The government’s plan to bring fiber optic connections to areas with market failures is not getting off the ground. But technology is advancing and there is no shortage of solutions. Even for the most difficult areas. From mobile connections to satellite connections: that’s how you choose.
The great promise must deal with the harsh reality. The ‘for everyone, everywhere’ broadband promised by our institutions to give substance and substance to the new social model of remote working and a fully interconnected society is struggling to get off the ground. There are still too many parts of the country where the internet is spotty and connections are poor or even non-existent. Even in major urban centers there is no shortage of defects. And the resounding announcement made a few years ago to promote, through public subsidies, even fiber optic in small centers with “market failure” (i.e. those where the investment would not be profitable for the operator) is proceeding with Italian slowness.
The holiday home, the countryside, the city where we would spend a few more days with our interconnected work: should we give it up because of a lack of technology? Let’s not give up. With a little goodwill and a little more knowledge, we can explore some solutions that may exist, but are not yet seen.
There is an Internet router similar to the ‘landline’ at home, but instead it offers us WiFi and connections to cable connections (Ethernet) by capturing the signal from a mobile phone repeater and amplifying it with a small antenna on the roof. There is a “pan” similar to that of satellite TV that connects us to an Internet provider via radio. Or the new but already bursting Starlink satellite service, the fruit of Elon Musk’s undoubted, albeit controversial, genius. How to explore possible solutions? How can you best choose? And how much does it cost us?
“Institutional” broadband late. But let’s keep an eye on it
We are doing well in the most densely populated neighborhoods of major cities. Fiber optic connections are finally running at good speed. But elsewhere, Italy remains a fragmented country. Unifying strategies, maximizing investment capacity and charting a path with specific times remains an illusion. An example for everyone, small but convincing: Rocca Sinibalda, in the province of Rieti, is one of those places with market failure (but with great potential for economic and social revival, like thousands of small Italian villages) that are theoretically blessed with extraordinary investments by the settings for a broadband fiber optic network that should be fully active by the end of 2022. The delay is really culpable: in the city of Rieti, Open Fiber, the institutional operator, actually completed the fiber optic backbones in 2022, which will allow the connections for wireless repeaters in 2023 to also reach rural settlements by radio. There’s nothing to do. The final step is missing for the operators’ offer with the new technology, which is still promised ‘soon’. This is just one of many cases. Italy, prey to the ‘fiber illusion’, is paying for thousands of similar situations.
The work is still in progress. And if we find ourselves in one of the many areas with choked Internet, it is worth consulting the Open Fiber site and then the websites of the various landline and mobile phone operators (starting with the main ones: Tim, Vodafone, Fastweb , WindTre) to check whether an offer appears for our fiber optic broadband at home or alternatively a radio connection to cover the so-called “last mile” with the same technology.
The mobile alternative: great (if it works) and cheap
The fiber optic that comes directly into our home, or even our business or commercial establishment, is still the best solution in terms of performance and reliability. But if this is not available, an excellent solution, both in terms of performance and cost of the service, can be a connection through the mobile network of mobile phones: 4G technology provides almost complete coverage of the territory, reaching also sparsely populated areas . or even inaccessible areas. And even in the most remote areas there is no shortage of connections with the new technology 5G, which offers performance close to that of fixed fiber optic connections.
In fact, setting up a replacement fiber optic station over the mobile network can be a good alternative to other solutions, which may offer better performance but also higher costs. The first step to verify its feasibility is obviously to check the coverage of one or more mobile phone operators. If this is present, we can rely on the tutorial already published on FIRSTonline and do everything ourselves without contacting a technician or a specialized operator. A SIM card is inserted into the “mobile” modem (which we can also buy for a few tens of euros on e-commerce sites), choosing the operator that offers the most efficient service in our region and perhaps the best rate, which can be are really light, about 10 euros per month or even less.
The “do-it-yourself” solution illustrated in our tutorial has an “official” variant offered by telephone operators, which, however, is on average more expensive: the FWA system (Fixed Wireless Access), also used to expand via radio, with equipment supplied and installed directly by the operator, fiber optic networks in rural areas or areas not easily accessible by cabling, sometimes in combination with the LMDS technology which we discuss below.
