Clicksilver Users Gather Here Please

mike65

Anyone who has Clicksilver will be aware by now of certain issues - in particular pings and periods of statis when nothing happens for 5 or 10 seconds which may not sound like a big thing but should happen! Last night was particuarly bad with the 1 mb speedtest indicating a through put of 122kbs! :eek:

Charles on the newsgroup has said a major upgrade is on the way but that was weeks ago and nothing mentioned since. I'm not aware anything has been posted here on the matter.

I remember when one of Scott Taunton, Malcolm Thompson, Martin UTVi and others were looking in here every few days now many here wont know thier names. One can only suspect now they have us in thier 12-month grasp they're no longer too bothered what we think.

So if you are pissed-off with the state of play please add your thoughts and
then subscribe to the utv.support newsgroup and get posting your pings and other connection woes!

Mike.

Moriarty

mike65 wrote:

I remember when one of Scott Taunton, Malcolm Thompson, Martin UTVi and others were looking in here every few days now many here wont know thier names. One can only suspect now they have us in thier 12-month grasp they're no longer too bothered what we think.

Afaik they were chased away from boards by a small but vocal group of moaners. They saw they were getting nothing but grief here so decided to stop posting. It'd be nice to have them (and other telco reps, but I think there's two chances of that) back here, but I can't see it happening unfortunatly.

LoBo

Yep, shame they left but I can certainly see why. I'm sure they have better things to do with their time than get flamed by a minority of users.

That being said, the current quality of my UTVi clicksilver is at an all time low and has been for the last two weeks. All traceroutes to anywhere (including utv ips) start at 200+ for the first hop. Naturally this makes gaming more sluggish than I was used to with dialup. I rang their tech support tonight and they confirmed that they had heard unofficially about an upgrade that UTV were 'considering', but that there was no official confirmation of it happening, let alone a date for when it would happen. Their advice was to ring between 9 and 5 tomorrow to talk to Charles (head of tech support and presumably Charles UTVi who occasionally posts here) who would know more, and that if I wanted to register a complaint they were the person to talk to.

I'll let you know how I get on. Fingers crossed that UTVi sort this out- I still believe they are the best Irish ISP for price, competition, and actually giving the slightest about their customers. Shame about the woeful quality of the connection

rymus

upgrade? connection problems? ya wha? Am I the only person that hasn't noticed any problem? Granted I haven't been spending much time on the internet lately and I'm not exactly a hardcore gamer but anytime I've gone to download anything it always comes down at around 50k. Still though, an upgrade to say.... 2mbit would be nice.

Come back Charles & Martin, don't mind all the moaning bitches.

parsi

I was a UTV dialup customer for 12months without probs , now I am on the 3month bb trial and up to a few days ago had no issues - however for the last few days it has been slow and the speedtest on adslinfo gives a downstream speed of 155k which proves to me that my gut feeling that my downloads were slow was true..the prob now is whether to signup or go somewhere else and UTVs silence in their own news groups is a bit unsettling (mainl because they used be so visible..)

PiE

Personally, I'm mega pissed off. It's been said again and again, but just a little bit of communication or status updates on what's going on would reassure 90% of UTV's customers. Unfortunately, the bitter world of Irish ISP's seems to have taken it's toll on UTV and the sort of openess that we enjoyed not so long ago seems to have been destroyed. *Sniff*

I actually get the feeling that the suits at UTV told the more vocal employees to tone down the their free-flowing chat with the customers, it's the only explanation I can think of for such a huge turnaround in customer interaction and support.

How and ever, the current quality of service wouldn't be acceptable in outer Mongolia, let alone the mega-advanced E-HUB OF EUROPE!1 Really makes me sick to see Eircom/IOL customers (on what basically amounts to the exact same package as me), having little or no problems whatsoever.

All I can say to UTV is to get a new bandwidth provider ASAP or pull out of the BB market altogether, because at this rate they're never gonna be able to repair their reputation.

Also, can we ban any non-UTV customers who jump in criticising us paying customers for complaining? Thanks.

jonski

While I feel its good to get the thread going I strongly reccomend making the phone calls , typing the e-mails , and then maybe posting back the replys

RuggieBear

parsi wrote:

I was a UTV dialup customer for 12months without probs , now I am on the 3month bb trial and up to a few days ago had no issues - however for the last few days it has been slow and the speedtest on adslinfo gives a downstream speed of 155k which proves to me that my gut feeling that my downloads were slow was true..the prob now is whether to signup or go somewhere else and UTVs silence in their own news groups is a bit unsettling (mainl because they used be so visible..)

