Lightnet High Speed Wireless Broadband

thisNthat · 19-11-2012 2:16pm #1

I seen a few posts about this topic but they were all months/years old so I'm hoping someone can share a more current view/opinion of this.

A friend of mine is thinking of going with Lightnet broadband in Galway HERE

They used to be called Lighthouse and seem to be his only option where he lives in Galway but before he commits to anything I'm wondering if anyone is currently with them (The wireless broadband service, not the fiber option) and what they think of the service provided.

I was talking to a guy from there today and they said they offer a 6mb package (6mb down - 1mb up) for €69 with an approx 300mb download limit every half hour (This is more than he would need/use). Providing they have a clear line-of-sight to him then everything should be ok.
They said they don't block anything including torrents and CS.

He currently has eircom 8mb but is getting 1.2mb at the best of times and .01mb most of the time, Technicians out from eircom said the lines are fine but unfortunately that's the best he can get.

Anyone use the wireless broadband service from lightnet?
Whats your opinions? Whats speeds can you get? How stable/reliable?

I'd appreciate current views not links to posts months/years old

Thanks in advance

mailburner · 01-01-2013 10:29pm

Was looking for info about these but your post was the only
one I came across before I got this installed

I'm with them 3 weeks now
3mb down 1mb up

so far it's been stable
what annoyed me most at first was the restrictions on how much
you could download but unless you're doing a lot of it then
it's very good
I'm getting the speeds i pay for nearly all the time and when
im not it's very near it
no problems yet whatsoever but it is early days and I couldn't
recommend them just yet as the provider I was with were great
at the start but in the end the support was non existent

can stick up a few speed tests results or pm you them anytime
you wish

irishchris · 01-03-2014 8:43pm

mailburner wrote: »

Was looking for info about these but your post was the only
one I came across before I got this installed

I'm with them 3 weeks now
3mb down 1mb up

so far it's been stable
what annoyed me most at first was the restrictions on how much
you could download but unless you're doing a lot of it then
it's very good
I'm getting the speeds i pay for nearly all the time and when
im not it's very near it
no problems yet whatsoever but it is early days and I couldn't
recommend them just yet as the provider I was with were great
at the start but in the end the support was non existent

can stick up a few speed tests results or pm you them anytime
you wish

Thinking of switching myself but would like to hear people's views who have it.
@mailburner how are you finding the service since. Could you post some pingtest.net results.what is latency like on it? Have you ever tried online gaming using it?

mailburner · 02-03-2014 1:14am

irishchris wrote: »

Thinking of switching myself but would like to hear people's views who have it.
@mailburner how are you finding the service since. Could you post some pingtest.net results.what is latency like on it? Have you ever tried online gaming using it?

hi chris
never tried online gaming

service is good and speeds are always very close to what
I pay for
I'd say it's been down twice in 14 months and for a few hours both times

A huge improvement on your current provider to say the least having
used them in the past

pm sent with results

TheHappyChappy · 04-04-2014 1:49pm

If anyone has any info on lightnet re: speed reliability etc

could they post or pm me

would really appreciate it they seem like only hope of getting any decent internet

thanks

irishchris · 05-04-2014 11:02am

TheHappyChappy wrote: »

If anyone has any info on lightnet re: speed reliability etc

could they post or pm me

would really appreciate it they seem like only hope of getting any decent internet

thanks

others have had success with them. for me they are unuseable and have had to reinstall airwire so now paying for two providers until the contract runs out. they are using new 4g technology which im told now makes ping times unuseable latency for gaming skype and most appications other than browsing are now not possible with lightnet due to ping times being 100 - 400ms onm average. reported four times to tech support who just keep replying we are going to look into it. a month has passed and all that has happened from lightnet end is for the direct debit to be taken.

