Tablet or IPad

[Suff]

There is always, of course, an alternative.

This gives you Satellite internet. It's not really cheap compared to landline services but it is fairly fast.

However there is one BIG BUT with Satellite internet services and you would see it immediately. That is the latency. On the Vivasat site it has a "support" section which says that the experience on Skype is "Very good, although the latency time associated with the satellite systems is slightly higher that the cabled systems".

That's an understatement of the year and very disingenuous. Let me explain. If you Skype from Portugal to the UK on a landline, the "latency" or, in other words, the time taken for what you are saying to reach the other person, will be in the region of 4 to 6 Hundredths of a second. For the purpose of talking to someone this is pretty much instantaneous.

What is it on Satellite? Circa 6 Tenths of a second. Or, in other words, it's pretty hard to have a two way conversation because you will each be talking over the other.

Think about when you watch the news and the reporter is in the middle of nowhere. The anchor asks a question then there is a long pause before the reporter answers. That is because it takes 6 tenths of a second before the reporter hears the first words and 6 tenths of a second before they hear the last and can start to respond. Then another 6 tenths of a second before we hear and see that response.

1.2 seconds in a conversation is quite a long time.

I tried to look at all the package prices but only got prices for two of them. Satinternet is cheaper than Vivasat AND is offering unlimited bandwidth between midnight and six in the morning. Also Satinternet is more realistic in only offering 10gb packages and above. 2GB may look cheap but it's virtually useless these days for anything other than checking your mail and sending a few whatsap messages. Even posting pictures on FB every few days will blow that in short order.

Putting it into perspective I'm using mobile internet here and I'm using my Netflix on it. If I watch two movies in HD, I use 5-7 gigabytes!!! I'd never had a need to check before.

So, anyway, may not be for you but it is an option. The reason these deals are there is that there is an EU directive which requires that the Internet be available to everyone in the country wherever they are. Whilst countries like the UK, Denmark and Sweden took that to mean high speed, high quality, services and set about facilitating that, countries like France, Spain, Italy and Portugal (plus numerous others who didn't want to put the infrastructure in), collaborated on an EU satellite program which provided expensive but comprehensive cover by satellite and ticked the EU Directive box.

Until you experience rural internet it's hard to understand how bad it can be. A good friend of mine (and IT geek to boot), was so sick of the BT services in Scotland that he set up his own business providing long distance wireless internet for people in rural areas that BT didn't deem good enough customers to actually get a good service to.

[tonicha]

Thanks Suff.

I think the most annoying thing is watching the upload and down load speed and also seeing I'm supposed to be getting 3, 3.5 or even 4g

The joys of living in the campo