Magnet or Digiweb

Ryaller

Hi,
I've ditched NTL BB for reasons too long to be listed here, and I want to switch over to a BB/phone package.
I'm looking at either Magnet's Entertainment Lite 4meg for €52 or Digiweb Metro's 3meg for €34.99 per month.
Can anyone who has these packages let me know what they think - how reliable are they? What's their customer service like? How much of a headache was it switching over?
Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but I've gone back to the last few pages, and a search didn't throw up what I'm looking for.
Thanks in advance.

Blazer

found Digiweb metro to be very good.
Pings were nice and low, speeds were consistently good.
I think over the whole year I had it it went went down about 4 times, and each time it was back within the hour or less.
Support is very good and staff are very helpful plus Chaz and Crawler both help out on this forum which a lot of ppl appreciate.

zoro

Recently Digiweb Metro in Dublin city centre has gone to the dogs - I definitely don't recommend it if you're anywhere near the 3 rock masts.
I don't know how the other masts are coping, but the 3 rock one is totally ridiculous

*edit* but as was just said, chaz + crawler are fantastically helpful reps here

Steffano2002

"Don't go down the wireless route" would be my first piece of advice. I had IBB (I know it's not Digiweb Metro but I'm allowed to compare technologies to an extent!) and it just wasn't up to par AFAIC.

I just subscribed to Magnet Lite this morning and so far I'm a happy customer! Product looks great on paper (ADSL2+ uncontended) and the people I spoke to on the phone were really good! They knew what they were talking about and within 10 minutes everything was sorted!

I will update this thread once I actually get connected...

Sponge Bob

Steffano2002 wrote:

"Don't go down the wireless route" would be my first piece of advice. I had IBB (I know it's not Digiweb Metro but I'm allowed to compare technologies to an extent!)

One is not licenced and subject to interference from other unlicenced gear (IBB) while the other IS licenced as a mobile network is licenced (Metro) .


The unlicenced one must put in some frequency hopping code ( to hop spectrum away from interference) which affects pings . The licenced one can assume no interference and need not be ready at all times to bugger off away from it, this is worth a few milliseconds here and there on the pings .

Steffano2002

Sponge Bob wrote:

One is not licenced and subject to interference from other unlicenced gear (IBB) while the other IS licenced as a mobile network is licenced (Metro) .


The unlicenced one must put in some frequency hopping code ( to hop spectrum away from interference) which affects pings . The licenced one can assume no interference and need not be ready at all times to bugger off away from it, this is worth a few milliseconds here and there on the pings .

Perhaps... But still cr@p compared to ADSL2+ IMHO...

Sponge Bob

In practice Magnet deliver about 4mbits on most lines, sometimes higher and never the nominal 24mbits where metro delivers 3mbits.

In many cases they deliver the same service in terms of quality , allowing for distance factors. Between 5km and 10km Metro would beat Magnet becuase Magnet simply would not work beyond 5km (their minimum package is 2mbits which is technically difficult to deliver beyond 5km in Ireland ) while at 1-2km or maybe 1-3km Magnet could beat Metro because it could probably deliver higher bandwidth .

Between 3 km and 5 km , very similar performance . A gamer may notice subtle but important differences were a non gamer would not . Other services would be the same .

Once you produce ALL the facts for us Steffano , distance and location being a very very very important consideration , we can then comment more accurately for Ryaller.

Steffano2002

All I was trying to tell Ryaller is taht if he is fed up with his current ISP (i.e. NTL) and is now looking for a reliable ISP, going down the (IMO "unreliable") wireless route would be a mistake.

I don't doubt there are lots of happy Digiweb Metro customers! But I also believe that overall, Magnet customers are happier with their ADSL2+ product...

Ryaller

Thanks for the replies...
I'm in D4, but I have to tell you I'm fairly clueless about the more technical aspects of all this - I have no idea what a "ping" is.
I appreciate that they appear to be different products. Just wanted to know if anyone can vouch for their reliability. I've no problem paying the extra for the Magnet package if it's a better product.
What are people's experience with their phone service? IE do you end up with extra call charges on their bills etc?

neacy69

Digiweb Metro
Its great!!!

watty

Steffano2002 wrote:

All I was trying to tell Ryaller is taht if he is fed up with his current ISP (i.e. NTL) and is now looking for a reliable ISP, going down the (IMO "unreliable") wireless route would be a mistake.

I don't doubt there are lots of happy Digiweb Metro customers! But I also believe that overall, Magnet customers are happier with their ADSL2+ product...

I have friend in Limerick who just ditched his "unreliable" DSL for Metro Wireless.

DSL (any kind) depends on quality and distance of phone line. Magnet can be excellent, but not automatically faster or more reliable for everyone because it is ADSL2+ or whatever.

There are reasons for the probably temporary issues some people have on Three Rock mast, just as there can be problems with DSL due to diggers and footpaths.

You can't extend your experience with ripwave to all wireless products. That would be like claiming ADSL is rubbish because it uses the same phone lines as a 33k modem that will only go at 9.6k because of a pair gain or line fault.


I would have liked DSL. But it never arrived here. Last year Metro did. Many people can't get ANY broadband, others may have only one choice or two (Bitstream DSL or LLU DSL).

Some magnet conections (apartments and ome developments) are fibre.

Steffano2002

Ryaller wrote:

What are people's experience with their phone service? IE do you end up with extra call charges on their bills etc?

Check www.magnet.ie Ryaller. It's actually well put together!

