Rural WiFi Ireland: Connecting Rural Communities

Rural WiFi is a quickly growing broadband provider within Ireland, specializing 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; 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. More on this in our next section.

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 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.

Rural WiFi Broadband Plans

Onto the important part; what they offer. To reiterate, availability will vary depending on the location of your home, 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.

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.

Prices correct at date of publication 27/07/2022

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)

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.

Prices correct at date of publication 27/07/2022

Both the silver and gold packages come with a one-off €69.95 setup fee, with the platinum and 5G deals having a €109.95 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.

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.

Prices correct at date of publication 27/07/2022

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 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 €99 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 also offers an internet property evaluation service priced at €150. As a part of this service, a Rural WiFi engineer will conduct a series of tests at your home or premises to evaluate your options, any issues and provide advice on how to go forwards. An Internet Property Evaluation Certificate will be provided detailing this information at the time of the survey.

Is Rural WiFi Any Good?

Whether a company is ‘good’ or not will depend on many subjective factors including personal experiences, customer service, issue resolutions, the deliverance of prescribed services and so on. Rural Ireland exalts their dedication to valuing customer services and experiences (don’t they all), however, in this case, this could be warranted.

A great tool to use in order to gauge a company's qualities is review websites like Trustpilot. These sites allow customers to leave reviews regarding their experiences with said companies, be they good or bad. 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 4.3 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, send an email to [email protected], 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.