Does anybody have any further info on broadband internet access on Bonaire? Wireless, xDSL etc.
Is it possible?
What are the up- and download speeds?
Of course; what are the costs?
Oh, and is it in any way a reliable service?

Thanks!

There's not enough bandwidth to the entire island of Bonaire to keep a single cable modem happy, let alone a network of them or of DSL, wireless, etc.

Your choices are: dialup service, or go diving.

Kitty - I thought we talked about this over dinner, but maybe not.

High speed leased line connections are possible if you have enough money. I was quoted $5000/month for a 512Kbps committed rate line to my house by Telbo when I inquired about 4 months ago. I asked for a requote for 512Kbps burstable service with a committed rate of 64Kbps, and was told they would get back to me a few days later. That was just shy of 4 months ago.

Maybe you'll have better luck - call Telbo at +599-7-177000 and ask for Jursi Marshall. You can also e-mail him at jmarshall@infobonaire.com.

Jake

Hi Jake and Daniel,

Thanks for the info.

Jake, I remember we talked a bit about this over dinner, but not as detailed as you are describing above. Or just maybe, let me be honest here, I was caught up in a conversation with some of the other people at the table while you were laying out the details to someone else...

It's probably because I visited Curacao after Bonaire; I saw something about wireless internet (via satellite?) there that made me get a bit confused... Why not on Bonaire etc. etc.

Guess my hard-disk needs some upgrade, I think it was on a (well deserved) holiday the past three weeks...

Kitty

P.S. We found more info on this subject in another thread on BT. This same ol' question has been asked before... of course... :-S

Jake, what about ISDN? Telbo appears to be offering it on Bonaire (according to their website, but they're not quoting rates there)... Is none of the ISP's offering it? Or is it not really opperational yet?

Hi Kitty & Marc,

ISDN on Bonaire is amusing too. NAF 350/month for 128Kbps service, but that's just the base rate - there would be local metered connection charges applied, which could result in very hefty fees (on the order of NAF 1000+ per month for people who use their connection a substantial part of each day).

128Kbps committed via leased line is about NAF 1850/month with a many thousand NAF set-up fee.

64Kbps committed is NAF 1000/month.

As far as the wireless service via satellite, the closest thing I've heard of is using a personal U.S. satellite service via GE4 (I think) - a satellite located over Mexico. Requires about a 6 foot dish with a special transceiver package - install cost is about US$2500 as I've heard, and monthly fees of about $80/month for an average of 60-100Kbps uplink and 400-800Kbps downlink. However it's also quite illegal - the Bureau of Telecommunications charges annual licensing fees for such services in the range of about NAFl 15000 per year (although that would still be significantly cheaper than Telbo's 128Kbps leased line especially if measured against the bandwidth you get). There are some people on Bonaire that are probably running this sort of service at their homes (quite successfully as I've heard secondhand), so that could be an option - just make sure the dish isn't visible from the road :-)

Jake

Some Q's have been answered... how on earth are we going to manage!.

ps: Mr Richter, I'm still waiting on those pics from your London trip...

It's on my list of things to do... :-)

Jake

Right under "diving and swimming to Miami while unrolling a fiber cable"?

You're right, it *is* amusing... What? It's downright ludicrous!

Nothing left to do then but wait for some inspired soul to make some investments and enhancements...

Then a *sort of* final question:

How much then does an ordinary telephone line cost (per month, I guess) for the 'old fashioned' dial-up method and what are the costs per minute?
And is the service of the ISP free (guess not) or is that a monthly fee as well and are there many providers, or just 2 or 3?

Yeah, yeah, I'm not giving up.....

Kitty:

Ordinary line: NAf 175 to install, NAF 20/month if you don't use it. Additional metered costs if you do. You get charged one time rate during the day, another during the night, and then a lot more for calls to cell phones or outside Bonaire.

