corsechris Posted October 4, 2023 Share Posted October 4, 2023 The reason is obvious, terrain, but it still makes me chuckle that I can get impressive 5G & 4G speeds out in literally the middle of the ocean in the Maldives. No sign of land....loads of signal. I did a few speed tests while out on a dive boat last year and saw in excess of 60Mbps Can't recall when it was now - quite a few years back, but the first time I went there, they were in the process of rolling out masts to all the resort islands to spread the coverage. I fully expect my Mercedes to go deaf when 3G gets turned off. I doubt MB will be offering free upgrades somehow. TBH, the only thing I use the telematics for now is to very occasionally turn on the climate to either warm or cool the car before I get in it, and to monitor charge status. Could happily live without those. My MB has very poor coverage when parked in my drive, as it happens. That was a big clue as to why the smart meter gave so much trouble - bit of a dead zone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard (OldStager) Posted October 4, 2023 Author Share Posted October 4, 2023 I assume ( never always a wise thing to do but) in the Maldives case. Satellites come into play?, so on-land masts are not needed ?... Just guessing. ETA, although some masts must be somewhere, since my understanding is the masts relay the signal to the satellite which in turn relays it to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evosteve Posted October 4, 2023 Share Posted October 4, 2023 Sat phones are a different beast altogether. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard (OldStager) Posted October 4, 2023 Author Share Posted October 4, 2023 3 minutes ago, evosteve said: Sat phones are a different beast altogether. Well I am a relative newbie when it comes to smart phones,only had my first one two years... and even now I use the PC for anything online, the phone is just for talking on for me. It was free anyway so I didn't mind, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corsechris Posted October 4, 2023 Share Posted October 4, 2023 26 minutes ago, Richard (OldStager) said: I assume ( never always a wise thing to do but) in the Maldives case. Satellites come into play?, so on-land masts are not needed ?... Just guessing. ETA, although some masts must be somewhere, since my understanding is the masts relay the signal to the satellite which in turn relays it to you. It's all standard mobile telecoms stuff, it's just that they don't have any terrain in the way, and they have 2000-odd islands they can use to stick masts on if need be. Well, somewhat less than that as they probably want power to hand, but certainly lots of them not all that far apart in the grand scheme. Don't know what they use for trunk connections to the outside world, could be cables, microwaves to terrestrial stations in say India or probably more likely satellite to ground stations in Male and maybe other key islands the chain. The line between terrestrial and sat based devices is getting blurry though - I know my iPhone offers emergency satellite-based SMS services in large chunks of the globe, allegedly... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard (OldStager) Posted October 4, 2023 Author Share Posted October 4, 2023 To be honest thats why I mentioned satellites in the first place, I dont think my phone has the capability, but my mates does for the reason you mention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted October 5, 2023 Share Posted October 5, 2023 Well it's a good start. Fuse switched me from BG in a day. Never had a switch anywhere near that fast before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glen_I Posted October 7, 2023 Share Posted October 7, 2023 We joined Octopus about 8 weeks ago to coincide with our Tesla being delivered. So far so good, but yes, Customer Services are very slow at responding via email (in fact they don't respond), but when my wife phoned them the other day, she got through in less than 5 mins. Lady on other end seemed to understand our issues which are Smart Meter related (provided/installed by previous energy supplier), she said the issue would be resolved in 24 hrs. 72 hrs later and its not! They offered the best 'intelligent' tariff in our area to try and make this car earn its keep. We got it at the start of August and have already done 4000 miles! If they resolve the meter issue then I'll be more than happy!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard (OldStager) Posted October 7, 2023 Author Share Posted October 7, 2023 I'm on day 6 of silence from them. I did day above I would give them to the end of the working week ( yesterday) , but because I'm a kind bloke I will extend that to 7 days. - I don't hold out much hope.... Like most companies out there, you only know how good they are when things go wrong, seems perhaps ( to me at least) they grew too fast for their boots and now we are seeing the results. ongoing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenstreak-Andy D Posted October 7, 2023 Share Posted October 7, 2023 Have been with Octopus by default after Bulb went bump. For domestic supply, not had an issue. Been on their Flux tariff since my solar and battery installation in March. All good. For my partners hair salon, a business tariff, they have been poor. Fortunately took our energy on fix before the prices went mental, so contracted to them till April 24. In one instance they stopped taking her DD due to a meter error locking their systems apparently. (They couldn’t fit a smart meter-long story) So we faced a rather nasty bill when we realised 3 months later. Their payment plan then forgot to take useage into account. So guess what, 3 months later and we were back in same spot. Not impressed. I could transfer funds from our home domestic account to her buisness account which helped close the debt of their making! other than that I will remain with them for domestic use Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted October 9, 2023 Share Posted October 9, 2023 On 05/10/2023 at 08:39, Stuart said: Well it's a good start. Fuse switched me from BG in a day. Never had a switch anywhere near that fast before. Switched from EON to BG for lecky a few weeks ago. Took 36 hours and not a smart meter in sight. Yes I had to read the meter and send it in. Took all of two minutes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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