IBB and UTV should i stay or should i go

Boston

I've looked into IBB a great deal in the past, when i got the boys to do a line of sight they could see RTE but persumed it was out of range (never actually tested signal strenght) Now IBB have recently updated their site, with better maps and my home clearly is within range, as well as the digital hub high site which i'm in range of. Question is should i dump UTV for IBB. ITs cheaper, lower contention and by the sounds of things more reliable.

Mutant_Fruit

Well, download speeds are resonably fast always (generally <450k) but pings are as variable as an extremely variable thing.

It can be as great as 30ms, to worse than 2000ms. depending. Its really dodgy stuff when i comes to pings.

Ping statistics for 217.114.166.147:
Packets: Sent = 40, Received = 39, Lost = 1 (2% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 85ms, Maximum = 774ms, Average = 336ms
Control-Break

EDIT: IBB Home Breeze Plus

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
It can be as great as 30ms, to worse than 2000ms. depending. Its really dodgy stuff when i comes to pings.

Ping statistics for 217.114.166.147:
Packets: Sent = 40, Received = 39, Lost = 1 (2% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 85ms, Maximum = 774ms, Average = 336ms
Control-Break

You didn't say what service you're using.

I'm using IBBs RipWave, and this is my ping result to boards:
Ping statistics for 217.114.166.147:
Packets: Sent = 37, Received = 37, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 104ms, Maximum = 163ms, Average = 128ms

Note that about 30 ms of that average is out beyond the IBB network - here's the result from pinging www.irishbroadband.ie
Ping statistics for 62.221.15.41:
Packets: Sent = 37, Received = 37, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 82ms, Maximum = 139ms, Average = 99ms

There is a lot of variability in this - I would expect a DSL connection to be more consistent in it's pings, but in most cases, it makes little or no difference.

Serbian

Originally posted by Ripwave
Note that about 30 ms of that average is out beyond the IBB network - here's the result from pinging www.irishbroadband.ie
Ping statistics for 62.221.15.41:
Packets: Sent = 37, Received = 37, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 82ms, Maximum = 139ms, Average = 99ms

There is a lot of variability in this - I would expect a DSL connection to be more consistent in it's pings, but in most cases, it makes little or no difference.

As far as I am concerned, those pings to the Irish Broadband website are dreadful, considering there are only 2 - 3 hops to get there -- It just shows that the problem is with the Irish Broadband network itself.

I'm on Irish Broadband myself and, although customer service is good, the connection itself is awful. I will be moving to IOL as soon as possible.

cmdrpaddy

99ms is hardly what you could call 'dreadful'. Unless online gaming has changed from Counter-Strike, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and strategy games to shooting single hairs of the backs of mice from 10 miles away with a shotgun (obviously requiring uber-low ping times) pings of average 99ms should be fine to kill absolutely anyone in the western world (except for swedish people, they're too good). Even when i played UT, CS and Q3 with pings double if not treble what Ripwave is geting with IBB and i rarely got badly badly beaten, and i did no better on a PC with lower pings, my friend has a 3Mbit connection in belgium (its pretty much standard there) and he gets pings of 50-60 and i still do aswell as i used to.
Overall i can't see how you can complain about a service that is delivering an uncapped(ish for ripwave), unmetered service (Home Breeze) for €30-35 with pings some people would kill to have. i thinks ive said enough on this rant and i shall now continue it elsewhere....

Mutant_Fruit

just edited my post to reflect the service i;'m on, IBB Breeze plus.

And yes, i fully agree, the high pings seem to be an internal thing in IBB, that the only thing that makes sense.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Serbian
As far as I am concerned, those pings to the Irish Broadband website are dreadful, considering there are only 2 - 3 hops to get there -- It just shows that the problem is with the Irish Broadband network itself.

I don't consider them dreadful, given the technology involved.

The relatively high ping times occur almost entirely between the CPE and the base station, and are due in part to the overhead of encryption, which takes time, as well as signal processing to deal with reflections, retransmissions, and interference.

My Ripwave modem only gets an "orange" signal, occassionally slipping into red. I'd like to hear from someone with a stronger signal, to see what their results are like. If IBB get a 3.5GHz license, and can tramsit at higher power, I'd anticipate improved latencies (and smoother latencies, with less retransmission).

"Smoother" latency, with less variability, would be more important than lower latency for most applications.

Serbian

Originally posted by cmdrpaddy
99ms is hardly what you could call 'dreadful'. Unless online gaming has changed from Counter-Strike, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and strategy games to shooting single hairs of the backs of mice from 10 miles away with a shotgun (obviously requiring uber-low ping times) pings of average 99ms should be fine to kill absolutely anyone in the western world (except for swedish people, they're too good). Even when i played UT, CS and Q3 with pings double if not treble what Ripwave is geting with IBB and i rarely got badly badly beaten, and i did no better on a PC with lower pings, my friend has a 3Mbit connection in belgium (its pretty much standard there) and he gets pings of 50-60 and i still do aswell as i used to.
Overall i can't see how you can complain about a service that is delivering an uncapped(ish for ripwave), unmetered service (Home Breeze) for €30-35 with pings some people would kill to have. i thinks ive said enough on this rant and i shall now continue it elsewhere....

I would be happy if it was the case where I get 99ms ping constantly. The fact of the matter is the pings vary greatly from 50 - 500. This makes online gaming an impossibilty.

Pings aside, bandwidth is a huge problem. On many, many occasions I have been left for a couple of days with a connection slower than 28k.

In the words of Maurice Pratt: Now that's real value.

Mutant_Fruit

i regard those pings as horrible, the current wireless technology they use can supply pings as low as 25-30 ms to boards.ie. BUT they're equipment seems to be under strain a lot. bumping up pings.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
i regard those pings as horrible, the current wireless technology they use can supply pings as low as 25-30 ms to boards.ie.

Non-line-of-sight Ripwave? Do you have a reference to back that up?

Mutant_Fruit

EDIT: IBB Home Breeze Plus

Thats what i was referring to. Which is what i use. I know Ripwave has higher pings as its non-los, but even LOS pings are bad.

lamaq

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
I know Ripwave has higher pings as its non-los, but even LOS pings are bad.

If only Ripwave was non-los! Yesterday, after waiting the best part of a month and a half, someone from IBB came to install IBB. Even though I am well within range of 3Rock there was no signal and he couldn't install it.

Ripwave

Originally posted by lamaq
If only Ripwave was non-los! Yesterday, after waiting the best part of a month and a half, someone from IBB came to install IBB. Even though I am well within range of 3Rock there was no signal and he couldn't install it.

Ripwave is non-Line-of-Sight. You'd need XRay vision to see through the brick walls from the front of my house to 3 Rock.

lamaq

Originally posted by Ripwave
Ripwave is non-Line-of-Sight. You'd need XRay vision to see through the brick walls from the front of my house to 3 Rock.

Maybe so but I live well within range and still couldn't get it. Apparently IBB have a transmitter on 3Rock but didn't put it on one of the taller masts.

My house is slightly in the lee of a hill which must effect it. Annoyingly I have a TV ariel that points at 3Rock and gets perfect reception for RTE.

Boston

one would htink that overhead power liens or other strong magnetic fields owuld affect Ripwaves effective range