IrishBroadband Ripwave

AARRRGH

Hello,

Is anyone using this? I applied for it but they said I'll have to wait until September (I live beside Trinity college.)

What's up with the delays?

Cheers.

Moonbeam

Not all the high sites support vl yet.
So your nearest one prob will not be up working nd running until then

Cionn

I applied for Ripwave broad band from IBB out on the northside near Sutton and was told I would be up and running at the end of July. I rang back 2 weeks later to see how things were progressing and was told there would be a 2 month delay. So I wouldn't bank on you getting access by September.
I have been trying to get broadband access from them since April (Home Breeze Product) and have been told the site will be live in 2 weeks continually from them since that date. I just won't get a land line into the house.

IBB seem not to know their ar*e from their elbow when it comes to rolling out new site. They should jst come clean and tell people the real story.
All I want is for NTL is to drop one of those leaflets into the door saying broadband is available in your area.

C

machalla

A lot of us are waiting for NTL but theres still no sign of it. I applied for IBB last week (the new ripwave 3.5Ghz product that they are offering) through the website. I'm in range and should be fine apparently coming off the Digital Hub high site.

So I rang them the other day to ask if they had gotten my order and processed it.

They have but according to the person I spoke to they have been sent the wrong software for the ripwave modems. They got the old 2.6Ghz rather than the new 3.5Ghz. Apparently it should be sorted in the next 5-10 days. Sounded a bit like stalling to me but all I can do is wait and see.

Pardon me if I have my frequencies wrong. Top of the head stuff at the moment.

Tazz T

Interesting. Because I'm moving down beside Trinity in two weeks time and they said I could have it.

AARRRGH

Originally posted by Tazz T
Interesting. Because I'm moving down beside Trinity in two weeks time and they said I could have it.

Like all call centres it all depends who you get on the phone.

At the start of the call she told me it would be 2 or 3 weeks.

After I'd given her my CC info she'd up'd it to September!

Nice...

Cionn

Same happened to me when asking when it would be available I was told 2 weeks when following up on my application I was told 2 months.
Seems to be a bit of a trait there.

C

Da Man

IBB are notorious for their "it will be available in 4 weeks" bollocks.

Mutant_Fruit

Over the last 2 days i have noticed that my bittorrent traffic has been very dodgy, same with DC++.

At the moment i can't upload faster than 0.1kb/sec in DC++, and about 10kb/sec in Bittorrent... download speeds are ****e in DC++ but decent enough in Bittorrent.

What the ***** are IBB up to. They advertise an uncapped unlimited product! And now they impose artificial limits using bandwidth managers!

EDIT: Sorry for hijacking thread, but i don't want to start a new one.

EDIT:2 in responcse to moriorities post below... MY upload is still perfect in FTP, i can max out in seconds, and my download is still perfect in ftp/http. Therefore i conclude it is not a technical problem, and neither is it contention.

AARRRGH

Mutant_Fruit: keep us posted if it stays **** like that. Cheers.

Moriarty

In fairness now MF, you have no idea whether they've imposed traffic shaping or its just a technical problem. Jumping to conclusions isn't nearly
as good a mental exercise as digging for the facts.

Mutant_Fruit

edited my above post with more complete info. E-mailing them now. And Chaz did say a few days ago that connection problems i was experiencing for about an hour or two were due to the new Traffic Manager they installed, and they had to shut it down, as it was killing the network... maybe its working now...

lynchie

If you have access to another machine on the interweb, try and setup an FTP server listening on one of the DC or BT ports and try and upload/download from it and see if you get the same results, i.e. find out if they are limiting it just by port number?

Mutant_Fruit

already tryed setting DC++ to use over 10 different random ports, and then some standard ports. Nothing works.

Moriarty

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
EDIT:2 in responcse to moriorities post below... MY upload is still perfect in FTP, i can max out in seconds, and my download is still perfect in ftp/http. Therefore i conclude it is not a technical problem, and neither is it contention.

Just because some stuff works fine doesn't mean it's not a technical problem somewhere with their network. Sure it isn't something to do with your wireless connection to their base station, but you can't know for sure beyond that.

