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Internet/TV in Italy for home

Internet/TV in Italy for home

Old Sep 19, 2017, 12:57 pm
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Internet/TV in Italy for home

In the midst of buying a house in Italy and wondered if anyone has some insight into how good 20 Meg ADSL is in Italy. My realtor says fiber is supposed to come in January 2018 (I'd love that but I'll believe it when it's there) but for now it has ADSL.

Is 20 Meg ADSL (which I understand is peak value - more like 13Mbytes usually) generally reliable? I'm thinking of going with TIMVision for TV and streaming and I think it may just work at that bandwidth.

We're really not going to use the house much until next summer - have a little bit of work to get done (new kitchen, convert a second one to a bathroom...) but I am trying to think through how I'm going to wire the house for internet, TV (Italian and US), set up a VPN between Italy and our US house. Looking like a good time to cut the cord and move towards streaming both US and Italian TV.

Anybody with experience with setting up a home in Italy - insights and advice welcome (PM me if you don't want to post publicly).

Thanks
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Old Sep 19, 2017, 1:48 pm
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I can only give general advice and not advice specific to Italy.

Originally Posted by JMN57
In the midst of buying a house in Italy and wondered if anyone has some insight into how good 20 Meg ADSL is in Italy.
Tricky question without precise address. The location can make huge differences in terms of available speeds. A flat two streets over from my home has a maximum speed of 30 MBit/s whereas I can get 1 GBit/s.

In terms of speed, 20 Mbit/s should be enough to watch TV and browse at the same time. Much more (i.e. multi-screen and multiple devices browsing ) is probably going to be an issue in terms of bandwidth.

Originally Posted by JMN57
My realtor says fiber is supposed to come in January 2018 (I'd love that but I'll believe it when it's there) but for now it has ADSL.
I wouldn't count on it. When cleaning out my home in Southern France last June, I found a paper from 2012 announcing that fibre would arrive very soon. To this day there's no fibre access at that address.

I probably inquire with the company responsible of maintaining and extending the network whether works are underway or not.

Originally Posted by JMN57
... but I am trying to think through how I'm going to wire the house for internet, TV (Italian and US), set up a VPN between Italy and our US house. Looking like a good time to cut the cord and move towards streaming both US and Italian TV
An alternative to TV via internet may be a satellite dish. Could overall work out cheaper depending on how much time you're actually going to spend in Italia. In terms of cabling, it's certainly not wrong to have a couple of Cat 5 (or better) in the walls.
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Old Sep 19, 2017, 1:54 pm
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Originally Posted by WorldLux
I can only give general advice and not advice specific to Italy.



Tricky question without precise address. The location can make huge differences in terms of available speeds. A flat two streets over from my home has a maximum speed of 30 MBit/s whereas I can get 1 GBit/s.

In terms of speed, 20 Mbit/s should be enough to watch TV and browse at the same time. Much more (i.e. multi-screen and multiple devices browsing ) is probably going to be an issue in terms of bandwidth.



I wouldn't count on it. When cleaning out my home in Southern France last June, I found a paper from 2012 announcing that fibre would arrive very soon. To this day there's no fibre access at that address.

I probably inquire with the company responsible of maintaining and extending the network whether works are underway or not.



An alternative to TV via internet may be a satellite dish. Could overall work out cheaper depending on how much time you're actually going to spend in Italia. In terms of cabling, it's certainly not wrong to have a couple of Cat 5 (or better) in the walls.
Thanks for replying.

I'm skeptical about the fiber as well. One reason I'm thinking streaming vs. satellite (which is quite ubiquitous) is that I want to be able to watch Italian TV from my US house and US TV from Italy. I think if I VPN the two homes together I can do that. Plus, I'm probably going to drop some QNAP NAS's with HDMI in and have them do remote replication. That way my US home can grab some programming off the TIVO and replicate it to Italy where I can watch it the next day.

I'd love to put Cat 5 in but it's a 16th century property with thick walls covering 4 floors so I don't think that's going to be easy. I'm thinking powerline ethernet wifi repeaters can help me create a mesh across the house.
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Old Sep 19, 2017, 5:03 pm
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The short answer is that telecom services in Italy mostly blow. If you want to PM me the town I can see if I have any family or friends that can give you specific advice - it really matters where is my understanding. Crappy DSL is the norm so don't hold your breath for fiber. If you're actually getting 20Mbps sustained when you want it, that should be fine, though.

