Simple life in Sweden / help with Telia!
Over one week ago, just after Debconf finished and Ville and Nadezhda came back from Russia, Nadezhda and I left Finland to come spend a bit over a week at my mother’s house in Fritsla, close to Boras, in Western Sweden. We have been, as I promised, having real vacations - this means, no network access, not over 1hr straight on the computer. Of course, as we say in Mexico, I cannot deny my church’s cross - I cannot get away from what I am. My mother’s connection to the outside world is still a 56k dialup line. Not only it is slow, but it’s also expensive, as the phone company charges by the minute. She has repeatedly told me there is no broadband connection in this place. Yesterday I received Nomeata for a day, on his way down from Narvik to Karlsruhe. He turned out to be much more curious than me. It took him less than one hour of being in our house to find that my mother’s neighbour has an open AP with -of course- a very nice broadband connection. 512k - Nothing spectacular, but surely enough. My card’s antenna is too crappy to really benefit from this connection - I have to stand in an awkward position very close to one specific window in order to get wavemon to report hardly anything - Usually, when I’m in that position I get 4/92 link quality, and I have got a maximum of 12/92 - I cannot really do anything useful with it. But anyway, my mother is not exactly a tech person, and much less her husband - If anybody in Sweden can help me out, I’ll be very thankful. According to the reverse name resolution, I am connecting from a computer in the bredband.skanova.com network. A traceroute tells me that:
1 SpeedTouch.lan (192.168.0.254) 3.025 ms 2.958 ms 3.266 ms 2 * gw-n9c1o1039.bredband.skanova.com (81.230.36.1) 8.164 ms 7.839 ms 3 81.225.147.28 (81.225.147.28) 9.006 ms 8.194 ms 8.072 ms 4 g-ra-c1-link.se.telia.net (81.228.73.188) 9.411 ms 9.810 ms 9.609 ms 5 ld-h-c1-link.se.telia.net (81.228.72.112) 210.342 ms 99.736 ms 214.055 ms 6 m-b-d1-link.se.telia.net (81.228.72.191) 15.890 ms 15.508 ms * (...)
Now, Skanova (according to its website) seems to be a sub-company of TeliaSonera, and it seems to sell services to ISPs, not to just any individual. We called Telia, and they say that broadband will be available in this region by 2009 - Of course, it is amazing to tell them they are wrong, and they don’t want to listen to our claims. Besides, we couldn’t get to somebody willing to speak English, so I am of no use. If somebody is able to help us, I will be most grateful. The town my mother lives in is Fritsla (near Kinna, in Markskommun). The nearest city is Boras, the phone area code here is 0320. Thanks!
Comments
David Härdeman 2005-07-27 14:53:45
RE: Simple life in Sweden / help with Telia!
I think that Skanova sells "dark fibre" etc to other companies as well…so it might very well be a small local ISP or something similar.
May I suggest that you talk to your neighbour and ask them which ISP they use? (because my experience with the incompetence present at Telia tells me that getting an answer will be as pleasant as pulling teeth).
If you’re unable to figure it out…I’m willing to make the phonecall for you in swedish…send me an email with more details (such as the phone no you wish to connect)…
Re, David
David T. 2005-07-27 15:18:13
RE: Simple life in Sweden / help with Telia!
Gotta agree with my namesake here. Telia is a bunch of incompetent wankers who are only present on the market because they once were a monopoly.
Anyway, there are many other companies providing broadband services. If you go to this page (http://www.bredbandsbolaget.se/portal/PRIVAT_BREDBAND) and type your moms telephone number into the "telefonnummer" field and press "sök>>" then you should get an answer right away if this company provides broadband to her place or not. You can also go to this page (http://www.spray.se/abonnemang/adsl/) and check if this company can provide you with ADSL in the same manner. Look on the right side for the pink square where it says "Testa om du kan få bredband". In the shorter field you write her area code and in the other the telephone number.
I should also mention that in many rural areas, there are minor players that provide broadband to the surrounding areas. It might be wise to ask around.
Also, Skanova is supposedly an "independent" company that was chipped out of Telia to take care of the local telephone lines. They are still very partial to Telia (even though they will deny this) but they are also working on delivering to other broadband providers.
Sigh, after writing the above I googled around and found this page (http://www.mark.se/mark_templates/Page.aspx?id=607) wwhere they say that marks Kommun has set up a contract with TeliaSonera Network Sales AB on setting up broadband services in the Kommun. The aim is to have 99% of the households being able to connect. To the right you see a button where it says "Beställa bredband" which means "order broadband". On that page it says that if your telephone is connected to any of the following telephone stations then you can get broadband now. Fritsla is on that list.
It also says that a number of companies compete to deliver, amongst them Bostream (the first link I wrote above), Spray and others. It seems that you shouldn’t have any issues finding somebody to deliver broadband to your moms place.
I will be happy to help you out if you need more help.
/Dave
Gunnar 2005-07-29 02:57:57
Thanks a lot!
Ok, we have just contacted Glocalnet through the page you mentioned in mark.se, and they will be shipping the DSL kit by next week! Thanks!