wifi internet

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graham42

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all the internet service providers along the south coast of britain have joined together and become:
wifi spark!

i wondered if there are any happy users of this service?

my vote would be, give us our money back!
 
Can't complain about Wifi Spark in MDL marinas at all. Works very well for me, and when their setup was slightly wrong - I was able to phone up and speak to someone technical enough to fix the problem on a Saturday morning.

I do have my own signal booster (a DLink G710) but if I sit up top with the laptop, I don't need it (but my laptop has pretty good reception as it doesn't have a fancy metal case - which my previous one did doh!).

Very happy - miles better than Squaremile and a good deal cheaper too (£9 for 30 days service).

Rick
 
Completely satisfied with Wifi Spark. Excellent technical support.

What's the symptoms ? Low signal; intermittent drop out ?
 
sarabanda!

you suggested we all spend £115 on an external wifi antenna for our boats, marketed by wifi spark. were you able to sign-on with any of the remote signals not coloured green(oceanwave or whoever)

im in ipswich. back in november 2006 the service was pretty good. its advertised as broadband(the fcc says broadband minimum speeds are 768KBs-7mbps-2007). no isp provides those speeds in england.
being one of the first to sign up, sometimes i was getting download speeds of 128KBs(1mbps)the full volume of the landline connection. like a fool i told others and in january speeds fell to 25KBs and now your lucky to get 25KBs before they shut you down/throttle you to 2KBs.

tuesday 8th may although the antenna connection is 1mbps-11mbps i was redirected to sign-on every 20 minutes. there wasnt time to write an email.

the landline in ipswich is only 128KBs or a sexy 1mbps. with 20 signed up users the math is simply, add in weekend visitors and weather reports become unavailable(it takes too long to download 80KBs). this is wonderful news for shareholders in wifi spark as the 0845 phone numbers are jammed with disappointed users.

while logged on i get a message saying there`s an ip conflict. if there is, why doesnt wifi spark disconnect the other computer that might be causing this problem. ive used the same ip address since i paid my subscription. bet they want me to hang on their 0845 for a few hours.

another three weeks and this will be history. the boats almost ready. an alternator not working.

as i wend my course to brest i can remain in touch in almost every port along the south coast happily logging on. will this tempt me into any english harbour. i think not!

once away from blighty, its sailmail, free navtex and internet cafe`s for weather info.

wifi is a good thing.
its illegal in britain for me to loggon without paying for the service, but legal for wifi spark to provide p..s poor service.

graham
 
The problems in Brighton with Squaredefile were caused mainly by the telecom engineers cutting into cables not marked as data and using them to repair/redirect telephone lines and thus blatting the system (IMHO) also their ariels were crap generally the whole thing was crap! this new lot (which I have been using on a free basis, when I could get it, and a couple of £5 days ). decided to switch off their system without notice, so I re set my ISP in an attempt to get back into it with no luck, obviously, and then spent two days trying to reconfigure my connection, even with their promised help (which never came) so its early days as yet. I await the first visit of the telecom engineers and the telephone fault repair team, (their data cables are still part of the telecom systen and unmarked) . I do have to say that the signal is better and the ariels are impressive but I`m expected to pay£10 per month and £100 per year, is that different to other marinas?
 
I think you're talking about Oceanwave specifically, who are in Premier Marinas. These are different to Wifi Spark who are in MDL - though confusingly, it seems Oceanwave use some of WiFi Spark's facilities.

Wifi Spark are £9 for 30 days (with no requirement to buy an annual contract - so if we're away for a while there's no ongoing fee), which I thought was okay - plus we get 50hours free from MDL. Oceanwave are slightly more, as you say. I found the Brighton hotspot a bit flakey when I was there a couple of weekends ago, and the same in Yarmouth (though that was much earlier this year).

Would be great if I could use my Wifi Spark account in Premier on the odd occasion we pitch up in one of their marinas - but there's been no statement about that yet.

Rick
 
Here at Lowestoft the service has been far better since spark has taken over. at least people now listen to problems and they are sorted out, rather than what we had before which was" yes we will rectify the problem " but never did
 
Here in Brighton I`m told that there is a wifi hotspot in Witherspoons and also in Mac donalds (Btel) also the hotel have access but I guess its paid for in the room price? yea right! A phone call to witherspoons head office would confirm!
 
Hi again Rick! if you check out the available sites map (wortning) you will find that wifispark do have an antenna on the west quay at Brighton marina????
Rob
 
UseSpark in Woolverstone generally ok but was slow at times.

Now in Boulogne using Netabord, 14 euro for 24 hrs must be used within 60 days. I have not noticed any significant difference in performance to Spark.
 
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