IceComms support not helping with very slow speeds

shaptakster

I've had a 2Mb business account with Icecomms Broadband for over a year. 3 weeks ago the service went down for a couple of days and when it came back up the speeds have been dire.
They go up and down but mainly are below about 800kbs and as low as 150kbs.
This never happened before. They were always good and solid at 1.8mbs at speedtest.ie or irishisptest.ie
though ice support asked me to use onspeed to test speeds http://www.onspeed.com/en/speed_test.php which is not very reliable at all

Problems started and i called them at about 6 pm on the Monday. No support, so i left a message. I also emailed them. A few days later (remember this is a business account) i called them again when i got home early, since there was no contact from them and they me to reboot my router, which i had done about 20 times already. I rebooted and it was the same.

The guy said he would work on it. Also there are other people who i know who use the service who have the very same problems

Well 3 weeks later and with numerous ignored emails to support. I am really annoyed at how bad their support is. I've read about support from other companies here and it isnt even as bad as these guys. I'm attaching screenshots of the speeds and trace if anyone can help me, as i dont think ice are going to.

i have written this email to them
and will post back any replies and headway that i make here.

---

Hi,
As a business customer (who have recommended your service to several customers over the past year),
I think we've been patient enough here and deserve a proper response from anybody at icecomms.
These problems have been going on for 3 weeks now and have not been resolved.
In fact nobody has even contacted me in the last week.
Could you at least do me the courtesy of calling me at xxx xxxxxxxx.
I cant work from home because i cant guarantee the broadband connection i now have, so i have to travel
to Dundalk every day. By the time i get home your tech support are also gone home. Also we have no phones
now because the packet loss and makes a conversation over voip impossible.


I'm attaching more screenshots of speedtests.
This time of the paltry 569kbs we are getting according to onspeed.
and 640kbs according to speedtest.ie
May i remind you that we paid in advance for 24 months for a 2Mb connection.

Regards,
xxxxxxxx

---

Here is the trace

Sponge Bob

could be interference from someone else , why does IBB come to mind ???

this is atypical of ICE to be fair to them.

JohnnieM

As a a matter of interest Where bouts are you based? any of the several ice customers experiencing the same problems?are ye all in the same area?

shaptakster

I know they used to provide a good service until we had a problem. Its the lack of support that is really driving us mad here. Non answering of emails. No headway in fixing the problems in 3 weeks.
Its really getting infuriating now.

Based between Swords and Ashbourne. The other people i know having problems are from around here too.

brettmirl

Having problems too. Service went down over a weekend a couple of weeks back. Of course there was no answer from tech support that night!

Ever since it's been up and down...but yesterday and today have by far been the worst. Speeds are dire to say the least and again today there is no answer from tech support.

They used to be such a good provider and like previous posters, have reccomended them to others. Cerainly won't be in the future unless they get their finger out!

I'm Ashbourne-based by the way...

shaptakster

Heres an Update. Its been well over a month now that these problems have been happening.
I'm so pis*ed off with it that the brother has been dealing with them.
He got a call saturday before last to say it was all working ok. And it was.
On the Sunday it was back to the same rubbish again. Voip is unusable on it.
So he called them again last monday (18th). and they fixed it AGAIN. Tuesday it was rubbish again.
Then on Friday they called but we werent around as we have to go to client sites now because we cant depend on the broadband or voip at all.
Speeds were fine again for Friday Saturday and Sunday and now yet again they are crap.
Pings are high, packet loss everywhere, voip useless.
ICE have become a shambles.
I am banned from calling them because i'll just get pis*ed off and cancel the contract. The bro keeps saying to give them another chance but even he is about to cancel now.
Only problem is we paid for 2 years in advance.
I reckon they are having major contention issues now, but you would be hard pushed to get an answer out of them. They just keep saying its fixed, and it is for a day and then gone again. Its over amonth ICE. Get your act together.

Have IBB taken over ICE? Because i swear IBB would be better than them now. My sister has IBB wireless and even though its rubbish its actually better than what we get from ICE now. I'm sorry to say that i am ashamed that i ever reccomended them to people now. In fact, i dont think i'll ever reccomend them again.

I'll get the bro to call them again when he gets back from holidays and update again. I really did hope that i would have good news for an update, but its worse.

Foxwood

shaptakster wrote:

Pings are high, packet loss everywhere, voip useless.

What are your pings like on the very first hop - to your transmitter site? If you're getting high pings and packet loss on that hop, then the probem is probably local. If your pings within the Icecomm network are fine, and only slow down when te leave the IceComm part of the netwrok, then the problem is with the ISP.

Sponge Bob

both examples are isp problems Foxwood, one in the tail and one in the core.

you cannot be held to that contract, small claims court will find its an unfair contract

Foxwood

Sponge Bob wrote:

both examples are isp problems Foxwood, one in the tail and one in the core.

you cannot be held to that contract, small claims court will find its an unfair contract

Problems between your antennae and the transmitter are not always the ISPs fault - trees grow, antennas get blown out of alignment, neighbours start using equipment that interferes. If you bring that case to small claims court, you won't necessarily win.

brettmirl

Would it be worth your while organising someone to come out and check your aerial? Ours was moved by the strong winds last week.

Jumpy

mick_irl wrote:

Would it be worth your while organising someone to come out and check your aerial? Ours was moved by the strong winds last week.

I wouldnt think this is the problem. The OP has stated that ICE have done something locally to fix the connection each time he called. It soulds like whatever policies they are changing for him each call are being reset overnight.

