BT promise download rates

Stky10

Hi,

We moved offices recently, and because of our new location beautiful Eircom are only able to offer us a home starter package with a 1.5 Meg download speed (as measured on irishisptest). It really crawls...

We've got on to BT, and they've told us we'll be able to get 'up to' 3 Meg download and 384 k upload. I'm just wondering though (from some of the complaints I see here) whether this is just a standard practice/promise they do or whether its likely that this is the rate we'll get.

We're highly suspicious of how they can get double the rate on the same line??

Anyone with any experience of this?

jor el

All the ISPs offer "up to" the max rate, and then see what you can get. BT have some unbundled exchanges that they have more control over, this is the business broadband that they offer. I assume this is just the bitstream home product you are referring to in which case it's just Eircom broadband being re-sold by BT. It won't be any better as it'll be the exact same line and connection in the exchange.

Only Smart, Magnet (unbundled) or BT business broadband have a hope of being any better than what you already have on that line.

Sponge Bob

BT will give you 1.5Mb as well or actually their 2Mb package

so will all other isps that resell eircom. its because you line is too crap to go any higher

try wireless like Digiweb Metro maybe or try dsl and wireless both

Stky10

Ok, so the best I can hope for is that BT would have a lower contention rate than Eircom. Doesn't give me great hope.

I'm wary of using wireless, because I haven't met anyone yet that has ever told me they have a very reliable connection with it, and doing both dsl and wireless would mean have multiple paths at the firewall and make things more complicated.

Back to the drawing board again so..

jor el

No, BT's contention ratio is governed by Eircom as it's the exact same product just being re-sold by BT. The only thing BT have control over is how they route traffic. This may result in different ping times and can impact download speeds (depending on where the download is coming from), but your max connection speed will be the same.

There isn't really anything you can do about the limited speed on that line, unfortunately. Do you know of any alternatives in your area, wireless cable or wired on an unbundled exchange?

Stky10

Well there is wireless with Irish Broadband, and Last Mile Broadband, but I've heard too many horror stories about both to have anything to do with them.

Who would I have to get in touch with to see if the government funded MAN's might be suitable.

The mad thing is that we've moved into a pretty big business park and we're across the road from a pretty big multinational company (not in the business park) and this is the best that Eircom can do for us. We've got the whole "the exchange is based beside the Garda Station in town. There is new products being trailed at present to try and alleviate this problem." and we're laughing cos we know we haven't got a chance in hell. We should have stayed where we were, we were getting the full 4Mb download there.

Sponge Bob

to go Man (takes up to 6 weeks) you contact enet.ie

enet tell you who can provide a port in your area , you go to them and sign a contract.

men show up and men dig.

then you have a live fibre connection to the internet, costs for 10mbit / 10 Mbits with low or no contention is about €5k-7k a year ....crudely.

alternatives are typically Smart, Packetexchange, Magnet and Digiweb Corporate (corporate is their fibre stuff IIRC)