Satelitte broadband advice

tammy

Howdy,

This is a two pronged query,

prong 1: I recently relocated to the west, outside Galway. The town I am nearest to, 3-4 kilometers, is enabled for DSL, Ardrahan. So I move into a new house and get a new phone line connected. Ring eircom and my line fails. I just want to know is there any way of finding if it is distance from exchange or my line that is the problem, as if its my line I would of thought there is something that could be done.

prong 2: As DSL is looking bad, satellite appears to be the only option. Has anyone got any experience with it and could recommend providers. So far I've only checked out crosscountrybroadband.com, it is expensive in comparison though as they point out there is no comparison as there is no other option.

I had bb previously in Dublin and the move back to dial-up is painful. HELP

Foxwood

tammy wrote:

Howdy,

This is a two pronged query,

prong 1: I recently relocated to the west, outside Galway. The town I am nearest to, 3-4 kilometers, is enabled for DSL, Ardrahan. So I move into a new house and get a new phone line connected. Ring eircom and my line fails. I just want to know is there any way of finding if it is distance from exchange or my line that is the problem, as if its my line I would of thought there is something that could be done.

prong 2: As DSL is looking bad, satellite appears to be the only option.

Lines aren't tested immediately for DSL, so if you just got it in, it might pass in a week or two.

www.broadband.gov.ie lists two wireless providers in the Ardrahan area, Airwire and Clarinbridge Broadband. I know nothing about eithe, but they may be a better option than Satteite (pffft!).

jor el

Answer1: Did you leave it a month or so after getting the line installed to check for broadband as the tests are only done once a month. If the operator said they were checking your line while you were on to them it was a lie. All they do is check the database for the most recent test result. If the line hasn't been checked yet then it will be a fail.

If it is a real failure then the cause could be one of many. A poor quality line somewhere between you and the exchange. A pairgain/line splitter is in use. Too far from the exchange. Some people have gotten the pairgains removed but I'm not sure how they managed to get Eircom to do that.

What's your dial-up connection speed like?

Answer2: Satellite is a piss poor alternative to ISDN, not broadband, in my opinion. You'll need to either pay out about €1000 installation and €200+ a month for bi-directional, or get the cheaper uni-directional that needs either a dial-up modem or ISDN line for the upload. Either way it'll cost you an absolute fortune in call charges if you're online a lot. Better to get ISDN I'd say.

Are there any wireless operators in the area?

edit:
According to the Broadband finder on Noel Dempsey's somewhat questionable website, these wireless services are available in Ardrahan:
Airwire http://www.airwire.ie
Clarinbridge Broadband http://www.clarinbridgebroadband.com
Take that with a pinch of salt though as that website is fairly useless when it comes to wireless.

Is your line actually connected in the Ardrahan exchange? It might be going to a different one. The Smart broadband line checker will tell you what exchange you're on.

Sponge Bob

1. it will fail for up to a month but if your dialup is 46-48k or so at present it will pass when they test it. Ring 1800503303 and demand an immediate test , escalate to supervisor if you must.

2. Or wireless . Try airwire or digiweb metro

http://www.airwire.ie/

satellite is for the truly truly desperate and you have not proved you are truly desperate yet

Foxwood

By the way, have you checked your neighbours phone numbers for DSL? If any of them can get it, then you might be in luck. If none of them can, then you're out of luck.

tammy

Thanks for the responses. So I'll be patient and give it a month, i did call the eircom bb number and they did a test but not sure if it was a proper test or just checking the database. Satelitte sounds like it blows, so I'll give it a miss, unless I get desparate. I've sent some querys to wireless providers so hopefully there may be joy there. Thanks.

hobsonschoice

Hi Tammy,
I am in exactly the same spot, maybe we are neighbours? I am In behind Labane and am looking for any broadband connection. Did you manage to find someone to provide a service? Would really appreciate knowing what you uncovered, cheers. Dave

tammy

I got eircom broadband after only 3 1/2 months of hassling them.