AIRWIRE TEST THIS MORNING

LIGHTNET TEST WHEN I LAST USED THEM
http://www.pingtest.net/result/94588211.png

GerardKeating · 05-04-2014 11:26am

TheHappyChappy wrote: »

If anyone has any info on lightnet re: speed reliability etc

could they post or pm me

would really appreciate it they seem like only hope of getting any decent internet

thanks

I have had LightNet for 5 years now and am mostly happy, we had two or three big outages in the period, the January storms the last one for 3/4 days, but some eircom customers nearby were out a lot longer and it was a big storm.

Customer Service has always been pleasant and efficient.

But as another poster mentioned (and not unlike fixed line services) the odd location will have unexplainable/unresolveable issues due to some quirky local issue.

irishchris · 05-04-2014 11:48am

100% signal strength and quality here. no anomalies just the new 4g technology they have installed here and going installing everywhere which causes high pings and latency problems but greater potential speeds in future. unfortunately as people are finding out good speed does not mean good broadband when ping times are astronomical and making gaming/skype etc.. unuseable. some people are still using the old lightnet technology and have good latency & speed but unfortunately you will see those same people back here when they are "upgraded" to 4g tech

funnyname · 05-04-2014 1:47pm

How does this new technology improve the speeds but degrade the pings?

irishchris wrote: »

100% signal strength and quality here. no anomalies just the new 4g technology they have installed here and going installing everywhere which causes high pings and latency problems but greater potential speeds in future. unfortunately as people are finding out good speed does not mean good broadband when ping times are astronomical and making gaming/skype etc.. unuseable. some people are still using the old lightnet technology and have good latency & speed but unfortunately you will see those same people back here when they are "upgraded" to 4g tech

same ol sh1te · 05-04-2014 2:04pm

irishchris wrote: »

they are using new 4g technology

They're using fixed WiMax, ping times may not be great but speeds should be consistent and reliable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX

Scruff · 07-04-2014 12:24pm

irishchris wrote: »

others have had success with them. for me they are unuseable and have had to reinstall airwire so now paying for two providers until the contract runs out. they are using new 4g technology which im told now makes ping times unuseable latency for gaming skype and most appications other than browsing are now not possible with lightnet due to ping times being 100 - 400ms onm average. reported four times to tech support who just keep replying we are going to look into it. a month has passed and all that has happened from lightnet end is for the direct debit to be taken.

AIRWIRE TEST THIS MORNING

LIGHTNET TEST WHEN I LAST USED THEM
http://www.pingtest.net/result/94588211.png

I'm with them for about 4 months now and seriously considering ditching them for this reason!!! They had to move my access point to this new 4g technology as my connection wasnt stable at all. It had pings of < 25ms but now i have these horrendous >100ms pings. I only occasionally get to play online now a days but gaming is impossible with this 4g tech they are using. i gave up in frustration the last few times i tried after 20mins.

Stability wise i had 3 outages in 2 weeks recently. Customer service were great on two of those occasions and rang me back within the hour. On the 3rd occasion there was no call back and the connection was down all evening and was back the next morning.

I'm on the 4mb/1mb package and speed is always around those. Have had no issue with their fair use policy so far and never experienced throttling. Have watched streaming Sky sports on my xbox fairly often and most times it doesnt drop down to the lower bit rate.

So if gaming or latency doesnt matter they they are fairly decent. Good customer service and speeds appear better than Airwire. Also didnt have to pay an install fee.

However ping does matter to me so i'm now re-evaluating my options. Lightnet did offer the best package of speed/latency/price for me over Airwire but thats no longer the case as the 4g tech pings are way too high for my reqs. I can also get a few 3g/4g mobile signals in my attic so must test those but going with Airwire is probably the only real option for gaming.

irishchris, did Airwire charge €99 installation? Are the speeds relaible? any throttling?

irishchris · 08-04-2014 7:46pm

Airwire are 99 install or free install if you pay for the year. Pings are generally always <25ms nearer 5 ms most of time. They don't throttle. Had few issues for few weeks where weekends and contention meant speed drops but seems to have been resolved the last two weeks but going to monitor it.

