Irish Broadband problems

luckat

I'm having a lot of problems with my Irish Broadband connection - is anyone else experiencing the same? Slow email, "failed-to-connects", webpages not loading and so on.

I'm using a Mac with OS X (Panther), and I'm on the Guinness node, with 20:1 contention. When they installed the antenna, the lads said that there might be interference, the signal wasn't that great - but at first it was fabulous, fast and clear.

It's been in the last, umm, fortnight it's gone downhill badly.

It may, of course, be a problem with my computer.

I'd be interested to hear what's happening to others connected through IBB.

Mutant_Fruit

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Thats exactly what happened to me before (except i was origionally told i had a great signal).

In the end they changed my equipment, and since then its been better. I got full download speeds and upload speeds (where previously i could only upload at a max of about 30kb/sec, even though the spec says 60kb/sec). But pings are a bit dodgy recently. Im tempted to send in an e-mail wondering why they've gone downhill over the last week or 3.

My advice, ring them. E-mails are too easily ignored.

EDIT: delete that other double post

HelterSkelter

Had the exact same problems. They spend over a month trying to sort it out for me but in the end failed and released me from the contract with a partial refund.

You should phone them, don't bother with e-mails. You'll never get a reply.

mag

Oh yes, IBB are a load of crap alright.

Im just biding my time until the dust settles on the latest price reductions elsewhere & im jumping ship.

Mutant_Fruit

I wouldn't quite say crap... when it works, it works great!

mag

Well its great for you Mutant but you seem to be one of the few. And as you say, you had your problems with them. I go between 4KB/sec and 40KB/sec every day with the average being about 10KB/sec.

BTW, ive asked this before but never got an answer, how did the people who are on the breeze home+ package get the VL equipment? Ive had endless problems for the last few months and i talked to support about getting the VL gear but they said no-go unless you're on the 1mb service. I pleaded my case but to not much aviial.

If you dont want to go into it here, then id really apprecaite if you could pm me offline as im pretty close to dumping them although i need to find a viable & affordable alternative, of which there doesnt seem to be one with no/decent cap.

l3rian

downloads depend mostly on source

my bb is fine, apart from last week

pings are a bit pokey today, but were fine yesterday. My download speeds are still zipping along.

luckat

Sorry about the double post - that was caused by the same thing: the page hanging for ages, then coming up with "Safari cannot load the page", and I hit the button again.... and again... and again.... and one of them has actually worked without my knowing.

As for problems mostly being caused by the source, 13rian, that would be what I'd think except that it's slow for *everything*.

Mutant_Fruit

PIngs are all over the place! Up to the 1000's again.

For gods sake, they were supposed to have had this fixed with the VL equipment! This is just horrible all over again!!

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
PIngs are all over the place! Up to the 1000's again.

For gods sake, they were supposed to have had this fixed with the VL equipment! This is just horrible all over again!!

And where does a traceroute tell you that the delay is occurring? (VL equipment won't make a blind bit of difference if the delay isn't between you and the transmitter, will it?)

Mutant_Fruit

The VL equipment is the business equipment, and business people are seperate to residential people, i.e. they have physically different recievers, so as to guarentee them a good service (since they pay more for it ). So i would assume what would affect the residential people wouldn't usually affect the business people, unless of course bandwidht is being satuarted.

Also, this was happening at a time when very busines customers would be using their internet. How many businees are open at 10pm on a bank holiday monday?

It looks like the problem is in the midst of the IBB network, but i can't really tell. It's settled down a bit now, but previously the main spikes seemed to be around the third and fifth hop.

Tracing route to www.boards.ie [82.195.131.128]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1495 ms 88 ms 26 ms tallaght-vl-vlan-3.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.38.
65]
2 3 ms 4 ms 16 ms 3rock-et-2-4.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.149]
3 1202 ms 11 ms 23 ms rte-et-2-7.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.182]
4 12 ms 9 ms 6 ms ix-et-1-1.irishbroadband.ie [195.26.12.61]
5 133 ms 6 ms 7 ms ibis-gw-fe-0-1-3-0.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.
185]
6 24 ms 23 ms 152 ms lvl3gw.thn.packetexchange.net [212.187.197.193]

7 24 ms 38 ms 26 ms so-1-2-0.gar1.London1.Level3.net [212.113.0.114]

8 25 ms 23 ms 26 ms ge-10-0.ipcolo1.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.
7]
9 27 ms 35 ms 25 ms suez.hosting365.ie [212.17.63.4]
10 40 ms 25 ms 28 ms sneezy.hosting365.ie [82.195.133.195]
11 36 ms 23 ms 26 ms boards.ie [82.195.131.128]

Trace complete.