I'd personally stream as much as possible, and store it, but I also don't have cable in the US and do it this way here.

Powerline might work but you'll have to try it - I haven't used it in a while but I hear the equipment has gotten better. For sure, buy the best available if you're going to use it as backhaul to the router for your wifi. If that doesn't perform, I think that you should run some Cat 6 throughout the house if you can do it in conduit and pass the wife acceptance factor.

The idea of replicating a NAS overnight is exactly what I was going to suggest to minimize streaming frustration.
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Old Sep 19, 2017, 5:30 pm
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Originally Posted by PWMTrav
Powerline might work but you'll have to try it - I haven't used it in a while but I hear the equipment has gotten better.
They do work nicely. I bought a pair of sockets (one of the sockets had a built-in access point which was quite handy) in 2007 (or 2008) and I used them until 2014. At the end, they were showing signs of old age and were no longer as reliable as in the beginning but they did the job very well.

Since the technology has definitely improved. Mine were advertised with a maximum speed of 65 MBit/s (which is more than enough for 20 MBit/s lines, but will slow internal network communication down). Apparently that brand now sells powerline products capable of 1.200 MBit/s.

It's advertised for ~130€ (There slower products sell for a lot less) so it's definitely an option if you hadn't planned to fit ethernet wall plugs. I'm not sure if you can buy them in Italia as it's a German brand (Devolo). I bought them during a trip to Germany.
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Old Sep 19, 2017, 6:04 pm
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Originally Posted by WorldLux
They do work nicely. I bought a pair of sockets (one of the sockets had a built-in access point which was quite handy) in 2007 (or 2008) and I used them until 2014. At the end, they were showing signs of old age and were no longer as reliable as in the beginning but they did the job very well.

Since the technology has definitely improved. Mine were advertised with a maximum speed of 65 MBit/s (which is more than enough for 20 MBit/s lines, but will slow internal network communication down). Apparently that brand now sells powerline products capable of 1.200 MBit/s.

It's advertised for ~130 (There slower products sell for a lot less) so it's definitely an option if you hadn't planned to fit ethernet wall plugs. I'm not sure if you can buy them in Italia as it's a German brand (Devolo). I bought them during a trip to Germany.
Thats good to hear. I have some decent older adapters here, but they have trouble with the circuitry in the house. For whatever reason, the wiring is noisy so I never had much success. I think newer adapters would hop frequencies better, but I haven't tried yet. OP should feel better about this route though.
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Old Sep 19, 2017, 6:09 pm
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Originally Posted by PWMTrav
The short answer is that telecom services in Italy mostly blow. If you want to PM me the town I can see if I have any family or friends that can give you specific advice - it really matters where is my understanding. Crappy DSL is the norm so don't hold your breath for fiber. If you're actually getting 20Mbps sustained when you want it, that should be fine, though.

I'd personally stream as much as possible, and store it, but I also don't have cable in the US and do it this way here.

Powerline might work but you'll have to try it - I haven't used it in a while but I hear the equipment has gotten better. For sure, buy the best available if you're going to use it as backhaul to the router for your wifi. If that doesn't perform, I think that you should run some Cat 6 throughout the house if you can do it in conduit and pass the wife acceptance factor.

The idea of replicating a NAS overnight is exactly what I was going to suggest to minimize streaming frustration.
We're going to spend 2-3 weeks in the house over Thanksgiving. While closing is end of December, existing owner has been gracious enough to let us use it beforehand as it's a second home for her and she won't be there. That will allow us to get a feel for what we want and have some contractors over to discuss the work we want (really not that much). While we're there, I am going to take some powerline wifi units with me so I can go around the house and see what works and what doesn't. I'll PM you the town.
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Old Sep 20, 2017, 10:40 am
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Hopefully 2018 is not a pipe dream.

