Wi-fi on club sites

Senator5
Senator5 Forum Participant Posts: 12
edited July 2019 in Club Products & Services #1

Just spent £345 for two weeks at Bladon Chains in Oxford. If I wanted wi-fi it would have cost me more.When we got the bus into Oxford wi-fi was free,when we went for something to eat wi-fi was free.Am I the only one who thinks we,re getting ripped off by the club when it comes to wi-fi on sites.

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  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #2

    The answer is not to buy site Wi-fi. Make your own arrangements which will work better anyway. 

  • lornalou1
    lornalou1 Forum Participant Posts: 2,169
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    edited July 2019 #3

    In this day and age it's a useless piece of technology, a bit like this web site. wink

  • DavidKlyne
    DavidKlyne Club Member Posts: 13,857 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #4

    Senator5

    I think you have to be careful in your comparisons. You will only be on the bus or in the restaurant for limited time whereas paid access to the Club WiFi gives you 24/7 access should you want it. Having said that unless you are going to make good use of the annual WiFi pass it can be very expensive for short term use. Like many others I now tend to use my phone and its 4G connection as a means of providing me with access to the internet. If there is a reasonable signal, which I have found to be the case in most places, the speeds and reliability are far higher than what the Club WiFi provides. It won't work everywhere, the Buxton and Clumber Park sites being a couple of examples, so you may have to use the Club WiFi as a fall back position in such places.

    David

  • Rufs
    Rufs Club Member Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #5

    I think you have to be careful in your comparisons. You will only be on the bus or in the restaurant for limited time whereas paid access to the Club WiFi gives you 24/7 access should you want it.

    Disagree, the last club site i was on was at Looe some 12 months ago, when you could access the network, and i say when with some trepidation, it was so slow it was almost unuseable, when i complained i was told that too many people were accessing the network. Like many now i use the data on my 4G network.

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited July 2019 #6

    At the price it works out for me, and as i only use it for what is expected of it i am quite happy with what i normally get , and as as spoken about before it is in most places supplying a rural village of 100 plus "cottages" from a copper cable ,and  very often some distance from the nearest BT cabinetcool

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #7

    That mirrors my findings on the majority of club sites, Rufs.

    Cornwall is well served for telecommunications - high speed fibre for landline broadband and 4G on the mobi network - so it’s nothing to do with being a rural location as suggested up page.

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited July 2019 #8

    And has Looe site got Fibre?,as the cost to run it to premises is prohibitive ,have not been so do not know the area round the site ,some friends we have in Norfolk have Fibre running about quarter of a mile from theirs and four other houses and to run fibre to them would cost £6000 per propertysurprised

  • Unknown
    Unknown Forum Participant
    edited July 2019 #9
    The user and all related content has been Deleted User
  • KjellNN
    KjellNN Club Member Posts: 8,665 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #10

    I think some  of the problems on Club sites are caused by users trying to use it for streaming.  Have found the same on CCC sites.  Makes it impossible to get logged on while they are hogging it!

    We just use our own 3 data SIM now, with a mini router to allow us both to be connected at the same time.

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #11

    Yes but don’t take my word or it, see for yourself.

    Just accept that the site Wi-fi isn’t up to the job, JV.

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited July 2019 #12

    Not correct if used as per "requested" but as usual as with all things that some think i have paid for it so i will use as much as i want,  and site wifi is still better at £27 for 24/7 access than a large amount of smaller villages that would love to have speeds  have on numerous club sites for that price, and just as villages and our friends in  Norfolk do , go on line at quieter timeswink

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #13

    The super-fast fibre connectivity is correct, JV. It’s the site wifi that’s rubbish. I know, you’ll have an answer for that as well🙄

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited July 2019 #14

    Looe site is only bronze which is the lowest because only Copper cable is available from the local exchangesurprised

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited July 2019 #15

    Bladon Chains does not have site wide wifi it is only a hotspotsurprised

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #16

    Give it up, JV, you’ve seen the evidence but it matters not. The wifi is just rubbish and that’s all there is to it.

  • EmilysDad
    EmilysDad Forum Participant Posts: 8,973
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    edited July 2019 #17

    I've tried on a few sites to log in to this steam powered site, which shouldn't need subscription & failed. I don't even try now & use my phone as a hotspot instead.

    If there's Wi-Fi on a site, it's naive to expect users to limit their use. 

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #18

    Same here, MM. We know it makes sense👍🏻

  • Senator5
    Senator5 Forum Participant Posts: 12
    edited July 2019 #19

    What I,m saying is that as members we Shouldn,t have to buy it, it should be there for us free if we choose to use it. 

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,300 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #20

    We use CC sites a fair bit and I have subscribed to the annual charge for a number of years. At the times of year we use sites I have rarely had a problem. Last year, unusually, that included a fair chunk of July and August.