Ps still no reply after another week from lightnet who were to look into this. (4 weeks now without reply)

same ol sh1te · 08-04-2014 7:53pm

irishchris wrote: »

Airwire are 99 install or free install if you pay for the year. Pings are generally always <25ms nearer 5 ms most of time. They don't throttle. Had few issues for few weeks where weekends and contention meant speed drops but seems to have been resolved the last two weeks but going to monitor it.

Ps still no reply after another week from lightnet who were to look into this. (4 weeks now without reply)

Airwire use unlicensed 5.8Ghz frequencies meaning you could have interference problems at any time. Modern dual band routers use the same range of frequencies and can cause problems. Lightnets WiMax uses licensed 3.6Ghz frequencies, no devices or other providers can use this so no chance of any interference. Thisis something you need to weigh up when deciding

irishchris · 09-04-2014 9:39am

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Airwire use unlicensed 5.8Ghz frequencies meaning you could have interference problems at any time. Modern dual band routers use the same range of frequencies and can cause problems. Lightnets WiMax uses licensed 3.6Ghz frequencies, no devices or other providers can use this so no chance of any interference. Thisis something you need to weigh up when deciding

using dual band router operating on 5ghz and 2.4ghz here. no issues or interference whatsoever here. airwires antennae outside well away from router and 4 close proximity neighbours also using airwire antennaes and no interference whatsoever. main thing to weigh up from my experience presently using both providers is that lightnet are fine for simple browsing but online gaming and any application requiring low latency will not work on lightnet and thus airwire is only choice here between the two for this unless they radically change something at lightnet

same ol sh1te · 09-04-2014 9:47am

irishchris wrote: »

using dual band router operating on 5ghz and 2.4ghz here. no issues or interference whatsoever here. airwires antennae outside well away from router and 4 close proximity neighbours also using airwire antennaes and no interference whatsoever. main thing to weigh up from my experience presently using both providers is that lightnet are fine for simple browsing but online gaming and any application requiring low latency will not work on lightnet and thus airwire is only choice here between the two for this unless they radically change something at lightnet

Just because you don't have issues now does not mean you may not in future, all it would take is a device on the same channel between you and the transmitter. Lots of devices use these frequencies, caving cameras etc. You have to weigh up the stability of licensed against the uncertainty of unlicensed.

Scruff · 09-04-2014 11:51am

irishchris wrote: »

Airwire are 99 install or free install if you pay for the year. Pings are generally always <25ms nearer 5 ms most of time. They don't throttle. Had few issues for few weeks where weekends and contention meant speed drops but seems to have been resolved the last two weeks but going to monitor it.

Ps still no reply after another week from lightnet who were to look into this. (4 weeks now without reply)

not too gone on that €99 install but would not prepay for 1 year service to get free installation before using the network either.

I also am waiting on a response from Lightnet on the ping issue but at this stage i'm taking it as this is how it is on their 4g tech. Its interesting that if you look at some of the threads on here about mobile 4g the pings seem to be much better.

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Just because you don't have issues now does not mean you may not in future, all it would take is a device on the same channel between you and the transmitter. Lots of devices use these frequencies, caving cameras etc. You have to weigh up the stability of licensed against the uncertainty of unlicensed.

Good to know, definitely something to take into consideration. Makes me wonder why they have a install fee and Lightnet dont..

I think I'll definitely will look into the mobile option. If i can get decent speeds off Tesco mobile i'll be in the same boat as i am now but €18/month better off at 50Gb for €30/month on a rolling contract.

Might even take a punt on the cheaper Airwire package too and have 2 networks running, bit messy (and that €99 install fee) but at least there are options for me

same ol sh1te · 09-04-2014 12:06pm

Mobile 4g and fixed WiMax have very little in common, you cannot compare them, uses different frequencies and technologies.

