Broadband in N.W. ?...

Paddy20

beetlebrox,

Your mothers telephone 'line rental' is currently automatically paid to Eircom by the DSCFA (Longford), but the line rental payment will be transferred to whichever ISP you sign up with.

One advantage with UTV Talk is the *FREE OFFPEAK 'Local,National & UK' calls, plus cheaper onpeak national & international charges.

Paddy :cool: .

jimmeh

anyone in letterkenny switch to smart yet, id like to see what there service is like before making a switch!

irishpal25

i was supposed to get IBB installed on Friday but the weather was too bad and its now supposed to be installed this friday. does anyone here out the ramelton road (golf course road) have IBB?

byte

Don't have IBB myself, but will be interested to know what the IBB service is like in Letterkenny. I know it's bad in Dublin anyway, looking at the Broadband forum.

Keep us updated on the install and quality of service! I've 2 months left on my Eircom contract, then I'll have to choose between Digiweb, IBB, Smart or that North West FWA operator.

irishpal25

****ing **** rang up there saying tis too wet "heatlh and safty" told em to **** off getting smart instead!

jimmeh

A friend of mine at the bottom of the town had the guys out from IBB (polich nationals i believe) who would go onto the roof to intall the antenna due to a damaged pole on the chimney stack, another friend at the bottom of the golf course road is 83 metres outside the coverage cone of IBB and digiweb.

As for smart they keep loosing orders...

None of the above companies after instilling any confidence in potiential customers here in letterkenny.

towbar

waited 3 months for Digiweb outside Letterkenny earlier this year and eventually gave up and cancelled the order. Anybody else use Digiweb here?

byte

irishpal25 wrote:

****ing **** rang up there saying tis too wet "heatlh and safty" told em to **** off getting smart instead!

To be fair, if the weather was bad, you wouldnt expect them to climb your roof would you?

irishpal25

the first week the weather was too bad, but last week it wasnt, it was hardly even damp. anyway smart are giving me a great deal so im happy.

byte

Fair enough.

I'd like to go wireless, but it always seems that the wired kind is more reliable anyway. I just dread the downtime. I guess I'd be offline a month or so, which would be unbearable for me!

jimmeh

irispal25: could you post some speed tests, ping times and tracerts when you get your smart up and running, if it isnt too much trouble.

irishpal25

no problem. i have to get out of UTV first which is becoming a right handling. at least smart use ASDL2+ because it means that there broadband goes a better distance which is why i can recieve it. i prob wont have it till the new year though because of UTV. i have to give them 30 days notice which is fair enough but now there saying that i have a contract with them till April which i know i dont have as ive been with them for over two years at least and havent signed anything since i joined them.

emmemm

has anyone signed -up with NWE yet?Ilive between Trentagh and Churchill so there is no choice .How long before they get here,anyone know?
Charge is E149 to install and then E25 per month,e-mail is extra E29 per year.

bettlebrox

Just got home to Donegal. Opened the Eircom BB kit hooked everything up and it works fine. Thanks for the advise all.

byte

Glad to see everything is working! \o/

bettlebrox

well it's almost working right. Download speeds from both Eircom and other sites are in the range for a 2MB line, I got the WiFi working (and encrypted and w/o the SSID broadcasted).

But the connection seems to keep dropping and reconnecting. The IM's I use keep telling me I've been disconnected and I can see the Gmail tab on Firefox spinning away reloading. It might be something simple, such as there is phone plugged in w/o a filter, or maybe crappy phonelines (but the exchange is about a 5 min walk), or I need to change which of Eircom's DNS the router is using.

But, after an overnight flight on Wed, too much beer on Thursday, not being able to sleep Friday night, and staying up too late last night, and driving down from Dublin today (yawning all the way) I'll troubleshoot it tomorrow!