I've found that the Tuscan government has committed 200million+ Euro to bring FTTC (Fiber-to-the-cabinet) to many towns by 2020 (targeting 70% of Tuscan homes). While that leaves copper for the last 40-50 meters - should yield 200Mbps connections. The town we're in is scheduled for phase 1.
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Old Sep 24, 2017, 7:22 am
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Originally Posted by JMN57
Hopefully 2018 is not a pipe dream.

I've found that the Tuscan government has committed 200million+ Euro to bring FTTC (Fiber-to-the-cabinet) to many towns by 2020 (targeting 70% of Tuscan homes). While that leaves copper for the last 40-50 meters - should yield 200Mbps connections. The town we're in is scheduled for phase 1.
That's the point nowadays. There's now on the scene a big (and hopefully concrete) challenge for getting a little bit forward in civilicing this country. You can google opne fiber and see what I mean (but I'm sure you stillnow it).
Btw if you get a 20Mb ADSL contrat you'll probably have a real 14Mb download speed (upload is ridiculous). Bear in mind we're speaking of Megabit (Mb) and not Megabyte (MB).
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Old Sep 24, 2017, 10:02 am
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Originally Posted by Sciamano
That's the point nowadays. There's now on the scene a big (and hopefully concrete) challenge for getting a little bit forward in civilicing this country. You can google opne fiber and see what I mean (but I'm sure you stillnow it).
Btw if you get a 20Mb ADSL contrat you'll probably have a real 14Mb download speed (upload is ridiculous). Bear in mind we're speaking of Megabit (Mb) and not Megabyte (MB).
Thanks - your suggestion to google OPNE fiber took me to the Open Fiber site and they have a link of all the cabinet locations for wave 1 of fiber install complete with lat/long of each cabinet.

I was able to use that to determine the closest fiber cabinet to my house would be roughly 10.7m (34.6'). So even with FTTC (Fiber-to-the-cabinet) and copper to the house, I would easily see 200Mbps if not higher. If I'm lucky, I could get FTTH and be looking at 1000Mbps or so.
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Old Sep 24, 2017, 7:39 pm
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Originally Posted by Sciamano
That's the point nowadays. There's now on the scene a big (and hopefully concrete) challenge for getting a little bit forward in civilicing this country. You can google opne fiber and see what I mean (but I'm sure you stillnow it).
Btw if you get a 20Mb ADSL contrat you'll probably have a real 14Mb download speed (upload is ridiculous). Bear in mind we're speaking of Megabit (Mb) and not Megabyte (MB).
There are different points of view regarding civilisation!
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 1:14 am
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Originally Posted by JMN57
Thanks - your suggestion to google OPNE fiber took me to the Open Fiber site and they have a link of all the cabinet locations for wave 1 of fiber install complete with lat/long of each cabinet.

I was able to use that to determine the closest fiber cabinet to my house would be roughly 10.7m (34.6'). So even with FTTC (Fiber-to-the-cabinet) and copper to the house, I would easily see 200Mbps if not higher. If I'm lucky, I could get FTTH and be looking at 1000Mbps or so.
OPNE was obviously a typo for OPEN, sorry
Well, I have now a 100/20Mb and it's real speed is 85/20Mb. I'm quiet satisfied but it always depends what you are be used to
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 6:06 am
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Originally Posted by Sciamano
OPNE was obviously a typo for OPEN, sorry
Well, I have now a 100/20Mb and it's real speed is 85/20Mb. I'm quiet satisfied but it always depends what you are be used to
Do you use TIM - Alice? If so, do you stream TV (TIMVision)?

Curious how well that works as I'm thinking, if I have enough bandwidth, to go streaming for both Italian and American TV.
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 12:45 pm
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Originally Posted by JMN57
Do you use TIM - Alice? If so, do you stream TV (TIMVision)?

Curious how well that works as I'm thinking, if I have enough bandwidth, to go streaming for both Italian and American TV.
I have Infostrada (Wind) and I don't stream TV directly with the provider. I use a Raspberry PI. Anyway, when I stream Netflix in HD directly from the app of my TV it works perfectly.
Feel free to contact me privately for any further "Italian" information
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Old Sep 25, 2017, 3:53 pm
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This has been an amazingly useful thread. I hope it doesn’t go to private, because very useful information is being shared here that a lot of people don’t know.
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