# ISP's



## mdekkers (Jul 3, 2013)

Sorry about the flood of questions, I do my best to search for previous threads on the subjects I post about 

What about ISP's in Cyprus? Who are good, provide a good stable service, and good speeds? I am currently with Virgin in the UK and am spoiled with a 120mb connection, which is not what I am expecting to find in Cyprus.... 

We live on VOIP and for work use a lot of VPN connections and the like. Stability is really important, as is speed.

Many thanks for any tips.

Martijn :ranger:


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## Veronica (Apr 5, 2008)

The main provider is Cytanet but their speeds are very slow. We were paying for 4 mb but lucky to get 3mb from them.
We changed to Primetel and get 8 mb for less than we were paying Cytanet.
However to use Primetel you do need to have a Cytanet landline initially which Primetel then take over.


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2013)

Veronica said:


> The main provider is Cytanet but their speeds are very slow. We were paying for 4 mb but lucky to get 3mb from them.
> We changed to Primetel and get 8 mb for less than we were paying Cytanet.
> However to use Primetel you do need to have a Cytanet landline initially which Primetel then take over.


Here is no speeds close what you can get elsewhere. Some provider can even give 16 mb but it is not really true. Cyprus problem is the connection from the island to the rest of the world. There has been talks about a new cable but nothing has happened yet.

We have a 4 mb line and we also have 4 mb as long as we surf on Cyprus site. When I make a speedtest against any mainland server, the speed is about half.

But it is very stable and for us it works. 

Anders


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## mdekkers (Jul 3, 2013)

Hi Veronica and Anders,

Thats great info, many thanks. I noticed on the primetel site they offer up to 32MB but I had my doubts about the international connection. We run some datacenters in the US and the Netherlands, and can hop via there, but we would still need to get data to the Island at some point. Stability is also very important. Anders, do you have any speedtest.net graphs you can share? 

Many thanks!!

Martijn :ranger:


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2013)

mdekkers said:


> Hi Veronica and Anders,
> 
> Thats great info, many thanks. I noticed on the primetel site they offer up to 32MB but I had my doubts about the international connection. We run some datacenters in the US and the Netherlands, and can hop via there, but we would still need to get data to the Island at some point. Stability is also very important. Anders, do you have any speedtest.net graphs you can share?
> 
> ...


I will create some and send you. What countries do you want me to test against?
Anders


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## mdekkers (Jul 3, 2013)

Vegaanders said:


> I will create some and send you. What countries do you want me to test against?
> Anders


that's brilliant, many thanks! The UK, NL and west coast USA

Thanks!!

Martijn :ranger:


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2013)

mdekkers said:


> that's brilliant, many thanks! The UK, NL and west coast USA
> 
> Thanks!!
> 
> Martijn :ranger:


I have sent you a PM


Anders


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## cds usa (Jan 4, 2011)

We are also in the process of looking into this. It seems that there is only dsl on the island, if anyone is offering cable Internet connections we haven't come across them. What do businesses do? T1 or T2 lines? 
They can't all be trying to work with 32mb the max?


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## cds usa (Jan 4, 2011)

Oh, we are in Nicosia and we can only get 8mb consistently, no matter what cytanet says!


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2013)

cds usa said:


> We are also in the process of looking into this. It seems that there is only dsl on the island, if anyone is offering cable Internet connections we haven't come across them. What do businesses do? T1 or T2 lines?
> They can't all be trying to work with 32mb the max?


As long as it is local connection in the island there is no big problem. But as soon as you want to go out from the island the capacity is very limited. This is an old problem, the infrastructure is old and fragile. With the economic situation for the moment it will for sure last before there will be something done about it.

There is a cable provider on the Island but very limited coverage. Cablenet Cable Broadband Internet | Cablenet Communication Systems Ltd

They offer 50 Mb/8Mb but still they don't say anything about what the speed is globally.

The British Forces probably have their own network.

Remember Cyprus is a small island with few inhabitants. A new sea fibre cable is a huge project for Cyprus. Perhaps if they are building a gas pipeline to Israel it can be done at the same time.

Anders


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## mdekkers (Jul 3, 2013)

Cyprus enjoys connections to the following undersea cables:

Landing near Peyia: 
Aphrodite-2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APHRODITE-2_(cable_system)
Kinyras (starts and lands in Cyprus) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KINYRAS_(cable_system)

Landing near Paphos:
Tamares Telecom: Map | Tamares Telecom

Landing near Anotoliko:
HAWK (planned): Reliance Globalcom - Contact Us

Landing near Yeroskipou:
LEV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEV_(cable_system)
Minerva (also lands near Pentaskhinos): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINERVA_(cable_system)
SEA-ME-WE3 (this is a massive, and old, global backbone): SEA-ME-WE 3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Landing near Perivolia:
CADMOS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CADMOS_(cable_system)
MedNautilus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MedNautilus_(cable_system)
UGARIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGARIT_(cable_system)

As I suspect, there is plenty of capacity, but it is likely to be very expensive, meaning that the ISP's don't buy enough capacity from the operator (likely to be a CyTel monopoly, but I didn't look into this yet) and throttle connections.

