if i switch from the expensive eircom broadband to their cheaper one will my service

antartica

if i switch from the expensive eircom broadband to their cheaper one [10 euros less a month] will my service slow down when playing online games [increased lag etc] much appreciated if anyone could help me on this 1

briano

The 30 euros a month package has 48:1 contention, while the 54 euro package has 24:1 contention. This means that you share your bandwidth with either 24 people or 48, if everyone is online and using the bandwidth at the same time.

What that actually translates into depends on the number of people using the exchange at the one time. So, yes it could slow down, but maybe not.

Sorry for the crappy answer. Perhaps you could ask for a trial. I doubt eircom would complain if you asked to re-upgrade back to the 54 a month package

Can only guess at the answer to this myself and say it would depend on how successfull the 3 months free trial offers are as I presume its the 48:1 contention on which the free trial operates and therefore the more that take it up the more problems there will be at 48:1 as opposed to the dearer 24:1 contention.

I'm open to correction there though so I'll move this thread to the main broadband forum, as the cable/mmds/broadband forum mainly deals with just cable broadband queries and you might get a better answer where the teleco providers services are being discussed.
Thread moved.

dub45

Originally posted by antartica
if i switch from the expensive eircom broadband to their cheaper one [10 euros less a month] will my service slow down when playing online games [increased lag etc] much appreciated if anyone could help me on this 1

Anytime I have seen this question (contention) raised before on boards the consensus has been that the lower contention product is not worth paying the difference for. I have not yet seen a post complaining about speed problems resulting from contention (thats not to say there havent been any!) The usual concern from gamers is about pings (usally complaining about UTV) but that does not appear to be affected by the contention issue as people on the lower contention product have complained about bad pings.

Most ISP's appear to have a one off charge for changing you down to the cheaper product but not for going to the higher cost one.

Pimp Ninja

I'm using the eircom home starter myself

I find it grand for online games.
Pinging about 40ish playing DOD

Cryos

should be near to no difference ping might go up slightly thats about it tho

Smellyirishman

Well think of it like this.

Imagine your internet line as a water pipe with the more expensive deal you get a big pipe and share with 24 people

with the smaller deal you share with 48.

Now in both deals the water needs to travel the EXACT same distance, and this is what determines your ping, so no your ping should stay the same, download times etc.. may vary

Stark

I imagine it wouldn't make a difference as the people on the 24:1 product (8gb cap in eircoms case) would be the bulk downloaders whereas the people on the 48:1 are probably mostly people who only use the net for checking e-mail and stuff.

I'm on the UTV cheap package and I always get close to 512kb/s when downloading off a fast site.

Moriarty

Smellyirishman wrote:

Now in both deals the water needs to travel the EXACT same distance, and this is what determines your ping, so no your ping should stay the same, download times etc.. may vary

Not really true. Latency (your ping) will vary depending on the amount of bandwidth both you and others on your exchange and isp use second by second. It will generally stay pretty steady, but it will fluctuate from time to time because of the above.