Mt.Gabriel

[Coomkeen]

Hi All,

Anyone out there get their wireless broadband from Mt.Gabriel in West Cork?
There's Permanet and Digital Forge on the mountain, as well as two Air Traffic Control radars, and various TV and mobile phone masts.

I've got BB from Dig.Forge, and have been having real problems.
They say it's due to interference from another service of some sort.
That's RF interference I assume.

Now as all BB must use the 2.4GHz band, I wonder if any Permanet user has the same problems?

The problems are:
Certain times of day, and certain days of the week, it's impossible to use.
That is not just upload/download speeds as generally these come out OK.
But it's totally lost packets, so when you click on a link - nothing happens.
Sometimes I've been trying to buy something, and there's been no response to the 'confirm' button, so I don't know whether it's worked or not.

I'm finding dial-up is often quicker, and certainly reliable.

All comments welcome.

Ron

[arthurryan]

I am also on this service from Digital Forge but I think you will find that your signal is coming from Mt. Corrin, the peaked mountain East of Mount Gabriel with the little stone structure at the very top. I believe that Mount Gabriel is mainly servicing customers in the Schull area and possibly areas to the West of me such as Ahakista and Kilcrohane.

I have been connected for about 6 weeks and although I am now on 1Mb. speed versus 37.2 that I was getting from Eircom on my telephone line, I am generally pleased with the service. I have noted at least three occasions when the service was off the air during that period and have noted that the speed was down considerably on a number of occasions particularly on a certain friday at 7.30pm when it dropped to 1296kb .Other than that I am quite pleased. I have spoken to a user of Permanet near the Castle in Roskerrig near Kilcrohane and he has been connected since last August with all sorts of problems. So much so that he has not been charged for the service since commencement.

[Coomkeen]

Thanks for your reply.

No I'm definitely on the Mt. Gabriel one. Not only can't I 'see' the Corrin point, but Dig Forge confirm my link comes from Gabriel.
They are having interference problems apparently. They use a non-licensable band, 2.4GHz, meaning you don't need a license to operate as it's public access, same as private wireless networks. This means ComReg are not interested in interference as anyone can use it.
Also, they are limited to a low power output. about 150mW I think.

Our link was so bad I've had to cancel it.
It only worked before 080. Evenings and weekends it just stopped completely, and I had to resort to dial-up to send emails.

Permanet have their own licensed band at 3.5GHz, and have higher power limits too.
So I'm hoping they will be better.
Digital Forge were fine to start with.

Thanks again.

Ron

[Coomkeen]

Hi Again Arthur,

Latest is....
I trundled along to Rosskerrig, and I'm not surprised that your friend has problems.
You can't actually see Mt. Gabriel from there as it's hidden behind Knockaughna.

I've applied to Permanet, so we'll see what happens.

Cheers,
Ron

[Coomkeen]

Hi Arthur,

Permanet came and went. Couldn't get a signal due to a gap in their antenna system.
However, Digital Forge have now sorted the problem and all is working fine. Best it's ever been in fact.
Speed averages 950 - 990 down, and 850 - 875 up, and that's right through to Dublin. (Using a different speed test site)
It's even been a fraction over 1M on occasion.

All the best,
Ron