If you got a phone line installed recently and if fails tests you should complain relentlessly as they have most likely put you on a "pair-gain" line as they had with me, this means you don't have a dedicated line. If they admit to this demand that they take you off it and put you on a dedicated line. Once on a dedicated line you should be fine, as I was and I'd be about 1k further from the exchange than you.

Eircom are apparently relaxing the rules about who qualifies for bb so if you tried them and failed try again.

I listened to several eircom employees telling me there was no chance of getting broadband etc and believed them for awhile until I did some homework.

Wireless is pretty bleak in the area, one option is airwire but it's expensive. There is also irishwan.ie who may be able to help you, post a thread on there forum and you might get some assistance. It depends on your location, it was no good for me a I'm in a low lying area.

Hope this helps
good luck.

Marlow

tammy wrote:

I got eircom broadband after only 3 1/2 months of hassling them.

So now Eircom sold you a highway, that you only are allowed to use partially.

tammy wrote:

Wireless is pretty bleak in the area, one option is airwire but it's expensive.

I'm not sure, how you come to that conclusion, but let me give you a simple calculation:

Eircom
24 EUR line-rental + 25 EUR dsl = 49 EUR.
For this you get your phoneline, obviously, and a 1 mbit/128 kbit DSL line with 10 GB cap down and 1 GB cap up. Essentially they only allow you to use 32 kbit/s if you were constantly using it over the month and that's before the contention has been applied.

Airwire
30 EUR and no phoneline needed. If you want a phone and not happy with the cellphone, you can get broadband phone from blueface from 5 EUR/month, which brings you to 35 EUR.
For this you get 512kbit up and down, no cap whatsoever.

And talking about installation, how much will a phoneline from Eircom cost you, if there hasn't been one previously in the house ? Now add the cost, if they have to set at least one pole ?

Airwire expensive ? You must be joking !!

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen
Technical Manager
Airwire

watty

Or Metro 20 Eur or 35 EUr and it provides a phone too on the wireless.

Marlow

watty wrote:

Or Metro 20 Eur or 35 EUr and it provides a phone too on the wireless.

Sorry, where is that different ? 20 EUR Metro has a 10 GB cap and 256k upstream. Again 32 kbit/s if you were to use your connection constantly. Capped broadband is not "always on" or "unlimited" broadband.

Also Metro is only available in Urban areas, mostly. Not rural.

/Martin

watty

In over a year I've never used more than about 1/2 the cap. After cap is reached you still have a throttled connection. I have some things connected 24x 365 to internet and 3 to 6 users at home. If I did go over the cap I'm not charged a cent extra and speed is still faster than Dialup.

I'm also in a rural area.

Most 3G/HSDPA, DSL and Wireless have a CAP. The ones without a Cap have "Fair use" provision.

Flat rate always on can be used 24x 365 without using up a Cap. The "dialup" concept of Flat rate is not true flat rate.

I'm on the 3M / 512K package. The phone line works with my Fax machine /scanner/Printer and also with my Skydigibox and DECT phone.

I used to have over 110 Euro a month in phone bills on Dialup. My voice calls is less than 15 Eur a month now.

Marlow

watty wrote:

In over a year I've never used more than about 1/2 the cap. After cap is reached you still have a throttled connection. I have some things connected 24x 365 to internet and 3 to 6 users at home. If I did go over the cap I'm not charged a cent extra and speed is still faster than Dialup.

- snip -

I'm also in a rural area.

- snip -

I'm on the 3M / 512K package. The phone line works with my Fax machine /scanner/Printer and also with my Skydigibox and DECT phone.

If you never really hit the cap, what you have is grand for you, with a 3 mbit package you certainly have a higher cap than 10 GB and you pay more than 20 EUR !

