Ice Broadband steadily becoming even more terrible

mrplop

Hello,

Just thought I share the results I've been getting from Speedtest.net for a supposed 3mb connection this morning.



And again:



And again:




No answer from support, in fact the automated message to say the lines are open from 10am to 6pm is still on at 11 o'clock so basically there's no-one there.

It's been like this for a week now and the last time I spoke to one of their support people I was told to ring back the next day if I still had the same problems.
In other words no attempt to fix it.

If you want reliable broadband or want to use Voip avoid this shower like the plague.

Does this kind of crap happen in other European countries?

This crowd is selling a service it can't provide - isn't this false advertising?
I don't see how a company can carry on like this without going out of business...

dub45

Have you checked your line stats?

Sponge Bob

its wireless Dub45 , ICE are busy emulating the old IBB I fear , should we ask for a sticky for them and another for Clearwire I wonder ??:p

dub45

Opps once I see 3Mbs my reflexes go line stats!:rolleyes:

watty

You can get 20Mbps Wireless (expensive).

Up to 8Mbps on Metro Wireless.

mrplop

It's actually Getting Worse...

Xennon

Is there any legal standing for this situation?.

I mean once you sign t&c are you really tied up to crap service for the min 12 month contract? There seems to be a load of these wISPs that cant provide a service, surely theres a legal standing on this?

Curious Dave

dub45

Xennon wrote:

Is there any legal standing for this situation?.

I mean once you sign t&c are you really tied up to crap service for the min 12 month contract? There seems to be a load of these wISPs that cant provide a service, surely theres a legal standing on this?

Curious Dave

For anyone dissatisfied with a service and intending to break a contract it would be very important to have a record that you reported the poor quality service to the isp concerned and gave them a chance to fix it - if you do not do this then you wont have a leg to stand on if it comes to breaking a contract. And by record I mean emails or memoed phone calls and a note of who you spoke with etc.

thebman

First divide your contention into your speeds to make sure they aren't just fully contending you. Of course if that's all the time then its unreasonable but I don't know if that will hold up.

Surely Irish law must be smart enough to see that if you pay for 3Mbps and you don't acheve anywhere near it in an entire month then they aren't providing you with a 3Mbps service.

Xennon

yeah...

/rant: but I'm thinking how can a company advertise a 3M connection, even though it may have a 30:1 contention, as a 3M Broadband connection. I do not care what companies say about contention ratios, that is a 100kb connection not a 3M connection.

And whats this bull about a 'fair usage policy', how the hell can you sell a 3M "ALWAYS ON", "BROADBAND" and then impose a 'fair usage policy'? If I buy a 3M connection then I should be allowed us it 24/7 at 3Mbps until I hit my cap.

And do not get me started on the companies that use wifi standards to deliver a product. rant/

RazielDoomgate

ice broadband dont have a cap :S.. have you ever thought that the majority of the ppl on ice's service arnt there by choice.. as for me and everyone around me ice are the only ones that can give use broadband.. ( i am .5 mile too far from the eircom switches.. and they wont upgrade)

so ther are tons of ppl only using ice.. they are downloading (be it accualy dling youtubing, or jsut browesing) and its puting a strain on the contention.

now im not trying to defend them .. but if did you get a choice of your isp? i didnt
try going on and doing your speed test in 2/3am and see whats its like then. ive found my most stable and fast connection is then.. while in the day.. i can have some probs..

but in the last weeks or so.. they have been upgrading or what ever they do.. to bring us that 3mb + connection see what happens on the coming weeks

btw.. i never signed a contract. we were never asked too :S

jsut did the test.. its 4.30pm
http://www.speedtest.net/result/148622582.png

mrplop

I didn't have a choice either hence my decision to go with Ice.
I'd heard about the upgrade too but I won't believe it until I see it to be honest with you - they used to use to line about transferring back hauls to improve the service.
Also a complete crock.

mrplop

I didn't have a choice either hence my decision to go with Ice.
I'd heard about the upgrade too but I won't believe it until I see it to be honest with you - they used to use to line about transferring back hauls to improve the service.
Also a complete crock.

Done a couple of minutes ago...

Marlow

If you currently are on eircom business dsl in Tuam (6m / 512k), you'll see speeds worse than that.

Sure, their own speedtest will tell you, that you get something like 4m, but speedtest.net will tell you 300kbit down and 384kbit up.

