Broadband in Tara/Kilmessan Area of Meath?

Jack_Hackett · 11-11-2013 5:39pm #1

Hi There, I'm just trying to find out does anyone know of a good broadband provider for the area around kilmessan/the foot of the hill of tara? I'm having trouble finding a solution and any help would be appreciated? Are there any local broadband providers available around that area?

kd82 · 23-04-2014 10:44am

Had you any success with this in the area? Looking at a house here but can't get confirmation from Eircom. Any alternative solutions?

srsly78 · 23-04-2014 2:25pm

This is a large rural area, it all depends how far you are from the nearest exchange. If you are close to Kilmessan village you should be fine, but further away will have problems. Also note that many of the lines are rather old and suffer horrible noise ratio, eircom however will not recognise this as a line fault.

The best you can get around here is DSL2, with no set date for fibre/vdsl rollout according to various isps. Also note that this is a mobile signal blackspot, which I am sure you have already noticed. Can pick up a basic 2g signal from meteor - and sometimes very weak 3g from navan, but you would be lucky to get any signal at all with other carriers.

I know some people on eircom that suffer horrible congestion, whereas others with vodafone business accounts get 17mbit down solid. Strangely vodafone only offer higher speeds to business customer in this area (or so the sales rep said).

Also note there is a local IT consultancy/service company, which can be found on googlemaps

niallb · 23-04-2014 3:10pm

As @srsly78 says, it depends on where you are.
Kilmessan is good for linespeed, but bad for contention. There's just not a lot of bandwidth getting in to Kilmessan to go around.

I was looking at friend of mine's modem in Kilmessan yesterday as the speeds are driving her mental.
She syncs at 7168kb/384kb in a matter of seconds which is the max on her package.
In the past she often got about 5Mb on a speedtest, but recently is lucky to get more than 1Mb for any length of time.
This is even with everything else disconnected and connecting to the router by cable. Same story when we swapped the modem.
She's with Vodafone, and they have loads of customers in the village because everybody needs a Sure Signal.

I'm halfway between Kilmessan and Dunsany and sync at 2Mb to 2.4Mb depending on the weather...
By the time you get back up towards Tara at Belper speeds are about twice that.

Mobile coverage varies from house to house, and I know people near here who have reliable connections with 3G.
Might be O2 in one house, and Three next door so try a few phones. Meteor used to have great coverage here, but it disappeared about a year ago.

Kiltale village has no DSL at all and I see people using O2 dongles there.

Ripplecom have wireless coverage of lots of the area, and there's another wireless provider with a mast on the hill of Tara so depending on which side you're looking at you might have other options. If I was 100m further up the road, I'd have been able to get Ripplecom at 4Mb.

That said, it's a great place to live, so good luck with your move if it comes off!

kd82 · 23-04-2014 3:29pm

Thanks for all the detailed info. It really seems to be down to luck of the draw. I was getting somewhat of a 3G signal but can't get an answer yet on the Eircom situation. The house is near Royal Tara GC but it's an old house so would probably suffer. I've been looking into a qsat solution today which may be good if all else fails. I'll just have to wait and see and hope for the best. I would ideally work from home on occasion so it's very important. Thanks for all the advice.

niallb · 23-04-2014 4:45pm

I had friends living near the bottom of the road from the golf club up to Tara and they had excellent wireless coverage from the mast on the hill.
I know they were renting the house, but might know which company it was. I'll post back if I get any details. Awful area for mobile phone coverage though!

kd82 · 23-04-2014 4:52pm

@niallb Many thanks. I think that mast belongs to meteor.

niallb · 23-04-2014 5:56pm

Meteor have a mast nearby alright (siteviewer.ie), but the mast I'm thinking of is on the side of a barn near the top of the hill,
and it provides a wireless signal. My friends were getting a solid 4Mb from it two years ago.

kd82 · 07-10-2014 11:13am

niallb wrote: »

Meteor have a mast nearby alright (siteviewer.ie), but the mast I'm thinking of is on the side of a barn near the top of the hill,
and it provides a wireless signal. My friends were getting a solid 4Mb from it two years ago.

Hi Niall, Just wondering if you happened to remember the company used here. Moved in and looking to get broadband now. Ripplecom mentioned previously seem to have decent coverage for here. Have you noticed any other providers improving their service in the area? Thanks, Kevin

niallb · 09-10-2014 5:18pm

Almost sure it was Ripplecom and you should have good coverage there.
I've moved in the last couple of months down the road, and we nearly but not quite got a link to it :-(
I'm back to 3G now as the local telephone exchange doesn't do DSL...

kd82 · 11-11-2014 1:22pm

So there was no joy with Eircom even though the line test said there was up to 8mb. Technician came out and it's too far from exchange for DSL. I got a Vodafone Dongle which is getting a tempremental 2mbps download with 1.05 upload at best but the data allowance isn't great.

I was going to look at onwave, qsat and ripplecom and see which is the best route. Not sure which to commit to as they all have have steep installation costs.

niallb · 12-11-2014 10:35am

Of the three, try Ripplecom first. The satellite providers are very oversubscribed, and want a long contract too.