Being in a rural area and having 3 mbit is rare, but good, if so. The way caps behave are different from provider to provider, my point was just, that there is a huge difference between providers and 1 mbit is never the same 1 mbit as with another provider, if you don't compare the other aspects.

cap's should not be necesssary anyhow, as residental packages are usually contended, which comes down to the same as a fair use policy, just that it's better defined that way, as the consumer knows the extend of the limits. Adding a cap on top of a contention is pure rip off.

/Martin

watty

I don't think you understand the significance of Contention / Fair use/ Cap and always on.

You could have 100:1 contention and need a cap or not need a cap. Cap is ultimately about two things:
1) Cost of backhaul etc. So a Cap is needed. Unlimited you have to charge more as it costs more. ISPs pay for traffic, not time.
2) Making contention fair. A rolling cap with throttling means the heavy users can't unfairly penalise the light users.

Always on 24x365 costs nothing extra. It is a scandal that it is not supported by Analogue or ISDN dialup. Only the traffic costs money.

Some very low speed / high contention systems (e.g. ripwave) have no cap as the total data possible per user is quite low.

"Fair use" is the evilest of all as the user can't know what is fair use. A combination of contention and rolling cap with throttle means an ill defined "fair use" is not needed. The usage *IS* fair.

If there was only one of us rather than 3 to 6 using Internet the lower package would be ample. Some people need a larger package.

Marlow

watty wrote:

I don't think you understand the significance of Contention / Fair use/ Cap and always on.

Matter of fact, my whole point is the significance of the difference of contention / fair use / cap and a combination of those. I do after all run an ISP.

watty wrote:

Some very low speed / high contention systems (e.g. ripwave) have no cap as the total data possible per user is quite low.

IBB does not have a cap full stop, neither do we. Contention defines the limitation of bandwidth. RIPwave's quality however is down to, that the technology wasn't entirely up to, what it was sold as. It is after all a pre-stanard of WiMAX and even WiMAX has it's problems.

watty wrote:

"Fair use" is the evilest of all as the user can't know what is fair use.

Well .. this is exactly what I stated, just in different words.

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen
Technical Manager
Airwire

watty

If the connection is slow enough or has high enough contention, yes, you don't need a cap as the high cap of services like Magnet's and Digiweb's 8Mbps would not normally easily be reached. There is no need for a cap on ISDN, Analogue Dialup or Ripwave.

Of course if someone needs a 24x365 high speed service with no cap (to perhaps feed an entire apartment block) then they need to pay more.

Contention alone on a high speed service without cap allows torrant users or those sharing to an entire apartment unit to have a disproportionate amount of traffic.

Or is your concept of contention that people only get 1:24th even if out of 240 people, 230 are not using the connection? My concept is that you have 500 people sharing a "pipe" with a speed to support the published contention. Typically then users will statistically experience a speed close to 1:1 unless it is a commune of file sharers. On a rolling cap then people using too much traffic at limited infact to a throttled speed similar to the published worse case contention. No one gets less less than they paid for. On Average everyone sees a higher speed than the stated contention ratio.

Marlow

Our concept as such is to enforce contention primarily on P2P, but only, if it's huge amounts over a longer time. In general, we don't try to contend our customers at all. This is unfortunatly not the case with any provider and also we have our bottlenecks from time to time. Contention is a buffer for varying signals to the customer.

Aim is to deliver a similar service to the business deals of Magnet and Smart: they are uncontended and uncapped, but that can only be archieved by volume.

/Martin

watty

However Magnet mostly has fibre to customer and is not cheap. Smart Telecom may not be charging enough. Both have contention on backhaul, but they aim to have enough backhaul that customers to not notice the contention. They both assume 100% customers will not be running 100%. There is no doubt it is a lower contention product, so that users effectively "see" 1:1 contention. If all their customers ran joost and bittorrant, you would soon hear howls and see the contention their network really has.

A contention free network is not needed unless we all run joost & bittorrant and the entire country uses IP instead of Sat/Cable/Broacast. Frankly the sums for quality IPTV for the masses don't add up.

event

Marlow wrote:

IBB does not have a cap full stop, neither do we.

