What is WRONG with Broadband in Ireland???????

HelterSkelter

There seems to be a lot of problems with slow download speeds and high pings from IOL, UTV and Irish Broadband lately. One of the excuses they are throwing at us is contention.

I am wondering if anyone has experience of using broadband packages similar to ours (i.e. 512K DSL) in other countries, the UK for example. Or do you know anyone using it in other countries? What kind of performance do they get? Is it only in Ireland that we have to put up with a broadband service worse than dial up at times? Can they get away with the excuse of the contention?

I am just in the process of switching to IOL from my current provider because of a very unreliable service, slow download, high pings and now I find out that both IOL and UTV are the same!! I am getting very disheartened at this stage.

tuxy

eircoms dsl is very good

HelterSkelter

Originally posted by tuxx
eircoms dsl is very good

I'm fighting hard to stick to my principals at this stage!!

rymus

Originally posted by tuxx
eircoms dsl is very good

There is a very good reason for that... but I dont want to get into full rant mode right now.

SantaHoe

You're switching to IOL because you've got bad ping and slow downloads?!!
No no no no no, oh deary me no. :eek:
Cancel if you can, the last thing you want is to be tied into a 12 month contract with these clowns.

tuxy

Originally posted by HelterSkelter
I'm fighting hard to stick to my principals at this stage!!

well eircom get most the money even if you go with another provider so you might as well give in if you want good dsl

alleepally

picked this URL up today from the Guardian's IT section.

www.adslguide.org.uk

Should be of use for comparisons

spongebob

Tell the culprits what you think, click Here

M

tuxy

Originally posted by alleepally
picked this URL up today from the Guardian's IT section.

www.adslguide.org.uk

Should be of use for comparisons

good for people planning to move to the uk?

Mutant_Fruit

if you want full 512 speeds all the time, feel free to go with eircom, but do remember you're capped at 8gb's!

Whereas if you can stick with the not-so-speedy speeds of other providers, with larger caps, you'll still easily be able to reach your full cap quote each month.

Just remember, 512kbps download, running 24x7 can download over 120gigs in one month... why limit yourself to 8? I didn't :-p

tuxy

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit

Just remember, 512kbps download, running 24x7 can download over 120gigs in one month... why limit yourself to 8? I didn't :-p

neither do i even though my eircom stats page say i am :P

alleepally

"good for people planning to move to the uk? "


tuxx, I posted that link as the original poster asked

"I am wondering if anyone has experience of using broadband packages similar to ours (i.e. 512K DSL) in other countries, the UK for example"

Gonzo

I used Freeserve when i was in my m8's house last October and it was very good, speed was 576bps (they give ya 10% extra speed for free tho is barely any different than 512k), pings were excellent and download rates were 58k/sec constant.

As for Ireland well as posted by Tuxx, Eircom DSL does give constant top notch performance for gamers, surfers, downloaders alike, its just a shame about the tight caps which some people ignore anyway. Im with Eircom and its exactly the same experience as using Freeserve UK. I believe Netsource has also sorted all their problems and its meant to be very good now also. Digiweb which has just launched is another one to look out for, it cud be really good or it could be crap, we'll just have to wait and see. Its a reall shame tho about IOL because they were very good untill a month ago but hopefully they'll have their act sorted soon, as for UTV who knows if they will ever sort their constant problems out as clicksilver has been bogged down with problems since its launch.

god's toy

As much as everyone likes to slag off Eircom (I do too) I am happy to say I don’t and never have any problems with the broadband they provide, always fast and always on.
Now just so you know I don’t work for €ircon I am gonna say how much of a rip off it is and don’t even get me started on line rental.

Gonzo

Eircom Broadband is the ONLY thing that they have done right, looks like they did their homework as far as broadband goes but for everything else they are worse than useless even the broadband call centre is good unlike their other support sections.

Da Man

I went with Eircom because I figured there would be teething problems across the board and that's not a good time to be with a reseller where the reseller and Eircom will just blame each other and nothing will be done to solve the problem. But surprisingly it seems only Eircom and possibly Netsource can deliver a reliable service so I'm guessing the resellers have messed up all by themselves.