Perhaps it is all the warez monkeys downloading a certain game....

p

jonski

Nah , it's going on much longer than that .

RuggieBear

jonski wrote:

Nah , it's going on much longer than that .

Well that i'm afraid is the limit of BB knowledge....

PcP

mike65 wrote:

So if you are pissed-off with the state of play please add your thoughts and
then subscribe to the utv.support newsgroup and get posting your pings and other connection woes!

Mike.

My thoughts are that I'm very pleased not to have re-signed with UTV when the wholesale price drops went through. The sooner I can move on, the better.

As for the moaners/whingers thing, when people have complained by phone, mail and newsgroup to no avail, are they wrong to complain on boards? UTV didn't get flamed away they just couldn't defend the poor service they were/are providing.

_Kaiser_

Agree with PCP on this one, and to be honest I'm suprised at the reaction by some of the people in this thread.

Surely part of the reason the UTV staff were posting here was to get honest feedback from their customers? To label people as moaners for highlighting legitimate issues is unfair I think. You may not agree with them, but that doesn't mean they don't have a point.

UTV have ongoing and serious issues with the service they provide - which seems to come down to that they have no control over most of it.

For example: I was billed for 8 months worth of calls this month because of some problem between UTV, Esat and Eircom. Now while the girl I spoke to on UTV's support number was very nice, all she could tell me was that the problem occured because Esat (who apparently provide the infrastructure) "lost" these calls.

Now as a UTV customer I don't CARE about their problems with Esat. All I care about is that I've received a massive bill from my provider, but to be told by them that "it's not our fault" and "you'll still have to pay it" - in fact when I discovered it, the credit card order had already gone through - isn't very helpful or inspiring.

As I said, UTV's primary problem is the lack of control they have over their service... until this changes I think they're going to continue to have problems and customers are going to continue to be frustrated by "pass-the-buck" answers (even though they may be true) or total silence to complaints raised.

tomk

I've been a happy Clicksilver customer for 12 months, and I signed up for another twelve months when the prices dropped. I don't game, so the service suits me down to the ground.

Yesterday evening, my download speed dropped to 15KB/s from the usual 50+, so I've sent a mail to UTV Support asking for an explanation. I'll post the reply here.

Paddy20

In defence of U.TV Internet. I have to state that my experience with them to date has been heaven. When compared to my nightmare when I was using EirCoN.

I have just upgraded from UTVip XL to Clicksilver Broadband, and it is currently operating at a speed of 512.0 Kbps. So I have nothing but praise for U.TV Internet, it's package deals, and it's groundbreaking pro-active relationship with IrelandOFFline's members on this forum in the past.

So no complaints from me. In fact I truly believe that but for the sterling voluntary work of IOFFL's commitee and U.TV Internets introduction of 'Flat-rate' internet access packages here in the Republic.

Most of us would still be trapped with crappy Rip-Off dial up internet per minute EirCon costs.

Good luck

tomk

tomk wrote:

Yesterday evening, my download speed dropped to 15KB/s from the usual 50+

No reply yet, but something's changed - currently doing a Debian upgrade at 53KB/s i.e. back to normal.

Anyone else seeing this?

CitySickness

I'm having the same ping problems as everybody else, always over 200ms to Irish servers from about 8-midnight (and more recently, even until 3am). This is when I game, this is when I expect reasonable pings (ie better than dialup would be nice) from my ISP.

Has anyone had any joy getting out of the contract without having to pay the severance fee, on the basis of the poor performance of the product?

I called UTV support last Monday, was told to "call back and talk to Charles when he comes in on Thursday." Is running an ISP a sort of hobby thing for UTV, something to do in their spare time? Do they even log the calls? Surely you'd think their (always friendly, rarely reassuring) support staff would have some sort of standard policy line on this issue by now...

dub45

tomk wrote:

No reply yet, but something's changed - currently doing a Debian upgrade at 53KB/s i.e. back to normal.

Anyone else seeing this?

