North West Electronics/BlueBox

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?

pawddy · 26-01-2014 3:58pm

On Friday, a technician came out to my house, and he basically told me that all the transmitters are over-subscribed, and that's why the connection is so poor come 6 o'clock.

I had similar problems around this time last year, and when the technician came out he moved me to a new 'sector'. I asked the technician on Friday about moving to another sector, but he said there isn't any, they're all over subscribed.

So looks to me like we won't be seeing any improvements any time soon.

NIMAN · 26-01-2014 7:14pm

As I mentioned earlier, when the technician came to install mine, he told me that the transmitter had no more capacity, so I couldn't get their service.

I assume its not a case of a transmitter being over-subscribed, its either full or its got space on it. I would guess they can handle 'x' amount of users and no more. Thats what I took from his "no more space" comment. Said I would have to wait until they added more capacity.

Plus if there are 10 users on a capacity of say 50, you are going to get faster speeds than if the full 50 spaces are allocated. Contention.

pawddy · 26-01-2014 9:47pm

NIMAN wrote: »

As I mentioned earlier, when the technician came to install mine, he told me that the transmitter had no more capacity, so I couldn't get their service.

I assume its not a case of a transmitter being over-subscribed, its either full or its got space on it. I would guess they can handle 'x' amount of users and no more. Thats what I took from his "no more space" comment. Said I would have to wait until they added more capacity.

Plus if there are 10 users on a capacity of say 50, you are going to get faster speeds than if the full 50 spaces are allocated. Contention.

Well the word the technician used was over-subscribed. The contention ratio is 48/1, and he said that there were around 70 households connected to my particular transmitter.

NIMAN · 27-01-2014 12:27pm

The big problem with a BB provider is that they are not obliged to provide a minimum speed. When they say "up to 50mb" if you are getting 25mb, then that technically covers them and the service they are providing.

I would love to see the Gov or regulator put in a new rule of a minimum speed for BB in this country.

Bresy · 18-02-2014 9:28am

Sent yet another pointless email to these guys as my speeds are now worse than ever . So slow their speed test cant find a server to test . Im looking into switching to elsewhere now , Ive had enough a constant 3meg would do me . I hear Vodaphone is pretty stable.

pawddy · 18-02-2014 11:33am

I've been sending emails since the 2nd January. I've been with bluebox now for 3 years, and it has never been this bad. I emailed them originally regarding ping/packet loss, and after about 3 weeks they asked if they can send a technician out. He said that he'd get back to me with the results... did he ever get back to me? no. If I phone requesting to see the results, or asking when will I hear about them, I simply get "We will email you".

Last week I agreed to upgrade to a static IP address, and they said they'd contact me within 24 hours. 2 days past.. no word. I emailed them again, and they replied this time with "we will contact you within 48 hours".

I might try look into switching to vodafone or eircom, I don't think I could put up with this much longer.

Bresy · 18-02-2014 12:16pm

what is the craic with the static IP address ? Does that help ?

pawddy · 18-02-2014 2:11pm

Well.. to be honest, i'm not too sure. I believe it allows them to configure the network properly, so they can open ports and stuff like that. Could possibly improve packlet loss (i think, dont quote me on this), and it'll definitely help you if you have problems connecting to other people's games/servers.

I'm gonna try it out and see how it goes.

pawddy · 09-03-2014 6:15pm

Exactly one week ago, my speeds began to sky rocket.. 15-25mb's download, and 5-10 upload. Ping's were great too, around 25-40ms, 5-20 jitter and 0-1% packet loss. The best it had been in months, i was well chuffed! However, today it seems to have gone back to its old self. 1mb up and down, and useless pings.

Awfully confusing stuff.

Tommy Lagahan · 17-03-2014 3:13am

Back at home for the weekend, contention's bringing the speeds down to 1mbit from about 3/4PM to 10/11PM. Goes back up to 10Mbit the rest of the time. Such'n inconsistent crap, its 250 euro a month for 1/1 contention 10mbit with this crowd. Ya get 50mbit 1/1 contention from Eircom for 55.

