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tooway direct AKA satellite solutions worldwide AKA Tariam

Just bought a system from Tooway Direct. I was told that I would have unmetered use at night, which they confirmed in an email. I am a heavy user at night.
All of this was explained to tooway and a tariff plan was agreed at the time of purchase.

After less than 4 weeks I started getting problems. I tried to sort it out but was told that Tooway do not offer an unmetered option in their tariffs. They have been metering the use at half rate for the night time that I have been using it.

Due to my heavy use at night I have been throttled back to the point of only just being able to use the system.

I paid them £369!!!

Now they say the person who offered me the unmetered option has left the company and so all they can do is give me a 1Gb top up. Ha Ha Ha.!
Big bunch of jokers this lot.

Read all about them in this forum which is what I should have done before I parted with my money. It appears that they have quite some history!!!!

My advice don't touch them at any cost.

I Will start official lines of complaint/proceedings ASAP
 
Have you kept the emails confirming the tariff and usage limits you were signing up to?
If so I would advise going to your Citizens Advice Bureau or ConsumerDirect.

Keep us updated :) and Good luck.

Tom - www.mouselike.org
 
update

Yep have all the emails.
Thanks to the info on this site I have sent a further email to them to-day to say " I would like to have my complaint looked at in accordance with your complaints procedure.
As required by OFCOM you must have a complaints procedure.


and

"I will require a "deadlock letter" from Tooway" if indeed that is their final answer.
as of C.O.P. today I have not had a response.
In the mean time I have sent prelininary information to the trading standards office.

Personally I don't think they stand a chance if this ends up in court, which is where I am prepared to go if needs be. But I really don't want to waste my time on this I just want a connection I can use.

I shall be looking at the options to secure another ISP with similar terms but better service.

Many thanks to this site for the information contained within its webpages.
 
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I shall be looking at the options to secure another ISP with similar terms but better service.

Not trying to burst your bubble, but satellite ISPs are always going to be expensive and have very restrictive terms in regard to bandwidth. Unlike fixed lines where ISPs can allow you to use spare capacity in a set location (i.e country), satellites cover far wider area and all users would be relying on a single source.

It's not only that, capacity will be an issue. Fixed line ISPs can fairly easily upgrade their capacity as they need. Put another router in here, upgrade to XE there and so on. Sending another satellite up to space is a little more complex than someone just running a cable from one datacentre suite to another, or lighting another wave of fibre.

Matt
 
Thanks for that Matt,
Yeh I know its gotta be a bit more expensive compared to more conventional connections but we live so far out we have no phone or grid power so Sat or a dongle from the mobile bandits is our only choice. The prices Spanish vodafone want is 49 Euros per month and then you only get it sometimes, and as for 3G thats somewhere over the rainbow I'm afraid.

Originally I was looking at another provider BeyonDSL which feeds from the Astra 2 sat. and for more or less the same price I can get a connection although I do have to buy the bolt on for the unmetered night time use - they call it free zone I think. Still works out better and cheaper than a dongle.

It makes me quite envious when I see all the ads n the telly for ISPs with silly lw prices all fighting for our custom, but then I live up a mountain looking across at olive and orange groves so life is still sweet.
 
Does the concept of "at night" mean anything with a satellite based system :)

If it helps the frustration, which it probably doesn't, I'd take the mountains and groves any time.
 
I think all the points have been covered here. Eutelsat based ISPs don't have a free off-peak period and you were clearly mis-sold the service in that respect. More details about the complaints procedures can be found here:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/complain/complain.shtml

However if they don't have an ADR then, as well as mentioning that to Ofcom, I would think that the small claims court could also help. In the meantime I suggest posting a review to raise awareness for others.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/783.html
 
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Hi,

I am guessing that the night time thing is a marketing ploy to sweeten the package, and of course the traffic during these hours would be less if that means anything.

Checking the emails today I have not heard anything from these people, that doesn't mean that I won't but it could mean that this is their game plan to avoid this problem, or they could be workingon something. For now I'll just have to wait.
As for the review I will do that but this thing is still in the early stages and I would rather hold on a while to see if they come through with some better solution. I will do it and if they do offer something good then I will include that also any anything I submit.
 