I have been getting very solid speeds since the last debacle over bandwidth but in the last few days they have dropped like those reported here. They seem to be recovering late on at night and certainly at about 2.00 am they were fine (as they were at 9.00 am this morning)this is what was happening the last time there was bandwith problems very poor speeds during the popular times and then back to normal for night owls. (Bear in mind this is only a couple of months ago!)

And it does not appear to matter what contention rate you are on (I am on the low one)

The lack of response from UTV just makes the situation worse.

It is interesting to note too that none of the other isps seem to be having speed problems over the past few days which would suggest it is strictly a UTV issue.

Unless something changes during the day(and if the problem is indeed bandwidth related) it is likely based on past experience that your speed will take a dive again tonight after 8pm or so.

dub45

Paddy20 wrote:

In defence of U.TV Internet. I have to state that my experience with them to date has been heaven. When compared to my nightmare when I was using EirCoN.

I have just upgraded from UTVip XL to Clicksilver Broadband, and it is currently operating at a speed of 512.0 Kbps. So I have nothing but praise for U.TV Internet, it's package deals, and it's groundbreaking pro-active relationship with IrelandOFFline's members on this forum in the past.

Sadly most of us felt this way ........once!
and that is why we wanted to stay with UTV for bb but alas...........here we go again with speeds diving poor pings for months and months and dire communication with customers - the one thing that at one stage really set UTV apart from other isps.

By the way if I read your posts correctly you are only on bb for a matter of hours? Its very early days at that rate to be lavishing such praise!

tomk

dub - I'm a bit confused....

dub45 wrote:

this is what was happening the last time there was bandwith problems very poor speeds during the popular times and then back to normal for night owls.

So, daytime = slow, nighttime = fast.

it is likely based on past experience that your speed will take a dive again tonight after 8pm or so.

So, nighttime = slow.......?

Anyway, I've just received the following:

Email from UTV Support
Thanks for the email.

We have escalated a number of reports regarding slow speeds to our management team for investigation. I would expect a response to be posted on the utv news group.

I've also checked my download again, and I got 303MB in 1 hour 52 minutes - for those who don't have their calculators handy, that's 45.1KB/s average.

I've never had a need to access the newsgroup, so if something does turn up there (I've asked them to mail me as well), could someone post it?

I'll do some more downloads after 8, dub, and let you all know how it goes.

dub45

tomk wrote:

dub - I'm a bit confused....



So, daytime = slow, nighttime = fast.



So, nighttime = slow.......?

Anyway, I've just received the following:



I've also checked my download again, and I got 303MB in 1 hour 52 minutes - for those who don't have their calculators handy, that's 45.1KB/s average.

I've never had a need to access the newsgroup, so if something does turn up there (I've asked them to mail me as well), could someone post it?

I'll do some more downloads after 8, dub, and let you all know how it goes.

Sorry to be confusing - last time it was pretty good speeds up to peak time 8pmish then they would dive until about midnight or so when they would return to normal. In fact it was a running joke in the newsgroup that it was a group of monks somewhere that was causing the problem as it so sooooo regular.

And so far the symptoms seem to be similar unfortunately. Given the number of reports and comments on it already in the support newsgroup UTV are well aware of the problem as it has been there now for a couple of days.

It is easy to forget know but immediately prior to the last bandwidth problem which was Esat's fault as they forgot to order the proper bw UTV were having very similar problems to this and they were sort ofmerged with the Esat one.

For those who still dont know where the UTV support group is its news.utvinternet.com and then utv.support

seamus

Sorry guys. Widespread technical problems are more suited to broadband. Moriarty can throw it back if the majority disagree.

parsi

I got this from them:

Hi ***

Thanks for the email.

We have escalated a number of reports regarding slow speeds to our management team for investigation. I would expect a response to be posted on the utv news group.

Regards

Ed
(UTV Technical Support)


Sales & Admin.
UK 0845 2470000
RoI 1890 926000

Support
UK 0845 2470001
RoI 1890 926111

"This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system, do not use or disclose the information in any way and notify me immediately. The contents of this message may contain personal views which are not the views of UTV unless specifically stated".

andrew163

imho...

I agree, that their service for the last few months has been unacceptable and not worthy of the title "broadband". This MUST be fixed. Between pings and download speeds, this better be fixed before everyones contract expires in a few months....

