TV and 3G/4G in Europe

[TonyR123]

Have been thinking about TV on the boat in Mallorca. Have been told for mallorca that i need a dish on the pontoon itself - which isnt ideal. I doubt I will watch that much TV so dont really want a dish that isnt on the boat itself.

Then I was thinking about streaming TV over the internet, via an iPad, using Sky GO as an example.

What do others do for the Med? Ideally looking for an unlimited data plan so can stream TV. Any companies recommended for data only simms? Or do you do something completely different? Dont think Sky Go stream BBC1, so would need another website for that.

TVs themselves wont be that big - 32" at most, so streaming quality should be fine?

Thanks
Tony

 

[DavidJ]

We have a dish on the pontoon in north Med Spain, put up when you could get freesat before the satellite was changed to a smaller UK focused footprint. Now we get BBC World, CNN and loads of german stations so we still get to see major football matches and Wimbledon.
Streaming UK programmes will need a VPN. We use Overplay at £4 a month (there are loads out there) but only use it in hotels where you can get a decent speed and free wifi. 3G/4G streaming through a mifi would be cost prohibitive for us. We use Three mifi 12Gb for £30 which is ok for daily comms and newspaper downloads.
I'm interested in views from others who may have overcome the problem.

 

[martin]

We have a dish on the pontoon in north Med Spain, put up when you could get freesat before the satellite was changed to a smaller UK focused footprint. Now we get BBC World, CNN and loads of german stations so we still get to see major football matches and Wimbledon.
Streaming UK programmes will need a VPN. We use Overplay at £4 a month (there are loads out there) but only use it in hotels where you can get a decent speed and free wifi. 3G/4G streaming through a mifi would be cost prohibitive for us. We use Three mifi 12Gb for £30 which is ok for daily comms and newspaper downloads.
I'm interested in views from others who may have overcome the problem.

 

[martin]

Hi
I use a an orange (spainish version) 4G SIM card in the boats router. We have a VPN set up between boat and UK. However, some of the smart TV apps work fine without. We also use Apple TV's, which also work worldwide.
Top tip - for monring news on Apple TV you get can get live TV over the Sky news app.

So far mainland and islands we have had no buffering...SIM card costs 40Euros month. we watch our fav films and TV plus teenagers onboard...havent run out of data yet..so fairly cheap option.

 

[Hurricane]

Use a Vodafone ES 4G Unlimited service here in Sant Carles and in the islands.
Then several Raspberry Pis around the boat feed into the TVs.
The Raspberry Pis run Kodi with several different addons - one is a BBC iPlayer addon which routes through my home broadband in the UK.
Other addons - Exodus is great for virtually any film or TV series.
The Raspberry Pi build is OpenElec (a Linux build with a Kodi front end)

 

[TonyR123]

so good to hear others do this and is a reasonable price. Had not thought of using PI's (mainly because I am a windows user) nor Apple TV, but both good ideas. Pay for a decent VPN provider (or sort my own to home) and should be no issues.

Always good to know what others do!

 

[Steruth1]

Tony I use a unlimited wifi provider in Majorca alongside a vpn. This gives me access to itv hub I player and sky go. About 70e for 2 weeks.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I have a satellite receiver on my boat but there seems to be a diminishing number of free channels to watch. If I want to watch pay TV on my boat I log on to my Slingbox http://www.slingbox.com/en-GB over either the local marina wifi or the 3G/4G mobile network via my yacht router or mobile phone. The Slingbox allows me to watch any channel on my boat that I can watch at home

 

[Hurricane]

Tony I use a unlimited wifi provider in Majorca alongside a vpn. This gives me access to itv hub I player and sky go. About 70e for 2 weeks.

In my experience. WiFi isn't the answer.
Just not fast enough and often stops.
4G is the way to go.
Installed it in March and it hasn't stopped since.

 

[admillington]

For us U.K. Users

I use an unlimited SIM from Three and works far better than the Marina Wi-Fi

 

[Hurricane]

For us U.K. Users

I use an unlimited SIM from Three and works far better than the Marina Wi-Fi

Interesting - the Unlimited Three (Feel at Home) service in Spain is rubbish - they limit it so that it is only just about able to get emails - possibly a weather forecast - but no possibility of streaming.
How good is Three in the UK - can you stream BBC TV for example?

 

[Nigelpickin]

Interesting - the Unlimited Three (Feel at Home) service in Spain is rubbish - they limit it so that it is only just about able to get emails - possibly a weather forecast - but no possibility of streaming.
How good is Three in the UK - can you stream BBC TV for example?

Three is very good in U.K. All our business phones are on Three all you can eat. We don't use the land line hub at home, (in Truro), as the Three phones are better, PS4, Apple TV and so on.
Overseas it's obviously a diffferent story but the Three throttled data will work perfectly for web browsing. It's interesting to note that Three have a Three month clause in their contract stating that they can turn off free to roam if the user is overseas for longer. We are in month five now and all still working.

FWIW, a quick trip to the tax office and I now have a Fiscal number for Portugal. This has enabled me to take a pay monthly contract out on a data only sim from NOS. it's working very well, unlimited and giving me 15 ton20mbs - so happy days. Can't believe how crusty France and Spain are with unlimited data sims.

 

[admillington]

Interesting - the Unlimited Three (Feel at Home) service in Spain is rubbish - they limit it so that it is only just about able to get emails - possibly a weather forecast - but no possibility of streaming.
How good is Three in the UK - can you stream BBC TV for example?

I bring it home and keeps my teenagers completely happy - we live in a rural location and the hard wired broadband is awful - less then 3 mg