Sponge Bob

Foxwood wrote:

Problems between your antennae and the transmitter are not always the ISPs fault - trees grow, antennas get blown out of alignment, neighbours start using equipment that interferes.

absolutely right but ICE can (technically) see his CPE FROM their end and told him that it had been fixed , one cannot suddenly ungrow a tree .

Therefore they could not see any of that degredation you described . The issue requires a site visit and maybe get the can of air onto that spider who has nested on their warm transmitter for the winter....eh ???? .....and I ALWAYS tell people NOT to get a wireless connection installed EXCEPT in May - Oct WHILE the leaves are on the trees OR if they can clearly see the mast from their homes.

shaptakster

Foxwood wrote:

What are your pings like on the very first hop - to your transmitter site? If you're getting high pings and packet loss on that hop, then the probem is probably local. If your pings within the Icecomm network are fine, and only slow down when te leave the IceComm part of the netwrok, then the problem is with the ISP.

Hi lads.
Pings to ICE are perfect. In my first post i have posted a few images and a trace you can see it.
In fact in one email the guys from ice even told us that one of the ip addresses was not theirs. It was 213.168.225.241 which is funnily called 'Glue for ICE networks' So you gotta question how good they are.
I actually want to cancel the contract at this stage but my brother (and boss) thinks they will sort it. I think he's coming around to my thinking on it now and may not be so forgiving when he gets home from his holidays and finds it worse than ever.
Just checked it now though and the speeds are all over the place again. They were ok when i checked at about 6pm but in the last 25 minutes rubbish, up and down like a yoyo.
The reason i posted here was to see if other people had the same problems. I see they do. I've also knocked on a few doors of people in the area with the white ice (no other wireless providers here) ariel on their roofs and they are all getting the same crap. Though they didnt know it til i pointed it out to them. They thought it was their faults or the internet was just slow.
By the sounds of it it effects everyone in the evenings and on and off during the day.

shaptakster

Update 30th September 2006 : 34 days of crap service

Speeds were fine on Thursday and Friday but again today they are about 120kbs down and 300kbs up with complete dropouts every few seconds. This is with a supposed 2mbs connection.

Pings to sip.blueface.ie are anywhere from 900ms to 4000ms so no voip possible again.

Got someone to try and call them earlier but noone there on a Saturday i guess.

Still an 'F' for IceComms service.

I'm just astounded how what used to be a competent operation can get so bad and stay bad all of a sudden.

brettmirl

Same here shapakster.... we had a week of great speeds and then over the weekend, it all went pear-shaped again. No answer from tech support. Left several messages and no call back. Speeds today are up and down more than whores knickers...

It's getting so frustrating. I'd prefer if they just admitted that they were having problems and gave a timeline as to when the planned to have them resolved. Not knowing what's going on is worse.

higster

anyone in celbridge experencing prob's...i was away at the weekend but looks perfect at the moment...my contract is due up in a month & was intending in sticking with them but if is going south may want to change plans

shaptakster

We finally had someone get through to them. God its hard work getting in touch with these guys.

They admitted that they did something on 29th August.
Our very bad experience started then.

Anyway,
Still the same. They dont know what the problem is.

they try to convince you to use onspeed for a speedtest., This is a rubbish test. Use www.speedtest.ie or www.irishisptest.ie

Onspeed doesnt test upload and only tests a very small download file.
And even if you were downloading fullspeed and do the onspeed test it gives you the same download speed figure.


voip is useless as the upload speed keeps dropping to 0 every few seconds so you can have a conversation.

A lot of people i have met who have ice are having these problems.
How can a problem this bad exist for over 5 weeks and not be solved?
How can it be so hard to get through to support on a business package?
Are they IBB in disguise?

Adey2002

I'm having similar problems with icecomms at the moment. Mine went down totally during the high winds a couple of weeks back and was told it would be a few days before I would get it back (high site problems). Not heard anything from them since. Before that, pings to my local gateway were 300+ constantly with crap download speeds. I too have recommended them to others but it's another on the list that I won't be recommending in future. I'm seriously considering just cancelling, luckily I have digiweb also (although that isn't much better at the moment).

shaptakster

Seem ok at 7pm tonight.
Back to what it was at the end of August. Normal speeds, normal pings and no dropouts. VOIP works today for the first time since the end of August.
I'll let you guys know if it stays like that.
Its come back to normal only to go to the dogs again within days or hours before. So i'm not counting chickens yet.

brettmirl

*touch wood* Ours seems ok at the moment also. Hope it lasts.

shaptakster

Well, i knew it was too good to last.
Gone to sh*t again.

Have to make the customary call every 3 days to the cowboys again where you have to ring about 50 times before its answered and they pretend nothing is wrong, they fix it for a couple of days and then forget about it.

They have gone to the top of my companies to avoid list.

Upload and download Speeds all over the place
Pings of 10 - 5000 to sip.blueface.ie
VOIP is impossible.

brettmirl

Same here today. Download is all over the place. Getting as low as 28k at times. Upload seems to be ok which is odd.

Didnt even bother trying to ring them today. Knew there would be no answer.

brettmirl

Didn't think it was possible but today it was so much worse. We spent most of the day without any internet and of course no answer to emails or calls to tech support. When we did have access, dial up would have been faster!!

Time to find an alternative.

DonalMcTavish

Mine is very bad also.
Ice have not helped at all. In fact i think they dont believe me that there is a problem.
The speeds are worse than dial up.

pdw

Ice has been really bad for me lately too.

They used to be great too.