Even if traffic is being shapped for you at the moment, it doesn't mean that it's now policy of ibb to shape everyone and everything, like your post implies.

fraggel

Have you seen the IBB website for ripwave.
The new 3.5ghz product is out in some areas. (and the first 2000 customers had free installation)

I ordered it ages ago but finally received instructions on the self-install of their hardware. After 2 weeks I still haven't got the hardware itself yet, but that figures it's IBB all over.

Has anyone else tested out this new product??

SkepticOne

Its advertised as a 40:1 contention product. Would some sort of traffic shaping not be necessary in the absence of fixed caps?

Mutant_Fruit

i got the 8:1 contention product. I think traffic shaping is against the terms of the origional contract. However, it is allowed under the terms of the Ripwave contract.

I also think traffic shaping goes against their very advertising on the breeze home plus product. From their very website...

unrestricted uploading and downloading

Therefore that is a blatant lie if they are restricting me by packetshaping/limiting me to 2kb/sec and under.

pete

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
i got the 8:1 contention product. I think traffic shaping is against the terms of the origional contract. However, it is allowed under the terms of the Ripwave contract.

I also think traffic shaping goes against their very advertising on the breeze home plus product. From their very website...


Therefore that is a blatant lie if they are restricting me by packetshaping/limiting me to 2kb/sec and under.

I'd imagine your bittorrent performance has more to do with the number of seeders / leechers of the files you're after than it has to do with IBB traffic shaping. I too am on IBB & I'm currently looking at 45k up & ~25k down on bittorrent. It fluctuates quite a lot, though. Such is life.

Unless of course you actually have proof that they're throttling / shaping your bandwidth - what did they say when you rang up and asked?

Mutant_Fruit

Here is more info that i found out.

While i was talking to a few friends on DC++, one of them pointed me out to a mod of it, which has an advanced option to help with ISP limiting.

SO i took said programs web address, downloaded it, turned on the option, and woila! i had full upload speeds again. It didn't work quite as well on download speeds though, but i'm getting a hell of a lot more than before (which was about 2kb/sec).

When i was using the standard client, i couldn't upload or download faster than a 14.4k modem. With the options enabled in the new client, i get full uploads, and about 1/3 to 1/4 of my usual download speed.

While i was using my old client, i could go to any FTP or HTTP server, and instantly max out my connection, either upload or download, or both at once, but DC++ would never increase beyond 14.4k speeds. Also, torrents do seem to be OK, they are just taking a lot longer to kick in now (about 30 mins longer), probably because of the same thing thats killed my DC++ transfers.

EDIT: I e-mailed in, and explained the issue as i see it. I was then told to download the 20/25 mb file from their FTP, which i did (even though i did say HTTP/FTP was fine...) and so they got a perfect graph of maxed out downloads.

The person i was talking to then forwarded the two e-mails i sent in with the attached images back to me, with no explanation attached. So i'm assuming they're thinking "what is this guy on about, his maxing out". So i'll have to ring tomorrow i'd say and explain in more detail.

Señor Juárez

um, speaking of the ripwaves, can a member of IBB staff give me an answer on this? I wish to know if all the existing ripwave modems have been switched over from 2.4 to your own 3.x frequencies. And if not already, do you have any idea when that will happen? I have been getting some awful interference lately.

Johnny Versace

You might be waiting for a while for them to reply - I have sent them 3 e-mails over the last 2 weeks, still no answer...

It's sad - so many people want an alternative to Eircom etc. but these guys seem to want to **** things up for themselves...

Mutant_Fruit

Well, i had a (short) email conversation with an employee friday night. About 4 e-mails each, then email support closed

aligator_am

My brother just recently got the ripwave installed and he's living out in blanchardstown, but here's a thing that he wasn't sure of; he said they install software on your machine to code/decode the wireless transmissions (i think) but he said that they never left a copy of the software with him, so what happens if he needs to rebuild the machine or reinstall windows? does he have to call them back out and pay them X amount of yoyos for them to reinstall the software for him? Also, he's noticed that the fastest he's got out of the service to date was 300KB/s as opposed to the 512KB/s up AND down he was promised (i realise that this may be due to his distance from the transmitter)

Has anyone else come accross these issues?

