Internet connections

[wolf80]

Hey,

we're moving to a place in Vantaa where there is no broadband internet connection offer whatsoever. The decision would be between good old aDSL and 4G mobile internet, both rather slow for what I need for my work. Are there any alternatives such as internet via cable tv or satellite? Couldn't find much information on Google.

thanks!

[Beep_Boop]

Usually, you can find all offers for your locations through the ISPs websites. Depending on your work, I'd recommend staying away from satellite internet as the latency is annoyingly high.
4G is pretty good. I use it sometimes. If the coverage near you is decent, you can get pings down to 15ms for nearby servers, and download speed of roughly 800 KB/s, which isn't bad at all.

[Upphew]

Usually, you can find all offers for your locations through the ISPs websites. Depending on your work, I'd recommend staying away from satellite internet as the latency is annoyingly high.
4G is pretty good. I use it sometimes. If the coverage near you is decent, you can get pings down to 15ms for nearby servers, and download speed of roughly 800 KB/s, which isn't bad at all.

KB/s = kB/s? Just asking as I have only 3G and got 2600/340kB/s as I tested my connection speed with ookla's speedtest app. Elisa's own app gave 20/3.8Mb/s.

[wolf80]

Usually, you can find all offers for your locations through the ISPs websites. Depending on your work, I'd recommend staying away from satellite internet as the latency is annoyingly high.
4G is pretty good. I use it sometimes. If the coverage near you is decent, you can get pings down to 15ms for nearby servers, and download speed of roughly 800 KB/s, which isn't bad at all.

The problem is, the ISPs websites are sure there are no other offers. It's either 24 Mbit/s ADSL or a 4G router connection (5-50 Mbit/s). Both are in my opinion rather expensive for what I get, and I would really want a connection with at least 50 Mbit/s. Can't believe that this is not possible in Vantaa, not far from the airport, and just next to a train station and shopping center! It feels like 1999 all over again!

[Beep_Boop]

KB/s = kB/s? Just asking as I have only 3G and got 2600/340kB/s as I tested my connection speed with ookla's speedtest app. Elisa's own app gave 20/3.8Mb/s.

The key is in the B - If it's small, then it's bit. If it's capital, then it's byte. Each byte is 8 bits. Sometimes companies use bit to make their connections sound more impressive, and it's usually the preferred measurement for bandwidth. However, for all intents and purposes, byte is the unit that concerns users.

Download: 20 Mb/s (or sometimes written Mbps) is 20.000 Kb/s. When converting to byte (big B), it becomes 2.5 MB/s, which is 2500 Kb/s
Upload: 3.8 Mb/s is 3800 Kbps. When converting to byte, it becomes 0.475 MB/s, which is 475 KB/s

So I'd say the results are fairly similar in download, and small different in upload. Keep in mind that the speed tests are essentially done by downloading and uploading a test file to the server and measuring how long it takes. So how far the server is from you, and how busy the server is, plays a role in tests inconsistencies.

[Beep_Boop]

The problem is, the ISPs websites are sure there are no other offers. It's either 24 Mbit/s ADSL or a 4G router connection (5-50 Mbit/s). Both are in my opinion rather expensive for what I get, and I would really want a connection with at least 50 Mbit/s. Can't believe that this is not possible in Vantaa, not far from the airport, and just next to a train station and shopping center! It feels like 1999 all over again!

24 Mbps is very very decent. Unless your work involves uploading and downloading terrabytes of data every single day, then I really don't see how it's bad.

[wolf80]

24 Mbps is very very decent. Unless your work involves uploading and downloading terrabytes of data every single day, then I really don't see how it's bad.

Let's say enough so that a drop from my 100 Mbit connections to ADSL would be highly annoying and uncomfortable. I also wonder about the lack of any alternative options here, even if money is not the issue.

[Jukka Aho]

we're moving to a place in Vantaa where there is no broadband internet connection offer whatsoever. The decision would be between good old aDSL and 4G mobile internet, both rather slow for what I need for my work. Are there any alternatives such as internet via cable tv or satellite?

Well, do you have cable TV in that location? If so, figure out who provides it and check out their website.

Internet via cable TV (a DOCSIS cable modem) is fairly common for older apartment buildings / row houses / homes which are located in a sufficiently urban area where cable TV is available and which have not yet been connected to fiber.

Then again, getting fiber for an older home / apartment building is fairly common, too, but typically only happens when the local telco is upgrading their infrastructure in the area, which is when the homeowners and housing companies will get an offer to join up. Otherwise, it is a project which probably won’t be possible unless you form a cooperative with most of your (unwired) neighborhood, with them wanting to commit to joining up as well. (Of course, it could be possible that the local telco has brought fiber to the premises or at the edge of the lot, but it has never been connected because the previous owners or the shareholders in a housing company were all old geezers and grannies who did not want it at the time. Or that by sheer luck there’s some point of presence right next to you, connecting to which would not require digging up the streets. But don’t get you hopes up, telcos will only do what is guaranteed to be profitable to them. They will not dig up streets for a single person only. An entire apartment building or a cooperative of some type [which is what they have used to get fiber in sparsely populated areas or small villages which telcos are not interested in] will have more negotiating power.) If you’re a mere tenant, your options are fairly limited.

Then there are possibly more esoteric DIY solutions, such as a wireless point-to-point link (directional antennas or an optical link) between two nearby buildings with a line of sight assuming the remote building has fiber and some way to tap into it legally by entering into some sort of contract with someone, etc.

You don’t tell much about your situation, though. Are you living in a detached home as a homeowner, or as a shareholder of a housing company / apartment building of some type, or as a tenant, or what?

Some pointers:

• Nopea laajakaista kaikille - kovalla hinnalla
• Faktaa valokuidusta
• Elisa — Laajakaista- ja kaapeli-tv-ratkaisut kiinteistöille
• Laajakaista ja kaapeli-TV taloyhtiöön
• Ubiquiti — Products (wireless point-to-point links)
• Ronja — open hardware: 10MBit 1400m airlink w/ LEDs (not the speed you’re looking for but an interesting project nonetheless)

Edit:

If old telephone copper pairs are most what you can get now, maybe you could get a VDSL2 connection from the local telco (see here, for example.) Or maybe they have more options available for you if you found a (single-man) company and contact them as a representative of the company rather than as a private person.