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Avanti Broadband as a supplier?

Have you had problems with Avanti satellite broadband?

  • Yes I have - am very dissatisfied with them

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes but they have sorted it quickly

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No have been happy with their service

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    11
  • Poll closed .
I hear you I am on 3meg package and getting same speeds . Avanti are telling us they are doing these upgrades and were suposed to be done by the end of May its now June and still there service is no were near what BT was .
I really dont no how the DETI give Avanti funding would they not of had to proved there service and how it would of coped with all they new customers to DETI ?
 
I doubt it. Being on the other side of the water, I'm not entirely familiar with the way things work in Ireland, but I expect it's much the same as over here - the only thing Avanti would have to prove is their ability to provide a better lunch than BT, rounded off with a "thank you for attending" gift of discreetly packaged used banknotes.
 
Update makes it worse

Just had an email in from Avanti saying they had made the update and speeds will be better. Guess what - where I had 0.2mb (from a 1mb service) I now have 77kbps or 0.07mb. It got worse not better! Mike


From: Broadband Support [mailto:broadbandsupport@avantiplc.com]
Sent: 05 June 2009 18:13
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: *** Avanti Broadband Update ***

Dear Avanti Broadband Customer,

I am happy to inform you that our planned service upgrades have been completed successfully and you ought now to be experiencing a smoother and faster service.

We will start billing you for your service again from the 5th of June 2009 – so there is no charge for the first 4 days of June.

We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused over the past month.

If you experience any problems with your service please do not hesitate to contact us on 0207 749 1673 Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm.

Regards,

Renee Nurzynski
Avanti Communications Group
Customer Service Supervisor

74 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3AY, UK
Tel +44 (0)207 749 1673
Fax +44 (0)207 749 1633
Email: broadbandsupport@avantiplc.com
Web: www.avantiplc.com
 
Just had an email in from Avanti saying they had made the update and speeds will be better. Guess what - where I had 0.2mb (from a 1mb service) I now have 77kbps or 0.07mb. It got worse not better! Mike


From: Broadband Support [mailto:broadbandsupport@avantiplc.com]
Sent: 05 June 2009 18:13
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: *** Avanti Broadband Update ***

Dear Avanti Broadband Customer,

I am happy to inform you that our planned service upgrades have been completed successfully and you ought now to be experiencing a smoother and faster service.

We will start billing you for your service again from the 5th of June 2009 – so there is no charge for the first 4 days of June.

We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused over the past month.

If you experience any problems with your service please do not hesitate to contact us on 0207 749 1673 Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm.

Regards,

Renee Nurzynski
Avanti Communications Group
Customer Service Supervisor

74 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3AY, UK
Tel +44 (0)207 749 1673
Fax +44 (0)207 749 1633
Email: broadbandsupport@avantiplc.com
Web: www.avantiplc.com

Got the same email too. I have seen very little change apart from noth getting " page cannot be displayed error messages "

I just tryed downloading a file of file planet through Europe UK server and I kept retrying the download to see what different speeds I was getting and they were so different each time ranging from the highest 160kb down to 30 kb being on a 3meg package I should be getting aleast 300kb.

I have canceled my DD with them so they not getting any money till things improve.
 
There will always be a short delay because of the transit time sending a signal up to the satellite, down to the ground station and then back again. You have experienced this if you ever did a transatlantic telephone call. The total delay is about 0.6 second. It is enough time for you to start speaking and find that your caller has also started speaking. It is caused by the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. The satellites in geostationary orbit are about 25,000 miles up, so the total signal path there and back again is just over 100,000 miles. If you are getting a delay longer than 0.6 second it is caused by something other than the signal transmission distance. This 0.6 second delay is why you are advised not to do on-line real-time interactive games over the satellite link.

The real problem to me is when making a credit card payment over the Internet. I press "Confirm payment", which has a message warning: "do not click this twice or you may end up paying twice!" Then I get the "This page cannot be displayed" message. Has the payment gone through or not? No way to tell. Some sites give a confirmation email, but one that I deal with regularly sends a postal invoice. I have to wait several days and then start the order process all over again. It gives one an immense feeling of helplessness.
 
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Yes another spanking new Avanti user grump.

I'm on 2MB service I commonly get speeds below 25K. Avanti describe this as contention, ie the space they have rented on the satellite is not enough to cope with demand. This is nothing to do with the internet congestion it is entirely due to a lack of investment on behalf of Avanti. Yet they are still taking new customers. Every customer they take will cause a reduction in everybody else's service. There ought to be a law against this. What other service can you think it is perfectly acceptable to provide 10 x less than what you are paying for, not only that they squeeze customers paying for higher bandwidth even more than those paying for the basic service.

Don't hold you breathe for the new satellite. It was originally promised for late summer 2009......now. And then it was late 2009 and now it's in 2010.
 
Has anybody got any experience of paying for repairs to the Avanti system?

I'm in Orkney and had the blasted thing installed last autumn. During the winter months it went wrong more times than Gordon Brown and literally took weeks to get repaired each time.

Now, after being installed for a year, we are told we are responsible for repairs. Hardyhaha!

Apparently our SMP is supposed to be setting up an insurance scheme, for which we will pay extra, but I don't think this is in place and neither has anybody bothered to broach the subject of repair times, which at best can only be described as a joke.

I did go see my MP about it all back in April (although it's under the Scottish government - but he lives in the same offices as our SMP) and, apart from him telling me he'd written to Avanti, I've heard nothing else since .... SURPRISE!!!!

After reading the posts on here I really don't know what the Irish and Scottish Governments are playing at and why they aren't screaming that the system is apparently not fit for purpose. We never had any BB at all before this, satellite or otherwise, but this has been a detrimental experience and doesn't seem set to improve.
 
