The Big Con That is Satellite Internet from BeyonDSL Review

If you live in a city, you’ve probably never had cause to consider satellite internet or to look up a BeyonDSL Review, your choices are unlimited, but for some, if we want an internet connection, we must pay through the nose for a satellite internet one.

When I moved to the Devon forests, I foolishly thought that any connection problems would be overcome. The BT broadband was nigh on non-existent but I’d looked into BeyonDSL and Satellite Internet and found they promised much better speeds that were more consistent. For this it would cost twice as much as the average broadband connection alongside quite a cost for the equipment and the installation, but with an office in the grounds of my home, I thought it would be worth it. The Consumer Voice cannot be run without an internet connection, that really defeats the objective!

I did my research and found that this company ( they change their name from SES to BeyonDSL to Satellite Internet) seemed to offer what I needed. With BT having no plans to install fibre optic here until 2017 I had to bite the bullet.

We set up the equipment and we got used to the 2-second delay with the satellite. The speed wasn’t nearly as good as promised but we had the internet and so didn’t want to complain.

When it rained, when the wind blew, when a cloud crossed the sky, the internet would go down. After storms we needed to spend the day repositioning the huge satellite dish (the dish that I was convinced would attract a 747 to our house!).

We didn’t complain, we limped along, grateful for any connection, and when their website came littered with broken links and mistakes we still didn’t feel any suspicion.

Then the Wi-Fi stopped working, not that it had worked to any satisfactory standard at all. It just didn’t have the power to connect an iPhone alongside a PC. We still didn’t complain.

I’d paid the top price for the best internet, for unlimited limits on downloads and uploads, I knew it was an expense but I didn’t want to be caught out without it due to a restriction on my usage.

So when the internet slowed to a halt in December I first thought nothing of it. My time was being wasted waiting for pages to load but I put it down to the storms and bad weather. After another working day wasted, we rang to find out what the problem was. They said they’d look into it and we never did receive a satisfactory solution (or any solution at all) and so we limped on.

They’ve had trouble taking the direct debit every month so I’ve needed to pay monthly by card (not automatic). The internet wasn’t working at all for 3 weeks, and so when the renewal came I looked for alternatives. They got a bit shirty so I paid for the next month in advance and had someone from our IT department look into the slow speeds (seeing as though the company never had).

This is what they found:

The speed was so slow, it was measured in KBs not MB. To give you some perspective, the internet speed test has not measured in this unit since the dawn of the internet, that’s because no provider would be able to sell this speed to a customer, unless they were stranded on the top of Mount Everest. (We looked into it, the speed is actually better up there than it is in my office).

THIS is the reason why it’s been taking 3 hours to load an article, the reason work has been deleted or forgotten due to a disconnected internet connection. This astounded me, and I thought there must be a fault. How could they charge £100 per month for a connection so slow?

So we got in touch. In the meantime the router gave up the ghost and they admitted they couldn’t see us connected at their end. This wasn’t the reason for the slow speeds prior though as they declared at the time of the KB speed:

There wasn’t/ isn’t a fault.

Apparently, in December, (after our complaint about speed and after the Wi-Fi stopped working) they introduced a new speed step limit. My unlimited internet now had pretty big restrictions.

Already, in the first week of the month, I’d exceeded this restrictions twice with my downloads and uploads and as a result, the company put my speed at an 80^th of what it should be. Namely, 248KB per minute. That’s a tenth of the average picture downloading from an article I want to read.

That means it takes 10 minutes for me to see one image… no wonder work was so frustrating.

They denied knowing about the broken router, despite us recording the call to them, they denied the complaints we made about the slow service before December, despite us logging those calls too.

They declared that they’d told us about this change, 3 months ago. Nowhere is there any correspondence telling me about such a drastic deception.

Now, they inform me, to get a speed of an average person, of the slowest broadband around, I can pay. The cost will be just £400 a month if I promise not to go over a certain limit.

Now, as this price takes me back to the intermittent service and mediocre speed I had before the problems, I’m quite reluctant to fork it out. Imagine what The Consumer Voice (as a non profit) could do with that money instead?

So we’re on the lookout for someone else and using something temporary in between. Despite paying for the service we can’t even upload an article right now, or update our social media. (They still can’t find our connection at their end and are in no rush to rectify the problem).

I’m quite gobsmacked that a company can get away with this in this day and age, especially as they introduced this 300% hike in price midway through a contract, therefor having all their customers over a barrel. It has to be illegal and we will be investigating to find out how, as this is exactly what the Consumer Voice is about.

If you think this may be the ramblings of an editor that’s been stung by yet another cowboy service provider, have a Google, there are many unhappy, and skint, customers of this company complaining about the same such as:

I’ve been with Beyondsl for almost a year – an expensive and frustrating experience. Speeds not as advertised – much much slower, and it doesnt [sic] work in rain or cloud (which we get a lot of here). Phone lines go to answermachine all the time (9 to 5 weekdays), emails rarely answered, no complaints process, not a member of a dispute service (as required by OFCOM). I’ll be off as soon as my contract expires & I’ll write off the £300 I spent on hardware as I’ll be glad to be shut of Beyondsl. Tooway – they seem to a least be run by people who answer the phone!

Been with them for two years and I am waiting for line upgrades in my area so that I can switch to a line broadband service.

Plus point

Can receive sat tv and broadband through 1 dish

Negative Points

Expensive

Slow

Poor customer service

Poor technical help

Poor account status and information page

If 0 was available that would be the score I would use across the board!

I am connected to their 10mb service and have been very disappointed with the speed I have. A typical hotmail page can take 20 seconds to download and I get so frustrated that I keep switching back to the 1mb landline Internet that I have kept open.

I have a sonos system which cannot be used on the beyondsl system as it keeps stopping.

Surfing the net is soooo slow, with the only benefit being the ability to download software updates quicker.

Complaints have not been edited at all.

It’s worth noting that these complaints were made BEFORE the introduction of Speed Step, just imagine the complaints now?

We’re keeping an eye out and will keep you informed but for now, stay away from this company who trade under many names such as Satelitte Internet, BeyondDSL and Astra.

We will be expecting a full refund from before the deception and will be taking this company to court so you don’t have to.