    It would seem that it is those that don't use it that have an issue.🤔

    I for one am happy to keep paying, as I suspect if it was made a free for all it would become unusable, as with much so called "free" WiFi.

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #21

    "It would seem that it is those that don't use it that have an issue.🤔"

    That’s an unfair comment, Steve. We don’t use it because it doesn’t work! If we can’t even get the free access to this website, why on earth would we pour money into proving it's generally not fit for purpose? 

    You keep paying if it suits you but don’t, please, suggest some of us are wrong. We are right for us. I think you’ll agree that it depends very much on which sites are visited and that will colour our experiences.

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,300 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #22

    What I think unfair TW is to keep trashing something that you do not use. My experience of the service is that it does work for what it is intended and I use it multiple times on every site we visit.

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #23

    I have acknowledged your experience differs from mine but you miss the point by saying I don’t use it. I do use it to access this site so I know very well how it works, or doesn’t work.

    Perhaps you will now accept my experience as being correct for me rather than accusing me of unfairly trashing something I don’t use. 

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,300 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #24

    If your only using the free side I am not certain you are getting access to the full bandwidth available. If I am only going on CT I often try without logging on and experience difficulty. Only to easily log on and use it normally.

    Otherwise all I can assume is that you are extremely unlucky. Last year we spent 60 or so days on a bronze site, (seasonal) logging on 100's of times and even in September when the site was reasonably full all week and full at weekends, the system worked with only a few blips. At gold sites I have often been getting 5 / 8 MB download. So yes my experience is somewhat different to yours.

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #25

    So you think the Wi-fi may be targeted depending on paid or free use? That isn’t going to persuade me to try again by paying. 

    I don’t think I am ‘unlucky’, Steve, as I have dabbled with this appalling Wi-fi since it’s inception at sites from the far SW to the north of Scotland. I have made the mistake of paying in the past but never again. Perhaps I use sites more far flung than you have and several I’ve used, particularly in Scotland, don’t even have Wi-fi so why would I waste my money buying an annual pass? My travels have educated me in the vagaries of site Wi-fi to arrive at my conclusion that, for me, it’s rubbish.

    You only need to look at the complaints on this forum to see that I am not alone in my findings but you need to realise things aren’t black and white and, as I accept your findings are good, you need to accept the reverse is true for many people. 

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited July 2019 #26

    But Complaints about anything (mostly trivial) seem to be part of  some of the the UK populations DNA ,as there seems many thousands who are quite satisfied with their purchases in any productwink

  • Goldie146
    Goldie146 Club Member Posts: 2,448 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #27

    We’ve just had eleven nights at New England Bay, which is a Bronze site. I bought the CAMC Wi-fi and by and large it was OK. But we only wanted one connection, and didn’t try to stream anything. I could read emails, look at various Social Media and the News etc, with no problem.

    I also used 4g on my phone if I couldn’t be bothered to log on. The site Wi-fi was for my iPad. 

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,300 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #28

    So you think the Wi-fi may be targeted depending on paid or free use? That isn’t going to persuade me to try again by paying

    Thats certainly my assumption. Otherwise it's difficult to explain why I could easily log on to paid wifi, but had no joy with the free. This has happened on multiple occasions. I've no idea if it is a fact, although it would certainly make sense to limit the free access, if the bandwidth was required by paying customers.

    I accept that your experiences haven't been good and like me gained over a number of years. However, many of the wifi complaints are little more than one of rants, in the same manner as those relating to speeding etc.

    You mentioned Scotland. Certainly in the North West the WiFi was generally poor. Although we haven't visited for a few years and I believe they now have fibre to the cabinet, so hopefully things have improved.

  • rutlandwarrior
    rutlandwarrior Forum Participant Posts: 95
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    edited July 2019 #29

    Don't use the club WiFi but from what I can gather is it right you can't stream video or download catch up TV. If this is the case then it is useless for families like ours. We have sky go on the tablets and catch up on freeview and all 4 of us use these whilst away in the van, so if I had paid out money for club WiFi I would be very upset if we couldn't use them. Luckily we have unlimited data on our phones and a lot of the sites we use WiFi is included and they don't restrict you and everything works fine so no excuse there.

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #30

    As I said, Goldie, there are good experiences and there are bad. Unfortunately, mine are the latter.

    We each have our own experiences and I’m pleased it worked for you but to be labelled as making an unfair comment as a non-user by Steve (and a liker) was out of order. I am a user but an unhappy one who hasn’t shared your experience. 

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2019 #31

    You assume a lot, Steve. 

    As I said, some Scottish sites do not have Wi-fi at all. If you consider provision of a hotspot in the laundry room at Dunnet Bay to be an improvement over having no Wi-fi, then you’re right. 

    Why so dismissive of those who complain about site Wi-fi? To call them one off rants in such an imperious manner because they don’t fit your picture of perfection demonstrates your unwillingness to consider any view but your own which saddens me as I thought you to be more open minded than that.