Turner

Anybody got some download speeds / pings / treacrt's from the ripwave service ?

Repli

aligator_am where abouts in blanchardstown are you? Im in coolmine/clonsilla and want to get it but havent got an email reply from them after 4 emails. Suppose I have to ring them some day instead..

aligator_am

Repli, my brother lives out in blanch, i'm not 100% of the exact location but i know he's fairly close to corduff if that helps? I'll find out the exact name and let you know.

DukeDredd

Why do they advertise a Cork office when it's not availible here yet?

Ripwave

Originally posted by DukeDredd
Why do they advertise a Cork office when it's not availible here yet?

I just got off the phone with Support, and they couldn't actually tell me whether it's available in Dublin for new customers yet either!

Ripwave

Originally posted by aligator_am
My brother just recently got the ripwave installed and he's living out in blanchardstown, but here's a thing that he wasn't sure of; he said they install software on your machine to code/decode the wireless transmissions (i think) but he said that they never left a copy of the software with him, so what happens if he needs to rebuild the machine or reinstall windows?

There is no software needed to use Ripwave, if you get the ethernet version. If you get the USB version, you have to install a USB driver, which is included on the Cd in the box, and that can be downloaded from the Navini website (Navini are the manufacturers of Ripwave).

I've no idea why they sent someone out to install it for him - Ripwave is even more "self-install" than ADSL is! Are you sure he didn't get HomeBreeze?

Ripwave

Originally posted by marclar
um, speaking of the ripwaves, can a member of IBB staff give me an answer on this? I wish to know if all the existing ripwave modems have been switched over from 2.4 to your own 3.x frequencies. And if not already, do you have any idea when that will happen? I have been getting some awful interference lately.

I'm still on the 2.4GHz gear, and can't get any commitment from IBB about when I'll be upgraded to the 3.5GHz gear.

It's dumb - people are starting to ask about Ripwave, and the people who should be their best ambassadors are telling their friends to back off, because the service we've been getting from IBB recently has been less than impressive (to put it mildly).

As a "communications" company, they're definitely in the eircom calls when it comes to communicating with their customers!

aligator_am

Originally posted by Ripwave

There is no software needed to use Ripwave, if you get the ethernet version. If you get the USB version, you have to install a USB driver, which is included on the Cd in the box, and that can be downloaded from the Navini website (Navini are the manufacturers of Ripwave).

You could be right, he may have got HomeBreeze option, to be honest I'm not sure, but I thought it sounded a bit funny that they would supply such an unusual setup. He's a network admin, so if they left him confused you can imagine what the average joe soap must be wondering when talking to them (IBB) they may as well be staring into a hedge!

Scruff

whats the contention ratio on Ripwave? i cant see it documented anywhere on their site...

/edit sorry see it now on the pricing page. 40:1

machalla

I was on the phone to IBB yesterday again. Again they claim they haven't got the software for the ripwave modems and that it might be another 2 weeks or so. Considering I was told the same about a week and a half ago I am somewhat dubious about them at this point. It sounded like they were still testing the 3.5Ghz to me (that was sort of let slip by them).

Can they provide the service or can they not?

Ripwave

Originally posted by machalla
I was on the phone to IBB yesterday again. Again they claim they haven't got the software for the ripwave modems and that it might be another 2 weeks or so.

That doesn't make a lot of sense, unless they are waiting for some sort of firmware upgrade from Navini.

machalla

I called IBB back and got a different story from another sales person. MOre honest at least. There is apparently such a backlog of orders that it will be at least 3 weeks before they get around to my own.

So presuming that it takes 3 more weeks then that will be 5 weeks approximately to send out a wireless modem with no setup required. Makes you pity anyone waitiing on the installation of the Home Breeze product.

bender

Just ordered IBB Ripwave, I live in M Abbey Street. The persone I spoke to said she'll be sending the modem in 2 weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed. Will keep you guys updated on this.