But their customer service is still far greater then anything IOL or eircom will ever cough up at you. I don't know about netsource, hosting365 or digiweb so I wont comment on them, but UTV are great in this field. The reason I think alot of you are moaning about it is because it used to be even better than it is now. But that doesn't mean its not the best service any telco in this country offers.

just what i think....

dub45

andrew163 wrote:

imho...

I agree, that their service for the last few months has been unacceptable and not worthy of the title "broadband". This MUST be fixed. Between pings and download speeds, this better be fixed before everyones contract expires in a few months....

But their customer service is still far greater then anything IOL or eircom will ever cough up at you. I don't know about netsource, hosting365 or digiweb so I wont comment on them, but UTV are great in this field. The reason I think alot of you are moaning about it is because it used to be even better than it is now. But that doesn't mean its not the best service any telco in this country offers.

just what i think....

Your post seems to be me to be quite contradictory - surely the basic job of any isp is to provide a reliable and fast connection?

No matter how good the customer service is its largely irrelevant if the basic product is not right. And asking people to phone back later in the week (as has been reported here) when Charles returns is not very good customer service to put it mildly!!!

Ripwave

dub45 wrote:

And asking people to phone back later in the week (as has been reported here) when Charles returns is not very good customer service to put it mildly!!!

The guy asked about a rumoured upgrade, and was told that they had heard about it unofficially, and that if he wanted to find out more specifics, he'd have to talk to Charles.

Yeah, you're right, that was pretty unprofessional. They should have been told that there is no information available about any planned upgrade.

Gonzo

utv customers have a perfect right to bitch and moan, they are paying between €30 and €45 per month of their hard earned cash for a service advertised as broadband which is in some cases worse than dial up and its been like this since day one for some people. Imagine the backlash if such a service was happening in the Uk or sweden, even tho the problem could be outside of utv hands, its still up to them to change their dodgy backbone infrastructure provider and make the service just like any other broadband isp.

PowerHouseDan

Apologies for the delay in posting about the ongoing RoI bandwidth issues.

The bandwidth upgrade that I posted about at the start of last month took
place but due to ongoing demand did not resolve all the issues that have
been reported here and directly into support.

Today I have been given confirmation of further work that is scheduled to
start mid month and we expect that by the end of the month that we should
have a total resolution of the reported increased pings and slow downloads.

I appreciate that this issue has been causing major problems for users of
our ADSL service and I will try to keep everyone updated as the month
progresses.

Charles

Mid month Fu8k that!!!

kin9pin

Mid month??????
So what he's basically saying is "Hang in there guys, you only need to waste €30 or €45 this month and we MIGHT have it fixed by September. Oh, I haven't mentioned refunds/credit so don't bother".

btw, I was checking UTV's T&C's and came across this:

15.6 Neither party shall be liable to the other, either in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise for direct or indirect loss of profits, business or anticipated savings, nor for any indirect or consequential loss or damage or for any destruction of or impairment of access to any data arising in relation to this Agreement including, without limitation, UTV Internet's ability to provide the Service.

So what I read into this, in my own warped mind, is that if we stop paying UTV due to their inability to provide the Service, we shall not be liable to them for their loss of profits (our subs). That to me sounds like a way out, but then I've been shot down before so feel free to ridicule me.

jonski

Here is Charles' post from the 9th of July

I've just got conformation that a substantial bandwidth upgrade has been
planned and it due for completion imminently. This upgrade is expected to
address the increasingly poor ping times reported here and through the
support team, it is also expected to address the reported '8 minutes pause'
issue.

I will post updates as I get them.

Charles

Obviously not substantial enough

LoBo

glad to hear *something* from them, but clearly this level of connection quality continuing for another month (or more) is unacceptable.

I was advised today on the phone by Tech Support to email my complaint to support@u.tv w/ attn Charles. Will do so tonight when I can grab some example ping/tracert info.

The more customer complaints that land on their desk, the more likely they will do something about it quicker (rather than, say, go shopping for that new boardroom table).

jonski

seamus wrote:

Sorry guys. Widespread technical problems are more suited to broadband.

I would have thought this fell more under a 'service' issue ?