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen
Technical Manager
Airwire

so on your package you can download/upload as much as you want and customers wont be capped/charged

also, do you have a website that works?

cant get onto http://www.airwire.ie/

Marlow

watty wrote:

Both have contention on backhaul, but they aim to have enough backhaul that customers to not notice the contention. They both assume 100% customers will not be running 100%

Any ISP operates that way ! It is common practice.

event wrote:

so on your package you can download/upload as much as you want and customers wont be capped/charged

Correct

event wrote:

also, do you have a website that works?

cant get onto http://www.airwire.ie/

We had a router failure in Peterswell this morning. Problem has been solved by now.

/Martin

Sam Vimes

Marlow wrote:

Eircom
24 EUR line-rental + 25 EUR dsl = 49 EUR.
For this you get your phoneline, obviously, and a 1 mbit/128 kbit DSL line with 10 GB cap down and 1 GB cap up. Essentially they only allow you to use 32 kbit/s if you were constantly using it over the month and that's before the contention has been applied.

eircom don't charge for going over the cap

Marlow wrote:

And talking about installation, how much will a phoneline from Eircom cost you, if there hasn't been one previously in the house ? Now add the cost, if they have to set at least one pole ?

€121.93

watty wrote:

In over a year I've never used more than about 1/2 the cap. After cap is reached you still have a throttled connection. I have some things connected 24x 365 to internet and 3 to 6 users at home. If I did go over the cap I'm not charged a cent extra and speed is still faster than Dialup.

but then not everyone is like that. i've gone vastly over my cap every month since i got bb

Marlow

Commander Vimes wrote:

eircom don't charge for going over the cap

Correct at the time being, but they have the cap in place in case that they want to enforce it. But just to give you an example how a cap also can be enforced. NTL disconnected all high bandwidth users in the end of last year, the leverage used was they they consistently went over the cap. Another way a broadband provider, if he doesn't bill you for the excess traffic, can hit you, is by forcing you on a more expensive package, if you consistently go over the cap.

Commander Vimes wrote:

€121.93

And for that you get a phoneline, that is not guaranteed for working with broadband. Even if it's not on a partyline, they'll fail it for the first month or two, unless you get them to do a physical linetest. So by the time you've maybe got broadband from them, you've spend a couple of months line rental, too.

/Martin

Sam Vimes

Marlow wrote:

Correct at the time being, but they have the cap in place in case that they want to enforce it. But just to give you an example how a cap also can be enforced. NTL disconnected all high bandwidth users in the end of last year, the leverage used was they they consistently went over the cap. Another way a broadband provider, if he doesn't bill you for the excess traffic, can hit you, is by forcing you on a more expensive package, if you consistently go over the cap.

if they haven't charged by this stage i don't see it happening.

marlow, at this point i'd consider what you're doing advertising for your company. people get site banned for that regularly

Sponge Bob

eircom have charged a limited number of customers for breaking the cap, eg an Internet Cafe on a home package type customer.

Fair enough there

Marlow

Commander Vimes wrote:

marlow, at this point i'd consider what you're doing advertising for your company. people get site banned for that regularly

Of course I'm advertising . Check my posts around the forum and you'll see that I tell people about any providers available in their area, as long as it's not the former government telco. I don't care who you subscribe with, as long as it's not a rip-off product and I certainly do not need to advertise for ourselfes: we are busy enough getting through the current queue of people to be installed.

/Martin

event

Marlow wrote:

Eircom
24 EUR line-rental + 25 EUR dsl = 49 EUR.
For this you get your phoneline, obviously, and a 1 mbit/128 kbit DSL line with 10 GB cap down and 1 GB cap up. Essentially they only allow you to use 32 kbit/s if you were constantly using it over the month and that's before the contention has been applied.

Airwire
30 EUR and no phoneline needed. If you want a phone and not happy with the cellphone, you can get broadband phone from blueface from 5 EUR/month, which brings you to 35 EUR.
For this you get 512kbit up and down, no cap whatsoever.

