Rural WiFi Ireland: Connecting Rural Communities

Rural WiFi is a quickly growing broadband provider within Ireland, specialising in connecting rural communities and homes. What are their best broadband plans, and are they any good? Find out in this detailed Rural WiFi guide.

Who Is Rural WiFi?

Rural WiFi is a newer entry to the Irish telecommunications market, founded in 2015, and family-run ever since. One of their key objectives is to connect rural Ireland, like Rural Broadband, which is an area that is typically forgotten about by the bigger broadband providers.

To achieve this, Rural WiFi has diversified the types of broadband that they offer much further than their competitors, who typically offer only one or two types of connection. This is to ensure that no matter where your home is located or what connectivity difficulties you experience, Rural WiFi can provide a solution to get you up and running.

What Type of Broadband Does Rural WiFi Offer?

Rural WiFi currently offers a selection of four types of broadband connections. These are:

• Full-Fibre (FTTP)
  Full fibre connects your home to your network operator directly, without any changes in connection type. This is the fastest type of broadband.
• Part-Fibre (FTTC)
  Fibre cables run to a street cabinet, and from there, your home is connected with copper cables. This is much slower broadband than full-fibre due to the copper cables but still provides good overall speeds.
• Mobile Broadband
  A router device picks up 4G and 5G signals and then emits these as WiFi signals. Similarly to using a mobile hotspot. No line installation is required for this service.
• Satellite Broadband
  A satellite dish is installed on your property which picks up signals emitted from space. Ideal for locations that have weak 4G/5G signals, and also can't access fixed lines.

By offering a combination of both traditional, and wireless services, Rural WiFi can almost guarantee that they can provide your home with a reliable internet connection. Of course, regional capabilities can differ significantly, and so in order to know which product suits your home best, you should use the Rural WiFi coverage checker available on their homepage.

Unsure about your broadband coverage? Take a read through our broadband coverage guide to learn more about how broadband works, and how you can find out what is available in your area.

What Are the Main Rural WiFi Broadband Plans?

To reiterate, availability will vary depending on the location of your home, varying WiFi from region to region, so before you set your heart on any one particular package, get in touch with Rural WiFi to see if it is a viable option for your home.

What Are the Rural WiFi Fibre Plans?

Let’s start with the fastest type of broadband - fibre. Fibre is an excellent choice for those who have a household with several people living in it who stream shows and music, download films, play online games, or work from home. These activities tend to be the most data-heavy, and so require the greatest speeds.

Last Updated: January 2024

If fibre is not currently available for your home, Rural WiFi offers a free upgrade service through their Fibre Switch Service.

Find out when fibre will be available in your area through the National Broadband Plan (NBI)

What Are the Rural WiFi Mobile Broadband Plans?

Mobile broadband is a great solution for homes that cannot access a fixed-line network such as ADSL or fibre. As a rule, if your mobile phone has a decent signal, then mobile broadband will work equally well. As an additional perk, due to being freed from fixed lines, you can move your router anywhere in your house to find the strongest signal without draping cables around your home. You also have unlimited data with both packages on offer.

Last Updated: January 2024

The Unlimited package has one-off €69.95 setup fee, while the 5G deals has a €89.95 setup fee. While these may be a little steep considering that no physical installation of wires or sockets is required at your home, such fees are commonplace in non-fixed line networks.

What Are the Rural WiFi Satellite Broadband Plans?

Rural WiFi uses the dedicated Konnect satellite launched in 2020 to bring Irish homes superfast broadband. A satellite dish will be required to be installed on your home in order to connect to this satellite, with an installation and activation wait time estimated at 3-4 weeks.

Last Updated: January 2024

Similarly to mobile broadband, satellite broadband comes with an installation fee of €149, alongside a one-off activation and shipping fee of €50. To somewhat offset concerns regarding paying such fees, a 30-day no commitment promise is offered whereby if you do not find the service satisfactory, you may cancel the broadband contract. Additionally, equipment within your home is covered against faults for the length of your contract.

What Other Services Does Rural WiFi Offer?

While many broadband providers also offer TV or mobile services, Rural WiFi does not yet offer such facilities. However, they do offer a wide range of WiFi signal boosters, ranging from €94.95 to €174.95. These boosters can extend your existing WiFi coverage by up to a whopping 6,000 ft, and allow up to 100 devices to connect; a valuable tool for those who live in larger homes, or have many people using broadband at once.

On the theme of improving your broadband connection, Rural WiFi now offers an engineer callout service for €80. This service includes an upfront fee of €50, with the remaining €30 due only after a successful installation. During the callout, a Rural WiFi engineer will conduct a series of tests at your home or premises to evaluate your options, identify any issues, and provide advice on the best course of action.

Is Rural WiFi Any Good?

A great tool to use in order to gauge a company's qualities is review websites like Trustpilot. While such sites tend to be used as complaint platforms, and so necessarily tend to garner poor reviews, Rural WiFi reviews beat that trend by being awarded an overall score of 4.7 out of 5 by their customers, well above the industry average.

Many customers cite excellent customer service, low call wait times, and a reliable product as the company's strengths, with few consistent negative opinions being voiced at all.

Take a read through our Irish broadband provider review guide to see how Rural Wifi measures up against its competitors.

How Can I Contact Rural WIFI?

Being able to get in touch with your broadband provider is vital. Rural WiFi provides its customers with several options depending on their preferences and needs.

If you prefer to write to Rural WiFi, you can either contact them on their online chat, complete a contact form, fill out a callback request form, or send a letter to Rural WiFi, Perigord House, Damastown Industrial Park, Dublin 15.

A final contact option is of course to reach out to them on social media. Rural WiFi maintains an active presence on both Facebook and Instagram and frequently posts advisory notices to its followers regarding offers, FAQs and other such helpful tips.