Who is Konnect and what does it offer?

Who are Konnect? How does their service compare with our 4G broadband?

If you're interested in learning more about how Konnect's service compares to ours, then you've come to the right place.

Read on to find out if a satellite-based service is right for you and whether a connection via 4G might better suit your requirements.

Who are Konnect?

"Konnect" is the name given to a satellite owned and operated by Eutelsat and to the broadband service it offers.

The Konnect satellite is in geostationary orbit and the broadband services it can deliver are available to 15 Western European countries (including the UK) and much of sub-Saharan Africa.

What is the Konnect broadband solution?

Konnect broadband is transmitted to properties over satellite technology. A special dish mounted on a customer's property communicates with the Konnect satellite orbiting at a height of around 36,000 kilometres, feeding that connection down to a WiFi router inside the property.

Positives with the Konnect broadband service

The single biggest advantage of Konnect broadband is that, like all satellite broadband services, it's available anywhere across the UK as long as there's a clear line of sight to the relevant section of the sky at any given property. This means that they can offer 100% coverage.

Konnect also quote average download speeds of up to 75 Mbps on their highest-level (and most costly) monthly broadband plan. However, this level of performance only applies to that plan's 'prority data allowance' and not to all monthly data that users may get through (see below for more detail).

Negatives with the Konnect service

Priority data

All Konnect broadband plans include something called a 'priority data allowance'. It's only this monthly amount of data that gets transmitted at maximum speed. Once that amount has been reached, performance will be automatically throttled back to much lower levels (typically between 2 to 6 Mbps. With the average UK household now getting throughng over 300GB per month, this is going to mean substantially reduced broadband speeds for most of the month.

High cost

Konnect monthly broadband plans start from £29.99, but that's for only 20GB of priority data. The highest-level plan available is priced at £69.99 per motth, but that still only offers 120 GB of priority data. Whilst both plans are technically unlimited, those priority data allowances still fall far short of the average household's monthly data usage of around 300GB.

High latency

The biggest and most noticeable issue with geostationary satellite broadband is the unavoidable time delay (or 'latency') it suffers from, due to the huge distances the signal must travel into space and back. While this may only be a minor irritation for basic online activities such as web surfing, where near-instant feedback is required - such as with online gaming or live video calling, it's liable to be almost unusable.

How does Konnect's broadband compare to our own 4G option?

The broadband service we provide at National Broadband is transmitted over the 4G network. High latency isn't an issue and unlimited data provides fast, reliable and consistent performance throuhgout the month, every month.

The monthly charges for our 4G broadband service start from only £34.99 for home users.

And in the vast majority of cases, there's no problem if your property is in a location that only has weak or flaky 4G coverage. That's because where necessary, we'll supply and install a high gain external 4G antenna. This makes a world of difference as it's far more receptive to 4G signals than any smartphone and allows us to provide a great broadband connection to those located even in the most rural of areas.

Fast 4G Broadband

Would you like to know more? Give us a call on 03333 447700 or email us
at enquiries@national-broadband.co.uk