GreeBo

Same here.
Ordered it yesterday, went for the CC option as I thought it would be shipped immediately, without the DD delay.

Got an email from a Residential Sales today saying that "As far as I am aware we will be shipping out modems from next week, so you should get your modem in the next week or two."

Wait and see I guess....
:dunno:

bender

just got a call from a guy saying that they are ready to ship the modems, but the transmitter is not live as yet. It should be operational this friday. Fingers crossed again

Johnny Versace

This is bizarre. I've e-mail them 5 times, either asking them to reply by e-mail or ring me.

I've been ignored every time.

And I've already given them my CC details.

This company seems like a bit of a joke... if only I had a phoneline I'd steer clear of them, but I don't think I have much of a choice...

Ripwave

Johnny Versace wrote:

This company seems like a bit of a joke... if only I had a phoneline I'd steer clear of them, but I don't think I have much of a choice...

I have a phone line, and I have a choice (I can get DSL). I've had Ripwave since late last year, and I've been very patient with IBB.

But I've pretty much given up on them - I've had low throughput for months, and didn't get any satisfaction from support. And the signal has been going on and off for the last couple of weeks - not an interference issue, because I've brought the modem to different locations, with the same result. Today, I was told that this is happening to "some modems", but IBB says that it's not a problem with the modem, so they won't replace it.

Frankly, I've put up with it, because they haven't been charging me for it since I raised the issue. Today, they took €180 out of my bank account, despite me explictly telling them not to on Tuesday, because they haven't been delivering the service.

I've been prepared to support any alternative to eircom, but today, IBB just lost a customer, and eircom will now be €22 per month better off, or whatever the wholesale cost of broadband is (I won't be getting DSL from eircom, but eircom will still make more money from my DSL connection than Digiweb or ESAT/IOL or UTV will )

Has anyone used the Small Claims court? What's the procedure?

spongebob

Ripwave wrote:

Has anyone used the Small Claims court? What's the procedure?

The procedure is simple.

1. government website for info and form IIRC
2. fill out form , take it to your local district court pay them €10 or so .
3. Court (with its small claims hat on ) writes to IBB
4. If IBB do not fight it, it is unlikely they will, you get your decision in 14-21 days or so
5. If they do fight you arrive into the clerks office, sit there with them and the clerk and chat about the issue, it is very user friendly and non confrontational with the clerk as chairperson of a natter rather than judge ...which is what they are .

You will win if you simply tell the facts on the form and tell the same facts in the SCC if it goes that far. I have got refunds on Ryanair flights in the SCC with no contest from Ryanair, mind you its a west of Ireland SCC and I was very careful to file the claim in Irish

Shame they lost interest in the 2.4Ghz people so soon. You get the impression that the Ripwave deployment was a trophy exercise for them. Hope the 3.5Ghz Ripwave punters fare better.

M

Gorgon

I got my new 3.4ghz modem (not 3.5) on wednesday to replace my 2.4ghz and started using it last night because they had the wrong serial number of my modem so it wouldnt connect, they had an 8 instead of a B in their records, but something really strange has started to happen. The ip has started to get released very frequently (about 2 hours) and not renew itself properly and i get a autoconfigered ip from windows. I then have to repair it manually, but if the firewall is on (norton) it wont get one, so i have to turn norton off then repair the ip and then turn norton on again. I've never seen this behaviour before and im a net admin for over 5 years, ive been with ibb ripwave since august 2003. Has any one else experienced any of this.

"Chief---"
ping boards.ie -t

Pinging boards.ie [82.195.131.128] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=245ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=88ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=88ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=78ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=103ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=102ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=102ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=243ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=82ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=204ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=83ms TTL=58
Reply from 82.195.131.128: bytes=32 time=223ms TTL=58

Ping statistics for 82.195.131.128:
Packets: Sent = 13, Received = 13, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 78ms, Maximum = 245ms, Average = 133ms

dl's about 55kb/s

Ripwave

Gorgon wrote:

The ip has started to get released very frequently (about 2 hours) and not renew itself properly and i get a autoconfigered ip from windows.

