"Rural" Internet

[CyberJoe]

Hi all

What are the options to connect from a farming area, area is about 25km west of Brits.

There are limited cell signal, verrrrry slow GPRS.

Are the option to boost the signal, or maybe use external antenna with 3G router? The contract is with MTN, according to their coverage map there should be edge, but this is definitely not the case, definitely only GPRS.

 

[Rural]

Rural signal improvement

I live and work on a farm with a very bad MTN GPRS signal indoors. I use an E220 modem for internet access. I contacted the MTN coverage guys at 083 900 1212. They were most helpfull. It took them a while and some prompting from my side but eventually I was contacted by the engineer who services this area. He dropped off a Poynting directional antenna, cable with connectors on and well as a device that lays flat against my modem, at my nearest MTN store. All this for free.

It took a while and a long ladder to find the best HSDPA signal. I am right off the coverage map for HSDPA but now have a no bars HSDPA signal that is infinitely faster that a 5 bar GPRS signal. This has been the case for more than a year now.

A few weeks ago the HSDPA signal disappeared. I called coverage a few times then the signal reappeared, slightely stronger now.

I suggest that you read all that there is on Poynting antennas here on this site. You will then have some background before you speak to the coverage guys

 

[xdsluser]

http://www.linkworld.co.za/cgi-bin/linkworld/search.pl?CELL%20REPEATERS>3G%20REPEATER

These GSM and 3G repeaters works great. They are slightly expensive but do the job.

 

[CyberJoe]

OK I have contacted them for repeater details, the cell signal for voice is also crap so it will not be a bad thing to get one of those.

 

[mcroffels]

Hey buddy, don't feel too bad about your situation: I recently moved to Joburg, Bedfordview, and I was informed that I'd only be able to (maybe) get adsl at the end of September. This is smack bang in the biggest city in this country - no telephone hardline, adsl, wimax reception, iburst etc. I have to rely on 3g/gprs at the moment until they eventually get off their asses and get this complex/area wired.