Roscommon/need BB/cable, etc.

mollie006

Hello,
I am moving to Roscommon next month, and am hoping someone can help me with the following:

I need to buy a Television, would like a flat-screen, where would I purchase one at a fair price?

Best Broadband provider?

Which is the best for Roscommon, NTL, Sky?

What phone provider would be best for USA and UK calls?

Need a lap-top, where would be best to purchase? Am thinking of Dell?

Any help would be most appreciated as I don't want to make wrong choices.
Thank you in anticipation.
Mollie

Ulsterman 1690

Best Broadband provider?

Im not even sure if broadband is available at all in Roscommon ?

Which is the best for Roscommon, NTL, Sky?

IIRC NTL dont do Roscommon its "Chorus-land" but if I were you Id go for either Sky or FTA satellite

Need a lap-top, where would be best to purchase? Am thinking of Dell?

Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, IBM or Toshiba but avoid anything with a "desktop processor" go for one with a "mobile processor" anything marked "Centrino" or "Pentium M" (or the AMD equivalents)
Laptops with desktop processors promise "desktop performance in a laptop" but in practice they suffer from overheating, poor battery life and crap reliability

mollie006

Hi...thank you so much for replying. They do have broadband in Roscommon...I am going to be living 1 mile outside of the the Town. Thanks for the info on the computer...I will look for the particulars you mentioned. Which BB would you choose?
Thank You.

Ulsterman 1690

Not up on the current state of play with broadband in the Republic but I would say avoid any ISP's that impose a "monthly download cap". (I think youll find thats most of them :rolleyes: ) If available check out what wireless broadband services are available the advantage of these is that you dont need to pay line rental to €irCON. You can always use something like Skype for those international phonecalls

Freddie59

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

Not up on the current state of play with broadband in the Republic but I would say avoid any ISP's that impose a "monthly download cap". (I think youll find thats most of them :rolleyes: ) If available check out what wireless broadband services are available the advantage of these is that you dont need to pay line rental to €irCON. You can always use something like Skype for those international phonecalls

Or www.blueface.ie

watty

2000 euro gets a decent laptop with DVD writer.
I like medium priced Dells but not cheap ones. Don't pay premium for fastest CPU. 256M RAM is useless, 512M is fine.

My Dell Inspiron 8200 is still better than most cheaper new Laptops in speed, battery and screen. I forget if it is 3 years or 4 years old this spring.

The cheaper ones are like 500 Euro PCs or worse.


My ISP has monthly cap. But I'm not likely to hit 30G bytes.

Digiweb also includes free wireless phone line with dedicated ISDN quality. Skype works well too even with video.

BT or UTV if using aDSL on phone line. Though its often the Eircom wholesale resold I think better service and lower cost. Otherwise Digiweb Metro.

Flat screen you still pay twice as much for a poorer picture than CRT.
But it's your money.

Get a FTA Satellite receiver or a Skybox and FTV card or cancelled UK sub card.

Eurorunner

Lastmile Wireless provide a broadband service in Roscommon Town. As regards DSL, I suppose the best indicator as to the possibility of getting it would be to find out if any of your closest neighbours have it. Even then, you wont know for sure until you get a phoneline installed and they check the line. The Wireless option requires direct 'line of sight' to the access point - I'm sure someone else here can confirm where this is located in Roscommon.