do anyone have experienced installing wi fi in the house for 3 storey in the tai wan old village, yung shue wan and if anyone you could recommend for the installation. thanks

Andy Chan
9520-0547

Thanks, how bad is the reception in this tai wan old village ?? anyone is living in that area can share some advise?? much appreciated

I used to live in Tai Wan.
Radio, TV, and mobile phone reception was awful because it's surrounded by hills on three sides..

But what has that to do with wifi?
That's from your own router inside the house.

Or what do you mean by "wifi" then?
Wireless internet from a mobile phone company?
That will only work if you have a good signal from the company in question, and not many work at all in Tai Wan.

which company work in that area?? pccw and smartone??
what work best for a 3 storey house for down/up loading for work??
Thanks

Easiest way, just use Broadband, Internet by landline, like most of us.

When you get your Internet Broadband installed, probably by Netvigator, you can ask for a Wifi router as part of the monthly package. They'll set it up and fix it, if there's any problem later. Then you'll have Wifi in the entire building (and next door, if you share your Wifi password with them).

Broadband speeds are pretty similar anywhere on Lamma as they use wired telephone land lines, even in Tai Wan Village.

Or you can simply get Andy (or yourself) to install a cheap Wifi Wireless Router connected to your existing Broadband, one time fee, plus occasional, rare maintenance calls. That's what I did for Wifi in our house.

For higher, more-than-3Mbps (best speed available anywhere on Lamma) Internet speeds, you'll need to get a Wireless Router installed. But that needs a very good mobile phone reception, 3G or 4G, which you cannot get from ANY provider for Tai Wan Village, as far as I know.

Test your house's location by setting your mobile phone to "Wifi Hotspot" and test the connection from any computer by running "Speedtest", "OFCA Perf. Test" or a similar app on your mobile.

I use such a mobile Wifi hotspot myself for high-speed up and downloads, sometimes beyond 30 Mbps. Nothing to buy or install or maintain besides your normal phone. But this depends completely on your house's location and can range from very poor to pretty good and I'd be reluctant to use this simple solution full-time for my regular Internet connection. Get a 3G/4G Wifi router for permanent connections. 3G is much cheaper in all ways and probably offers about the same speed in many locations around Lamma.

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Check if there is a monthly charge for a wifi router from the Internet company. PCCW will rip you for this.
You can buy your own wifi router to plug into their modem for less than $200.

The terms lead to some confusion.

Broadband == "high speed" internet, basically anything faster than dial up modem.
There are different technologies that do this:
optic fibre cable -- up to gigabit speed, unavailable on Lamma
DSL -- uses the phone line, speed here maybe 1.8 Mbs in Tai Wan
HSPA -- uses the mobile phone 3G network
LTE -- uses the 4G mobile network.

So the latter two are wireless, but not "wifi", as that refers to your private 80211 network, from your own wifi router.

The modem is what connects you to the phone wire or receives the mobile signal. A router distributes this to your own devices, by ethernet cable or wifi. Often the modem and router are combined, but you can always plug a normal router into it if you need, for instance, to add wifi.


Wireless broadband probably doesn't work at all in Tai Wan, didn't when I was there.

If you do use DSL, then PCCW requires a 2-year unbreakable contract.
Netfront has the same rate and service (same hardware) but only a 6 month commitment.

thanks for all the info , mush appreciated .
my location really does not work for wireless and even my mobile have no reception, where is the best area for a 4G network work in lamma island, i was told smartone because they have the antennal installed??

thinking of buying one of those LTE device, but have to use out of the house, does it work well outside of tai wan old village??

thanksssss

So your best option at home is a standard wired Broadband connection from Netvigator or Netfront, connected to a Wireless Router that they'll provide and install for you. Easiest way of getting instant Wifi for your entire house, same as probably most of us on Lamma.

If you want to deal with the router yourself to save some money, you can buy and install it yourself, or have Andy do it all for you, but it'll be a bit more troublesome in case of any problems in the future.

Mobile 3G and 4G will work well in most areas of Lamma, even on top of our mountains. But to use it as a replacement for a permanent wired broadband connection is definitely premature for anybody but the most tech-savvy amongst us. It took some of our professionals months recently to make it work well and there are still big problems to work out before this can replace our usual, reliable, but low-speed wired Internet connections.

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Hi all, i am also experiencing the problem of no reception for mobile inhouse in Tai Wan old village. I bought a reception amplifier, but still in vain. How can u solve the problem there? Many thx. Does the wired broadband connection help?

No good reception of all mobile data and all terrestrial (digital and analogue) TV in much of Tai Wan Old Village, sorry. No solution has been found so far, I think. Amplifiers won't help as the signals are so poor in much of the village.

This is a well-known and the major reason that the rents are much lower there. The ONLY place in the Greater YSW Area last summer with rents advertised below $10K. Always check your mobile's 3G/4G reception inside the flat before you rent anything anywhere on Lamma. There are quite a number of blind spots and bad reception areas that might only let you make phone calls from the flat but almost no mobile data of any kind from any provider.

Broadband Internet, also to enable Internet TV (NOW, IPTV, streaming) will be your only solution in Tai Wan Old Village, as it should be stable and always available anywhere in Tai Wan Old Village, but as slow as the rest of Lamma, 3Mbps maximum.

IPTV over Broadband for example has currently 297 live TV channels, mostly Chin., but also most major international English channels. It costs only $100/month subscription, requiring a simple Android-based set top box connecting to your Broadband Internet. It also records all the most popular channels of the last week on their servers, so you can play any program from the popular TV channels on demand. But IPTV will share your Broadband line drastically, using up much of the bandwidth.

Satellite TV is another option, I've tried several good and cheap options over the years (they expire and change quite frequently) but not recently. You'd need your own small or large satellite dish and set top box, of course.

PCCW's locally popular NOW TV might give you a second Broadband line, but it's only got a few dozen, mostly Chin. and sports channels on Lamma and will cost you at least several hundred dollars/month.

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Tai Wan is surrounded by steep hills on 3 sides with no line of sight for any cell tower, TV or radio broadcast.
Shit TV, FM radio and phone reception.

You'd think the villagers with all their millions from rent of the houses they get free from the government might have funded a repeater above the village.

Thx, Lamma-Gung and Alan.

One question, sb. suggests me to set a landline when i raised the problem of no mobile reception. Can the landline help to receive signal?

As i need to set a WIFI router by myself, which is the cheapest internet service provider over there? say Broadband, DSL, etc.

Thx again.

Just got information from Netfront, only 1-year commitment is available, but which is still better than PCCW's 2-year contract.

They could only send someone to install for me at 13 Sept if i can confirm now...

BTW, don't fill in the form in the website, nobody would reply you in 10 years. Pls send an email instead.