PowerHouseDan

Rang there and i said i not paying for this month because i wont be getting the service this month nor prob any month,was on hold for about 3 min got back she asked for my account details and said charles will ring you when the problem have been fixed,he will will each individual person and talk about redeeming me/others

seamus

jonski wrote:

I would have thought this fell more under a 'service' issue ?

w/technical/service/g
It's still an issue with one particular provider. Not strictly an IOFFL issue, basically because everyone on Clicksilver still has access to broadband, even by other providers.

kin9pin

Just received a phone call from Charles, apologising for the delay and the problems. That was it really, he confirmed that they plan to have everything fixed by the end of the month.
Don't know about you, but I'm going to have to think long and hard about getting out of this contract, a month is a long time.
Still, it's the first time I've ever RECEIVED a call from UTV support so maybe that's a good sign

Paddy20

Considering the stranglehold that EirCon still have on the lines, exchanges and last mile linkline/telephone line in to your home,and the fact that they clearly hate anyone entering - Their patch.

It is something of a miracle the progress that has been achieved by anyone in competition with the monopolistic questionable anti-competitive business tactics of EirCoN.

When was the last time anyone saw a direct reply on Boards.ie or the IrelandOFFline forum from 'anyone' in Eircom ?... :eek:

Remember Eircom was a public utility robbed from the citizens of the Irish Republic, and is now even a registered business in London, as it still continues to fleece telephone and internet user's here in the ROI.

Anyone prepared to be robbed again by them is IMO totally crazy.

andrew163

dub45 wrote:

Your post seems to be me to be quite contradictory - surely the basic job of any isp is to provide a reliable and fast connection?

No matter how good the customer service is its largely irrelevant if the basic product is not right. And asking people to phone back later in the week (as has been reported here) when Charles returns is not very good customer service to put it mildly!!!

what i was saying was, yes, their product is absolute crap, and needs to be fixed. But the people on this board bitching about the customer service side..i.e. not replying to every single post they make on the newsgroups about the same issue over and over again... aren't helping matters. They communicate with customers about problems alot more then any other ISPs would..

the last time I remember UTV going down was when the esat end of it failed and IOL was down aswell. I didn't hear ANYTHING about IOL explaining the problem to customers or even mentioning it. Yet the UTV newsgroup had updates from customer service regularly until the service went back up again.

Just cos they don't waste their time making blank posts when they have no new information to give doesn't mean the world is ending..

that said, and ill mention this again for the third time to avoid misunderstandings, their product IS sub-standard and imo not of merchantable quality, it desperatly needs to be fixed.

In response to the post charles just made on the newsgroups....
Hurry up UTV and fix the problem. Before people start getting lawyers after you...

Does anyone know, was that "bandwidth upgrade" they just installed the same thing that carl stinson was talking about when he mentioned them changing carriers? 'Cos the two things are completely different-sounding things...

CitySickness

Ripwave wrote:

The guy asked about a rumoured upgrade, and was told that they had heard about it unofficially, and that if he wanted to find out more specifics, he'd have to talk to Charles.

Yeah, you're right, that was pretty unprofessional. They should have been told that there is no information available about any planned upgrade.

Actually, just to clarify: I didn't mention anything about any upgrade, I just called to inform them that I was having consistently high pings, that this was completely unsatisfactory for a broadband product, and asked if there was anything being done to remedy the issue.

Their response, basically, was: ring Charles in 3 days' time.

Gonzo

Paddy20 wrote:

Remember Eircom was a public utility robbed from the citizens of the Irish Republic, and is now even a registered business in London, as it still continues to fleece telephone and internet user's here in the ROI.

Anyone prepared to be robbed again by them is IMO totally crazy.

im no eircom lover but despite all their other faults i choose them because they have a broadband service that works really well 100% of the time just like any other european broadband company, throwing money at a service which rarely works and never really been fixed is a far greater robbery imo.

PcP

Paddy20 wrote:

Anyone prepared to be robbed again by them is IMO totally crazy.

I'm considering moving back to them again. After years of trying to get broadband, I finally got connected with UTV last September and it's been more hassle than it's worth. Every time it runs smooth for a bit, and you just start getting used to it, getting involved in clan matches etc. and it goes to absolute rubbish again (pings unplayable for last 5/6 weeks this time around). This is how it's been since last year but complaining about it does nothing, you just get branded a whinger/moaner or told to quit blaming UTV because it's Eircoms fault.

