Internet Plans

[mimibu]

Hello,

I have been looking around online for some internet plans in Finland. I was wondering if there were any reviews. I read that DNA and Sonera aren't great for expats, but I was wondering what people thought. Also what do people think of Elisa? And this may be a weird question, but do internet providers ask for a deposit like the phone providers do? I plan on moving into an apartment and would prefer a fixed line. How long does that take to get set up in Finland? In France it took over a month, and I am a student, so I really hope that's not the case!

Thank you for your help!

[Upphew]

Hello,

I have been looking around online for some internet plans in Finland. I was wondering if there were any reviews. I read that DNA and Sonera aren't great for expats, but I was wondering what people thought. Also what do people think of Elisa? And this may be a weird question, but do internet providers ask for a deposit like the phone providers do? I plan on moving into an apartment and would prefer a fixed line. How long does that take to get set up in Finland? In France it took over a month, and I am a student, so I really hope that's not the case!

Thank you for your help!

No idea about deposits. More likely that they don't want them as you won't rack up 2k bill by calling abroad and ditch Finland to get rid of the bill. But then again, you are not "known goods" so... maybe you could ask if you could just pay the bill before, not after the month you use the internet?

Elisa, or rather Saunalahti, has been fine for me. 10/100 vdsl for 29,90 and 3,75 for the modem. Can't recall how long it took to set up as I was switching providers and there was Christmas and new year to worry about so I was acting in early December. The line was up 1.1. iirc. Usually cable stuff you get to work in days, xdsl usually takes a bit more time as it usually means that someone has to do physical work near you.

[Upphew]

In modern houses these days they have RJ45 pluggable socket, so, if the internet socket in the house you rent is modern, you'll not need to buy the router from the service provider and can buy own router (or just plug the wire to the computer). In such case you may not have to deposit the money and just ask the service provider to activate the internet in your home's socket.

Granted I don't have that much experience, but in couple of cases I've been involved, there were need for the router anyway. The cables are in the walls and you have rj45s in every room, but they are just cables and sockets and they terminate to same box where the fuses are. It is nice to put the router there for less clutter, but wlan doesn't like metal boxes.

[Jukka Aho]

In modern houses these days they have RJ45 pluggable socket, so, if the internet socket in the house you rent is modern, you'll not need to buy the router from the service provider and can buy own router (or just plug the wire to the computer). In such case you may not have to deposit the money and just ask the service provider to activate the internet in your home's socket.

Granted I don't have that much experience, but in couple of cases I've been involved, there were need for the router anyway. The cables are in the walls and you have rj45s in every room, but they are just cables and sockets and they terminate to same box where the fuses are. It is nice to put the router there for less clutter, but wlan doesn't like metal boxes.

Technically you can make do without a router — just connect a single patch cable from the upstream RJ-45 connector (which leads to the ISP’s router) to the patch panel connector which leads to one of the rooms, making one of the wall jacks in one of the rooms live. But this is of course a fairly limited setup and would only do for a single stationary PC.

It would also be possible to manage with a mere dumb network switch in the fusebox — provided that your ISP hands out enough public IP addresses for all of your connected devices. But that would be a bit foolish as a mere network switch does not provide firewalling, NATting, or any other functionality most people would probably want to have instead of exposing their devices straight to the public Internet.

Some of the modern fuseboxes have a plastic door which will not interfere with the WiFi signal. But if there’s a metal door and the WiFi coverage is severely affected by that, it is of course possible to relocate the router in one of the rooms, instead.

The problem with this arrangement then becomes that the LAN-facing ports of your router cannot be directly connected to the patch panel connectors in the fusebox as the router is in another room. However, you could remedy that simply by connecting one of the LAN ports of your router to remaining RJ-45 jack in the room (they usually come in pairs), this way making the LAN available in the fusebox. (So you’re now utilizing one cable run which brings the public Internet from the fusebox to the desired room, and another cable run which brings the LAN provided by your router back to the fusebox from that room.) Then just extend the LAN to the rest of the rooms via a simple network switch placed in the same fusebox.