Avanti Caledonian won the contract to supply broadband to those areas of Scotland which cannot get conventional broadband – typically households and settlements outside a 6 to 7 mile radius of the local exchange. The project which was initiated by the previous administration and is now being completed by the present has seen a great deal of consultation, discussion and, now, implementation. And with implementation comes the opportunity to assess the offering.
We have used satellite broadband for over 3 years now, first from Bristol-based suppliers Avonline, and now with Avanti, so we have a direct comparable to give you. Avanti wins hands down on spec. We have the Pro 3000 package from Avanti, which for around £70 pcm inc. VAT gives us 3MB bandwidth down and 768 kbps up. We also get 25GB allowance (ie we can download 25GB of data per month). Avonline charged the same as Avanti, but instead we received a paltry 512 kbps down and an even worse 256kbps up, with 1.25GB bandwidth allowance. There is no comparison is there? It’s even worse when you look at installation cost, we paid nothing with Avanti, but over £1250 for the Avonline install (to be fair we could have qualified for the HIE grant, but we were too late by around 2 months – they discontinued the scheme at around the time the government announced the first consultations on Broadband Reach. On this basis we’re happy then – very.
Installation by both companies was excellent, however, with Avanti, the team came in and managed the whole shooting match from drilling a hole through a 1.5metre thick stone wall (plus lath and plaster) to setting up the dish on a pole concreted into a particularly boggy piece of Argyll. The other company (the installers were an outfit called Silvermead who went bust around the time we received the kit) were not so accommodating, and I ended up concreting the stand in which they’d sent ahead in the post.
Once Avanti’s kit was installed, getting connected was incredibly quick: Avanti use a plug ‘n’ play connectivity which means that the client has no truck with the router, IPs, subnet masks or any of that malarky. We were online as soon as the ethernet cable was connected to our Airport base station – and yes, it all plays extremely well with all the Apple equipment diehard Macheads like myself use. I think you’ll have already got the impression that Avonline’s set-up was not so straightforward. Indeed I ended up tinkering with the system a couple of times (with help from a very good support outfit) just to recover connectivity when the system lost IP addresses for routers and suchlike – but this was more my fault changing the network than anything else, and I soon learned to keep a note of all the relevant IP addresses.
There are a two or three things I do regret about not being connected to Avonline.
The first is their online system: I had immediate access to the stats on my account. I could monitor my bandwidth allowance, see if my connectivity was being throttled, and diagnose when and if we were getting very heavy usage (the screams of anguish when we realised our entire month’s bandwidth had been used up by a mac mini updating iTunes and iMovie caused a minor sensation at our end of the glen).
The second is that the Avonline system once set up, or fixed, was rock solid, and didn’t vary. We’re still have problems getting consistent bandwidth across 24 hours with Avanti. To be fair I think this is a result of the service being (relatively) new, and we’re presently in contact with support to get this sorted.
The third is the support line. A support line. Not live chat. No status page for users.
- Its an 0207 number which unfortunately is incorrect on the site (the correct number is 020 7749 1673).
- Instead of investing in an 0845 or even an 0800 number, Avanti are using an ordinary common-or-garden 0207 number which is therefore costing their clients xxp per minute.
- The lines are open 12/5 not 24/7. Domestic customers who might be at work all day will be seriously inconveniencing their employers. Should we not expect coverage at the weekend at least? Rather than Mon-Fri 8am til 8pm?
- Email? well there is an email address, but it doesn’t seem to be monitored. I am sure it is, on an ad hoc basis, but I am still waiting to hear after 36 and 48 hours respectively (they promise 24 hours in the auto-generated email). Does this mean they are very, very busy perhaps?
There’s another note of warning to sound here, and it comes from the ISPReview. Seemingly Hambleden Village has been left for 5 days without connectivity by Avanti. The company, which is based in London, evidently did not have an engineer available to fix the problem until then. Maybe they’re all up here in Scotland, getting us sorted?
What are we to conclude from all of this? Well, firstly that Avanti Caledonian’s service does represent a huge step forward. There can be no doubt that the potential for 100% coverage of Scotland is now in place, and at an affordable rate for most pockets (from £23 for the basic package). The niggles aren’t show-stoppers, but we hope they will be addressed in due course, particularly what could become an acute concern over customer support in the years to come.
For those of you still thinking about getting the service, the government subsidised offering closes on 30th April this year, so you need to get your skates on. We haven’t see any guide on what the price is likely to be for installation after the cut off.
We do find ourselves wondering however whether this service, which is fit-for-purpose in 2009 will soon be rendered obsolete by rising connectivity speeds. We see figures of 50MB, even 100MB being touted as possible for a good proportion of homes within 5 years, but will this be the case out here in the (relative) wilderness? On schedule for launch in 2009 is the new HYLAS satellite which will see the Avanti network able to provide a much higher level of connectivity to users all over the country, possibly upto 8MB for Broadband Reach customers, but even this is starting to look a little mean in comparison. What with services like Spotify, YouTube and the BBC iPlayer creating more and more demand for bandwidth we are caught in an upgrade cycle now, which in all likelihood will leave us playing an increasingly poor catch-up in the years to come.
Fibre throughout Scotland anyone?
Islay Rugby Club held its 25th anniversary dinner last weekend at the Ardbeg Kiln House restaurant, presided over by its President,