Just had a browse through my diary and can give you a general idea of the reliability of my system and the time taken to repair.


It went off over Christmas (don't know the date) and was repaired on 7th January.

Off again 25th February and repaired 14th March.

Off again 22nd March and repaired 8th April.

Went on the blink, but not totally out, just extremely difficult to use so I had to pay for dial-up, between 18th April through to 1st May.

You can imagine the number of phone-calls/promises made.

I also emailed Avanti on the 27th April and finally got a response on 4th May.
So much for their response times.

... and now they expect us to pay for this mess!!!!
 
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Avanti - Scotland

Hi,

I have had Avanti for almost a year now and initially it was okay but for the past 4 or 5 months my speeds have been shockingly slow, I pay £35-00 per month for the 1M package but on checking speeds tonight it is download of 149kbps and upload of 74kbps, I have continually emailed Avanti with little or no response,when I have got through to them they say eveything is fine or it could be a fault with my PC ( which is brand new ) I am seriously considering cancelling my D/D's but this would mean I would have no Broadband as I cannot get it through phone lines...what can be done about this very poor service.
What I dont understand is how they could provide faster speeds if I pay more yet they cannot or will not increase the speeds now.....


DN
 
Jury's still out

I have just joined the Avanti system - not by choice but because BT doesn't seem to have a longest enough wire to connect me in my new home. I am not in the Highlands or Islands, but just under three miles from a cable system at my local council admin HQ!!
Yes Avanti is slower than ADSL and support is not 24/7, but how does one compare with traditional broadband? It is slower, but better than nothing, which is my option. It is quicker than the dial-up I tried a couple of weeks ago and much cheaper. I probably will have to ditch my Skype for the time being and I won't be watching iPlayer, but at least I can keep in touch with the rest of the world. I also have broadband in Portugal and that went down for four days two weeks ago with no support available - the phone line was also down, so dial-up wasn't even an option.
Yes the jury is out at present - I will wait for the worsening weather conditions and see what happens then.
I was, by the way, happy with the support I received when I couldn't connect the first day - I am on Applemac and although Avanti itself doesn't seem to be very helpful towards us Mac folk, certainly the operators I spoke to were able to assist.
 
Last edited:
...and still the jury is out

I only say the jury is out because I am superstitious of saying that I am pleased with my broadband satellite. But we have had the storms, the snow, the -16 degrees and my broadband has so far not let me down. My only problem is that I would like to connect via my wireless router so I don't have to sit huddled in the dining room all the time. I can connect the Avanti receiver to the Netgear router and see that the ISP address is correct on my Mac, but it will not connect to the internet. Any ideas would be appreciated - in fairly simple language please. I do see some suggestions, but none that are in the language I can understand - all assume a greater knowledge of how routers work. By the way I am on the cheapest speed.:shrug:
 
We've had Avanti Satellite broadband for about a year now. On the whole, we've been happy. Obviously it's dearer than normal broadband, but we don't have that option where we live.
It has survived bad weather, but sometimes it has gone down. You phone Avanti, and after assuring them that there are clear blue skies outside, they realise there is a problem. Most of the time, the problem has been fixed at their end. On a couple of occasions, the satellite engineer has had to come to visit. This can sometimes take two or three weeks.
Basically, we are happy with it - let's face it, it is far better than tying up the phone line with dial-up.

Anyway, a question for anyone who knows - we have just purchased a lap-top, so want to go wireless. We bought a Netgear WNR3500. Now, when I read the box, I am having doubts. It says suitable for cable and DSL. Does this mean it's not suitable for satellite broadband connections? What should we be using to connect our iMac and our Macbook to the internet. Avanti don't offer anything on the way of helping with anything like this.

Thanks,
Liz
 
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Hi Liz, Can't wait for an answer to your query. I have the same problem - a MacBook with a Netgear DG834G. I had the router with ADSL before I moved, although would gladly purchase a new one if needed in order to go wireless, as the only place the Avanti receiver could be placed was in my dining room. I am about to contact Netgear to see if I can get an answer - perhaps you could try the same as you should still be getting support as it's a new router. I will post if I discover an answer and hopefully you will too.
Joy
 
Thanks Joy,

Hopefully we'll get this worked out.


I just phoned Netgear. Had to speak to someone who didn't really understand me (I really do talk quite clearly and don't have a broad Scottish accent!). Anyway, eventually after ten minutes of trying to talk to him, I finally got it from him that as long as there is a cable coming in from the antenna then the router is suitable.

I haven't actually installed it yet. I'll wait until my husband is here. Hopefully the Macbook will be arriving later today. Will get back to you on how we get on.

Liz
 
Joy, I have now installed the Netgear router and it works fine. The iMac is online in the living room and the Macbook is online through in the bedroom. The first time it didn't work, so then re-read the instructions. Everything had to get switched off, then back on in the right order. Thankfully it's working now. Have you had any luck with yours?

On a different subject about Avanti. I think they are maybe blocking some websites. Has anyone else found this? I use facebook and play Scrabble on it. A few weeks ago it stopped working and I checked everything it could possibly be, but could never get the page to load. I tried on both the iMac and Macbook. Today, I took the laptop down to somebody's house and used their broadband to see if it would load and it worked. So the problem obviously lies with the satellite broadband supply. I will be phoning them tomorrow about it. I know it may not be the end of the world not being able to play Scrabble, but we pay an awful lot of money every month for this broadband.
 
Lizzz you could try switching to OpenDNS.org for accessing websites, that might fix the problem because you'd avoid using Avanti's own DNS servers.
 
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