eircom speed increases on the way download and upload speed increase

damien

By the power of 3. Heard this from 3 sources so it is almost unofficial confirmation.

New entry level broadband product is 2mbps down 256kbps up.

Highest speed product will be 5mbps down 512kbps up.

Not the best upload speed at all. Speed increases start in January for all eircom and bistream resellers.

I'm sure this is to directly challenge the Digiweb package and the Magnet 24mbps package. Dunno about prices yet.

paulm17781

Come on NTL!!!

Cabaal

I'm sure they can expect even more people to start using VoIP now that the upstream will be somewhat decent.

I doubt NTL will increase the upstream on their 3MB product but they might on their 2MB & 1MB products, I'd also imagine they'll bring out something better then 3MB

HelterSkelter

Cabaal wrote:

I'm sure they can expect even more people to start using VoIP now that the upstream will be somewhat decent.

Do you have problems with VOIP? I have 128kbps upload and it works fine for me (Skype) once I am not uploading anything else at the same time.

As an aside, is there any program that can be used allocate an amount of bandwidth for a particular program? For example if I want to allocate 80kbps for Skype and the remainder for everything else so as to ensure Skype will still run when I'm sending a large email, etc.

Gonzo

so is that 5mb for the current Homeplus customers who are currently on 2mb with a 16gig cap? any news on a cap increase?

Slaanesh

HelterSkelter wrote:

Do you have problems with VOIP? I have 128kbps upload and it works fine for me (Skype) once I am not uploading anything else at the same time.

As an aside, is there any program that can be used allocate an amount of bandwidth for a particular program? For example if I want to allocate 80kbps for Skype and the remainder for everything else so as to ensure Skype will still run when I'm sending a large email, etc.

On fancy smancy routers these days you can setups QoS(Quality Of Service) and prioritise packets going out a certain port. If I ever get broadband (12th of never) I would defo get a router capable of such a feat!

However, I'm sure there is something you can get that will do similar on your local computer.

koneko

I have my doubts. Eircom can't even provide me with the speed I'm paying for, how are they going to upgrade it? Don't trust that company as far as I can throw them, but we'll see. Would be nice to see half-way decent speeds.

Blaster99

If you can't get max speed now, you're not going to get it in the future either.

2Mbps to 5Mbps, that's a fairly narrow range.

Sponge Bob

Blaster99 wrote:

If you can't get max speed now, you're not going to get it in the future either.

The min speed never rose as the packages improved in the past year or so. You are guaranteed what they always guaranteed which is 256k down...no matter what your package is.

LFCFan

Sponge Bob wrote:

You are guaranteed what they always guaranteed which is 256k down...no matter what your package is.

Well that's bull for a start. My estate has had problems lately where sometimes we're lucky if we can get dialup speeds. They have told us there is a problem with the exchange but won't fix it till the new year but then still expect us to pay for full service. Assholes!

Cabaal

HelterSkelter wrote:

Do you have problems with VOIP? I have 128kbps upload and it works fine for me (Skype) once I am not uploading anything else at the same time.

Well I don't personally have a problem as I'm on a BT Business line

To be honest Skype will work on a 56K Dailup connection but then again its not *really* VoIP so I don't think its a fair test compared to the likes of Vonage, Blueface or Gizmo

paulm17781

My guess is NTL double their speeds. 6, 4, 2 mb.

This gives a faster than Eircon speed
A mid range (probably the same price as Eircon's low price one)
same as Eircon's low price one only cheaper.

Sponge Bob

LFCFan wrote:

Well that's bull for a start. My estate has had problems lately where sometimes we're lucky if we can get dialup speeds. They have told us there is a problem with the exchange but won't fix it till the new year but then still expect us to pay for full service.

You should pay pro rata the minimum 256k so if you connect at 50k you should only have to pay 20% of the BB charge or 0% seeing as it is not functioning at its floor guaranteed speed.

The 256k minimum is buried in the FAQ ....somewhere .

Idbatterim

hey guys just a few questions, if businesses have high broad band speeds why isnt voip being used if its cheaper? is it unreliable, unstable, not practicle or what? how much chepaer is it? and i only ever hear skype mentioned why is that? are they the dominant force or is everyone else useless or what? thaks for help

koneko

Blaster99 wrote:

If you can't get max speed now, you're not going to get it in the future either.

