Square Mile, any good?

Dyflin

Dyflin

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Just curious about this company, biggest in the industry (or so it seems, I am struggling to name another ?) Is their service any good, does the signal drop right before you finish a download for example? What does it cost at the moment, is that free offer still around?
 
Search for Square Mile in the forums...

Never used it but:

ISTR that the concensus was that they werent much good, but I wondered if this was because people were using laptops with weak aerials below decks. The addition of an external USB aerial may have improved things for some.... e.g. Linksys USB adapter.

Expensive for short term use, but not bad with an annual deal?

Cheers

Richard
 
Square Mile works if you are standing right next to the transmitter (which is usually mounted on the marina office roof). Wireless signals don't like water or lots of masts. The weaker the signal, the slower speeds you will get. On my boat I have full line of sight with the transmitter at a distance of around 60 -70 metres and I get very low signal strength and speeds roughly the same as a 56k modem. You can forget You Tube or big downloads. Its really only good for email and weather forecasts. Bear in mind that the quality of built in wireless cards in laptops varies. I have an entry level HP laptop which can hardly get a signal at all and an apple macbook which is at least useable. If you are going to use it on your boat you will need an external antenna. You wont get these from pc world either. Square Mile will sell you one or you can get them online from places like wirelesspro.co.uk they sell a USB 'Marine hotspot booster' for £89 which works fine. As for the square mile service, The transmitter went down at my marina (Sovereign Harbour) and I had to call them several times before they would believe that the problem was theirs and not my laptop. It took around 10 days from me reporting the fault before they came out to fix it. So if you plan to work from your boat its not very fast or reliable. Unfortunately Square Mile are the only provider so I'm stuck with them.
 
Have used it whilst at Haslar, found it a great asset to be honest.

However, since the big winds the other month, the mast is down on 'G' pontoon, and has not been put back up, so no signal at the mo.

DDM canceled until they fix it!

But to answer your question, I found it good and fairly reliable.

Al. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Search the archives, there has been lots of correspondence about them. A marina must be the worst place to provide wifi what with all the masts sticking up and at Haslar the performance was variable and not to be relied on. I guess they just didnt have enough transitters.

Some days it worked fine below just with a notebook wifi device, on other days even with a high power output device such as an airbridge mounted on the boom a connection couldnt be established.

I used to have an annual account with SQM , they extended it to two years free because the service was rubbish but I gave up on it and never renewed

In Gosport - Wetherspoons have free wifi access if you buy a drink, I generally go up there for half an hour or so if I need to check my mail
 
I found their link very effective at Haslar last summer after I had purchased the external "marine" antenna mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Prior to that my internal Dell laptop wifi connection only worked under the main marina wifi transmitter. An external USB wifi thumb sized antenna on a 2m wandering lead supported a very slow connection inside my boat 80m from the main mast.

The external "marine" antenna is a large lump of plastic that might create a storage problem, it measures around 7" by 10" from memory.
 
I used Square Mile at Plymouth Yacht Haven when we lived there for a year. I even bought the Smartbridges antenna they sold. I had frequent problems and found their tech support people dismissive and generally unhelpful. I now use Wifi Spark in Falmouth and (in contrast) they are keen to help with any problems. Recently one of their guys talked me through purchasing an external USB wireless thingy while I was browsing the shelves in Currys. Having used wifi in several countries I would not rate Squaremile.
 
The company I work for (not the one in my link below!!) have a wireless link set up in Mayflower Marina in Plymouth and have done for many years.
Along came Square Mile who wanted to charge us a fortune for a corporate link and set up their own link, which has had it's problems mainly due to the fact that they obviously did no site survey prior to installing it in the marina, as they just went off and chose the same channel as us (although all others were clear).
Masts, multipath reflections from the sea can all cause problems but these can be overcome with a little thinking about the problem.

AFAIK the free connection has long gone (after the appearance on Dragons Den) and the price seems a bit much unless you are a full time user.

Just my 2p's worth but if your in Plymouth and need a hand see the link below ( /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gifshameless plug)
 
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