Update:Just noticed that the "Connection Type" in the router config was set to "On-demand", I changed it to always on and hopefully that should fix it.
Update2: Access webpages was still fairly slow and changing the connection type. Disabling ipv6 support in Firefox seems to have speeded up web-browsing: http://www.linux.ie/lists/pipermail/ilug/2005-June/080537.html

Medbhia

No broadband in my part of Sligo yet. Might get out on the roads with a shovel, and dig myself my own cable in, while I'm waiting for the computer to reconnect. Heheheh

Tar.Aldarion

It's coming out to breeogue/coolera at the end of januara AFAIK. \o/

byte

Broadband now available in Ballintra too (ADSL)!

kduffy

HI

Can anyone tell me which is the most suitable for broadband;
Eircom is updatin the exchange near me-i live 2m from Dungloe.
With the different phone companies around, do u get the whole set-up from them or is it just eircom? (modem,etc)
Im currently with Vartec/carphone warehouse. but with smartt they give u line rental+BB

I'd like some help on this thank you

byte

Is your exchange the Dungloe exchange?

If so, then you haven't a hope of getting any ADSL broadband, as you'll be too far from exchange.

Smart BB only work in exchanges they've unbundled. AFAIK, Letterkenny exchange is the only one in Co Donegal that Smart is available in.

Coincidentally, I signed over to Smart yesterday. So, I'm back in dialup hell. Anyone here have Smart BB, and if so, how about a short review of your Smart experience.

shayser

byte wrote:

Anyone here have Smart BB, and if so, how about a short review of your Smart experience.

Have Smart about a month now. All in all, it's is a very good service and has worked without any problems since day one. Constant connection and almost always max speed. This after Eircom informed me that my line was unsuitable for BB...

I know 4 other people who also have smart in LK. One has had a similiar good experience to mine. Another, after some initial headaches, is also getting max speeds.. he's outside the ADSL range so Smart's ADSL2+ is obviously working for him at 3mbs. The other two are still having major headaches, one went live about a week ago, the other about a month ago I think. I think if you are fairly close to the exchange you should be fine, going on the anecdotal evidence.

Their customer service and support people are a pleasure to deal with. In my experience, service and support from Eircom has been a disaster.

Been talking to two NWE users also, There were serious problems till NWE joined the MAN. They have 2mb connections and are getting about 1mb now and are happy enough with that.

emmemm

anyone know if NWE have got as far as churchill yet?

foggy

emmemm,

To be honest I don't know, but you'll get the company name in the tirconnaill tribune on thursday so just give them a call and they'll be able to tell you. I haven't heard of anyone in the area having it yet.

emmemm

Someone said they planned to have the whole county covered by the end of March.Sounds optimistic to me.Might give them a ring alright.

jimmeh

they are constucting a mast in the churchill area within the next 12 weeks apparently..

emmemm

better late than never.thanks jimmeh.

kduffy

Hi Byte

My exchange would be Annagry as im located on the coast rd. btwn Dungloe & Gweedore.
I was told it would be up and running @ the end of the month from a reliable source, that needs it pretty badly as well. As have a few others who had sat.bb installed but kept on dropping the line-much to their horror, for the amount that was shelled out for it!!:mad:

Q. unbundled??
Q. SmartBB-do they give u modem/router? self-install/pro-install

Bear with me im not 2 familiar with the terms yet.
IM havin to rely on the internet at other sources @ the moment.
I think it could be sharing the line with the built-in-fax that comes with the HP 3in1 printer ? god only knows!

If anybody anyone else knows of that problem-i would be greatful

Regards
Kevin :cool:

kduffy

Hi Byte

Forgot to ask r u from Ballintra or near enough?

byte

kduffy wrote:

Hi Byte

Forgot to ask r u from Ballintra or near enough?

Yes, I'm from Ballintra! Why d'ya ask?

But, I'm now living in Letterkenny.

As for unbundled, this is basically when an ISP puts their own equipment in an Eircom exchange. So for Smart, you use Smart's equipment, etc, and thus, need a new phone number. Most of the other ADSL ISP's just resell Eircom's packages (BT, UTV, etc).

Letterkenny is the only exchange in this county that Smart have "unbundled", mainly because it's the biggest catchment, and thus, better return for them. They may add other exchanges in the future, though I believe it's quite expensive prodcedure.