Tommy Lagahan · 08-07-2014 12:35am

Just want to post another update on this, NWE have become completely useless in the evenings now.
Frequently switching BACK to the Three stick and throwing tenners into it just so I can get a game of something online in. Ping jitter, packet loss and low speeds.

Rang them up several times, engineers are supposedly fixing the problem. Stuck on midband for 6 years and counting, with my 28.8k capable dial up landline.

pawddy · 08-07-2014 10:30am

Mines is the same. Everytime I email and mention the word 'ping', 'jitter' or even 'packet loss' they don't really seem to have a solution. They reply with 'Can you send us speedtests'. Every time I ring, they send a technician out to my house, and he isn't able to do anything either because when he is currently at my house, which is before 5pm, I get good speeds, and solid latency results.

I just try my best to avoid the internet between 6pm and 11pm. I started posting on this thread 6 months ago, and it's still the same.

NIMAN · 08-07-2014 6:17pm

Glad I'm getting a good steady 4mb all the time with VF. Suits me.

RuralDonegal · 15-07-2014 12:15am

Hi,

I have had exactly the same experiences with North West Electronics and their support. OVer 6 months ago I upgraded from their 10Mb service to 50Mb service as the 10 was just a waste of time. I have sent them numerous speedtests where the speed has been 1Mb or below and then after contacting ComReg they sent out an engineer out of hours who did speedtests and took photographs of them and recorded speeds between 2.25 and 4Mb and they emailed me after that saying because these were above the advertised rates of 50Mb/48:1 contention then they consider they are delivering a reasonable 50Mb service....no word of the number of times I have sent them speedtests that were not within their advertised rates?

My understanding of contention ratios are that they are a worse case scenario not what you should be experiencing every evening and every weekend but to have shown on numerous occasions that the speeds have actually been below advertised rates then surely that warrants some sort of effort to improve things but I think the problem is that they cannot improve things unless they were to remove some users from their masts....which of course they are not going to do. I was told by one of their engineers that they have some users setup on the 10Mb system who are getting more than that because one fop their engineers was not caping the speed of the connection when he was installing the dish.

Anyway looking forward to hearing from others with similar stories....maybe a collective approach might help?

Tommy Lagahan · 15-07-2014 5:37pm

Same story here RuralDonegal, they should cap everyone at 5/10Mb and be done with it, should have enough bandwidth for low contention on that. I would be 100% happy with 5mbit if it had a stable enough ping and no packet loss so I could play a damn game online with my mates when they're finished work.

Back when I got the service it was always playable, now I have to wait till 2AM to get stable enough packet loss to chance a game of CS:GO, and once 2/3PM comes around its useless again. Not to mention weekends, it never, ever works on weekends.

I think we should all arrange to head straight up to their office in Derry in person and simply tell them to sort it out or we're all gone. I only personally know 2 other households using this service and they're in the same situation.

pawddy · 21-07-2014 4:46pm

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Same story here RuralDonegal, they should cap everyone at 5/10Mb and be done with it, should have enough bandwidth for low contention on that. I would be 100% happy with 5mbit if it had a stable enough ping and no packet loss so I could play a damn game online with my mates when they're finished work.

Back when I got the service it was always playable, now I have to wait till 2AM to get stable enough packet loss to chance a game of CS:GO, and once 2/3PM comes around its useless again. Not to mention weekends, it never, ever works on weekends.

I think we should all arrange to head straight up to their office in Derry in person and simply tell them to sort it out or we're all gone. I only personally know 2 other households using this service and they're in the same situation.

Tommy, I'm in the exact same situation as you. The packet loss goes nuts during the evenings and it makes playing any game almost impossible! I've now turned to plugging my phone into the computer and using my mobile's data. Every time I mention packet loss, or ping or jitter they respond with, 'Well what speed are you getting?'. It drives me up the wall!!

pawddy · 21-07-2014 4:48pm

NIMAN wrote: »

Glad I'm getting a good steady 4mb all the time with VF. Suits me.

Niman, are you getting a constant 4mb 24/7? I can't seem to find anything on the vodafone website that isn't fibre optic packages.

NIMAN · 22-07-2014 5:21pm

Yeah to be honest anytime I test it its around the 4mb mark. Haven't done it in a few weeks though.

