North West Electronics/BlueBox

Hugo Hackenbush · 02-01-2014 11:39am

Mr. G wrote: »

You need to switch provider. Those fluctuations make it unreliable and not of "merchantable quality". A contract can no longer be continued with that sort of service

How I wish........Where I live in Donegal, its now 2014 yet Eircom haven't bothered to make even basic ADSL broadband enabled at the St Johnston exchange. So many of us are stuck with these <snip>

10.30 on 2nd January. Still not back on. "Technical support" at NWE (there's a contradiction in terms if there ever was one!) are swamped with enquiries from exasperated customers yet the service is still off air and they can only offer the lame response that they are experiencing "ISSUES" at the repeater and that "an engineer has been sent to deal with it"

Hands up who's all heard that from NWE before!

I can tell them what the issues are. We're paying for broadband and it's either running erratically or off air altogether.

Sent via 3 network.

NIMAN · 02-01-2014 11:46am

Reading some of the posts on here, I'm nearly glad they couldn't get me up and running when they called out!

A steady, reliable 2mb with the old phoneline sounds like a decent compromise to having a 20mb or 50mb service that is constantly up and down.

I think a call needs to be made to Highland Radio or Joe Duffy to get some movement on this.

Hugo Hackenbush · 02-01-2014 11:56am

NIMAN wrote: »

Reading some of the posts on here, I'm nearly glad they couldn't get me up and running when they called out!

A steady, reliable 2mb with the old phoneline sounds like a decent compromise to having a 20mb or 50mb service that is constantly up and down.

I think a call needs to be made to Highland Radio or Joe Duffy to get some movement on this.

Exactly what's needed. But none of them will listen unless there's some evidence that there's a significant enough problem. People need to post with their bad experiences so that they can see there's a widespread recurring problem. <snip>

pawddy · 02-01-2014 12:27pm

It seems they've done something. I'm getting the usual morning speeds that I'm used to. Last night it was just plain broke.

The ping test is quite poor, but it's always like that. Jitter is always quite high, and i'm lucky not to experience packet loss.

Hugo Hackenbush · 02-01-2014 12:39pm

As predicted, it's back on air around 10.00 am. Which tells you that they can fix it in a few minutes, probably by going out to their remote repeater and resetting the system. Clock in, 15 minutes at base then 30 minutes leisurely drive from Skeoge to Binnion and 10 minutes at the repeater site. If they gave a toss at all, they would have a guy monitoring the service outside business hours (when most homes want internet) and ready to go out and restore service as soon as it went off air. Obviously they don't care about probably hundreds of customers frequently left with no internet, despite paying faithfully for it. They reckon customers will just put up with it when their service goes off air at night and MOST weekends and absolutely every holiday period recently, and we should all just patiently wait until they could be arsed to go out and put it back on. From what I'm hearing here and locally, I think people have had enough of this shoddy treatment.

Come to think of it, if they had the right equipment and backup system, it wouldn't be so damned unreliable in the first place.

Bresy · 02-01-2014 2:35pm

I am glad to see that im not crazy and that im not the only one having these issues ... I am currently looking at internet deals elsewhere and if i can get anything decent im going to take it , 3meg or not. as at least im guaranteed a continuous service. But if i do switch I will not be letting this lay with NWE, They have not honoured their side of the contract for the last 6 months and i have the speed tests to prove it. They are giving me no option but to pay for another service, after giving them hundreds of pounds for this sham of a service that only works until 7pm. I and any others who plan to leave this service should be asking for a reimbursement

pawddy · 02-01-2014 3:13pm

Its actually starting to baffle me at how inconsistent the service is. Just did a ping test, here are my results:

those are actually quite amazing.. but only five minutes beforehand i was getting 2% packet loss, ~150ms ping and ~100ms jitter.

results from the speedtest:

Those are really good results, but its a shame that it'll last for a total of 5 minutes and then go back to the usual sh*t.

Update, 2:25pm:

as expected...

Update 2, 2:34pm:

NIMAN · 02-01-2014 4:09pm

Why not contact some of the local papers, see if they want to do a bit of investigation into it? Local papers still do investigative work don't they?

Perhaps if NWE got a call from the media saying "we are doing a piece on the quality of your service after we received several complaints, would you like to comment", might shake them up a bit.

Bresy · 02-01-2014 4:14pm

As we are sharing heres mine

pawddy · 02-01-2014 6:35pm

Jesus Bresy, those results are painfully slow. Does your dish have clear sight of the mast you're connected to? What package are you on? Regardless, those results are concerning.