Just to note, they're not a member of either from what I can see, on any three of their company names.

Oops ;)

Matt
 
"I live up a mountain looking across at olive and orange groves so life is still sweet"

not in the UK then? They appear from their website to be based in Turin, Italy and I can't find any contract which specifies which jurisdiction applies. However if you're in Spain anyway (and they're in Italy) then I think Trading Standards and UK arbitration would be irrelevant. Even if you bought via a UK website, I can't see Ofcom have any jurisdiction over an install and use in Spain, and the actual subscription service is being delivered in Spain? If you contemplate legal action you may need some specialist advice!
 
Good spot. They're an Italian company from looking at the site.. but if they provide telecoms solutions in the UK, they still have to abide by Telecommunications Act.

Matt
 
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Just agreed to what seems to be a solution that works for both parties

UPDATE

After making an equiry via SAFEBUY of which Tarium is a member ( the other two companies appear not no have signed up) They started a line of communication between myself and their M.D. Thanks to SAFEBUY for that.

Over the next few days emailing and speaking directly with the M.D., who I must say seems to be a nice guy who also explained that he bought the company and also inherited the company history.He seems to care and wants to offer a service so we have come to an arrangement that means that I will pay for an upgrade thereby gaining a bigger data allowance and they will top it out with a further upgrade to the next highest data band.

This worked for me because I would have paid more or less the same if I had gone to a competitor who offered unlimited night downloading but it does mean also that I will need to pay careful attention to the total data transfer as I will be back down there with a throttled connection.
I have looked it the data I will be allowed and because I will be on half metered data at night I recon that this was an viable option which I then accepted.
I did some sums when I made the change from my old ISP and was confident that the break even point would be after 12 months. This arrangement will knock that back a bit but hopefully the connection reliablity will win over what I was getting from my old ISP.

People around me have shown a lot of interest in this system, whilst none of them would have the same data requirements I have they are looking for fast and reliable. I now feel that this agreement will allow me to show and hopefully sign up the people with confidence to something better than the miserable local Spanish options. All the expats here know there is little or no chance of negotiating a solution such as this if they take out a local ISP, that is why there is a lot of interest around me as customer service is paramount when placing your hard earned money on a contract that will last you several months.

I write this as we have just agreed this plan of action, I do have confidence that the transition will pass flawlessly and so I do not expect to enter further entries here. However I wont close this thread just yet just in case!!!
 
Good to hear, let us know if the problems continue.
 
Satellite broadband in the UK

I live in rural Staffordshire in the UK and get a broadband speed of 1.2Mb/s down and 0.36Mp/s up. If it rains it is much less! What actual speeds do people get with Tooway satellite?
 
I'd like to know that too but the number of people using it is so tiny that it's hard to get much feedback.
 
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I live in rural Staffordshire in the UK and get a broadband speed of 1.2Mb/s down and 0.36Mp/s up. If it rains it is much less! What actual speeds do people get with Tooway satellite?
Hi, The speeds I get are fantastic but with a slight 1 second delay before whatever I do goes the distance to that sat and back I guess. Once its downloading, say video for instance it really fast. I can only measure up to 2 meg for downloads and the needle was hard over. My location (spain) gives me clear skies most of the time so I don't know if cloudy conditions would affect it much. I must say though that on the days when it is bad here it don't make any difference that I can see.
 
AKA EuropaSat. MD Andrew Walwyn

I could not in all honesty recommend this company to anyone.

The "unlimited" data allowance package it sold wasn't actually 'unlimited'. It had a cap of 60Gb and after that cap was reached the speed you got was throttled back to 0.25Mbs.

This wasn't detailed in the T&C's not was explained during the signing up process not were details released by Tarium / Europasat when they received the details from Eutelsat.

I have had a terrible experience with this company and would NOT recommend them. I have wasted a lot of money (£80) a month for nearly 8 months plus installation costs on a product they sold but knew they couldn't fulfil.

http://andrew-miller.co.uk/satellite-broadband-europasat/
 
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