Do you want me to do a few tests for you? Mine is old copper line, unfortunately, but as you folk are saying, a slower speed with a steady line is better than faster speeds, sometimes.

pawddy · 31-07-2014 2:34pm

Yeah please do. I'd be on an old copper line too, would like to see how they perform. Your definitely right there, I would be delighted with a solid 4mb with stable ping and jitter 24/7!

It makes me wonder though how something hasn't been done about it? Isn't there any form of standards that NWE have to meet for their service to be legally sold?

darth_maul · 11-08-2014 12:26pm

Any update on this, how is it now going for everybody, particularly in Gweedore area

NIMAN · 12-08-2014 12:22am

pawddy wrote: »

Yeah please do. I'd be on an old copper line too, would like to see how they perform. Your definitely right there, I would be delighted with a solid 4mb with stable ping and jitter 24/7!

It makes me wonder though how something hasn't been done about it? Isn't there any form of standards that NWE have to meet for their service to be legally sold?

Sorry Pawddy, haven't checked this thread in a while.

So just done a test, 00:21am on a Tuesday morning. just over 4meg
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3683212110

I'll do a few more random ones over the next few days and post them.

pawddy · 16-08-2014 6:12pm

Sorry I've been away on holiday and haven't been on here since. My internet has been dropping every 20 seconds or so for the past hour now. Anyone else experiencing the same problems?

NIMAN · 19-08-2014 12:10am

Another speedtest of Vodafone landline

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3698061733

4.3meg, sorry but its after midnight, must get a few done during peak times to see ehat they are.

NIMAN · 19-08-2014 10:48pm

Slightly slower at 22:45

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3700280779

NIMAN · 20-08-2014 9:52pm

Just over 4meg at 21:50.
Shows its generally steady.

fooker! · 05-09-2014 12:06am

Well I see you guys are in the same situation as me and a few others from my area!
I found this thread looking through Google after giving up playing the PlayStation online to see if other people are in the same boat!
Its a pain to browse the internet at times never mind play a game online but what can ya do if they keep telling you there is nothing wrong?!
For me its either this crap or dial up! so there isn't many options for me!

H_A_L_9000 · 17-09-2014 3:45pm

When Bluebox is working it's great, but we have been plagued with problems and outages and the customer service is non-existent.

neil mc skeane · 09-10-2014 3:28am

Are NWE not licensed by both government agencies, as broadcasters.so looking at the way they are treating its customers and poor customer service maybe that's an avenue we could explore to evoke a positive response from them

NIMAN · 09-10-2014 9:33am

Did you try Joe Duffy?

H_A_L_9000 · 09-10-2014 9:34am

I made enquiries recently with OFCOM and was told that all Communications companies have to belong to an Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme who will if required take action against offending organisations, however this is not mandatory until 2015.

fooker! · 17-10-2014 8:22pm

H_A_L_9000 wrote: »

I made enquiries recently with OFCOM and was told that all Communications companies have to belong to an Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme who will if required take action against offending organisations, however this is not mandatory until 2015.

Bring on 2015 then!

fooker! · 30-10-2014 7:39pm

How is everyone finding their connection and speeds recently?

chris_ie · 04-11-2014 3:05pm

My speeds are up and down. Can drop to 2-3mb at times then 20mb at others, although mostly 8mb-10mb.

One issues I am seeing a lot of is packet loss. Are any others on here getting that? During off peak hours the loss goes to 0% but from about 9 in the morning it goes up, 2%-5% consistenly with high spikes intermittently. This causes issues for anything that needs a steady conenction, anyone gaming would notice issues.

To me it seems like the network cannot handle the load, or maybe there is a config issue somewhere. This is their internal network the loss is on, not an external. I have a system setup to monitor it daily. I've reported this but as yet have heard nothing other than "we have passed this to our senior engineer".

fooker! · 04-11-2014 10:04pm

chris_ie wrote: »

My speeds are up and down. Can drop to 2-3mb at times then 20mb at others, although mostly 8mb-10mb.

One issues I am seeing a lot of is packet loss. Are any others on here getting that? During off peak hours the loss goes to 0% but from about 9 in the morning it goes up, 2%-5% consistenly with high spikes intermittently. This causes issues for anything that needs a steady conenction, anyone gaming would notice issues.