I've clear sight of the mast, although only two bars connection on my dish (NanoStation M5). It just hit 5:30 and i can already notice connection degrading..

Update: OK. Almost 7pm:

Hugo Hackenbush · 02-01-2014 8:29pm

All the good people who couldn't get online over the new year break are no doubt online this evening trying to catch up on missed surfing

pawddy · 02-01-2014 8:45pm

I played with my network settings for hours today, and had no luck. Its definitely on their side.

Here's the results of three tests, one after another.

It is so inconsistent.

Mr. G · 02-01-2014 9:01pm

Your wasting your time. Surely mobile broadband would be better than what your getting?

Do you have a contention radio?

pawddy · 02-01-2014 9:11pm

I had O2 mobile broadband before, and it wasn't great in my area. I think most people in my area use 3 mobile broadband so I can't imagine it'd be fast either.

According to the NWE website, the contention ratio is 48/1.

Mr. G · 02-01-2014 9:30pm

If you are in the NBS area (3) you can get mobile broadband for €20.33. If it is not sufficient they may put up an aerial and if that doesn't work they can get Qsat to put in satellite broadband, which would be better than what your getting, although the pings may be a bit high.

Tommy Lagahan · 02-01-2014 10:22pm

Just an update on my end, service returned to normal speed as soon as the storm stopped last week. Ping's doubled however, sitting around 30ms and jittering 10ms either way severely effecting gaming. I'm expecting it to go down tomorrow again though if the weather kicks up.
I just wish they'd reinforce their system against some feckin wind because the three service here is useless in all weather conditions including good.

Hugo Hackenbush · 02-01-2014 11:39pm

pawddy wrote: »

I had O2 mobile broadband before, and it wasn't great in my area. I think most people in my area use 3 mobile broadband so I can't imagine it'd be fast either.

According to the NWE website, the contention ratio is 48/1.

I have 3 mobile broadband as well. 3 Ireland. It's slow but usually always available.

Mr. G · 03-01-2014 12:34am

Hugo Hackenbush wrote: »

I have 3 mobile broadband as well. 3 Ireland. It's slow but usually always available.

That's the thing. Its better in towns though where you have 3G.

pawddy · 03-01-2014 1:38am

I had O2 3G, but I didn't think it was great to be honest. NWE was a noticeable upgrade. I couldn't get satellite, the pings are way too high for gaming, and that's mostly what I use the Internet for.

I'm beginning to maybe that if I upgrade to the 50mb package, I might get better results during peak because less people are on that package.. would it share the same contention ratio as the 10mb service??

It's pretty poor from NWE though, I suppose you can expect speeds to slow during peak, but for the quality of the connection to degrade to a point when your experiencing lots of ping, jitter and packet loss is unacceptable. I've seen 1/2mb eircom packages with consistent jitter and zero packet loss all throughout the day. Maybe it's because it's wireless... I don't know.. but it's making my new ps4 useless!!

It seems that if you do a speedtest to cork, the ping is always lower. And when I type my external IP address into google, it either comes up letterkenny, or cork.. anyone got any idea on what's going on there?

Bresy · 04-01-2014 11:26am

pawddy wrote: »

Jesus Bresy, those results are painfully slow. Does your dish have clear sight of the mast you're connected to? What package are you on? Regardless, those results are concerning.

I've clear sight of the mast, although only two bars connection on my dish (NanoStation M5). It just hit 5:30 and i can already notice connection degrading..

Update: OK. Almost 7pm:

Im not sure on whether it has a clear view of the mast or not , aparently its Beacon hill its pointed too . Im on the 50meg package which is laughable with the speeds I get . it is back to normal now great speeds during the day but zero to 0.5 meg at night .which is no good as im normally working till the evening time .....
Current test

This is normal until 7pm for me then I get similar results as i posted yesterday almost on the button at 7pm its just disappears

Tommy Lagahan · 06-01-2014 2:07am

pawddy wrote: »

I'm beginning to maybe that if I upgrade to the 50mb package, I might get better results during peak because less people are on that package.. would it share the same contention ratio as the 10mb service??

Unfortunately no, the only way to lower contention with them is move closer to the mast where contention has less effect (I'm lucky in this respect) or move to a business package which has pre-programmed higher priority for you.
Either way, same as 3g, farther away from the mast means yer screwed. It's lessened by the fact you have a dish trained in on the mast and powered thru mains but its still wireless. I'd never consider three again, I'm in a NBS area as well and its a farce of a service.

pawddy · 06-01-2014 1:24pm

I was down in Leitrim for the weekend, so I haven't been playing with any speedtests or pingtests since. I did email NWE beforehand and they said they'd add my connection to the 'monitor' or whatever and will investigate once they get what they need from the monitor. Arrived home to a woeful connection last night, and to be honest i'm just fed up. Using their service after 6pm is useless.. And they themselves haven't a clue.

gooner99 · 11-01-2014 12:32am

Hi.Anyone receiving their service from the Gweedore transmitter. If so what's it like?