The problem isn't the lines, that they're too old or anything like that (it's a new estate and apparantly the lines are "as clear as I've ever seen on any line" quote Eircom rep), the problem is that Eircom have essentially overloaded the exchange and aren't interested in fixing it till January. My problem is that I have no faith in Eircom as a company as they've been screwing me/us around for far too long.
(I'm in the same area as LFCFan)

dahamsta

Cabaal wrote:

Well I don't personally have a problem as I'm on a BT Business line

Are they still doing the SDSL ULL product? How much?

paulm17781

Idbatterim wrote:

hey guys just a few questions, if businesses have high broad band speeds why isnt voip being used if its cheaper? is it unreliable, unstable, not practicle or what? how much chepaer is it? and i only ever hear skype mentioned why is that? are they the dominant force or is everyone else useless or what? thaks for help

Have a look at the VOIP forum http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=542. Skype were the first to get a name out but IMO they are far from the best VOIP provider.

bk

While this will be nice for all existing BB owners and specially for those interested in VoIP, what we really need is an always-on 512k or 1m entry level product for €20 per month for all those people who still haven't signed up for BB because it is too expensive at the moment.

A 512k/128k product for €20 would be perfect for the many people who just do dial up at the moment and it would finaly kill off ISDN.

These jumps in speed seem to be just a tactic by Eircom not to reduce the prices of their products, instead they keep them artifically high by uping the speed.

paulm17781 wrote:

My guess is NTL double their speeds. 6, 4, 2 mb.

That sounds very logical, however recent rumours have it that NTL:Ireland are preparing a 8Mbit/s service. So this might be 2, 4, 6, 8 or maybe 2, 4/5, 8.

It is fun to look at the speeds that are offered by UPC across europe:
http://www.lgi.com/europe.html

They typically have four products, ranging from €15 up, some highlights are Netherlands 384k/128k for €15, Netherlands and Sweden 1m/256k for €23 and €24, at the high end, Sweden 24m/8m for €49 and 24m/1m for €40 (that puts Magnet in their place), but that seems to be unusual, Netherlands 20/2 is €80 and Norway 26/1.5 is €126.

We will probably get something like:
2m/200k - €25
5m/500k - €35
8m/800k - €45

They might even have an entry level product, something like 512k/128k for €15, actually something like this already exists called NTL BB Starter, but NTL don't advertise it.

^pt^

HelterSkelter wrote:

As an aside, is there any program that can be used allocate an amount of bandwidth for a particular program?

http://www.netlimiter.com/

Personally I'm very happy with an upload increase. Unfortunately it's still only 256k instead of 512k like most other places with 2mbit :rolleyes:

damien

Old 1Mb Downstream / 128k Upstream
New 2Mb Downstream / 256k Upstream

Old 2Mb Downstream / 128k Upstream
New 3Mb Downstream / 384k Upstream

Old 3Mb Downstream / 256k Upstream
New 4Mb Downstream / 384k Upstream

Old 4Mb Downstream / 256k Upstream
New 5Mb Downstream / 512k Upstream

bk

Thanks Damien, nothing majorily exciting there, nice for people interested in VoIP (but sort of unnecessary as you will still have to pay Eircom line rental and UTV give free local and national calls in the evenings and weekends).

It is a pity they don't have an entry level 512k product, but then that would eat into their dail-up and ISDN money pots.

Hopefully this will push NTL, Smart and the others into a round of much better upgrades.

Gonzo

hmm, nice to have a moderate increase in the upload but the download increase is very small, not much difference between 2mb and 3mb, the 3mb on eircom still wont be as fast as ntls 3mb due to overheads etc.

Cabaal

Ken Shabby wrote:

Are they still doing the SDSL ULL product? How much?

Not sure about SDSL lines tbh, I have a LLU ADSL line which is FINALLY being unbundled so I won't be paying eircom a penny....many many months of BT lieing

RobertFoster

Oh great. The last upgrade caused nothing but problems for me. Something (the line, I'm guessing) couldn't handle the 2Mb and I couldn't stay connected. I had to drop to 1Mb. I won't be able to drop this time

rogue-entity

So after christmas, I can look forward to a 2M/256 service as opposed to my current 1M/128k service. This will be very nice. While the speed increases are advertised for eircom, BT customers will also get these speed increases as they are reselling eircoms BitStream product

ednwireland

i have a client who wants to run vpns as well as voip, hosting, remote access he has the top level package from eircom guess what wireless is coming and he can get 4mb up and down wonder what we'll go for. the "business" level package even with these upgrades its pathetic. the problem is when people get broadband they start using it amazing. most clients i've dealt with in the north go for sdsl now they dont even touch adsl
eircom hasn't got a clue as to what customers want.

