Almost broadband wireless access (Tele 2)

Member Name: RAPIDO

Product:	Tele 2
Date:	13/06/01 (218 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Always on, Resonably priced, It isn't BT

Disadvantages: Limited coverage, Line of sight required, Aerial on the house

Tele2 are a combination ISP and actual connection provider that use wireless access to connect both domestic and business customers to the Internet.

They only operate at present in a few areas of the Uk but have quite aggressive rollout plans although the chances of them covering everywhere is virtually nil.

I heard about them through a direct mail shot sent to me at home which offered 150kbps always on Internet access for a £50 installation fee and then £10 a month if paid up front for a year. At the time I was paying £11.75 a month for Demon Internet plus my phone bills and had been waiting for BT Openworld to get their act together for months. This seemed like a godsend since I was less worried about the actual throughput than the actual concept of being permanently connected and 150kbps is still 3x faster than my modem will connect anyway.

It took them about a month to get around to the installation and that did take a bit of prodding but was fairly painless when it happened and took about 2.5 hrs to complete, including the testing and connectivity confirmation. You end up with an aerial on a pole attached to your house and a 'speedbox' inside which has a standard RJ45 ethernet connection which you can either plug into a network card direct via a crossover cable or a via a hub. At the moment you get a permanent IP address but I think that will change later in the year.

So far the downsides have been virtually nil, especially at the price - which I later found out was a trial loss-leader and it has since increased to a £100 installation fee and £20 a month. However, you have to remember that it doesn't need a second phone line and you don't have to deal with the corporate monstrosity that is BT. There were some early DNS problems and there has been one mail server and news server problem in 5 months of use. I think that I'm quite fortunate being in the Thames Valley since users in Leeds/Bradford have had som
e major bandwidth and performance problems although I believe that has now been sorted out.
I'm not sure I always get 150kbps but downloads usually average about 15 - 16 kbytes/sec which suits me. During the day you can tell that the businesses are on line since it is definitely slower as the contention ratio starts having an effect. However, the evenings when I use it most are usually fine.
The other point is that because it's an ethernet connection you can run virtually any OS that you like, including Linux, flavours of Unix etc. this has made them very popular compared to NTL and Openworld who generally only support Windows and then not even NT or Windows 2000.

Something that does appear to winning friends amongst other Tele2 users is that, at the moment, they appear very responsive to customer issues and regularly read and post to the uk.telecom.broadband newsgroup. Whether this changes as they get bigger and get more customers remains to be seen but it makes a refreshing change from the likes of the big corporate players who seem to drive the more technically inclined up the wall.

At the end of the day your ability to get the service will depend on where you live and if they can get a line of sight to the base station. This seems a lot more black and white than BT's ADSL 'whoosh' test and if it won't work they'll tell you there and then and won't charge a penny.

Overall I like the service a lot (especially at the price I got it for, admittedly :-) ) but I would probably still go for it at the current rates.

The best thing to do is visit their website, use their postcode checker and take it from there.

The price quoted is for a year (12 x £20) + £100 installation for the domestic service.

Summary: