by Tooway, so not a lot of point in changing!

However yours is not a Sat based system, from what you have described it is almost certainly Wimax. 

Fair usage policies do not affect the amount of downloading / uploading you can do, what they do do is to severely limit the speed of such downloads / uploads for instance if you have a 2Mbps download speed specified in you contract, once you exceed a given amount of traffic in each accounting period, the speed of the download is cut, typically to 256Kbps or even 128Kpbs. At these speeds attaching pics to emails or uploading to photo-storage sites like photobucket become almost impossible and youtube videos difficult to watch because of the time spent buffering.

As an aside, I think conecta4's website is pathetic... poorly designed and fails to work properly no matter which browser one uses be it IE, Firefox or Opera. One should be able to access an FAQ page but there are no operating links... 

For an alternative to tooway for Satellite internet take a look at this site...

[urlhttp://www.quantis.es/eng[/url]

Also if you want to stick with Wimax you might want to enqire of *Gus Lopez* about the Wimax system supplier he uses; he is paying a hell of a lot less than you for a system twice as fast...

One final point in your original post you mention 'up to 2mbps uploads' did you actually mean downloads?


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## el romeral (May 8, 2012)

We have phone cables in our area similar to those mentioned above. Telegraph poles at funny angles and cables virtually on the ground at times :tape2:.

Conecta4 merged with Eurona a few months ago.
Thanks for advice, will try Wi max and Quantis :cheer2:.
Yes, in my earlier post I did mean download speed not upload .


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## dunmovin (Dec 19, 2008)

el romeral said:


> Due to living in the Malaga countryside, we have to use satellite internet and a VOIP phone. This is supplied by Conecta4. Currently paying 72.60E per month  for "up to 2Mb/s" upload. Lately (when the speed test works) we have been getting 0.3Mb/s with a nearly unusable phone. Perhaps this is partly weather related?:confused2:
> Not terribly amused with situation and wondered if anyone could recommend somebody else? Have heard of a company called Twoway so will give them a try.


we recently switched from an orange dongle to twowaysat. so far, it its working out cheaper and better per month (upload/download speeds are far higher as are the limits of use. The installation is quite pricey, but in the long run, will save a lot.)

The intial contract is for 12 months, but after that can be cancelled with 1 month's notice in writing and even after cancelation you own the equipment (dish+ modem, which you can sell or relocate to a new house).
You can check your usage via their site and if you are getting close to the upper limit of your package, you can either upgrade the package or buy some extra for that month alone.

So far, we are very happy with the service.


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## NotinUse (Oct 3, 2009)

el romeral said:


> Due to living in the Malaga countryside, we have to use satellite internet and a VOIP phone. This is supplied by Conecta4. Currently paying 72.60E per month  for "up to 2Mb/s" upload. Lately (when the speed test works) we have been getting 0.3Mb/s with a nearly unusable phone. Perhaps this is partly weather related?:confused2:
> Not terribly amused with situation and wondered if anyone could recommend somebody else? Have heard of a company called Twoway so will give them a try.


Are you sure it's 2mb because I have a 1mb upload wimax connection and voip works perfect.

But yes weather especially the rain will effect wimax also the aerial needs to be aligned directly to the mast with nothing in-between,

Also if you have the aerial fixed to a flimsy pole the wind will cause fluctuations


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## donz (May 5, 2010)

Hylas is a much better system than Tooway I have to agree. I had Tooway then when the company I used (Inland Computer Services) contracted with Hylas they had a special upgrade deal from Tooway to Hylas which we took up. 

We also live in the campo (just outside Almogia) and desperately need reliable internet with a decent allowance 

Unless the weather is ridiculously bad we don't get any problems at all and even then it's usually just a small blip.

(10Mbp/s down, 2Mbp/s up, 15Gb traffic) €50 / month plus iva 

We often watch things online for our business so this works well for us

However I went into Movistar this week to upgrade our mobiles and they have now expanded their reach and told me we had a really good signal for ADSL. We have upgraded out package with them for 2 new mobile lines, landline and ADSL for only €85 / month. I don't need the ADSL but the price it works out as is the same as new mobiles on average per month so I am having it installed anyway as a back up (not that I have ever needed it) - it can't hurt and I don't pay anything more than I do now for 2 mobiles (my landline is with someone else at €35 / month so I am getting a better deal overall) It might be worth you going in to check with Movistar too


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

We use Broadband4Spain (BB4S) but don't know if they cover where you are. €29 a month gets us up to 8 or 9 mbps down and around 1 mbps up. There are no download limits. BBC iPlayer is also available and you can switch IP address to a UK one so you can watch other internet TV which might otherwise be restricted. Also they supply a phone package (VoIP) for €18 a month and we get free calls to landlines almost anywhere in the world.


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

I should add that there customer service, like many of these companies, is slightly worse than a shoeshop in Dagenham on a Saturday.


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## el romeral (May 8, 2012)

Many thanks for all suggestions. 
I think the Twoway installation charges are a bit of a rip off. We also need a VOIP phone and they recommend one via another company, so not ideal.




thrax said:


> We use Broadband4Spain (BB4S) but don't know if they cover where you are. €29 a month gets us up to 8 or 9 mbps down and around 1 mbps up. There are no download limits. BBC iPlayer is also available and you can switch IP address to a UK one so you can watch other internet TV which might otherwise be restricted. Also they supply a phone package (VoIP) for €18 a month and we get free calls to landlines almost anywhere in the world.


Wireless Broadband

I think Broadband4Spain looks the best for us (I put the link above). It has free installation too. How do you find the quality on the phone? Is there much of a delay?


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## el romeral (May 8, 2012)

Just found out Broadband4Spain do not cover our area :nono:.


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## whitenoiz (Sep 18, 2012)

Maybe they should call themselves 'broadband-4-a-specific-area-of-spain.com...'


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## whitenoiz (Sep 18, 2012)

In America perhaps but not much use if one is in SPAIN!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

whitenoiz said:


> In America perhaps but not much use if one is in SPAIN!


the spammer has now departed to spam elsewhere!


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## annfoto (Aug 19, 2012)

One of the largest WiMax companies in the Malaga area is Iberbanda why not see if they have a transmitter that you can connect to?


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