I'm sick of it all at this stage and just want to pay my money and have a service that works. If that means going back to Eircon then so be it

Moriarty

Just to be clear, I haven't called anyone that is complaining about specific aspects of UTVs (or other isps) service a moaner. From the evidence I've seen here it's perfectly fair to want to complain about the clear inadequacys of the service.

On the other hand I do object to people, who shall remain namesless, thinking that this forum is soley here to enable them to continue to grind their axe against whichever isp they feel they've been wronged by. By some of the posts here you'd swear boards.ie or the moderators of this forum were the ones providing the crap services.

jonski

Paddy20 wrote:

Anyone prepared to be robbed again by them is IMO totally crazy.

hi , ah , erm , my name is John , and I'm totally crazy .


I a big child and I want to play games online in the evening , specifically first person shooters where milli seconds count . There is , to me anyway , no real difference between a ping of 60ms and 99 ms on f6 ( don't have the L337 Skilz {think thats how u say it } ) but there is a massive difference between eircoms reputed 45ms and utv's current 200 ms . So off back to the big bad wolf with me .

dub45

Paddy20 wrote:

Remember Eircom was a public utility robbed from the citizens of the Irish Republic,

Just to put the record straight. Eircom was not a public utility robbed from the citizens of the Irish republic.

Eircom was a semi state company which the Government of the day decided to make a public company and in the process generated a considerable amount of money on behalf of the taxpayer which is held to pay future pensions. So Eircom was sold for a considerable amount of money. Whether that decision was a good or bad one is a different matter.

Moriarty

What about IOL, digiweb, or any of the other providers, jonski? IOL seems to on average ping as well as eircom, with the added benefit of it being a good few euros a month less and double the cap.

dub45

Apologies for the delay in posting about the ongoing RoI bandwidth issues.

The bandwidth upgrade that I posted about at the start of last month took
place but due to ongoing demand did not resolve all the issues that have
been reported here and directly into support.

Today I have been given confirmation of further work that is scheduled to
start mid month and we expect that by the end of the month that we should
have a total resolution of the reported increased pings and slow downloads.

I appreciate that this issue has been causing major problems for users of
our ADSL service and I will try to keep everyone updated as the month
progresses.

Charles


So this basically means that UTV are incapable of managing their bandwidth requirements and we are now to hang on for another month to get the proper service.

It is only a few months now since Martin was promising in the newsgroup that when the Esat debacle was sorted out all problems would be sorted.

With the best will in the world how can anyone take these sort of assurances seriously? To say on the 4th of a month that by the end of the month everything should be sorted out is really really stretching it.

flamegrill

First of all, I'd like to say that I feel the people who have issue with UTV have a right to air their feelings. However I laugh, out loud infact, at the people who threaten lawyers etc.

UTV have no legal obligation to provide 512kbit/s to anyone of you at anyone time, it is understood by you the end user that the contention is up to 48 to 1 and a minimum of 24 to 1.

So I feel as long as the service works, in anyway shape or fashion where you can browse web sites and download files they are fullfilling their part of the agreement.

But anyways, UTV have been praised for their upfrontness in the past, and I still feel they have made a huge dent in the market.

I would also like to point out that Eircom are at fault for UTV service degrading. Now this is indirectly of course, but in the north BT enforce the contention, while in the south Eircom do not. This obviously causes problems, where a small amount of users can degrade the service down here, where as in the north the contention kicks in and the service can run on lesser resources. In time contention will kick in down south, so it will all we well then.

Paul

dub45

andrew163 wrote:

what i was saying was, yes, their product is absolute crap, and needs to be fixed. But the people on this board bitching about the customer service side..i.e. not replying to every single post they make on the newsgroups about the same issue over and over again... aren't helping matters. They communicate with customers about problems alot more then any other ISPs would..

the last time I remember UTV going down was when the esat end of it failed and IOL was down aswell. I didn't hear ANYTHING about IOL explaining the problem to customers or even mentioning it. Yet the UTV newsgroup had updates from customer service regularly until the service went back up again.

Just cos they don't waste their time making blank posts when they have no new information to give doesn't mean the world is ending..

that said, and ill mention this again for the third time to avoid misunderstandings, their product IS sub-standard and imo not of merchantable quality, it desperatly needs to be fixed.

In response to the post charles just made on the newsgroups....
Hurry up UTV and fix the problem. Before people start getting lawyers after you...

