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Tooway Review

I've had Tooway installed for 13 months. The package I am on is the largest nonbusiness package known as the 10+. It provides 18MB bandwidth and a Fair Usage policy kicks in at 50GB per month. More of that later.

PRO'S

(1) the installation was undertaken quickly and professionally by a two-way reseller.
(2) the satellite signal has been stable. I can only recall it failing on two occasions and one of those was in a major snowstorm

CON'S

(1) Tooway refer to their fair use policy. That is a rather deceptive term. Once you exceed your usage allowance you are throttled back to 118 kb/s which is a little like trying to empty an oil tanker through a drinking straw. The Internet is completely unusable for any purpose. This is a financial strategy adopted by Tooway to get you to buy more data usage at £9.99 per 1 GB which is obviously incredibly expensive. Tooway have indicated that the throttled back bandwidth was to be increased to 1 MB but this has never materialised.
(2) As has been advised in earlier posts the calculation of data usage by Tooway is extremely suspect. Even when I've been away for the weekend the system has still recorded substantial usage which cannot be the case.

VERDICT

Tooway UK is purely a reseller of an Italian products and it would seem that the Italian parent sets the packages offered for sale. It doesn't as a company, seek to compete in the mainstream market and is only interested in offering a service where there is no alternative and it can dictate terms.
The cost I am paying is in the region of 5x what a fixed line service would cost and the FAP would not be so brutal. Unfortunately, until BT Infinity arrives in my area later this year I've no option but to continue with the service. I can tolerate paying £99 per month but have no wish to continue doing business any longer than necessary given Tooway's fair access policy and I resent having to pay an additional £9.99 per GB. it will be interesting to compare the cost of this service with 4G when it is properly launched by all the mobile providers.
 
I have read other reviews mentioning Tooways suspect usage systems.

Luckily I will never have to use them, but have you done an internet search to see if there is anyone else near you suffering the same suspect data usage??
 
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Out of interest - when it isn't running in 'capped' mode, what sort of actual throughput speeds do you see, and are they consistent or highly variable?

I considered satellite here, but found 3G worked OK; in theory satellite should provide faster speeds then we currently get with 3G, at least downstream if it actually delivers anything approaching 18Meg.
 
Tooway Satellite

I have read other reviews mentioning Tooways suspect usage systems.

Luckily I will never have to use them, but have you done an internet search to see if there is anyone else near you suffering the same suspect data usage??

I am really pleased to update my original review with some good news. Tooway now offer a 20MB unlimited data package and have reduced the price from £99-00 to £79-00 per month. They changed me over to the new package in 6 hours and its solved all my issues.
 
Disclosure - Avonline are the UK's largest Tooway provider - hope that I may be able to help you out of a number of your problems.

1 - For three months now, Avonline have been offering our new 20Mbps UNLIMITED data service - our price is just £64.95 for 12 months.
2 - We have a Technology Guarantee - if a faster technology becomes available to your house - just call and give us 30 days notice and we will come and remove the system.
3 - Avonline plc has been established since 1981 and we have been selling and supporting satellite since 2002. We have an excellent technical team.
4 - Whilst the NOC is based in Turin - the service is genuinely pan-european and delivers "national" identity service in each country supported by extensive fibre ring around Europe.
5 - We are seeing many customers now who have waited with appalling broadband for Infinity to arrive only to be extremely disappointed. With our top "Absolute" package at a genuine 20Mbps download and 24 x 7 Unlimited data allowance, there is a fair usage policy so you could in theory see some slowing at points of maximum congestion, you should not see the impacts of the old throttling policy once data limits exceeded.

If you need anymore help, please email me - mark.wynn@avonline.co.uk
 
Avonline - BEWARE

I've been with Avonline for a while now and have a subscription to their £64.99 unlimited package.

Few bullet points to summarise the service:

- Internet speeds are diabolic and nowhere near what they advertise
- Can't use it for movie streaming despite what they say on their website
- When you go over the 60GB monthly cap they move you to a slower pipe which is completely unusable
- Service constantly drops out - can't rely on it at all. On some occasions I've lost internet for over 3 hours.
- Technical support is pathetic - you call to report an issue and nobody ever answers. You leave a message and they call you two to three days later to carry out some diagnostics but you're not at home because you have a day job!
- You send them a formal complaint and the don't formally respond!
- The only thing they are consistently good at is collecting the monthly payment from your bank account.

Seriously - if you have any other options go with those and avoid this company. Words cannot describe the levels of frustration you will experience if you ignore this advice!


Disclosure - Avonline are the UK's largest Tooway provider - hope that I may be able to help you out of a number of your problems.

1 - For three months now, Avonline have been offering our new 20Mbps UNLIMITED data service - our price is just £64.95 for 12 months.
2 - We have a Technology Guarantee - if a faster technology becomes available to your house - just call and give us 30 days notice and we will come and remove the system.
3 - Avonline plc has been established since 1981 and we have been selling and supporting satellite since 2002. We have an excellent technical team.
4 - Whilst the NOC is based in Turin - the service is genuinely pan-european and delivers "national" identity service in each country supported by extensive fibre ring around Europe.
5 - We are seeing many customers now who have waited with appalling broadband for Infinity to arrive only to be extremely disappointed. With our top "Absolute" package at a genuine 20Mbps download and 24 x 7 Unlimited data allowance, there is a fair usage policy so you could in theory see some slowing at points of maximum congestion, you should not see the impacts of the old throttling policy once data limits exceeded.

If you need anymore help, please email me - mark.wynn@avonline.co.uk
 
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