Scruff · 09-04-2014 12:40pm

That is true. i was being extremely simplistic in my comparison of the two just because they fall under the 4G umbrella

irishchris · 09-04-2014 5:42pm

Just going by my experience of airwire for since November 2012 and no issues and I'm sure a heck of a lot of possible interference would have being around during that 18+ months but still no issues ever and i would consider myself a heavy Internet user and would check daily on my line stats. Possibility in other areas perhaps but here no.
Lightnet on the other hand I can say with certainty there are issues and their deafening silence in this issue says a lot so resigned to the fact that gaming and most applications which require low latency are impossible with lightnet.

Also there is a 99 euro install fee and a months fee also to be paid in advance on day of install with lightnet as paid it just a few weeks ago

From lIghtnets main page "With our current promotion, you can now get full installation for only €100 - that's 50% OFF the standard installation price."

same ol sh1te · 09-04-2014 7:24pm

irishchris wrote: »

Just going by my experience of airwire for since November 2012 and no issues and I'm sure a heck of a lot of possible interference would have being around during that 18+ months but still no issues ever and i would consider myself a heavy Internet user and would check daily on my line stats. Possibility in other areas perhaps but here no.
Lightnet on the other hand I can say with certainty there are issues and their deafening silence in this issue says a lot so resigned to the fact that gaming and most applications which require low latency are impossible with lightnet.

Also there is a 99 euro install fee and a months fee also to be paid in advance on day of install with lightnet as paid it just a few weeks ago

From lIghtnets main page "With our current promotion, you can now get full installation for only €100 - that's 50% OFF the standard installation price."

How many people do you know had dual band routers 18 months ago? 5.8GHZ has become much more popular now and will more so with people moving to 802.11AC standard of Wi-Fi which requires it. It was much the same a few years ago with 2.4GHZ, some ISPs used it outdoors for years successfully, much like 5.8GHZ is being used now. It covered twice the distance of 5.8GHZ but came undone over time as people got Wi-Fi routers.

Household routers may not be the biggest interference threat, badly configured point to point links and calving cameras would be more of an issue. Lots of times the people who configure these have no clue what they are at and just turn them up to the last causing problems

irishchris · 09-04-2014 7:53pm

same ol sh1te wrote: »

How many people do you know had dual band routers 18 months ago? 5.8GHZ has become much more popular now and will more so with people moving to 802.11AC standard of Wi-Fi which requires it. It was much the same a few years ago with 2.4GHZ, some ISPs used it outdoors for years successfully, much like 5.8GHZ is being used now. It covered twice the distance of 5.8GHZ but came undone over time as people got Wi-Fi routers.

Household routers may not be the biggest interference threat, badly configured point to point links and calving cameras would be more of an issue. Lots of times the people who configure these have no clue what they are at and just turn them up to the last causing problems

Well as I said I can only speak from experience and in the 18 months I have being using a dual band router and with everything else that could possibly cause interference none did. Again this is from experience of using it in the here and now. Same with lIghtnets failings are also from experience. I would take a 5.8ghz connection ten times over before I would touch another wimax product like lightnet again. The ifs and buts and slight possibilities have no relevance to my experience with airwire. The proof is in the line tests which I have saved from the very beginning with airwire along with lIghtnets tests and pings of 100ms-400ms with lightnet compared to 5ms-25 ms with airwire means there is only one viable option

truedoom · 09-04-2014 8:02pm

High Speed

Wireless Broadband

uhh sorry...you can have one or the other, not both.

same ol sh1te · 09-04-2014 8:03pm

Just hope no farmers want links to their cow sheds for calving cameras, these are the main risk. Wi-Fi routers don't really pose a risk, they usually keep away from the channels they use.

irishchris · 09-04-2014 8:48pm

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Just hope no farmers want links to their cow sheds for calving cameras, these are the main risk. Wi-Fi routers don't really pose a risk, they usually keep away from the channels they use.