And talking about installation, how much will a phoneline from Eircom cost you, if there hasn't been one previously in the house ? Now add the cost, if they have to set at least one pole ?

Airwire expensive ? You must be joking !!

well they are expensive

eircom is €49 per month, for that you get 1MB dowload speeds and a guaranteed phone service

if you go with Airwire, its €35 (€30+€5 for blueface). This is 512K download/upload speeds, which has a contention of 30:1. If you are downloading a large file or gaming, you wont be able to use VOIP as well as it should.

And a nice €300 installation fee?

you dont think that thats expensive?

Marlow

event wrote:

well they are expensive

eircom is €49 per month, for that you get 1MB dowload speeds and a guaranteed phone service

if you go with Airwire, its €35 (€30+€5 for blueface). This is 512K download/upload speeds, which has a contention of 30:1. If you are downloading a large file or gaming, you wont be able to use VOIP as well as it should.

Eircom is contended as well, 24:1 for their business offerings, not sure what the contention is on their residental offering and on top of that, they don't guarantee you the 1 mbit, even though their are selling it to you. Read the small print. On top of that, they cap you.

In regards to downloads and phone at the same time. VoIP uses max 80kbit/s nominal ethernet speed each direction, if you use an uncompressed codec, less if you use a compressed codec. This leaves you with 432 kbit for your download. If that is not enough, you can go for 1.5 mbit symmetric at 45 eur (50 eur if you include blueface), which means for nearly the same price as eircom you have now 1456 kbit for your download, while making a phonecall with uncompressed codec.

Obviously you would either want to manage your download or prioritise the VoIP.

event wrote:

And a nice €300 installation fee?

you dont think that thats expensive?

Well .. Eircom charges you approx. 130 EUR for the technician and for any pole, that they have to set from the road to your house. If you take their wireless product they charge you 605+vat for the installation.
We are not subsidised by the government nor by any other grants and that's what we currently need to charge to provide the service. Even the group broadband schemes, which get government funding charge pretty much the same. Again, check the total cost in comparison to the product you get and then tell me, who is expensive.

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen
Airwire

Sam Vimes

Marlow wrote:

On top of that, they cap you.

as several people have said, they don't cap you. they may at some point in the future (extremely unlikely) but currently they don't

Marlow wrote:

Well .. Eircom charges you approx. 130 EUR for the technician and for any pole, that they have to set from the road to your house.

where are you getting this idea? a landline costs €121.93 max. the poles they put up are irrelevant.

Marlow

Commander Vimes wrote:

as several people have said, they don't cap you. they may at some point in the future (extremely unlikely) but currently they don't

Sorry, read the posts again. It's done, just not in every case.

Commander Vimes wrote:

where are you getting this idea? a landline costs €121.93 max. the poles they put up are irrelevant.

Should I phone a couple of people and get you their bills ?

/Martin

Sam Vimes

Marlow wrote:

Sorry, read the posts again. It's done, just not in every case.

the example was where a business was trying to scam eircom by being on a residential package. not the same thing

Marlow wrote:

Should I phone a couple of people and get you their bills ?

/Martin

ok. i used to work for a company that sold landlines for eircom so i'm fairly sure they would have told me this when they were training me

event

Marlow wrote:

Eircom is contended as well, 24:1 for their business offerings, not sure what the contention is on their residental offering and on top of that, they don't guarantee you the 1 mbit, even though their are selling it to you. Read the small print. On top of that, they cap you.

In regards to downloads and phone at the same time. VoIP uses max 80kbit/s nominal ethernet speed each direction, if you use an uncompressed codec, less if you use a compressed codec. This leaves you with 432 kbit for your download. If that is not enough, you can go for 1.5 mbit symmetric at 45 eur(50 eur if you include blueface), which means for nearly the same price as eircom you have now 1456 kbit for your download, while making a phonecall with uncompressed codec.