Via radio or satellite Starlink, which is growing rapidly
No landline and weak mobile network? A solution could come from the LMDS (Local Multipoint Distribution Service) radio services offered by the major TLC operators or by the companies that in recent years have acquired the frequencies for these systems through expensive public auctions, which should not be confused with mobile networks, even though they have some similarities, so much so that they are often offered with a mix of the two technologies. An example? The Aeolus service.
But it is precisely in these types of cases that the Starlink satellite system It can represent a solution, slightly more expensive than the “fixed mobile” connection that we talked about, but which today is already offered practically throughout our territory, including impenetrable areas, at accessible costs.
It is no coincidence that Elon Musk, the patron of Starlink (and not only), is trying to carry out one of his corporate-institutional marketing operations with the Italian government, even proposing Starlink as a replacement for fiber optic cables in areas not yet reached or be difficult. accessible via the internet. In return, of course, for economic and regulatory incentives to expand a system that is in any case already fully operational in Italy and that would simply have to be strengthened, both in terms of satellite equipment and in ground control stations, should the demand for the connections would multiply.
The debate about the possibility for our institutions and operators to abandon part of the plan for “fixed” broadband in favor of Starlink is inevitable, which is now and in the future the most rational and reliable solution to provide families with connectivity to offer, companies and public administration. But that’s how it is.
Starlink as a complementary system, or perhaps as a ‘last resort’ when other connectivity solutions are lacking, still represents a great opportunity. It is already a global system, expanding rapidly and vigorously, made up of thousands of small satellites (we already have more than 5,000 and expect to reach more than 12,000) orbiting us in low orbit (LEO) in continuous harmony with specific ground stations. and continuously transmitting communications to each other through the antennas of customers on Earth, in a kind of roaming like that of mobile telephone stations, but in reverse: in this case we are fixed and the stations move in the air.
What to do if we want to install Starlink
We have explored all other possible solutions and decide to purchase the Starlink subscription and equipment? First of all, we need to check the actual coverage of our area. After the latest satellite launches and the reinforcement of ground stations, Italy is pretty much all covered, but the first thing you need to do is enter our address on the Starlink website and get confirmation. Second step: we need to determine if we have a suitable place to install the antenna. On the roof or on a terrace, or even in an open space in the garden, we need to have a large part of the sky “visible” without anything in the way (including trees or plants).
The simple direction to a specific part of the sky is not sufficient (as in satellite TV which is fixedly pointed to a geostationary satellite), but it is necessary to make the small Starlink antenna move automatically “searching” for the most suitable small satellite. The antenna device, a rectangle with the longest side not exceeding 50 centimeters in the domestic version, will be connected with a cable that we must be able to channel between the passages between the roof and the house to connect it to the Internet router similar to that of the landlines installed in the home.
Once these conditions are verified, we can proceed with the purchase of the kit. It currently costs 349 euros one-time for the residential version and 649 euros for companies. We can also install it ourselves by following some simple instructions. It can be purchased online directly from Starlink together with the subscription formula and some accessories that we can choose immediately for the first installation or even add later.
In this regard, it is very advisable to immediately equip yourself with some optional features that may prove indispensable and that we can also buy on Amazon. First of all, two: a fixed support for the antenna, which must be immediately replaced by the supplied tripod, and an adapter to equip the router with a “fixed” network connection. A socket (Ethernet, in technical terms) that will be used for all those connections normally used in traditional routers: from repeaters or “mesh” systems that can bring the Wi-Fi signal to all parts of our home to the direct connection of the smart TV or remote control systems, such as alarms and air conditioning.
Contractual formulas? Our advice for a home user is to avoid the minimum offer of 29 euros per month, which causes a drastic speed reduction in case of network congestion and a low priority when exchanging bits during navigation. Better is the slightly more expensive offer, 40 euros per month, which offers unlimited data in all conditions at a speed that is realistically around 100 megabits per second, not as fast as the best fiber optic but still much better than the average of the Italian fixed ADSL connections. And so the problem of the possible punishment of our digital nomadism is solved.