That's pretty much what I was seeing, but it's got to the stage where, according to the intruder log on my firewall, I get connected for about half an hour, and can then be disconnected for hours at a time. At first, renewing seemed to work, but now it's not - the signal light is flashing red, suggesting that there is no connection at all, though that's exactly what happened when their authentciation server went down, so it's not necessarily a signal problem, so much as the modem not being able to find a server that it recognizes.

I also notice that the subnet is now a /25 (subnet mask 255.255.255.128). I'm pretty sure that it used to be a /24, so I wonder if someone has screwed up the size of the network pool).

spongebob

It may be prudent to open RADIUS ports on your firewall in case IBB neglected to tell you to so do . Google for them , IIRC 1812 and 1813 are they.

M

Ripwave

Muck wrote:

It may be prudent to open RADIUS ports on your firewall in case IBB neglected to tell you to so do . Google for them , IIRC 1812 and 1813 are they.

As there's no radius client on the workstation, it's unlikely to make any difference. (The ripwave unit has a unique serial number which is used to authenticate to the network).

Chaz

DukeDredd wrote:

Why do they advertise a Cork office when it's not availible here yet?

Who said there is no Cork office - or are you reffering to Ripwave only?

Moojuice

hello,

I just got a ripwave modem. I live near the RTE mast (near the burlington hotel). So far I have not managed to get the modem to connect. It is one of IBB's USB ripwave modems. When I turn it on the red light flashes for a few minutes and then goes red, however when I plug it in to the usb port, all the lights go off then on quickly and the red light continues to flash. On the ripwave monitor it registers a connection for a few seconds every now and again. Any ideas if there is anything I can do to sort it out or is the problem on their end? From what I know the mast is live and active. It seems that plugging it in to the usb port "resets" the modem and it fails to find a signal.

Moo

Ripwave

Moojuice wrote:

I just got a ripwave modem. I live near the RTE mast (near the burlington hotel). So far I have not managed to get the modem to connect. It is one of IBB's USB ripwave modems. When I turn it on the red light flashes for a few minutes and then goes red,

That's normal - it flashes for about 30 seconds while initializing itself, and then, if it makes a connection, should be a steady (green, orange or red, depending on signal strength).

however when I plug it in to the usb port, all the lights go off then on quickly and the red light continues to flash. On the ripwave monitor it registers a connection for a few seconds every now and again. Any ideas if there is anything I can do to sort it out or is the problem on their end? From what I know the mast is live and active. It seems that plugging it in to the usb port "resets" the modem and it fails to find a signal.

That doesn't sound right - it almost sounds as though there's some sort of short in the system if you get different behaviour with the USB cable plugged in. A Flashing red light is supposed to mean that either there is no signal, or that the modem can't authenticate to the server.

Does it make any difference whether the USB cable is plugged in to the PC or not?

ballooba

Moojuice wrote:

hello,

I just got a ripwave modem. I live near the RTE mast (near the burlington hotel). So far I have not managed to get the modem to connect. It is one of IBB's USB ripwave modems. When I turn it on the red light flashes for a few minutes and then goes red, however when I plug it in to the usb port, all the lights go off then on quickly and the red light continues to flash. On the ripwave monitor it registers a connection for a few seconds every now and again. Any ideas if there is anything I can do to sort it out or is the problem on their end? From what I know the mast is live and active. It seems that plugging it in to the usb port "resets" the modem and it fails to find a signal.

Moo

Very interessted to hear how you are getting on.

I live around the corner on Appian Way. I'm still waiting for my Ripwave modem.

There is a site on Leeson St too (top of sugar club). Thought that would be nearer?

Rkiver

Seems like I was not the only one who had problems. I started another topic about my specific one if you want to read it.

Suffice to say I was supposed to have it installed in April. It was constantly pushed back, and I only found this out by ringing them, they never rang me back apart from to confirm I had applied for it. I eventually popped into ComReg about it yesterday. Suddenly today I get a call, they apologise, and offer to upgrade me for free, no extra charge etc. Amazing what a little bit of pressure can achieve.