To me it seems like the network cannot handle the load, or maybe there is a config issue somewhere. This is their internal network the loss is on, not an external. I have a system setup to monitor it daily. I've reported this but as yet have heard nothing other than "we have passed this to our senior engineer".

Yeah that is pretty much the same for me, but I get slightly more packet loss going by Pingtest.net, up to 9% at peak times till 1am, ping and jitter are high too, the worst I've recorded was a few days ago when both were regularly over 1000ms again using pingtest but maybe it is not as accurate as yours? As you say it’s not ideal for gaming!

I emailed them the other day about this and was told the following
“The package you signed up to offers 48/1 contention, the level of demand from users with multiple devices per home and in particular video applications is causing congestion at peak times and degrading performance, this is not a shortcoming of BlueBox as we continue exceed the bandwidth per user at the ratios we commit to, and are expanding the network all the time to improve capacity. We would ask that you remain patient as we implement our upgrades”

I emailed back to say that my contention ratio is meant to be 30-1! Not that it will make much difference I guess! These upgrades are a long time coming!

chris_ie · 05-11-2014 11:06am

fooker! wrote: »

Yeah that is pretty much the same for me, but I get slightly more packet loss going by Pingtest.net, up to 9% at peak times till 1am, ping and jitter are high too, the worst I've recorded was a few days ago when both were regularly over 1000ms again using pingtest but maybe it is not as accurate as yours? As you say it’s not ideal for gaming!

I emailed them the other day about this and was told the following
“The package you signed up to offers 48/1 contention, the level of demand from users with multiple devices per home and in particular video applications is causing congestion at peak times and degrading performance, this is not a shortcoming of BlueBox as we continue exceed the bandwidth per user at the ratios we commit to, and are expanding the network all the time to improve capacity. We would ask that you remain patient as we implement our upgrades”

I emailed back to say that my contention ratio is meant to be 30-1! Not that it will make much difference I guess! These upgrades are a long time coming!

You should try a few traceroutes. That gives a better idea of where the issues are occurring. For my connection it goes to my local router then goes through 15 nodes before it even gets out of the NWE network on to the web. This is where I can see a lot of packet loss, within their own network. I have it sending 100 packets every 8 minutes or so through the day and all results are graphed.

I was told a while back that there were upgrades going on also. Although that phase should have been finished quite a while back! I've emailed them numerous times since start of April regarding latency and packet loss. Always been told it has been passed on to an engineer, or we are upgrading etc. Not once so far have I been given an explanation for it. The service quality has decreased since I joined a few years back. Back then I had issue with speed mostly but I ended up just accepting the fact it wasnt going to get better, if I get around 15mb I'm happy enough but there has been quite a few outages recently.

excollier · 06-11-2014 10:42am

Yeah, I see also that it takes 15 hops to get to the public IP address of NWE, all private addresses before that. Then 7 hops to get to Google (8.8.8.8).
I have been with them for 8 years, mainly due to the fact that there is no other viable option - I live only 4 miles outside Letterkenny, only one mile from the nearest fibre VDSL cabinet.
Roll on (out) the fibre, please!

chris_ie · 06-11-2014 11:01am

excollier wrote: »

Yeah, I see also that it takes 15 hops to get to the public IP address of NWE, all private addresses before that. Then 7 hops to get to Google (8.8.8.8).
I have been with them for 8 years, mainly due to the fact that there is no other viable option - I live only 4 miles outside Letterkenny, only one mile from the nearest fibre VDSL cabinet.
Roll on (out) the fibre, please!

Same as that. I'm about 5k from nearest fibre cabinet. Can't see us getting fiber for a long time, even the updated maps we're not included!

fooker! · 06-11-2014 8:38pm

Tried a few of them also and its the same for me!

chris_ie · 06-11-2014 9:06pm

10% packet loss tonight on top of a speed of about 3mb. Really annoying.

fooker! · 06-11-2014 9:41pm

Im getting between 2-3% and also high ping and jitter over 500 on each!

North West Electronics/BlueBox

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