EvilDoctorK

I got the following last week.... it's been a bit better lately but sill pings over 1000ms periodically and consistent =/- 10% packet loss

Whatever about the pings being poor I dont care so much but I would have though that any packet loss is bad

eMailing them it's very very hard to get a response when you raise these issues with them.


Ping statistics for 62.231.33.113:

Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 35, Lost = 15 (30% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 220ms, Maximum = 1318ms, Average = 530ms

Gyck

I mailed IBB last week inquiring about one of their products but didn't get a reply, so I mailed again and said I'd not be interested in their custom if they were not bothered with replying to me. Surprise surpurise I got a call about 10 minutes later!

I was told that they're in the process of upgrading stuff in three rock and that i'd have to wait four weeks before they could send anyone out to my house if I wanted to go with their service. Fair enough, I suppose. Would this tie in with any of the problems people are having?

Mutant_Fruit

it could be that they are turning off portions of their equipment as they upgrade, putting a bit more strain on the rest of it.

If possible, would you be able to find out exactly what it is they're upgrading. I doubt you'd be able to... but if the situation arises, try and see what it is.

It's always possible the mystical 3.5ghz is coming out soon.

Phibsboro

Hey,

Another IBB user here - I've had two issues with download speed in the last few months. On both occassions I got a response from support (once via email, once by phone). On the first occassion the problem went away before we got into trying to solve it. On the more recent one, I had their main techie guy John on the phone to me getting me to run some pings etc. He then tweaked the radio a bit, rang me back to say he hadn't been able to solve it and would call me the next day. Whatever happened, it was fixed by the next day and John rang to confirm that it was ok. So overall I was happy with that response - and all on normal phone numbers as well (actually I think there is even a lo-call for those outside 01).

In general, I am not concerned by poor pings unless its killing my download speed. And in general my download speed on IBB has been excellent. And of course its cap free and the 512 upstream keeps my bittorent leechers happy

C

Ripwave

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
Tracing route to www.boards.ie [82.195.131.128]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1495 ms 88 ms 26 ms tallaght-vl-vlan-3.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.38.65]
2 3 ms 4 ms 16 ms 3rock-et-2-4.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.149]
3 1202 ms 11 ms 23 ms rte-et-2-7.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.182]
4 12 ms 9 ms 6 ms ix-et-1-1.irishbroadband.ie [195.26.12.61]
...
Trace complete.

That particular traceroute indicates that there may be a problem between you and the transmitter. The slow response on the 3rd hop might indicate a problem between 3Rock and RTE, but it might also be caused by a problem between you and the transmitter.

Roller Toaster

I told you not to tempt fate Mutant Fruit...as a general rule of thumb never show off if your connection is good or else it will all go horribly wrong.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1528701#post1528701

lol mutant they mustve upgraded or fixed something cos its been quite good for me:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Admin>tracert www.boards.ie

Tracing route to www.boards.ie [82.195.131.128]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 82 ms 46 ms 53 ms 3rock-hu-vl-4.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.33.49]
2 20 ms 22 ms 20 ms 3rock-belmont-vl-link.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.
32.197]
3 19 ms 15 ms 13 ms rte-et-2-7.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.182]
4 29 ms 22 ms 14 ms ix-et-1-1.irishbroadband.ie [195.26.12.61]
5 43 ms 17 ms 21 ms ibis-gw-fe-0-1-3-0.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.32.
185]
6 43 ms 79 ms 46 ms lvl3gw.thn.packetexchange.net [212.187.197.193]

7 47 ms 37 ms 32 ms so-1-2-0.gar1.London1.Level3.net [212.113.0.114]

8 42 ms 42 ms 37 ms ge-10-0.ipcolo1.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.
7]
9 33 ms 46 ms 34 ms panama.hosting365.ie [212.17.63.5]
10 38 ms 38 ms 42 ms sneezy.hosting365.ie [82.195.133.195]
11 36 ms 40 ms 34 ms boards.ie [82.195.131.128]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Admin>

Mutant_Fruit

Nothing wrong with my speeds.. still maxing out up and down if i want... but pings are OUCH.

