Airband are building a wireless data network in the Tenbury, Leominster, Ludlow area. Initially funded by Advantage West Midlands, they will need to become self sufficient in the long term.
Using a combination of wireless transmitters and receivers, Airband can link up almost anyone in the Tenbury area with their transmitters on Clee Hill or Broadheath. Speeds of up to 1.25Gb/s can in theory be achieved, but at a price. They can also link multiple offices together.
If you need to use Broadband commercially then the prices are much cheaper than other suppliers, but for the domestic user they are not so competitive.
A 4Mb/s connection (1Mb/s upload) with a contention of 1:20 will cost you £25 a month. Great if your existing connection is unreliable or slow, but speeds of 8Mb/s are achievable in Town for less money. (but probably with a higher contention rate, not a problem during the day, but not so good when the facebook generation come home from school)
Using a combination of wireless transmitters and receivers, Airband can link up almost anyone in the Tenbury area with their transmitters on Clee Hill or Broadheath. Speeds of up to 1.25Gb/s can in theory be achieved, but at a price. They can also link multiple offices together.
If you need to use Broadband commercially then the prices are much cheaper than other suppliers, but for the domestic user they are not so competitive.
A 4Mb/s connection (1Mb/s upload) with a contention of 1:20 will cost you £25 a month. Great if your existing connection is unreliable or slow, but speeds of 8Mb/s are achievable in Town for less money. (but probably with a higher contention rate, not a problem during the day, but not so good when the facebook generation come home from school)
Airband only provide the "pipe" so any potential customers, business or domestic that are not very computer literate will probably need to also employ additional services from other companies to install the necessary infrastructure.
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Airband want £40/month for business broadband in Tenbury? BT business broadband is £20/month including a phone line and lots of calls!
Yes but that is for a measly 10GB monthly allowance, nowhere near enough for a lot of businesses, And it's a 24 month contract - who on earth signs those these days?
And to be fair to Airband (even though they are a competitor of mine) i don't think their service is really aimed at the towns themselves but rather the surrounding villages where, in some cases, you still can't get broadband down the phone line.
BT unlimited business broadband is £15/month. Where there is no wired broadband, Reebex looks a better deal than Airband. How many local businesses still can't get wired broadband?
At the meeting I attended there were local businesses that still couldn't get broadband at speeds above 1Mb/s. Other that were very high data users that needed speeds much higher than BT could provide at an economic rate.
I still have a few small business customers who can't get wired broadband at all and several who can only get 512k.
1Mb is fine for a normal business to send/receive emails, place orders, mail out a few pdf brochures, etc.
If businesses stream HD video onto the web they'll need a fast upload speed. Airband offer 10Mb at £350+vat/month. Do many local businesses stream HD video onto the web? Would any pay £4,935 (inc vat) for a year's broadband?
No they don't and i don't expect them to get any takers for that service. I do however disagree that 1 Mb/s is enough. I think 4 is the minimum really for a business and that's not just my opinion but those of my customers. I find that those with under 4MB/s complain about speed but those with 4 and over tend not to (although a few complain with 7Mb/s). Rough figures you understand. I certainly wouldn't put my business anywhere where the download was less than 4Mb/s.
Remember that businesses may be sharing that connection between 10 or even 30 users, in which case i'm sure you will agree, 1Mb/s is not enough.
Also remember it's not just the raw speed. The ISP you use plays a huge part. Most people on Orange, Virgin, BT, PlusNet and all the other typical ISP's complain about a slow down after 3pm when the MyFaceTwit generation get home. However if you pick the right ISP, that doesn't happen so much if at all, but you will pay a bit more (not much) for that privelige. But as with anything in life you get what you pay for.
Your ISP also plays a big part in your download speed. I recently moved a customer from Orange Business to a proper business ISP and their spped went up from 1.5Mb/s to 4.5Mb/s on the same line and that is not the first time that's happened. All ISP's are not equal even though they would have you think they are.
1Mb of actual download speed is fine, provided you don't need to watch TV or video or play online games while you're at work..
Maybe the people who find 1Mb 'too slow' mean the upload speed is too slow (and 256 can drive you daft if you need to email big attachments), or maybe they are complaining about how slow it really is at busy periods?
To be sure of 1Mb at busy times you might need to be on 4Mb, but this isn't an argument for faster broadband - it's an argument for reducing contention. Which would have helped far more people.
Dave's example of going from 1.5 to 4.5 by changing ISP is interesting and might explain why people complain about 'slow' broadband - but it's not the broadband that's slow, it's their ISP?
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