I wished the competition would get their act together and ideally it would be better if they installed their own ADSL equipment in the exchanges so we can get a better selection of services. I'm pretty sure Eircom have set the uplink speed artificially low to pretect leased line revenue.

ando

another thumbs up for eircom dsl here

Woden

aye and another one for me

can't fault it once its up and running i don't think i've had any problems with the service, iol can go screw themselves they didn't want my custom due to there crappy account policies

rash

What put me off going with Eircom in Jan was the high support line costs.....with their new products that would not have been an issue...but then again a stable service = no support calls.

Woden

the cheaper home product still has the expensive number while the more expensive home product has the cheaper number now iirc

rash

agreed.....but a stable service = no support calls.

neokenzo

Another €ircom BB satisfied customer

center15

I have IOL BB a few days now, I’m on the Advantage Plus package, I have good pings usually around the 50's and my download speed is at a constant 55kB /sec
So far I've no complaints except the useless customer care they have. They booked me in for an engineer install instead of a self install, which I had asked for.

About 13 days into my order I rang them to see if everything was ok and they said an engineer would be out to install my BB. I told them of their error and everything was sorted they would send out my modem & I'd have it the next day as my line had gone live.

3 days later I ring up to see where my modem was and I was told that there was no modem sent out, so again I was told a modem would be sent out and I've have it within two days. The next day an engineer rang asking when's a suitable time to come around to install the BB, I told him I'd ask for a self install and being in contact with customer care and he Apologised and said he would contact customer care again.
The Modem did arrive the next day I just hope I’m not billed for an engineer installation!!

Update: I received a second IOL modem today didnt ring them yet to tell them....

dub45

One thing that appears to be very wrong no matter which ISP you are with is the appalling phone support structure. 30 minute waits and stock replies seem to be the rule.

Something will really have to be done about that.

garthv

i dunno how many posts ive made about complaining about my iol connection but as much as id hate to say it i might have to switch to an eircom broadband account,
im really pissed off with the constan dissconection and my really crappy download speed,
its gotten worse since theyve upgraded me!

Stonemason

Elo m8y

Have you got BB now then ?

If so whats it like in town as in speeds and reliabilty.

Just to let you know if you want to come down and help us test out the shop in a week or two your welcome.

The Phone line went in today and we are hoping to get a 2mb(Eircom) adsl package in soon .

BTW Eircoms moved down to the old army barracks also where the exchange is.Which means us being at the back of O'Connors on martyrs road should give us a damn good connection (copper permiting).

Da Man

See that link that says "pm"? Try it some time.

I have no idea what Eircom ADSL support is like. I've never called them because the service has been up since the day I got it.

vibe666

has anyone tried the new lower cost dsl's yet? if i go for one it's going to be the low cost eircom one, i think. maybe. not sure if i want to stump for the extra cash for the bigger cap. anyone have any thoughts?

Sleepy

Why is it that my phone line can fail the test while both my next door neighbours don't and Eircom aren't obligated to rectify that for me?

Emboss

Originally posted by Sleepy
Why is it that my phone line can fail the test while both my next door neighbours don't and Eircom aren't obligated to rectify that for me?

They're not obliged to rectify something that isn't "broken"

Your phone line works as designed, you can make calls and recive them.

so in a way there's nothing to rectify.

geecee

Could this fire in manchester have anything to do with the recent problems?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/36751.html

I resume IOL get their backhaul from BT....
Anyone any ideas where UTV get theirs?

michaelanthony

NTL is wckd

vorbis

shouldn't be. they're using eircom's infrastructure for the backend. BT's problems shouldn't affect their broadband at all.

TwoShedsJackson

Personally I'm as happy as a pig in shite with my 1 meg NTL cable modem

Gonzo

NTL is the best, its the exact same as what they have in the UK, such a shame that its available to less than 1% of the population.

HelterSkelter

Originally posted by TwoShedsJackson
Personally I'm as happy as a pig in shite with my 1 meg NTL cable modem

How good is it? Do you EVER have slow download speeds? Ever any contention issues? (what is the contention btw?)