Its settled down a bit now, but gone are the days of lagfree gaming, with pings of 40.

And thats the last time i boast about my connection.... i swaer i won't boast that i downloaded 10 gigs already this month.

Roller Toaster

Sending in the saboteurs...now.

luckat

I phoned Irish Broadband yesterday; they asked me if I was a home and business user, and I said home - actually, I think I'm business, not sure which I signed up for (512 up, 512 down, 20:1 contention, whatever scheme that is).

The tech support person said that I shouldn't be getting email or web access at all, because they were upgrading the Guinness node. I said my access had been slow for about a fortnight and she said yes, that's about right.

I phoned back to ask how long this would go on - I rely on the Web and email for work, so this was a pretty urgent question - and was told that someone from tech support would phone me back. No one did.

There was no email in the first place to tell me that the system was going to be upgraded, or that there would be any interruption in service.

I hesitate to leave, but my toe is edging its way towards the threshold. When Irish Broadband's service is working, it's excellent, but the customer service end needs work. For the price...

Silent Assasin

Im also on the guinness node and I have had access for the last few day's however the speed is brutal. Irish Broadband service is excellent when it works but when its bad its very very bad.....

Did u ever find out when they are upgrading the Guinness transmitter and when they will be finished ?

luckat

Nope. So far they haven't rung back. Want to phone support and query them, Silent? 1890-564-456.

vishal

i have been trying to get them to install ibb at my house and they said that they would do it about 4 weeks ago.
they sent me the following email to me yesterday:
"We apologise for the delays that you have experienced in connecting to our service. Due to the high level of demand and in an effort to improve the quality of our service, it has been necessary to upgrade several of our transmitters in the Dublin area in recent weeks. This has led to delays of up to 6 weeks in certain areas. While we are making every effort to speed up the process and minimise inconvenience to our customers, in certain areas, upgrades are taking longer than anticipated. Unfortunately, as a result, it is unlikely that we will be able to connect you to the service in your area for another 4-6 weeks. Once again we would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused by these developments and thank you for your patience in bearing with us as we try to resolve these issues".

Mutant_Fruit

I always like to hear that IBB are upgrading equipment (and possibly bandwidth).

Hopefully when this is done, pings will be nice and low for another while, until they upgrade again. Lets see what happens when this is done. This would also explain the lag i was seeing at the different towers in my traces.

uteotw

Yeah something is really fishy with IBB for the past week.

The problem is that they've replaced my VL equipment because the "old" one had some defect... (eventhough all was fine for me). Since then my pings have been crap again... I was able to download and play online... but know when download are runnning I get 300ms pings to the DNSw ith spikes to 1000ms... so I wasn't sure if the crap pings was due to the new equipment and sector I've been assigned to.

Anyway I'll give them a ring tomorrow... as many people have noticed email support is very unreliable with them. If you speak with them on the phone ask who is it your speaking to, if they say they will call back ask when and who.

About the 3.5ghz they guys who changed my equipment told me that it's was still at the testing stage in Dublin and they were not sure of the roll-out date.

EvilDoctorK

Well I didn't do anything.. and IBB support didn't say they did anything (well they dont' really say much as has been noted here)

But anyway connection is fine again .. pings are a little "spiky" from time to time (up to 3/400 ms .. but I don't care much about that .. packet loss is 1% or less and d/l times seem great again

Back to normal .. so I'm happy (so long as it doesn't screw up again)

Mutant_Fruit

PIngs are still horrible for me. I was trying to play Counter-Strike yesterday, and it was unbeliveably laggy. I went through a stage where it was practically non-stop lag for 3 minutes! Generally i lag every 30seconds-ish. Which is extremely annoying!

uteotw

Pings are fine now... even with 3 download threads...

Mutant_Fruit

yup, pings have settled down nicely. Getting a (relatively) stable 40ms to boards. Not as good as it used to be, which was about 20ms and less.