If you get Magnet Lite, you will get "free anytime Local and National Calls". That can't be bad! Although you need to pay for calls to mobiles and international calls... Again, check their website!

Ryaller

Cheers for all that! I think I'll go with the Magnet option.
Can anyone tell me if my location will affect anything? I'm in Dublin 4?
Am I correct in saying Magnet's phone service is VOIP?
I can't seem to find their call tariffs anywhere on the website. The option I'm going with has free local and national calls, but I'm wondering what their charges are for international.

A-Trak

zoro wrote:

Recently Digiweb Metro in Dublin city centre has gone to the dogs - I definitely don't recommend it if you're anywhere near the 3 rock masts.
I don't know how the other masts are coping, but the 3 rock one is totally ridiculous

I'm on the 3MB metro package on the 3 rock mast and I've had solid service without any issue over the last while.
I'm about 3.5miles NorthWest as the crow flies and have had constant 2.9 down and 480k up withvery little fluctuation. Pings have been about 29 - 40 ms average to UK sites & servers.

So for me nothing but good things to say about Digiweb!

watty

Does fax, dialup modem, phonewatch and Sky Digibox modem all work on Magnet VOIP?

JNive

nope it doesnt, however i believe the panasonic Sky Boxes do work on it, my pace Sky+ boxes cant dial out, on either Magnet VoiP or Blueface VoIP, if you have any of those above, its probably best to request the Shared LLU option ( thereby keeping your eircom phone number but also the voice line will be using eircom rates for calls i believe, so your own VoIP solution is handy )

Naikon

Got Digiweb Metro 1mbps(for the moment):)
Excellent service, and when i play CS:S I never get pings higher than about
35ms, and the contention ratio of 40:1 is very good.
I never use wireless lan cards for gaming as it really affects the ping(even on dsl and metro)
I am very surprised at the quality of the service, but interestingly my pings have dropped to 30ms average on decent servers in the UK.

However the Digiweb Metro Wireless service surpasses Eircoms DSL service which I had before.
Best of all, Eircom dont have me by the balls considering they practically own the telecommunications sector in this country.
VOIP is really handy and much cheaper than traditional phone services.
I would go with Digiweb hands down.

watty

JNive wrote:

nope it doesnt, however i believe the panasonic Sky Boxes do work on it, my pace Sky+ boxes cant dial out, on either Magnet VoiP or Blueface VoIP, if you have any of those above, its probably best to request the Shared LLU option ( thereby keeping your eircom phone number but also the voice line will be using eircom rates for calls i believe, so your own VoIP solution is handy )

If any model doesn't work, none will. Normal speech on VOIP uses a low bit rate codec that won't work with Faxes or Modems or Digiboxes.

On 3rd party VOIP you can use the high bitrate PCM/G.711, (Smart 076, Blueface) and then it fails for a different reason, lack of QOS, too much jitter / packet loss.

Since Magnet only is doing the VOIP across their own network they must not have the codecs setup to support modems.

The Metro VOIP port automatically switchs to high bitrate PCM/G.711 for Modems/Fax/Digibox. Since the VOIP is NOT 3rd party and only on Digiweb's own network, the Digbox or fax works.

I'm suprised Magnet hasn't got this working.

JNive

using G711 with Blueface as i said, the panasonic works fine the pace sky+ does not. Not sure whether its cause there is a different mdoem model in each or whether its some other parameter. Now that being said i do believe i tried it a few times via the Magnet VoIP and i believe out of 10 tries, the pace sky+ worked once.

watty

It's lack of QOS on Blueface. Try a 100 times... different times of day. I use the "send a comment to Sky" email feature to test modem activity!

coady

Magnet has a cometention ratio of 1:1 , which means u dont share it with anyone, i think Digin web has 24 : 1 ratio,.

zoro

Yup, which is pretty much what's causing all of my problems

coady

magent have a contention ratio of 1:1 which means u dont share with anyone else, so i reckon its much faster , it depends on your line quality , ie:distance from the exchange u are connected to , most other service have a contention ratio of 24:1 or even sometimes 48:1 . . . sucks !!!

Ryaller

Allright?
Rather than start a new topic for this, I'll post it here.
Can anyone who's signed up with Magnet tell me how long it took for them to get the router etc? I signed up with them last Wednesday 3rd, and sent in my DD form on Monday 8th. I was told that my BB should be up and running by the 20th, but maybe before. Do they wait until all the bank stuff is processed before starting the ball rolling, or should I have the router and stuff already?

JNive

once you they receive your DD form, they will then put the order through with eircom, once eircom approve it they will then send out the modem. where you just wait till eircom switch th eline over.

from them putting my order through to eircom, i was online 4 working days later

Steffano2002

I had the connection way before they got my DD details! Actually, I still haven't sent the form back to them and I've been online since the 2nd January. Took around 4-5 working days for me also (didn't mind getting a new phone number - porting phone number delays this a lot!)...

JNive

it delays it by about 4 working days i believe, due to the extra setup required by eircom with shared-LLU
and yeah, they probably arent too insistent on waiting for the DD form before proceeding with the order. And also note that you can pay by credit card also if you prefer.

But yeah, if things go smoothly then from the time you order to going live, it generally wont be much more than a week, unless there is either a large work schedule in your exchange, you have complete lazy ass techs there, or eircom decide to try a pull a quick one on ya lol

Ryaller

Thanks guys. I'm keeping my eircom number, so that's probably the hold up.