ice speeds

caff

I had being with a ice a few months and was quite happy with their service. I was on their 3 meg down and one up package, contention ratio of 36:1
I got speeds of 2 down and 1 up on it.. I thought this was alright

Upgraded recently to the 4 down 2 up package conetention ratio 20:1

since then I have being having trouble speeds were dropping the .5 down and the same up, I rang up and was told the firmware on the arial needed to be upgraded, they did this and the speeds went up to 3.8 down and 2 up they stayed like that for a week then fell to 1 down and 1 up. I rang and was told that this was due to contention etc..

Is this right? If so what is the point in paying for the more expensive package?

TCollins

Welcome to ICE.
I have had nothing but crap service from ice since almost a year ago.
Cant get BB anywhere else. Not even 3G broadband.
Every excuse under the sun and in the end they always blame it on contention.
The truth is they dont have a clue how to deliver a proper service to their customer. They'll keep fobbing you off til you just give up hassling them.
If you cant get BB elsewhere, I would downgrade if i were you.
No point paying for what you're not getting.

caff

When they quote the speeeds they offer in each package is there a minimum service they have to provide?

thebman

Well technically if you are getting .5Mbps then you are getting a fully contended service which is what you are paying for.

4Mbps with 20:1 contention. If its like that all the time then its crap but they are providing the service promised technically. This is why I think there should be an average speed you should achieve for the month or something like that instead of contention which is unfair to the customer.

On a 4Mbps service, you should get 4Mbps for at least half the month. It seems that isn't the case with the current regulations/marketing speak. That they can offer 30Mbps broadband and just contend it so you end up on dial up most of the time. What a load of crap.

watty

The speed divided by contention ratio.
Unless you have exceeded fair use / caps or any other T&C in which case all bets are off.

However with systems that support small numbers of users total, the effects of contention are more noticable than on DSL, Metro, Cable etc that support 100s of customers on one connection. Vodaphone 12:1 contention on 1.8Mbps is seriously worse than a 1M DSL at 48:1 contention, as the vodaphone can only have 12 connections per cell out of unknown number of mobile users which could number many more than 12(the 13th won't get connected) and DSL has a fixed number of users but many never using at same instant, so the 48:1 contention is rarely reached. The effective DSL, Cable or Metro contention is frequently between 1:1 and 2:1.

Also some systems degrade badly in contention (WiFi, Carrier Detect Multiple Access etc).

If Unless the max number of users = contention ratio per sector, then to be most;ly running at contention speed, suggests sector over subscribed, i.e. really a worse contention than allowed* or advertised.

* There are licence limits on Wireless to Contention.

thebman

Have to say with IBB in Maynooth, I've never had it drop below 200KB/s except once or twice when I guess they were having problems. On a 2Mb/s package and quite happy with it as most of the time, I'm getting 240KB/s.