Have you tried the other 3G providers? Tesco Mobile give me 15GB for €15 on the O2 network, and you can renew it when you run out at the same price.
There are cheaper bundles, but for me this was best as the price for going over a limit was much more controllable. As it's PAYG, I can jump ship immediately if something better comes along. I'm a bit closer to Kiltale than you, averaging about €60 a month for 60GB and getting speeds of about 4Mb/2Mb sometimes a bit faster, sometimes slower at night.

Send me a message later in the week and I could drop up to you with O2, Meteor and Three SIMs. Maybe you'll get a better connection with one of them,
but in any case Vodafone are particularly expensive for data. Are you using a router/mifi or a dongle plugged in to a laptop?

kd82 · 12-11-2014 10:50am

Hi @niallb. It's the Vodafone Mobile Wifi R215 (can't post link)

It was actually picking up decent speeds last night, got a sniff of 4G at times. The more I read about the satellite ones it seems like a last resort. Ripplecom is up to 8mbps but last night I was hitting 10mbps from the vodafone although when 4G drops it goes down to 2mbps. the 20GB a month though is limiting.

That Tesco deal seems very good. I'll look into that. I have vodafone on trial until Saturday. Appreciate the help.

niallb · 13-11-2014 10:44am

The R215 is good enough, and can take an external antenna if necessary.
I have an unlocked E5372 which is the same device.

Make sure you've tried it in all of your windows!
The steadiest signal is not always the nearest to a mast, but the one where switching between 3G/H/4G is at a minimum.
Moving the device quite small distances can make a big difference, so experimentation is key.
When you find a good spot, make sure it can't get moved easily.

Avoid relying on 4G to make the speed acceptable. It's shocking expensive.
I'm much closer to 4Mb with 3G than you are at the moment, but I'm also coming from a DSL connection of about 2Mb for the last few years, so maybe my patience is more practised. I can get a "sniff" of Vodafone 4G from one point on our living room window, and the speed on that is great, but it can't compare to the value of what I get elsewhere.
Meteor should be visible as 4G here too, but I can't tell without a specific account.
All Three sims get 4G until the end of November, but there's none around here.
Lots of 'but's :-(

kd82 · 13-11-2014 6:50pm

Yep, lots of buts. Got onto Vodafone, after the 20GB it's 19c a MB with no ability for add ons so I'll be cancelling that route on Saturday. No ripplecom installs until January so I think the Tesco option you mentioned is the best bet in the short term.

lucernarian · 14-11-2014 3:13am

Just so you all know, as far as I remember the Tara exchange is located along the roadside of the old N3 in a small shed-like building with a flat roof. Its at a crossroads, where the turnoff to kilmessan village is I think. Also the Irelandoffline.org/map shows locations of exchanges. I can't see many places on that map that's over the 6 or 7km limit for DSL from that exchange. Its always possible the linesman simply told a porkie to get out of removing a pairgain device so I would set the odometer on the car and if the distance along the roads to your house is 6.5 km or less then you should definitely get something.

kd82 · 14-11-2014 9:43am

I'm 5km from Kilmessan and 7km from Tara exchange judging by that. We're connected to the Tara exchange though and the engineer came out, pinged it and said we were too far. Is switching to the closer exchange a possibility do you think? I think it's kind of a no mans land where the house is between the reach of Kilcarn exchange and Tara exchange.

Colm R · 14-11-2014 5:01pm

Hi all. Currently I'm near Dunsany, and on Eircom. Barely get above 1Mb download. Daytime working is sufficient, I use a jump box back in the office to do any heavy downloads.

But I'm going to venture into Vodafone some day soon and see if I can get a dongle on the 4G network on trial and see if I can get anything. If anyone sees someone on their roof with a laptop - thats me. I'll let you know what I find out.

lucernarian · 15-11-2014 6:05am

kd82 wrote: »

I'm 5km from Kilmessan and 7km from Tara exchange judging by that. We're connected to the Tara exchange though and the engineer came out, pinged it and said we were too far. Is switching to the closer exchange a possibility do you think? I think it's kind of a no mans land where the house is between the reach of Kilcarn exchange and Tara exchange.

Ah. There is no Kilmessan exchange, it's served by the Tara exchange located on the old N3. There may be a cabinet (with future VDSL) in Kilmessan village itself

niallb · 17-11-2014 9:24pm

lucernarian wrote: »

Ah. There is no Kilmessan exchange, it's served by the Tara exchange located on the old N3. There may be a cabinet (with future VDSL) in Kilmessan village itself

Yes there is, though it only seems to serve the village itself so far.
If you're outside Kilmessan, even if you're farther away from the Tara exchange, your line probably still goes back to Ross Cross (Where the Tara exchange is - in that shed by the N3).
I was just under 9km from that exchange on a line that I had installed as ISDN more than 10 years ago. It was able to provide nearly 2Mb when I downgraded it back to PSTN after the exchange went live. Eircom would only provide 1Mb on it, but when I switched to Vodafone, they agreed to increase the sync speed. My main reason for wanting it was to increase my uplink from 128kb to 256kb. This was so I could use a Sure Signal as the mobile coverage there disappeared when the masts upgraded from 2G to 3G...

kd82 · 05-06-2015 9:28am

lucernarian wrote: »

Just so you all know, as far as I remember the Tara exchange is located along the roadside of the old N3 in a small shed-like building with a flat roof. Its at a crossroads, where the turnoff to kilmessan village is I think. Also the Irelandoffline.org/map shows locations of exchanges. I can't see many places on that map that's over the 6 or 7km limit for DSL from that exchange. Its always possible the linesman simply told a porkie to get out of removing a pairgain device so I would set the odometer on the car and if the distance along the roads to your house is 6.5 km or less then you should definitely get something.