Obviously you would either want to manage your download or prioritise the VoIP.
Well .. Eircom charges you approx. 130 EUR for the technician and for any pole, that they have to set from the road to your house. If you take their wireless product they charge you 605+vat for the installation.
We are not subsidised by the government nor by any other grants and that's what we currently need to charge to provide the service. Even the group broadband schemes, which get government funding charge pretty much the same. Again, check the total cost in comparison to the product you get and then tell me, who is expensive.

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen
Airwire

ok, ill check the comparison for 1 year

Eircom = €49 pm *12 = €588 + €121 installation = €709 per year

Airwire = €35 pm *12 = €420 + €300 installation = €720 per year

for a higher package?

and ive checked with Blueface, they recommend a 100K up/down for proper service. that leaves you with 412K up/down, presuming of course you get that full speed, which you may or amy not, depending on different factors. And i know eircom dont guarantee speeds, dues to condition of lines

im not having a go at you, and am no way a defender of Eircom, but it looks cheaper to me (unless i got my figures wrong, may have done)

watty

Uncompressed codec (G711) works poorer than a compressed codec such a iLBC, G729 or speex UNLESS the ISP only does the VOIP over their own backhaul and has QOS management for VOIP. 3rd Party VOIP has none of this, so G729 will actually perform better. It is about 12kbps.

ISPs with "integrated" toll quality VOIP only send the VOIP on their own network and will automatically switch between low bitrate G.729 and G.711 depending on content (Voice or Fax/Modem).

Marlow wrote:

In regards to downloads and phone at the same time. VoIP uses max 80kbit/s nominal ethernet speed each direction, if you use an uncompressed codec, less if you use a compressed codec. This leaves you with 432 kbit for your download. If that is not enough, you can go for 1.5 mbit symmetric at 45 eur (50 eur if you include blueface), which means for nearly the same price as eircom you have now 1456 kbit for your download, while making a phonecall with uncompressed codec.

Obviously you would either want to manage your download or prioritise the VoIP.

The user can only prioritise VOIP on their own data. Not the contented Network. The real problem with Blueface or other 3rd party VOIP is not your own data, but the Internet from your own modem onward. Real "integrated" ISP/VOIP suppliers carry the VOIP with managed QOS (prioritised if you like) from the user Modem to their own PSTN interconnect. Thus it is near landline quality and will support 10 page faxing quite well.

You can do nothing as a user to prioritise 3rd party VOIP. Multipage faxing is likely to fail due to packet loss or jitter. Voice will only be GSM quality or worse and will suffer badly at times of congestion.


If you want reliable VOIP use an integrated service phone supplier. Otherwise use Skype.

Also SIP based VOIP is awkward with NAT, routers and firewalls. Again the advantage of an ISP with integral voice is that the ATA is built in usually on an ISP's private subnet and does not traverse a firewall or be publically accessible to VOIP spamming (only a diallied number works as the ISPs "hidden" IP for the ATA/SIP port is a private IP range and not routable outside their network.

It also means it is more secure than a landline (Google how to tap a a landline phone without going into the house) and does not have the evesdropping risks of 3rd party VOIP as it is only on the ISps Internal network.

Generally the 12kbps VOIP approx on my phone handset is not distinguishable from the service we used to have from eircom.

Free SIP softphones on PCs do not generally do G.729 as that codec is not free. The iLBC and speex codecs, while perhaps as good and free, (linphone on Windows or Linux) may not be supported by the VOIP provider. You have to buy a softphone program for SIP VOIP using G729 on PC. Most HW ATA boxes with a phone port *DO* have the option.

canine

Hi
I know this question may have been asked many times but Im afraid Im a simpleton ,Ive been reading about Freesat and Free to air and Free to view andI think Im looking for the following ,and hoping someone can point me in the right (cheap ) direction
A freesat Reciever capable of playing HD tv with a hard drive so I can record

jor el

So many things wrong. You're in the wrong forum, this is an ancient thread about satellite Internet access. Nothing to do with TV.