RangeR

ednwireland wrote:

iwireless is coming and he can get 4mb up and down wonder what we'll go for.

That sounds terribly familiar. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

HelterSkelter, care to add?

Sponge Bob

Gonzo wrote:

hmm, nice to have a moderate increase in the upload but the download increase is very small, not much difference between 2mb and 3mb, the 3mb on eircom still wont be as fast as ntls 3mb due to overheads etc.

Or Smart. The PPPOe overhead (packets used to control data) is calculated separately by Smart . I would hope that Magnet are the same as Smart of course. I suspect they are .

An Eircom 2048 (2Mb) could include about 128k of overhead in the stream meaning that the efective max is c. 1920 k . A Smart 2048 is 2048 + the 128k on top.

Put another way, Smart have a good advertising standards case against Eircom.

skywalker

Good to see any increases. Any word on whether caps will be increased also?

LFCFan

skywalker wrote:

Good to see any increases. Any word on whether caps will be increased also?

with a 5Mbit connection, you'd have to have a cap increase or you'd get through it way too quick. I reckon we should see another doubling of caps. Would be a nice addtion to to the packages!

Willymuncher

skywalker wrote:

Good to see any increases. Any word on whether caps will be increased also?

Hopefully, but in fairness the cap is not really enforced anyway, so we're still pretty safe.

damien

I don't see how you'd need a cap increase. I find the BT Plus package I have to be more than generous. Or do you exceed your current cap?

ro2

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5715

radiospan

Upgrading from 2MB to 3MB won't make much difference for me really. I rarely max out the 2MB, and when I do, the download is finished in a few minutes anyway. I'd much prefer a cap increase, as I'm on UTV, who always charge for going over it.

It's very good news about the upload speed though. Looking forward to 384kbps.

uncle_sam_ie

None of this does me any good because I can't even get broadband.:mad:

OfflerCrocGod

damien.m wrote:

I don't see how you'd need a cap increase. I find the BT Plus package I have to be more than generous. Or do you exceed your current cap?

Every single month, without fail. Of course we have three computers on the internet and so we may download more then average in my house but I still feel 24Gb is rather puny I would hope for 40Gb; that would be less likely to ever be broken and it also seem a more realistic cap. It's clear they don't care about the cap anyway as they never charge or send out letters so they may as well make it official.

shinzon

This whole speed increase actually worries me from a selfish standpoint TBH, my line as you all know teeters on the pass/fail borderline, its quite happily chugging away on 1 meg broadband right now, no interruptions or anything

So with the speed increases comes the possibility of my line completely falling over and giving up the ghost altogether

I hope they have something in place for lines like these to keep em on 1 meg or have the ability to downgrade if theres problems

Course if it doesnt work out i still have NTL to fall back on, still its the damn principal of the thing that everyone should have access to all services that compamies provide whether it be optional or not IMO

Guess ill see come January

Shin

kaizersoze

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

None of this does me any good because I can't even get broadband.:mad:

Thats what they should be concentrating on. I currently have 2mb/128k from BT and am happy with it. Of course I love to see more speed and won't refuse it but I speak to loads of people every week who would screaming out for BB but can't get it.
Eircom really need to get the finger out and roll out ADSL2 and get past the 4KM barrier and upgrade the smaller exchanges.

HarryHoudini

I posted in these forums about a month ago with the news that NTL are planning an upgrade to 5MB and 8MB after I had some people from NTL come to my house and replaced my old cable modem due to it not being capable of supporting the new speeds.
This was from the engineers mouth.

dahamsta

damien.m wrote:

I don't see how you'd need a cap increase. I find the BT Plus package I have to be more than generous. Or do you exceed your current cap?

Are you trolling damien? I find my vanilla BT cap well less than adequate, and I'd exceed the plus cap too. And very little of it is "dodgy", most comprises Linux ISOs, legal music, and free video. Even my business stuff contributes very little towards it.

adam

bk

shinzon wrote:

Course if it doesnt work out i still have NTL to fall back on, still its the damn principal of the thing that everyone should have access to all services that compamies provide whether it be optional or not IMO

If you can get NTL then why in gods name are you still on DSL. The minute NTL became available in my area, I jumped from DSL to NTL and I couldn't be happier.