Hi, Do you think Eircom's announcement yesterday will increase the reach of the exchanges bringing in more houses or will it just mean a better service for the existing houses? Hard to get an answer from Eircom.

Colm R · 05-06-2015 10:32am

Its just wait and see really at this point, but its still encouraging. Kilmessan/Dunsany has a rather obvious hole on the efibre map compared to our surrondings.

Nothing about exchanges on the eircom wholesale website yet, but the indpendent did list Tara in an image here:

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/news/over-300000-rural-homes-to-benefit-from-fibre-broadband-31277270.html

Is the news encouraging - dam right it is.

Is it the light at the end of the tunnel - we don't know.

lucernarian · 05-06-2015 12:44pm

Colm R wrote: »

Its just wait and see really at this point, but its still encouraging. Kilmessan/Dunsany has a rather obvious hole on the efibre map compared to our surrondings.

Nothing about exchanges on the eircom wholesale website yet, but the indpendent did list Tara in an image here:

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/news/over-300000-rural-homes-to-benefit-from-fibre-broadband-31277270.html

Is the news encouraging - dam right it is.

Is it the light at the end of the tunnel - we don't know.

I would say it's exceptionally good news but it may take 3 years or more to get to Tara. That list was of exchange names and it appears eircom are targeting all phone lines with FTTH, like in Belcarra in Mayo.

In the meantime, anyone who can't pass for broadband should complain to ComReg and demand for answers and action to be taken. I'd include local politicians in this.

Colm R · 08-06-2015 3:09pm

Just looking at the list in Meath, the places listed in the press release here:

http://pressroom.eircom.net/press_releases/article/eircom_expands_fibre_broadband_investment_in_meath/

seem to correspond to places (exchanges?) not listed here yet:

http://fibrerollout.ie/where-and-when/meath/

or appear as blank in the map here:

http://www.eircom.net/efibreinfo/map/

Would any of ye non-blow-ins know if the list of places correspond to actual physical exchanges on the ground?

I know for us in Dunsany, we use the Tara Exchange in Ross Cross.

So I'm trying figure out if Tara means the area of Tara (not including Dunsany or Skryne for example), or does Tara mean everyone who uses that exchange.

lucernarian · 09-06-2015 8:11pm

Colm R wrote: »

Just looking at the list in Meath, the places listed in the press release here:

http://pressroom.eircom.net/press_releases/article/eircom_expands_fibre_broadband_investment_in_meath/

seem to correspond to places (exchanges?) not listed here yet:

http://fibrerollout.ie/where-and-when/meath/

or appear as blank in the map here:

http://www.eircom.net/efibreinfo/map/

Would any of ye non-blow-ins know if the list of places correspond to actual physical exchanges on the ground?

I know for us in Dunsany, we use the Tara Exchange in Ross Cross.

So I'm trying figure out if Tara means the area of Tara (not including Dunsany or Skryne for example), or does Tara mean everyone who uses that exchange.

They claim 300,000 people will be served by this announcement so I'm convinced it involves the whole exchange area, like in Belcarra in Mayo.

Dr. Nick · 09-06-2015 9:16pm

Interesting, will it reach Kiltale I wonder?

Dr. Nick · 09-06-2015 9:19pm

lucernarian wrote: »

They claim 300,000 people will be served by this announcement so I'm convinced it involves the whole exchange area, like in Belcarra in Mayo.

What happened in Belcarra?

lucernarian · 09-06-2015 10:22pm

Dr. Nick wrote: »

What happened in Belcarra?

This: http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/belcarra-pilot/

The videos suggest overhead cable customers were also connected.

Colm R · 10-06-2015 10:48am

It really is going to be a case by case basis with regard to the connection. Was going to do some planting of a hedge near where I have an Eircom pole on my property - I am going to hold off now - I want it to be as easy as possible for these guys to do their work if it does come to pass.

I guess we have nothing to do now but wait. Lets keep this thread updated with any sign of work in the area.

niallb · 13-06-2015 11:37pm

Dr. Nick wrote: »

Interesting, will it reach Kiltale I wonder?

Unlikely to reach us via Tara.
Even to get to Dunsany, it's more likely to be brought back down from an upgraded sub exchange in Kilmessan. Though Killeen Castle is mentioned too, so depending on where you are, it might make things easier.

kd82 · 29-06-2015 3:23pm

Eircom running a competition to beat the rush fibrerollout dot ie / competition

Broadband in Tara/Kilmessan Area of Meath?

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