Surrounded by farms from me to the transmitter about 4 miles away. Surely there must be some calving sheds between here and there but like I said never been an issue. Lightnet should take note and switch to unlicensed if it solves their wimax latency issues

same ol sh1te · 09-04-2014 9:25pm

irishchris wrote: »

Surrounded by farms from me to the transmitter about 4 miles away. Surely there must be some calving sheds between here and there but like I said never been an issue. Lightnet should take note and switch to unlicensed if it solves their wimax latency issues

I'm certain Airwire would change to licensed in the morning if they could get some frequencies, they can't get them because Lightnet have them.

I'd probably chose the low ping unlicensed myself, my mother has a similar connection with another provider and it's lovely and snappy. WiMax is a great system to deliver broadband to the wilderness but the latency is too high. Not all licensed suffers like this, it's just an issue with WiMax. Lightnet made their choice on the licensed system they went with, now their stuck with it, it's a huge investment.

Marlow · 29-04-2014 2:39pm

same ol sh1te wrote: »

I'm certain Airwire would change to licensed in the morning if they could get some frequencies, they can't get them because Lightnet have them.

Lightnet and Airwire use both licensed and unlicensed frequencies. But it is correct, that basically all licenses in the bands where affordable equipment can be bought have been taken. Primarily the 3.5 GHz band.

same ol sh1te wrote: »

I'd probably chose the low ping unlicensed myself, my mother has a similar connection with another provider and it's lovely and snappy. WiMax is a great system to deliver broadband to the wilderness but the latency is too high. Not all licensed suffers like this, it's just an issue with WiMax. Lightnet made their choice on the licensed system they went with, now their stuck with it, it's a huge investment.

Just because a provider uses licensed spectrum, doesn't mean, that they use WiMAX or not. WiMAX equipment is primarily available in 3.5 GHz, but you can also run other protocols in that band.

It has nothing to do with one or the other.

It also doesn't matter, if the provider is using 802.11, WCDMA, WiMax or another proprietary protocol. The quality of the connection in the microwave bands is down to Line-Of-Sight, distance and interference.

The only advantage of the licensed frequencies is, that in theory no other provider should be able to interfere with the license holder. If the license holder overlaps too much within the allocated license and hence interferes with themselves, then you get the same issues though as in unlicensed spectrum.

Essentially, what you state above has nothing to do with technology nor license. It's down to environment, distance, implementation, quality and contention. Any shortcuts taken within those will impact on the connection.

/M

Marlow · 29-04-2014 3:18pm

same ol sh1te wrote: »

How many people do you know had dual band routers 18 months ago? 5.8GHZ has become much more popular now and will more so with people moving to 802.11AC standard of Wi-Fi which requires it. It was much the same a few years ago with 2.4GHZ, some ISPs used it outdoors for years successfully, much like 5.8GHZ is being used now. It covered twice the distance of 5.8GHZ but came undone over time as people got Wi-Fi routers.

Household routers may not be the biggest interference threat, badly configured point to point links and calving cameras would be more of an issue. Lots of times the people who configure these have no clue what they are at and just turn them up to the last causing problems

There's actually a huge misconception here. The 5 GHz band is split into 3 areas and their application.

5.1 GHz-5.3 GHz: max 200 mW, indoor nomadic use.
5.5 GHz-5.7 GHz: max 1W, outdoor nomadic or fixed use.
5.8 GHz (Ireland specific): max 2W, outdoor fixed use only and traditionally ComReg had to be notified of links, but no more. In the UK they're even allowed 4W.

Indoor Wifi routers will only use the first segment from 5.1 GHz to 5.3 GHz.

There's also a huge difference to 2.4 GHz with the 5 GHz band.

In 2.4 GHz there were 13 channels, but all overlapping, as they were 20 MHz wide and spaced at 5 MHz. That resulted in 3 non-overlapping channels, max.

