27 of Haven’s UK holiday parks deploy 5G powered Wi-Fi via Vodafone
Mobile and broadband provider Vodafone Business has revealed that 27 of Haven’s holiday parks across the UK now have access to faster Wi-Fi, which harnesses routers (installed in every holiday home) that connect to the wider internet via the operator’s 5G (mobile broadband) network, instead of copper or fibre optic cables.
The rollout of the new network service is said to follow initial trials at Haven’s Hafan y Mor, Pwllheli and Devon Cliffs parks, which were all deemed to have been successful. ISPreview notes that both Vodafone and O2 have previously been involved in projects to improve mobile coverage across Haven’s various sites (here and here), which will have no doubt come in handy to help support the above change.
Simon Palethorpe, CEO of Haven, said: “Our ‘home from home’ WiFi will enable guests to access high speed WiFi just as they would at home. This is another reason why more families are choosing to holiday in the UK and enjoy a short break by the coast. Haven already provides great value, great accommodation and we continue to enhance the holiday experience for our guests.”
Advertisement
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« Broadband ISP EE UK details new Smart Hub 7 Max router for 8Gbps package
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person's legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
That doesn’t make sense, I’ve got a 5G phone in my hand, I connect via WI-FI and pay for the privilege, then get routed Via 5G, am I missing something here, I know the readership here are far more intelligent than me, can you explain how that is better.
In this setup there’s a free WiFi solution and at some of these parks customers on other networks may experience weaker mobile signals from different providers. But yeah, I mean your general remarks could otherwise be applied to many public Wi-Fi services (e.g. I hardly ever use hotel WiFi as my Smartphone usually does a better job). Mind you not everybody has a mobile plan with lots of spare data for a family to harness across multiple devices.
@mark
Actually its two tiered, not just free, apparently there is a premium wifi at £15 a weekend, the free version i apparently used is the slow one…
We have a new uncommissioned mast at the Haven park near Hayle. I strongly suspect the confusion here is because the WiFi service offered to the Haven park simply shares the backhaul Internet connection (probably Openreach fibre) with Vodafone’s 5g equipment. The 5g mobile service and WiFi are unrelated, but Vodafone offers the WiFi as a sweetener to Haven for hosting the mast.
Dave – Connecting Cornwall
Was at Haven at Hopton, Norfolk at the weekend.
Speed on the “free guest wifi” was slow, and that was only if we could get past the captive portal without it crashing (only our phones managed it, Kids tablets and Ipads struggled)
You get a blue Haven Branded cylinder D-link unit with a couple of RJ45’s in the back.
It also broadcasts a second SSID for the owners use if the caravan is privatly owned and leased out by Haven.
I was also at Hopton and was curious about the blue Haven branded units, specifically about the uplink as it only had a power connection. When we arrived, it was plugged in, with a sticker saying “Do not turn off”, but the socket was turned off. I didn’t feel the need to turn it on.
There’s a large O2 mast right in the middle of the site that provides great O2 coverage. Three coverage was doing the trick of showing a good signal but not having the capacity so only working when most people were out or asleep.
The premium WiFi is rocket fast, I was getting 300meg down at coombehaven back in August. Yes it’s £15 but it’s worth it when all the other networks suck at the park. I’m on EE I got sod all down there.
Combe Haven has a massive Vodafone mast right next to reception, which gives great data throughout on a park that struggles on all other networks. As a caravan owner there I just use a 50GB Lebara SIM in MIFI which you can get 9 month deals for just a few pounds via MSE or uSwitch. Does me well for the summer months.
Interestingly phone Three SIM struggles there too, so they’ve not merged to allow that Vodafone mast to be used.
I stayed on one of their North Yorkshire sites and paid £18 for 4 days.
It didn’t work when we arrived and had to go to reception to complain as there were no details left in our tin tent.
We were told we had to call their WiFi help desk and was on hold for what seemed to be an eternity. To be then told we hadn’t paid for it! Back to reception…
A day later we got the WiFi code which worked fine until about 6PM, speed dropped from 200Mbps to 10Mbps with frequent buffering.
On our third day it stopped altogether and we were told there was a fault with the mast, when we left it still wasn’t working.
After all that, we complained to the owner of the caravan and they told us that they pay for another connection from a local wireless ISP, as they kept getting complaints about the Haven one and it was free to use!!
I’ll be sure to check before buying it next time, if we actually end up going to a Haven site again…
Vodafone? Oh dear, not that any of the networks in this country are much better.