IBB have 20k punters and need another 80k punters pronto

Sponge Bob

From Silicon Republic

Irish Broadband has secured new funding to the value of €25m. The second-round investment has come from the existing shareholders National Toll Roads and Kilsaran Concrete and adds to funding secured last year worth €18m.

In a statement the company said it would use the money to invest in the wireless broadband network it is building and to further accelerate its expansion around the country. As part of the ongoing development of its network, Irish Broadband plans to install an additional 100 high sites throughout the country this year. The company said this will cover every large to medium urban centre in Ireland.

Last week Irish Broadband announced it had exceeded its 2005 target of 20,000 customers. The company claimed this makes it the leading wireless provider in Europe.

“The new funding will accelerate the rollout of our national network and will allow us to develop a wider range of customer service offerings,” said Paul Doody, managing director of Irish Broadband. Doody added that the second-round investment could help the company to exceed its 2006 target of 75,000 customers. “We believe that, based on existing demand, with this funding we could reach as many as 100,000 customers this year.”

Investors National Toll Roads and Kilsaran Concrete both said they were happy with the company’s progress and will continue to support its future development.

They have no plans to spend the €25m on hiring new CS staff though

garthv

Yes they do...
I got a phone call from a recruitment company today offering me a position with IBB, safe to say I told them where to stick it

Sparky

by the looks of it they may need those 100 high sites just to provide a realible service in dublin

carbsy

pfft more customers = even slower speeds if that's possible hehe

spooky donkey

It sure worries me. Be nice if they got some new technoogy, something that actually works.

pointofnoreturn

spooky donkey wrote:

It sure worries me. Be nice if they got some new technoogy, something that actually works.

They where in the press a few months back about new WiMAX technology that can do crazy speeds with really long range links,

I don't think there is any problems with the technology they use, but just that they just can't manage it! like they buy the stuff from Alvarion. it's crazy priced, up to $700 for the Breeze VL unit that can do up to 6Mbits the new WiMAX stuff must be even more! if it can do up to 12Mbits @ longer range.

No wonder they have to get all this heavy investment to buy this equipment.

Well if they plan to increse the network then that mean lots and lots of more bandwidth. all we can hope on is that they don't pack the network up with too many connections

Lex_Diamonds

That article did not make for pleasent reading.

I'm guessing the majority off IBB users are very casual internet users and dont notice how **** the service is? Either that or people have no other options?

stakey

err wimax ain't that great... a little new company called clearwire is using that and if you look around this forum, you'll find a nice thread on how well that's going...

Mutant_Fruit

I've grown used to expecting 30kB/sec on my 2meg connection. Anything faster is amazing! However, i am getting Metro installed in (hopefully) under two weeks.

*crosses fingers*

optiplexgx270

Well i'm a happy IBB customer

My connection is like Ronseal.

Steffano2002

optiplexgx270 wrote:

Well i'm a happy IBB customer

I am too since they took me off the Guinness mast! "How long will it last" is the question I'm asking myself... SMART will be available in my area in March so hopefully untill then!

*fingers crossed*

pointofnoreturn

deconstruct wrote:

err wimax ain't that great... a little new company called clearwire is using that and if you look around this forum, you'll find a nice thread on how well that's going...

The Clearwire wireless equipment is pre-wimax, it's not fully 802.16 compliant hardware well the model units there using. it's made by Nextnet and that company has got lots of awards for very good preformace from their equipment.
The portable one is for light users, not full 24/7 P2P traffic as this plays hell! with the network. they have a (Fixed wireless system) FWA one for that kind of heavy traffic.

The Alvarion WiMAX equipment is FWA and it's EDIT (full duplex on base station Half duplex on Customer side) unlike the VL gear it can cope with heavy traffic along side QoS for VoIP and Multiplayer games (but this must be setup properly!). It uses the Intel WiMAX chips that are full 802.16 standard.

As WiMAX is a very new technology, it's going to be better then whats used now, but ISP's aren't been clear enough of what kind of broadband that they can provide what works on it and what doesn't.

Mutant_Fruit

Well, IBB either full loss or severely degraded service in the black mountains area, lisburn area + two other places (kilkenny + carlow?) at the moment according to their voice machine.

Thank god i'm cancelling. I'm being bumped to a fourth department now. Noone seems to be able to just cancel the account or knows who can!

EDIT: I just found this really funny... The tech support guy said "If the deinstallation request is approved we should be able to remove the equipment within 3-4 days.

Hell, its going to be approved, or they can just give me free broadband, because that direct debit is getting cancelled today!

Blaster99

Strange. I called up before Christmas and the first gimp I spoke to managed to kill my subscription. The uninstall guys showed up the other day and took out the equipment. I have to say I expected that to be sitting there for months. I kinda figured that stuff wouldn't be worth their while collecting in a hurry.

Axl

pointofnoreturn wrote:

The Clearwire wireless equipment is pre-wimax, it's not fully 802.16 compliant hardware well the model units there using. it's made by Nextnet and that company has got lots of awards for very good preformace from their equipment.
The portable one is for light users, not full 24/7 P2P traffic as this plays hell! with the network. they have a (Fixed wireless system) FWA one for that kind of heavy traffic.