In 5 GHz all channels are spaced 20 MHz and 20 MHz wide. So no overlapping. And there's tons of channels. So interference is a very small issue. The downside to 5 GHz is, that it's even less penetrating .. even though it's higher power. In theory the 5.1-5.3 GHz band at 200 mW should be the same coverage as the 2.4 GHz band at 100 mW, but it's actually performing worse.

Anyhow .. bottom line: if applied correctly, providers using 5 GHz unlicensed will never really be affected by domestic applications. And newer protocols like WCDMA cope very well with interference.

/M

MichealKenny · 01-05-2014 4:44pm

truedoom wrote: »
High Speed
Wireless Broadband
uhh sorry...you can have one or the other, not both.

hmm...

Marlow · 01-05-2014 4:54pm

MichealKenny wrote: »

hmm...

That's for a point-to-point connection. It's the equipment internet providers use (both available licensed and unlicensed depending on frequency) for fixed wireless backhaul.

It's not going to give you highspeed broadband at home via fixed wireless, simply because of cost. A link like that costs around 4-5k+ EUR for the hardware alone.

Imagine the mastspace, that would take up, if you had to stick up one of those aerials per customer. And you'd also use one full channel per customer.

So now calculate the cost for installing it .. I'd reckon retail around 7000 EUR. Then the cost for feeding backhaul into that and providing the bandwidth to the customer. And then mast space cost.

The basestation of a fixed wireless provider can typically serve 10 to 400 customers, depending on setup, amount of sectors, backhaul etc.

Internet Providers will only sell you that type of connection for the type of money, you pay for an uncontended industrial/business grade fiber connection.

That and the fact, that if you turned up with an antenna like that at a customer premise, the customer would shoot you. Or the neighbors would try to invoke planning objections.

Anyhow the 17 GHz and 24 GHz point-to-point links in unlicensed spectrum will only provide 100 mbit/s over a very short distance. Under 5 km anyhow. After that it gets rapidly less bandwidth.

/M

MichealKenny · 01-05-2014 8:39pm

Marlow wrote: »

That's for a point-to-point connection. It's the equipment internet providers use (both available licensed and unlicensed depending on frequency) for fixed wireless backhaul.

It's not going to give you highspeed broadband at home via fixed wireless, simply because of cost. A link like that costs around 4-5k+ EUR for the hardware alone.

Imagine the mastspace, that would take up, if you had to stick up one of those aerials per customer. And you'd also use one full channel per customer.

So now calculate the cost for installing it .. I'd reckon retail around 7000 EUR. Then the cost for feeding backhaul into that and providing the bandwidth to the customer. And then mast space cost.

The basestation of a fixed wireless provider can typically serve 10 to 400 customers, depending on setup, amount of sectors, backhaul etc.

Internet Providers will only sell you that type of connection for the type of money, you pay for an uncontended industrial/business grade fiber connection.

That and the fact, that if you turned up with an antenna like that at a customer premise, the customer would shoot you. Or the neighbors would try to invoke planning objections.

Anyhow the 17 GHz and 24 GHz point-to-point links in unlicensed spectrum will only provide 100 mbit/s over a very short distance. Under 5 km anyhow. After that it gets rapidly less bandwidth.

/M

I was more pointing out the fact that there are high speed wireless solutions than anything else, even so, ubnt have really good wireless cpe solutions.

Marlow · 01-05-2014 11:58pm

MichealKenny wrote: »

I was more pointing out the fact that there are high speed wireless solutions than anything else

Show me one person (residential), that'll fork out the money to get a connection like that. What exists and what is feasable are 2 different things. The 17 and 24 GHz unlicensed bands aren't scalable for mass deployment. And for Dublin, Comreg allready has made restrictions of their usage.

By just linking to stuff like that out of context without explaining what it is, you'll give people a false sense of what's realistically feasable.

MichealKenny wrote: »

ubnt have really good wireless cpe solutions.

I wouldn't rate them. But that's personal preference. There's a lot of better and more flexible gear out there.

/M

Lightnet High Speed Wireless Broadband

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