WiFI SPARK

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oldvarnish

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Am I alone in finding this rubbish?

They've installed it as harbour wifi across Dartmouth. They warn that wifi amongst masts is not easy, which I accept. But I've fitted an antenna with a 30dB gain and it's still lousy.

Ping times of 75ms and download speeds of 0.7M.

Can't get 3G on Vodafone either in Dartmouth.

As one of many who likes to pretend they're working but is in fact on their boat, this is a nuisance.
 
You are not alone!
It is complete and utter cr#p. We are in Darthaven Marina and have constant battles with WIFI Sparks over their 'non' delivery. The marina are at constant war with them and are, I believe, looking for an alternative supplier.
From time to time we call and abuse the company whereby they then 'tweak' the system and for a few days or so we get much better service. The problem is they just sell and resell the same bandwidth over and over- should be illegal IMHO.
Try 3 network via your mobile- good coverage in the SW or GiffGaff- £12 a month for 250 minutes and unlimited wifi PAYG.

The library has an excellent fast and free service if you take your laptop over there!
 
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oldvarnish said:
Am I alone in finding this rubbish?

They've installed it as harbour wifi across Dartmouth. They warn that wifi amongst masts is not easy, which I accept. But I've fitted an antenna with a 30dB gain and it's still lousy.

Ping times of 75ms and download speeds of 0.7M.

Can't get 3G on Vodafone either in Dartmouth.

As one of many who likes to pretend they're working but is in fact on their boat, this is a nuisance.
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completely useless. tethering to your phone much more reliable and faster if you have a signal - any other networks get there?
 
I've used it and, as it was free, it was ok for a bit of email and web browsing, but slow for anything else, and had a tendency to keep cutting out.

Tethering on a 3 sim is much faster, more consistent, and able to stream HD video without any problems.
 
Most marina wifi is rubbish though, isn't it? One pleasant exception I found recently is Brighton Marina's new wifi service, which actually works, and delivers fairly good performance.
 
Hi everyone,

I am Oliver and work for WiFi SPARK. Looks like we have some issues here which we would certainly like to get resolved.

Some sites do have limited bandwidth available. With the roll-out of fibre, we will see more and more users experiencing faster speeds. Unfortunately fibre is not available at Darthaven yet but when it is, we will work with Darthaven and the telephony providers to get this upgraded. In the meantime, we have bandwidth management in place to share the bandwidth out equally to each device that uses the service. More information about the expected speeds can be found in the Help section of the Login Portal.

In regards to Dart Harbour we do have Fibre in place so I am surprised to hear that you are experiencing slow speeds. I will ask the team to investigate and see what can be done to improve it.

In the meantime, It would be useful if you can email us with the location you are connecting from along with your contact details as well as your username. Our email is support@wifispark.com. Or alternatively you can give us a call on 0344 848 9555.

Best wishes,
Oliver
 
Can you 'see' any BT Wifi /BT Fon signals? Any marina with housing development is likely to have quite a few around. Could be worth choosing BT Broadband at home just to get the free Wifi. (I can find a decent BT Wifi signal anywhere in Chichester Hbr and usually get around 2Mb/s).
 
Amazed it is still going!

I had a protracted argument with the 'management' of this so called service when I was in Lowestoft Haven Marina. That was seven years ago.
 
We are about 50m from you, I now tether to my phone on EE (I hate them!) and all works fine, 3G no problem. Used to have a 3 SIM card which also worked well, my son is also here and has 3G on his 3 network.

Have looked at wifi spark but can't see the need to use them, plus their reputation is pretty dire.

It's good pretending to work from the boat, done it for 20 odd years!
 
Not tried it this summer but last summer I had a reasonable speed at Dartmouth tethered to an O2 phone.

This year I'm at Plymouth Yacht Haven and their wifi is excellent and free.
 
Get a globesurfer whack in a £15 payg sim card with all you can eat and enjoy your very own personally connection. If you have the cash get the yachtspot 4g and put an antenna on the mast. Iplayer, download, what ever. We had 7mb off of hamble (terrible for internet) enjoy
 
WIFI spark in Sutton marina Plymouth is rubbish, although they've been working on it for the last month so time will tell.
I have all Digital yacht gizmos onboard so its not down to weak signal its just down to bandwidth (so I've been told).
The China house supply my broadband via O2, good enough to stream Netflix :)
Wifi spark must be doing ok, the guys are all driving nice shiny new vans !!!!
 
Drews said:
Wifi spark must be doing ok, the guys are all driving nice shiny new vans !!!!
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I just thought of commision paid lenders pre-2008 recession, provide a great sounding illusion and then get screwed when in contract.

The only way i would suggest a marina connection would be viable long term opposed to cheaper PAYG options would be to have a hard wired connection into the boat router.
 
Jamesuk said:
If you have the cash get the yachtspot 4g and put an antenna on the mast.
Click to expand...



I've already got an Alfa R36 which gives me a nice spread of wifi round the boat. I'll try it with a USB Dongle. Still deciding which carrier to go for. Comments suggest 3
 
oldvarnish said:
From most of the above, I'm getting the impression that 3 is the one to go for.
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Surprised to see you still there - thought you'd be off on another of your exciting trips - or has SWMBO said it's her turn for some sailing ?! (Just re-reading "One Summer" - again !)

3 gets our vote too - we are lucky enough to have a Samsung which came with an unlimited data contract so we are sticking to it :) Speeds pretty good (so much so I haven't bothered to test). No good for streaming video but fine for work, email, browsing etc and even reasonable downloads/uploads. We have a 3 dongle too which also works well. We are currently further up near the Higher Ferry but LongJohnSilver is, as he says, a close neighbour of yours so it would seem that the main part of the river is well served with 3. We have in the past used Orange and Vodafone for phone (not data) and not been wholly satisfied - the biggest problem with both was calls failing which happens only in one place below with 3. (As usual, no connection blah blah - just, currently, happy using it.)

P
 
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