I'm now paying €45 per month for 3m/300k, where I was paying €54 for 2m/128k and it is much more stable and has lower latency.

If you only want 1m then it only costs €25.

And rumour has it that NTL will be upgrading to 5m and 8m soon

NTL shouldn't be your fallback, it should be your number one option.

Gonzo

I agree, If I was lucky enough to have NTL broadband available in my area I would drop my dsl without even a thought, unfortunately for me I will never have the option as I live out in the countryside.

The difference between NTL and DSL is huge, its more stable, its faster and about to get alot faster shorty if the rumours are true, plus the pings are almost half of what you get on DSL and its cheaper.

DemonOfTheFall

This is some bloody great news! I might be able to ditch my newsgroup account and go back to bittorrent. Torrents were unbearable with 128k upload.

This must have a lot to do with eircom launching their combined VoIP+Broadband service for businesses. Saw some article (read:advertisement) for it in the Indo today. Fair play to eircom for getting the thumb out. I'm delighted with 3096/384 , brings us pretty well into line with what we should have.

OfflerCrocGod

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Fair play to eircom for getting the thumb out. I'm delighted with 3096/384 , brings us pretty well into line with what we should have.

No it doesn't, the number of people with BB available to them is still the same, and as for speeds we are still far from equal to other developed EU states just across the sea they have LLU 24Mb lines for £25 - now that's impressive! We are not improving as long as large numbers of people are denied access to BB because eircom doesn't want to invest. Eircon can only upgrade like this for so long before they have to start improving the lines and services; soon they will have people who before the upgrade had BB phoning up and complaining about how now they can't get it anymore because their lines are not up to scratch.........I wonder how they will deal with those people, dump them?

Blaster99

What makes you think they're going to change the line test? RADSL degrades gracefully. There's no problem.

OfflerCrocGod

Blaster99 wrote:

What makes you think they're going to change the line test? RADSL degrades gracefully. There's no problem.

Actually when I had problems with the line it was far from "gracefully" handled it keep on trying to connect at higher speeds and disconnecting and changing the ADSL mode it was in......all in all I was forced to change the position of my Router and the entire wireing set-up in my house; I was not a happy bunny So I do believe there will be some problems with this upgrade, just look above^ one person already mention they failed 2Mb but their line will keep trying to connect at that speed and failing but inmy situation it never seemed satisfied at the lower speeds it kept on trying to connect at higher speeds.

Urban Weigl

We now have the same upload speed that has been available in the UK for what, only 5+ years now? Along with the same coverage they had...

OfflerCrocGod

Urban Weigl wrote:

We now have the same upload speed that has been available in the UK for what, only 5+ years now? Along with the same coverage they had...

5 years ago. Their present coverage is far superior to anything we have have the figures are in the 99.99% range, you can't compare Comwreck to Ofcom.

Hannibal_12

Gonzo wrote:

I agree, If I was lucky enough to have NTL broadband available in my area I would drop my dsl without even a thought, unfortunately for me I will never have the option as I live out in the countryside.

The difference between NTL and DSL is huge, its more stable, its faster and about to get alot faster shorty if the rumours are true, plus the pings are almost half of what you get on DSL and its cheaper.

What exactly are the requirements to be able to get it. My brother lives in an estate across the road from mine, he's able to get it, but I'm not. I assume that it's to do with the age of the estates and hence the wiring?
I'm glad Eircon are finally allocating a reasonable upload speed, though for €54.99 I'd like to see 512k up.

OfflerCrocGod

Hannibal_12 wrote:

though for €54.99 I'd like to see 512k up.

Would you do yourself and the country a favour and move from eircon to BT if you transfer your line rental too you will only pay €50 for BB + line rental. Go on.

bk

Hannibal_12 wrote:

What exactly are the requirements to be able to get it. My brother lives in an estate across the road from mine, he's able to get it, but I'm not. I assume that it's to do with the age of the estates and hence the wiring?
I'm glad Eircon are finally allocating a reasonable upload speed, though for €54.99 I'd like to see 512k up.

Put simply the cable network in your area needs to be upgraded to a two way capable Fibre-Coax network. NTL are busy upgrading older areas at the moment, however it takes time.