RobMozza · 16-01-2014 5:12pm

gooner99 wrote: »

Hi.Anyone receiving their service from the Gweedore transmitter. If so what's it like?

I am also interested to know more about their service, I live fairly close to Gweedore (in Dungloe).

I assume NWE will have one of their transmitters locally in Dungloe? (on the main town mast maybe?)

I have just tried to contact them using there web-form but even that seems broken and after reading all of your comments about an inconsistent service I'm starting to question if they will be any better than my Vodafone ADSL?

My ADSL connection is the fastest available where I live (7MB) however I'm always looking out for a faster internet connection and I had heard good things about NWE from a friend. :eek:

gooner99 · 17-01-2014 12:04am

RobMozza wrote: »

I am also interested to know more about their service, I live fairly close to Gweedore (in Dungloe).

I assume NWE will have one of their transmitters locally in Dungloe? (on the main town mast maybe?)

I have just tried to contact them using there web-form but even that seems broken and after reading all of your comments about an inconsistent service I'm starting to question if they will be any better than my Vodafone ADSL?

My ADSL connection is the fastest available where I live (7MB) however I'm always looking out for a faster internet connection and I had heard good things about NWE from a friend. :eek:

I'm not 100% sure,but I think the transmitter is in Gweedore, just above the windmills. Don't think there is one in Dungloe,but may be wrong. Unless the deflects the signal on.

7mb is not so bad tbh. I'm not sure if NWE can offer better here. I know a couple of guys that have it, but haven't talked to them about the service. One of them has it for quite a few years. Must ask him how it's been over the years and what sort of speeds he gets now.

darth_maul · 21-01-2014 11:16am

NWE in gweedore is actually very good speed wise, their main problem is how long they take to get you set up, can be up to a year!!! They are also quite slow at repairing too as they have no local reps, I was actually talking to their main tech/engineer who happens to be originally from this part of Donegal, and suggested they come to an arrangement with a local guy to do Installs and repairs, there is actually an IT fella locally that does TV repairs too so would have all the equipment ( ladders etc ), there was discussions but like everything with NWE it petered out.
They have a great system on the mast here. Can easily get 12mb on a supposed 8mb connection. But maybe that's cause its not overly subscribed.

Nonoperational · 21-01-2014 12:49pm

RobMozza wrote: »

I am also interested to know more about their service, I live fairly close to Gweedore (in Dungloe).

I assume NWE will have one of their transmitters locally in Dungloe? (on the main town mast maybe?)

I have just tried to contact them using there web-form but even that seems broken and after reading all of your comments about an inconsistent service I'm starting to question if they will be any better than my Vodafone ADSL?

My ADSL connection is the fastest available where I live (7MB) however I'm always looking out for a faster internet connection and I had heard good things about NWE from a friend. :eek:

Based on what's been said here, you mad going from a wired ADSL connection to NWE. Most of the time, wired beats wireless. Your speeds are not bad as it stands.

pawddy · 22-01-2014 11:57pm

RobMozza wrote: »

I am also interested to know more about their service, I live fairly close to Gweedore (in Dungloe).

I assume NWE will have one of their transmitters locally in Dungloe? (on the main town mast maybe?)

I have just tried to contact them using there web-form but even that seems broken and after reading all of your comments about an inconsistent service I'm starting to question if they will be any better than my Vodafone ADSL?

My ADSL connection is the fastest available where I live (7MB) however I'm always looking out for a faster internet connection and I had heard good things about NWE from a friend. :eek:

If your connection is consistent.. keep it. My NWE connection is awful after 6pm.. and there's days when itll cut out for 10 minutes or so

Boards.ie: Niamh · 24-01-2014 11:41am

I've just deleted some posts - if anyone else starts naming employees or signs up just to badmouth a company, their posts will also be removed.

NIMAN · 26-01-2014 1:35pm

Any more updates recently?

A family member has their service around the Burnfoot/Bridgend area, and I asked if they had similar issues and was told that they have no bother at all with it.

They have it in about 5 months and only had 2 periods of no-service, lasting maybe about an hour each time. Sounded like it might be related to certain transmitters only?

North West Electronics/BlueBox

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