There are probably some satellite and microwave links for backup, and there are some cables from the North to Turkey I didn't bother to list as I assume CyTel doesn't have the use of them. 

Cheers,

Martijn :ranger:


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## mdekkers (Jul 3, 2013)

Apologies, forgot:

Aiya Napa has CIOS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIOS_(cable_system)


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2013)

mdekkers said:


> Cyprus enjoys connections to the following undersea cables:
> 
> Landing near Peyia:
> Aphrodite-2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APHRODITE-2_(cable_system)
> ...


There should be capacity because Cyprus is regarded a hub in this area but Cyprus has no access to this capacity. There is also another problem and that is very old infrastructure in Cyprus.

There is a saying that Cyprus and UK developed side by side until 1961. After that UK went on but Cyprus stopped. 

And for the lack of competition is a disaster. Cyta have 100 % control. Even if they don't develop they can sit calm, no one else can do anything without Cyta.

The trojka now push for change. Hope at least it mean that also Cyprus join the 21 century technically wise.

Anders


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## mdekkers (Jul 3, 2013)

I am not sure of all of them, but I know that Cyprus is connected via Tamares (42Tb), MedNautilus (3.8Tb) and SEA-ME-WE3 (1TB) for Internet at the very least. There is a lot more for telephony, including troposcatter and a lot of coax, but that isn't relevant for Internet connections per-se. Some of the other links like CADMOS and UGARIT are not so relevant to Cypriots as they are mainly supply feeds for Lebanon and Syria respectively. 

The real issue is not technology, but as you rightly note it is competition. Cyprus is officially liberalised, in terms of telecoms, but in reality there are probably some contracts and regulations in place that stifle 3rd parties. Moreover, CyTel will get bulk discounts that new operators will struggle to match. 

I was involved in getting Malta connected to some of these cables, and had the same problems with old state monopolies having a stranglehold on the market. In any case, international transit is very, very expensive, and you will need a lot of subscribers to make ends meet, as an ISP with your own transit. I believe Cablenet have their own transit and peering arrangements, but I will need to verify that...


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2013)

mdekkers said:


> I am not sure of all of them, but I know that Cyprus is connected via Tamares (42Tb), MedNautilus (3.8Tb) and SEA-ME-WE3 (1TB) for Internet at the very least. There is a lot more for telephony, including troposcatter and a lot of coax, but that isn't relevant for Internet connections per-se. Some of the other links like CADMOS and UGARIT are not so relevant to Cypriots as they are mainly supply feeds for Lebanon and Syria respectively.
> 
> The real issue is not technology, but as you rightly note it is competition. Cyprus is officially liberalised, in terms of telecoms, but in reality there are probably some contracts and regulations in place that stifle 3rd parties. Moreover, CyTel will get bulk discounts that new operators will struggle to match.
> 
> I was involved in getting Malta connected to some of these cables, and had the same problems with old state monopolies having a stranglehold on the market. In any case, international transit is very, very expensive, and you will need a lot of subscribers to make ends meet, as an ISP with your own transit. I believe Cablenet have their own transit and peering arrangements, but I will need to verify that...


It is really the same on the mobile market. There is 2, Cyta-Vodafone and MTN. The third one, Primetel is not a real, its a virtual one using Cyta network. There are more operators interested but Cyta block them saying that there is not subscribers enough.

Anders


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## Pam n Dave (Jun 11, 2007)

Depending upon where you live the stability can be a problem. I'm paying for 1mb and regularly get 3mb but go through periods where the connection frequently fails. It is usually fixed within an hour or so but it can be a pain.

Mine is WiFi and the weather can be a factor in the winter when lightening knocks out the relay station.


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## Guest (Jul 5, 2013)

Pam n Dave said:


> Depending upon where you live the stability can be a problem. I'm paying for 1mb and regularly get 3mb but go through periods where the connection frequently fails. It is usually fixed within an hour or so but it can be a pain.
> 
> Mine is WiFi and the weather can be a factor in the winter when lightening knocks out the relay station.


Ours is also wifi. It has been very stable, only problem is when there is a powercut in Pissouri, then our connection also fail.

Anders


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## Leyland2012 (Feb 27, 2012)

I suppose where the line is relevant but when you come down to it is what the service is like. We have just the 10 Meg service from cytanet without the phone service and I just think they are great. We get the odd interuption but in general we cannot fault it. My download speeds are consistantly high, in many ways better than the uk. (Fewer users makes for better speeds in my opinion). The support has been spot on when needed, (and very friendly).


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## Guest (Jul 5, 2013)

Leyland2012 said:


> I suppose where the line is relevant but when you come down to it is what the service is like. We have just the 10 Meg service from cytanet without the phone service and I just think they are great. We get the odd interuption but in general we cannot fault it. My download speeds are consistantly high, in many ways better than the uk. (Fewer users makes for better speeds in my opinion). The support has been spot on when needed, (and very friendly).


I would love to have that connection but we miss 500 m of landline. Cyta want a fortune to connect us:Cry:

Anders


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