Marc:

It's tough to compete with a government owned "privatized" company which has profit making as a goal and is a virtual monopoly although no longer a legal one, and with the government's help can stonewall any other projects on the island if it stomps its feet hard enough. We've been trying to convince them that competition in Internet service is good, but...

There are three dial-up ISPs on the island, with Telbo becoming the fourth at some point (once they actually start advertising the services they've been providing to a picked few). Also, talk of cable modems has been going on for about 5 years now, with no actual cable modem access any closer, from what I can tell (and if it ever does come, it will be slow - I was told they were looking to share 512Kbps to 1Mbps across all cable modem subscribers if it ever comes to fruition.

Jake

Kitty has experience with telco's... maybe she should apply with Telbo and kick some b... ehm... try to reorganize a few things there

Thanks Jake, for your info and patience
I know you're very busy, but you've still managed to answer my questions. Thank you very much.

Amusing thread!!

As a retired 25-year manager with Bell Canada the Quebec/Ontario incumbent monopoly now with LD and limited dial tone competition it all sounds familiar. The base of approx. 12,000 people on the island is not likely to be attractive to competitors and their rates would likely be high just to pay for infrastructure investment costs.

However, if the existing company is being supported in a very high rate situation because it is really a hidden tax revenue opportunity that's another story ---- visit the BNA site regarding structural reforms!!

Good luck!

Hi Bill.

As a soon ( 5-8 years from now ) to be semi-permanent retiree on the island, I'd be interested to hear your opinions on the possibility of worldwide satellite internet service. Perhaps a paid subscription to a wireless service that would allow one to access the net from just about anywhere on the planet. I see articles mentioning this from time to time, but usually they say the dynamics are some years off. Any thoughts?

The Clownfish.

Brian,

Technically it is a no brainer. In fact it exists.

Globalstar

You just have to be Bill Gates to afford it!

Cheers,

Bill

Thanks Bill!

Perhaps in a half dozen years or so, it will be a bit more affordable for us meager portfolio types!

Brian.

Translated this article from Amigoe:

KRALENDIJK - Starting October 1 Telbo will offer the Telbo Net internetservice. This will cost the customer Nafl 50 per month for which he will get 1 email address. More adddresses are possible, but will cost an extra Nafl 5 each. Telbo offers a relatively fast service, with no restrictions and a guarantee that the customer can go online immediately. This has so far been the major problem with other internetproviders, Bonairelive for example has a very high degree of unreachability. After 9 AM and before 5 PM it's virtually impossible to get a connection there. The service of Telbo will be further expanded with ISDN internet, Share Bandwith Services (SBS), Wireless Internet and pre paid internet cards.

Marc, that sound good, but still no broadband..

Well, it's a start... Telbo shows commitment, and if ISDN and WIFI are to become a reality, they are the ones who have to make it real. Unless, of course, their monopoly can be broken somehow.

That's true. We'll just have to wait and see...

Their dial-up service is apparently pretty reasonable. However, no idea on the other services. I've been trying to get wireless pricing, but no luck so far.

Jake

Strangely, www.telbo.an has been unreachable for at least the last 2 days... So, for that matter, is www.setel.an.

Strange. www.telbonet.an is also unreachable - which could be a problem. It appears that the name servers which handle telbonet.an, setel.an, and telbo.an, are all non-responsive. Other .an domains (including our own nettech.an and infobonaire.an) work though...

Jake

Yeah, I noticed that too... They probably all use the same DNS? And there doesn't seem to be a whois server for .an. Should we warn them?

Many folks make the mistake of placing both their primary and secondary DNS servers on the same network, operated by the same backbone. We see this commonly with major companies. I recall a day when CNN was unreachable because their DNS was all in one carrier, and that carrier was broken. CNN had spent a lot of time to have their servers on multiple networks, but not their DNS. I believe they've since fixed this.

The DNS servers Jake and I operate are distributed across two completely different backbones. This ensures even if there's a major outage of one network provider, our domain names continue to resolve properly.