Gonzo

i dont have NTL but have used by cousins NTL connection many times in Crumlin, when he was on NTL600 he was getting average download rates of 65k/sec often hitting 85k/sec on top quality FTPs, his ping would be about 45 ingame to irish servers and 25 ingame to english servers often dipping down to 14 ingame. For some reason NTL Cable gives better pings to jolt and many other english servers than it does to Irish ones. The service has been rock solid all the time and my cousin has since upgraded to 1mb NTL, his pings are still exactly the same but his downloads are now around 110k/sec on average often hitting 130k/sec on ftps. On top of all this he claims that his cap is 3gig a day but i think its 1gig a day altho NTL dont enforce this wotsoever and the price for this 1mb cable is around €45 a month, best deal in ireland easily

TwoShedsJackson

Yep I get the same performance as Gonzo's cousin there. On the 1 meg service I get at least 60k a second on dl's/torrents from the US, usually 100-115k. Contention is 20:1 according to the site.

On the jolt ut2k4 servers I ping around 18-25 99.9% of the time.

I've only had it three weeks but there has been no down time, they say on the site it's a 1gig a day cap but I've been over that now and again with no apparent ill effects. Seemingly they'll send you a threatening letter if you go mad and start downloading like 7-10gig a day, apart from that no worries

It's €50 a month.

dangerman

i dont know if it is contention but if it is u've only got yourselves to blame.

a lot of my friends are on iol and all they do is plan how to use up their maximum cap. downloading **** they dont need, loads of them rush around the place thinking up ways to fill up their quota by the end of the month, thus tieing up bandwidth for absolutely no reason other than because its there.

I'll bet a large portion of people are doing this, and it could easily be a contributing factor to the poor experience you're all having.

And everyones gonna flame back with 'wah wah wah i paid for this i'm going to use it' and if thats the case then continue to be bandwidth whores and continue to gloat about how u've got the entire collection of enterprise episodes off suprnova (loser) but for gods sake don't complain when from 7 - 11pm at night the whole service gets bogged down.

Granted i cud be completely wrong, and if i am oh well great hopefully its a problem that can be sorted out.

SantaHoe

Well I've never broken my old 8gig cap, and most months I'd only total about 4gigs or there abouts.
The 16gig cap doesn't excite me much, I'd rather they improved their service quality instead. (ie. uptime & latency, and maybe just maybe hire someone to pick up the phone when you ring them)

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by HelterSkelter

I am wondering if anyone has experience of using broadband packages similar to ours (i.e. 512K DSL) in other countries, the UK for example. Or do you know anyone using it in other countries? What kind of performance do they get? Is it only in Ireland that we have to put up with a broadband service worse than dial up at times?

I am in the US using 512k DSL and I do experience slowdowns like you mention. Don't ask me who I am with (DSL came free with the apartment, yes, I know, sickening), but generally from 6:00pm to 9:00pm local time, I experience noticably slower connections.

I haven't really got around to playing games yet, so I can't comment on pings and the like.

tuxy

Originally posted by dangerman


Granted i cud be completely wrong, and if i am oh well great hopefully its a problem that can be sorted out.

yes you are if you had read the other threads on the problems you would know that
you should not rant on about that which you know nothing about



Stonemason check your pm's

dangerman

yes you are if you had read the other threads on the problems you would know that

cheers for the heads up mate. I didn't know it was a requirement to read every other thread before posting anything. Next time I'll know. Also, thanks for explaining what the problem actually is, or providing a link. You're a star.

I'm guessing ur referring to this other one;
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1520133#post1520133

Which means its a capacity thing? As in IOL can't deal with all the new capacity? Would that mean that contention ratios would kick in and thats why every1 is getting burned?

dub45

Originally posted by dangerman
cheers for the heads up mate. I didn't know it was a requirement to read every other thread before posting anything. Next time I'll know. Also, thanks for explaining what the problem actually is, or providing a link. You're a star.

I'm guessing ur referring to this other one;
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1520133#post1520133

Which means its a capacity thing? As in IOL can't deal with all the new capacity? Would that mean that contention ratios would kick in and thats why every1 is getting burned?

