Jul 13 2012

Astana Internet Choices

Category: Internet Connections,KazakhstanChrisM @ 5:31 am

Recently a few people have asked me for advice about living in Astana, either because they are new to the area, or have not yet actually arrived. Some of the older posts (the key ones are linked to on the Kazakhstan 101 page) are still useful, but where prices have risen, or locally available technology has moved on, new advice is sometimes needed. So, without further ado, here are your choices if you want to access the internet in Astana. As ever, I’m happy to receive suggestions/corrections, so do please feel free to leave a comment below.

Megaline – The main ADSL internet company here in Astana. You will sometimes find that VISPs (virtual internet service providers) exist, where they take Megaline’s connection, and feed it out to a few blocks of flats, but I have not yet come across a true competing ISP. Compared to five years ago, the speed, price and reliability has improved greatly.

ID TV – I had originally thought this was a combined internet and TV package that was from a different company than Megaline. However, it turns out that ID TV is from Kazakhtelecom (the main telephone company here in Astana, who also provide Megaline’s ADSL services). The channel selection seems to be slightly wider than that offered by AlmaTV (assuming their website is up to date, as AlmaTV lost quite a few channels I liked recently), however there are some inconveniences, related to the delivery method. IPTV is used, so instead of a special wire (cable TV), normal aerial (standard TV, no DVB-T in Astana yet), or satellite dish (Hotbird, NTV Plus (though we are well out of the range of Astra and therefore UK Sky channels are impossible to receive conventionally here)), ID TV (the company, IPTV is the transmission method) uses your phone line. This means that you will probably see a slight dip in your internet download speeds and that changing channels apparently takes 10 seconds each time! It looks as though you choose from Megaline’s broadband packages if you don’t already have an internet connection set up, then select which TV channel package you want.

Internet TV Packages

There are other choices here in Astana, for example there was a WiMax system being trialled a few years ago, and I know of at least one business that uses this for internet access and voice over IP (telephone calls), as they have no land line. I will try and find out more about this, though it will not be for a couple of months at least.
If your internet access needs are more mobile, then a USB 3G Dongle could be what you need. You plug the device (with a SIM card in it) into your laptop, and use the mobile phone network to access the world wide web. As with Britain though (see this BBC article), coverage in Astana is not 100%, and even when 3G network coverage is displayed as available, the speeds can sometimes be closer to Edge, if not 2G!

Similar to this, but without the requirement for new hardware, is tethering your mobile phone to your laptop (basically using a USB lead, WiFi or bluetooth), and using your existing mobile phone account to access the internet on your computer. However, you do need to make sure your current choice of account does not charge a lot per Mb used, and it is probably worth checking whether your mobile phone company (KCell, Active, Beeline etc.) offers any bundles, where you pay for a fixed amount, that expires after a month.

Finally, should you find yourself without a mobile phone, dongle, or ADSL-enabled phone line, you could always go old school and use a dial up modem. The speed will make you weep, the phoneline will be engaged should anyone try and call you, but if all else fails those screeching tones, that indicate a handshake is taking place, can be a godsend.

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Mar 07 2012

Posterous, blogspot, various h…

Category: TweetsChrisM @ 1:31 pm

Posterous, blogspot, various https based services all blocked/technical issues. Slight variation between Megaline (ADSL) & KCell (3G). :-/

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Jan 17 2009

Busy Saturday

Category: Friends,PersonalChrisM @ 9:48 pm

Busy day so far, as there have been lots of little things here and there to sort – finally received an Orange 3G SIM card for my phone today, so been trying to test speed improvement over the old EDGE/GPRS connection. The aerial guys (Hayden Communications) came and fitted an aerial, amp and wiring fitted for the house, so can get freeview in each room, and have Sky piped upstairs to the older TVs. Finished off recovering and reinstalling Kevin’s PC – put Windows Vista Ultimate on after recovering his data, and another one that is taking a while this evening is sorting Dave’s laptop. Another case of recovering data (this time through a Knoppix Live CD), wiping drives completely and then reinstalling the OS. Certainly a lot easier once you have network connectivity and can just access keyboard, mouse and display via LogMeIn. Thanks to Oleg once more for the heads up on their free service.
Anyway, hopefully all will be sorted on Dave’s laptop, or at least stable and able of carrying out the basic computing functions.

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Oct 28 2008

Everywhere You Go

Category: WiFiChrisM @ 2:19 am

I have been playing around with a program on my Windows Mobile powered HTC TyTn II. The basic idea of this Heath Robinson particular approach to mobile routers is that your phone uses an 3G/EDGE/GPRS/Dial Up (if necessary) connection to establish a working internet session, and then shares this with others via bluetooth or WiFi. If the other clients (laptops, other mobiles, pdas or even desktop PCs) don’t have their own connection to the internet, in the event of a power cut or not having a SIM card that works in that territory etc., then you can certainly enable them to work on the essentials as long as they stay in range of your phone. Obviously bluetooth connections need v.close proximity, and WiFi signals are very reliant on each device’s antennae, but it is good to know what can be achieved in emergencies. There are other more permanent approaches to meeting this sort of need, so feel free to click the link above.

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