November 2009 - Opinions- Is Tooway OK?

I have read most of the posts of people having problems with Tooway.  Most of them are between August and September 2008.

There are not many recent posts. Does this mean that the problems have been solved and tooway now works OK?

I spend a lot of time at 1200 metres in the north face of the  Sierra  Nevada near Granada Spain 4 km from the nearest phone line with solar power. The 3G signal has recently dropped in power so I need a solution.

Is Tooway a good reliable solution or is it still a pain in the ****?

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We have lots of systems installed in your area, please contact us by email.

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Tooway Ka and Ku systems are a very good choice for "BASIC HOME" use, but remember support is limited on it (24H ticket system). In any other environment where a connection is crucial (24/7/365 phone support) we would suggest different systems (you get what you pay for) :)

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Limited support is NOT related to Bentley Walker but to the level of Tooway support from Skylogic !!!!

Comparing Tooway support with other systems in the market it is realy limited ! From installers point it is even bad, no way to contact the NOC by phone during install etc. etc.

Also in cases of problems after installation there is no way except via a ticket (time consuming system) to contact the NOC, even for home users who live remote and Satellite is the only way to communicate this is in many cases a big problem and can reflect on agents/installers in a negative way.

I agree above opinion but ....... for more professional use and a realy 24/7/365 (phone) support we advise other systems. In real life, this is also what clients expect, even if they pay 35 euro's per month.

Above is also very clearly stated on our website to avoid problems with users who expect a Rolls-Royce for a Skoda price

Subject closed for us.

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If reliability is more important than speed and a fast support is needed when system is down, than we advise different systems but ....... you pay also more.

We use in our Spanish office a Telefonica adsl connection (60 euro per month !!) and we have different Satellite systems mainly for demo but we use those also as a BACKUP, we need 24/7 a connection.

Telefonica adsl goes down also every X day's and this can be the same with a Satellite system, you can not expect a 100% connection. Also the weather can be a problem sometimes.

Telefonica adsl and any other adsl providers have also limits on usage and you will be trottle down if you use to much !

If you have the option to get a adsl line you should always go for this !! Satellite is not a substitution but only a last resort if you dont have any other possibility to connect to internet.

If you realy want a 100% connection the only way is 2 systems on a different HUB (location).

Tooway is good as long you stay within your limits and when systems is down you dont expect problem solved within 15 minutes (but it takes Telefonica also sometimes a day to solve a problem, so .......)

Read also the comments from Eric on this board.

I can't give you example speeds as don't really take too much notice of speedtests. 

For me if I can can online and do the work I need to then I'm happy.  My emails leave my outbox instantly and I can access other business systems via the VPN with ease.  For my UK client I am also doing project support work so it is imperative I can access the internet at all times.

Downtime - since July/Aug when there were quite some issues with Tooway, pretty much nothing to speak of until yesterday when they took it down for maintenance.  The spanish beam I understand was down for a short period last week but I just reset our Modem and we were back in within minutes.

We used to run a Vodafone 'dongle' but could only get 3G in one part of the house and then not all of the time.  This was the reason for changing to Tooway.  It gave us an always on connection and no fiddling about with having to move around the house to get a signal or keep getting thrown off the network.  I complained to Vodafone so much I was blue in the face and in the end they also had to concede that their connecttion was not what is was cracked up to be.  This seems to be the norm with trying to get connected via this method in remote areas.  At the time I cancelled our contract we were paying 42.27 euros plus IVA at 20% for a connection I couldn't use.  We now pay 49.90 euros plus VAT at 15% for one I can and do use all the time.

The support we have received from BW for Tooway is a reflection of the Skylogic support.  For example yesterday morning our system was extremely slow and we also had another client site completely offline.  I contacted BW who contacted Skylogic and by mid afternoon all was resolved.  They were doing some maintenance which hadn't gone quite as planned.  This I think is pretty good compared with Vodafone taking a week to tell me I wasn't close enough to the nearest antenna to get a good connection.

Contacting BW had to be done by phone of course but if your internet connection is down you would have to contact them by other means anyway even if support was provided 24/7/365.

Tooway isn't for everyone but when I compare it to my father's ADSL with BT in the UK I can't see much difference.  In fact he remarked the other day that our system when he stayed with us was faster than his BT ADSL!

Yes, it does cost for the equipment.  You can cut the cost of installation by doing it yourself (not really recommended unless you can get hold of a spectrum analyser), but not impossible.  Then it's just the monthly subscription after that.

Hope this answers a bit more what you are looking for.

I have been using TooWay since May 2008 with varied results. I have no 3G here, 11.4Km. of wire to the nearest exchange so - a captive audience!

The good news is that since a few weeks back when reputedly Anthony Walker helped the Hub  to sort out some problems, things have been usually DRAMATICALLY better. Speeds have been excellent, well over 3M down and often well  over 250Kb/s up with much greater reliability although weather will always be a potential problem here in Wales. It has just been throwing it down with rain but my speed test was as previously stated - really good.

In a previous post I said I thought TooWay was an excellent system for people in my position but there were unresolved problems. If the performance of the last few weeks is now the norm, I unreservedly withdraw that comment!

In a post a few weeks ago, almost immediately deleted, a regular service provider inferred that the poor performance we were complaining about was due to poor customer self alignment, whilst this may be true in some cases with which he is aware, no changes whatever have been made to my system hardware but the results have been transformed. Please draw your own conclusions.

Regards,

Tony

I concur with Cambrian in post #12 above.
Since I posted here on Oct 1st with my complaints about the unreliability of the Tooway system things have dramatically improved and this improvement has been more or less maintained ever since, although I have to say that during the last couple of weeks performance has dropped from what I would classify as an 8-10/10 rating, it has been anything from a 5 to an 8/10 with a couple of days requiring several re-boots of the modem, which eventually 'cured' itself.
I haven't used Tooway at all this week so I can't comment on current performance.
I can underline Cambrian's assertion that for most DIY installations it has NOT been the installation that has been at fault; my dish hasn't been touched since initial installation.
Also, in the case of Welshbarn it has been shown that faulty equipment was at least a contributory factor to their performance problems.

In response to granadainfo's original question, my comment would be that provided the Tooway system maintains it's recent performance then I would recommend it without reservation.

Thanks again to Eric for providing this forum and his assistance in helping to develop Tooway in the UK as a usuable system.