The Alvarion WiMAX equipment is FWA and it's full duplex unlike the VL gear it can cope with heavy traffic along side QoS for VoIP and Multiplayer games (but this must be setup properly!). It uses the Intel WiMAX chips that are full 802.16 standard.

As WiMAX is a very new technology, it's going to be better then whats used now, but ISP's aren't been clear enough of what kind of broadband that they can provide what works on it and what doesn't.

Alvarion WiMax is not proper Full Duplex either .... read the spec sheet.

Wanted to add, Clearwire has very little to do with WiMax actually. The 'only' thing Clearwire supports is OFDM - not much more in common than that.

Steffano2002

Blaster99 wrote:

Strange. I called up before Christmas and the first gimp I spoke to managed to kill my subscription. The uninstall guys showed up the other day and took out the equipment. I have to say I expected that to be sitting there for months. I kinda figured that stuff wouldn't be worth their while collecting in a hurry.

€800 EUR a pop for these Alvarion radios. I'm pretty sure it is worth their while!

Cuddlesworth

spooky donkey wrote:

It sure worries me. Be nice if they got some new technoogy, something that actually works.

From all the problems I have had, it seems the problem is either a LOS problem or just a crap network(routers.. etc}. The wireless equipment is fine and does what it is supposed to do.

pointofnoreturn

Apologies Axl I miss read the data sheet, only the base station (AU) can operate at Full duplex. the customer units work on FDD (frequencies division duplexing) and TDD (time division duplex) however that can help.

There is allot of hype on WiMAX that will hopefully live up to all the bell's and whistles it says it is.

LegacyUser

That is ridiculous. I am on IBB at the moment and it is down to 355 kbs upload on a 2MB line!! How can they expect to expand from 20,000 customers to 75,000 customers this year?? Eircom have 100,000 customers and they have monopoly of the phone system ..

Lex_Diamonds wrote:

I'm guessing the majority off IBB users are very casual internet users and dont notice how **** the service is? Either that or people have no other options?

Very much so .. very much so!!

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

I've grown used to expecting 30kB/sec on my 2meg

Jaysis - I thought it was bad tonight with the odd 1.57MB download and 355 KBS upload!
30 KB on 2MB line is totally unworkable. Obviously you are on Breeze, have you been on to them about that service?? Did they give a reason? What mast? Astounded? you must be frustrated at that!!! Well done for still being sane!

Axl

pointofnoreturn wrote:

Apologies Axl I miss read the data sheet, only the base station (AU) can operate at Full duplex. the customer units work on FDD (frequencies division duplexing) and TDD (time division duplex) however that can help.

There is allot of hype on WiMAX that will hopefully live up to all the bell's and whistles it says it is.

Yep - the SUs are half duplex while only the AU is full duplex. Doesnt really make sense - suppose they have their reasons. I think its only FDD for BreezeMax - not TDD - but doesnt really matter - FDD to me is better in many applications - but theyve kinda blown it by making SU only half duplex. A bit like trying to diet and buying cake and a diet coke and hope they might offset one another ...

Oh - for what its worth - i aint buying the WhyMax thing - not just yet ....

Blaster99

Steffano2002 wrote:

€800 EUR a pop for these Alvarion radios. I'm pretty sure it is worth their while!

I keep hearing figures around €700, but I don't believe it. If it were true, then they would need to have me as a customer for two years to break even just for the CPE. I'd say it costs around €100-200.

Axl

Blaster99 wrote:

I keep hearing figures around €700, but I don't believe it. If it were true, then they would need to have me as a customer for two years to break even just for the CPE. I'd say it costs around €100-200.

Nope - the higher price is correct. Perhaps makes partial sense why they made E4M loss time figures were released - and yes - break even would be over 2 years at least. Now you might understand why some wireless ISP like Leap do not target home clients - at least not at the start.

sysconp1

I moved off my 4Mb link with Eircom because the service was terrible. I am now with IBB on a 2+2Mb link and I have to say the service is first rate in Drumcondra/Whitehall. Much better downloads and reliability. For VOIP and video links it seems to be as good as you get at these speeds. I really cannot recommend IBB enough. The cheaper Breeze service is weak unless a proper siting of the antenna is carried out.

Well that is my pennyworth!! :-)

optiplexgx270

IBB already have WiMAX installed in the 3rock base station I’m not sure if it is in use by the public yet but I recon it is as they were going to put me on it as they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my connection so they were requesting i get approved to be put on the WiMAX (MD had to approve each one I was told as the radio is ~€1.5-2k) pilot but then suddenly someone figured out the problem and I was back to full speed after 6 weeks of 40-100k i.e. 1Mb like service from a 2Mb connection now I’m back to 240k and is extremely reliable.

Nephew

My breeze 2mb connection has been consistently **** for the past 2 months. It was excellent until they upgraded my line 6 months ago. Does anyone know if they have any plans to upgrade their lines again now that eircom and ntl are upgrading? I could only imagine how ****e it will become if they do, but on the other hand they better. I am paying e50 a month for a 2mb line that gives at best 512k speeds, on the rare occasion I might actually get 2mb speeds for a couple of hours. But why would people pay e50 a month if you can get 2mb off eircom for e20 a month? As soon as ntl or smart get to my area I am switching. The only thing ibb has in its favour is the lack of a cap.

Random

75000 more customers ... oh joy. Let's hope they hire at least one new support monkey to answer calls and emails then