If you read the one above it it looks as if they are admitting they did not order extra capacity in time!!!. Really hard to remember that all those new price reductions come around the 1st April and that theres loads of advertising going on trying to get new customers. Coming soon the 'Esat guide to managing broadband capacity!!!'

dangerman

If you read the one above it it looks as if they are admitting they did not order extra capacity in time

Yeh its the typical sales/tech thing, sales just go hell to leather adding customers all over the place, and there's tech going eh...its gonna break, and of course nothing gets done until the problem causes loads of complaints. Pretty cheap way of doing business, really lowers esats reputation, if that is the story.

Ripwave

Originally posted by tuxx
yes you are if you had read the other threads on the problems you would know that you should not rant on about that which you know nothing about

If knowing what you're talking about was a requirement for posting on this board, I'd be able to read every post in about 5 minutes a day.

Reading all the other threads here, you'd be more likely to come to the conclusion that an ability to talk through you arse is all the qualification anyone needs for posting here.

Ripwave

Originally posted by dub45
If you read the one above it it looks as if they are admitting they did not order extra capacity in time!!!. Really hard to remember that all those new price reductions come around the 1st April and that theres loads of advertising going on trying to get new customers.

Really hard to remember that prior to the price reductions eircom were talking 15 working days to activate new account requests, but suddenly, since the price reductions, they seem to have figured out how to do it in 3 or 4 days (according to posts here). So suddenly IOL and UTV have a surge of new customers online within 5 days of receiving their orders, while it's taking 2-3 weeks to get the infrastructure to "catch up".

dub45

Originally posted by Ripwave
, while it's taking 2-3 weeks to get the infrastructure to "catch up".

So Eircom are either too fast or too slow? If the head guy in Esat admits that they did not get their act togther capacity wise how can you still blame Eircom? Surely you dont wait to make sure their is capactiy in place until people are connected?

Did you know that Eircom are responsilbe for crop circles and global warming too?

Ripwave

Originally posted by dub45
So Eircom are either too fast or too slow? If the head guy in Esat admits that they did not get their act togther capacity wise how can you still blame Eircom? Surely you dont wait to make sure their is capactiy in place until people are connected?

You don't want to pay for capacity that you don't need. So you order extra capacity so that it will be in place when you need it, not weeks before you need it. If it takes 2 weeks for extra capacity to "kick in", and 3 weeks for new customers to be activated, then you only order additional capacity after you have received the new customer orders.

If suddenly new customers are being activated faster than new capacity can be brought on line then you might find yourself in a bit of a bind. I've seen 2 or 3 posts recently saying that people were online in less than a week from the time they ordered broadband. Previous posts about activations were usually about weeks and months of delays.

As it happens, the additional capacity has to be provisioned by eircom, the same company that has to enable the users in the exchanges. And the only company that actually benefits from the recent pain being suffered by you and other users is eircom.

Did you know that Eircom are responsilbe for crop circles and global warming too?

Typical - you're not happy unless you have something to complain about. Eircom have done something that they should have done a year ago - improve turnaround times. On the face of it, it appears that they - purely coincidentally, of course - did this at a time when they knew that there would be a surge of demand. It appears that this change of procedure by eircom caught ESAT on the hop, but didn't catch eircom on the hop (surprise, surprise). Was this just a simple oversight, by either ESAT (if eircom told them about the change in procedure) or eircom (if they neglected to tell ESAT about the change)? Even if you could prove that it was a "deliberate oversight" by eircom, what difference would it make? Do you honestly think Comreg would do anything about it?

yorema

cba reading thru 3 pages so i dunno if some1 mentioned it but i suggest u move to tallaght where we have NTL 600k bb or 1mb line with less-then-half the contention ratio to eircom who dump 48:1 and ntl 21:1 for like 40 euro a month for 600k or 50 euro a month fo 1mb and that includes modem rental too and can cancel at any time
(i actually only get charged 33 euro a month for 600k but i think by mistake)


ppl say tallaght is a kip and i agree but has a gr8 bb service compared to most other areas

nadir

Last year I was living in the Netherlands, we had a wanadoo cable internet connection though a motorolla surfboard cable modem (full-duplex). I service itself wasnt the best, In that There was one month when the connection kept dying, And the connection would rarely ever stay up for more than a week, without resetting. However the ping times werent bad, 50 average i guess. And the speed was pretty good, sometimes it would go well above 200 kB/s