Does anyone know, was that "bandwidth upgrade" they just installed the same thing that carl stinson was talking about when he mentioned them changing carriers? 'Cos the two things are completely different-sounding things...

I dont think anyone expects a reply to every single post on the newsgroup - however people have been complaining about pings for several months now on the newsgroup and there has been absolutely no response from UTV and that lack of response is infuriating.

For some reason UTV waver from giving regular attention to the support newsgroup to ingnoring it completely for weeks at a time. Some time ago UTV stated in the newsgroup that they were beefing up their support and we could expect to see some new faces in the newsgroup but it never happened.

All most people look to the newsgroup for are general statements of what is going on. When UTV do that it helps take pressure of their own support and keeps customers informed of whats happening.

And the bandwidth upgrade is not what Carl was talking about afaik they are looking at a complete change away from their current provider which would be a huge step for them to take I am sure and I dread to think what it might mean for customers while it was going on.

jonski

Moriarty wrote:

What about IOL, digiweb, or any of the other providers, jonski? IOL seems to on average ping as well as eircom, with the added benefit of it being a good few euros a month less and double the cap.

Did a fair bit of reading and searching through these boards before I made my decision and tbh there are very little complaints about the actual quality of service from eircom . So I have decided to be selfish and pay the little extra and pamper myself .

In fairness I don't want to make the same mistake again . Most of the hardcore gamers told me I was mad to go with UTV in the first place and if its the best pings I want then I should go with eircom .

John

ps : it was not a decision taken lightly , if anyone here recalls I was part of a fairly large group of people that waited for UTV to go bb because I was grateful to them for what they had done in the market place , and even when they messed up my order I hung in there and waited the extra 6 weeks , ( and before anyone pipes in , yes I know they were also cheaper but if I was motivate by money I wouldn't be going back to eircom )

man ,, that was a long ps , sorry .

John.

dub45

flamegrill wrote:

would also like to point out that Eircom are at fault for UTV service degrading. Now this is indirectly of course, but in the north BT enforce the contention, while in the south Eircom do not. This obviously causes problems, where a small amount of users can degrade the service down here, where as in the north the contention kicks in and the service can run on lesser resources. In time contention will kick in down south, so it will all we well then.

Paul

Can you prove that Eircom are at fault? People are forever making wild claims like this without any evidence whatsoever - at the time of the Esat debacle there were similar claims but it turned out that Eircom had nothing to do with it. If UTV on their own admission cannot manage their bandwidth then how can Eircom be blamed.

And if it was question of contention then the problem would be much less widespread and other ISP customers would be equally affected as, if I understand the contention thing properly, UTV customers share with other ISP customers as well.

Paddy20

Dub45,

Oh, what it must be like to be young. I remember when our 'state owned' telecomunications was a public utility called the P&T i.e. Post & Telegraph.

How it was changed I do not know, as I was abroad for very many years.

Anyway, back on topic. I do not play games online. Therefore, I probably have no idea of online gamers requirements in relation to speed etc, but I can sympathise with those who are not getting the service they require, at this time.

I hope thing's improve very quickly, but I still blame one ISP for the state of our broadband infrastructure in the Republic.

Good luck.

jonski

Paddy20 wrote:

I do not play games online.

Well for gods sake paddy , do you not think its about time you started ! I mean you are not getting any younger and its all about reflexes ! Meet me in #boards.ie and I'll take you through the joy of been beaten by spotty L337 kids in call of duty !

ah , erm , I'm WAITING!

I have just been informed by a spotty kid that it should of course read '1337' and not l337 . good god what was I thinking!

dub45

Paddy20 wrote:

Dub45,

Oh, what it must be like to be young. I remember when our 'state owned' telecomunications was a public utility called the P&T i.e. Post & Telegraph.

How it was changed I do not know, as I was abroad for very many years.

Anyway, back on topic. I do not play games online. Therefore, I probably have no idea of online gamers requirements in relation to speed etc, but I can sympathise with those who are not getting the service they require, at this time.

I hope thing's improve very quickly, but I still blame one ISP for the state of our broadband infrastructure in the Republic.

Good luck.

Paddy20 you were back in Ireland when Eircom went public.

And the basic broadband structure has absolutely nothing to do with UTV's current problems otherwise all isps and their customers would be experiencing them.

That's not to say that Eircom have not got a lot to answer for or course.