If ICE isn't up to provide the speed in your area, downgrade to a package, that is near the speed you get and save your money. Better practice would be not to offer the package you have in that area, if the backbone can't carry it.

/Martin

Marlow

Xennon wrote:

And do not get me started on the companies that use wifi standards to deliver a product.

Well, you should not buy any kind of fixed wireless broadband then (including WiMAX). It's all based on WiFi with maybe proprietary extensions and specialised drivers, that can handle the distance and timing needed to do so. WiMAX is nothing else than next generation WiFi.

/Martin

watty

Lots of Wireless products are nothing like WiFi, thankfully, as WiFi degrades badly with increasing users.

Some Wireless products are actually WiFi, which is not great. Wifi was designed for 3 to 8 users in a home or office. Not the great outdoors.

Wimax is not much like WiFi as it uses OFDM. 802.11n, the new high speed MIMO standard *IS* based on Wifi.

Xennon

wot watty said

Dave_W

Marlow

watty wrote:

Wimax is not much like WiFi as it uses OFDM. 802.11n, the new high speed MIMO standard *IS* based on Wifi.

Sorry ? WiFi is a term that describes 802.11a/b/g and maybe others and 802.11g and 802.11a are OFDM.

WiFi is not a standard, it's a general term for different wireless methods.

/Martin

Xennon

Wifi is a term that describes the 802.11 standards,
WiMax is a term for the 802.16d standard aka 802.16-2004.


Wifi: http://www.sss-mag.com/pdf/802_11tut.pdf
WiMax: http://www.intel.com/netcomms/technologies/wimax/304471.pdf

Comparison : http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/searchMobileComputing/downloads/Finneran.pdf

oscarBravo

Xennon wrote:

Wifi is a term that describes the 802.11 standards...

...including 11a and 11g, which use OFDM.

watty

But in practice if there is even one 802.11b device, then OFDM is not used.

802.11x are Domestic / Office standards not intended for WAN use.

Marlow

watty wrote:

But in practice if there is even one 802.11b device, then OFDM is not used.
802.11x are Domestic / Office standards not intended for WAN use.

That depends on the drivers in the routing platform you use. Beyond that, most WiFi routers allow you to specify 802.11g-only.

On top of that, this applies not to 802.11a, as it's OFDM only.

/Martin

oscarBravo

watty wrote:

802.11x are Domestic / Office standards not intended for WAN use.

...and DOCSIS is a cable modem standard not intended for wireless use. Sometimes clever people figure out how to make something work well in an environment for which it wasn't originally intended, watty.

Marlow

Well, matter of fact, the IEEE looked into the problems using 802.11 for outdoor/long distance and found only a slight degradation up to 6km. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=996922

The issues were timing related and that's exactly what advanced routing platforms for wireless take care of, with proprietary extensions without breaking the standard.

A standard is for compability, no matter what it is designed for. And sometimes a standard turns out to be better for other things, than what it actually was designed for originally.

For example, 802.11 sucks around a house due to shielding in the walls, etc., but as a fixed wireless connection outdoors with clear LoS, it's the most cost effective way for providing broadband. Matter of fact, if applied properly, it beats the latency of any ADSL line any day.

And in regards to interference, that can be dealt with in the network topology, by providing plenty of redundancy. And even fixed wireless providers in licensed frequency still use WiFi based protocols for transmission !!

So really, what do you prefer, when your choice is wireless ? A fixed microwave connection, that is cost effective and does provide, what you pay for, if applied correctly ? A non-fixed microwave connection, that is supposed to be non LoS, but really is a bit overhyped and costs hell of a lot more and performs poorly (ie. Rip-Wave, being pre-WiMAX or Clearwire) ? Or a fixed microwave connection, that just emulates your average NTL cable-tv broadband over the air and not symmetric because of that ? And then, there is the choice of mobile cellphone based broadband with near to no upstream ?

/Martin

bigpaddy2004

Digiweb use 5.8 in g mode for all their backhaul down in and around south Laois covering towns such as Mountrath, Abbeyleix, Ballacolla just to name a few.

Marlow

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

Digiweb use 5.8 in g mode for all their backhaul down in and around south Laois covering towns such as Mountrath, Abbeyleix, Ballacolla just to name a few.

802.11g is the best of the world of 802.11a (OFDM modulation) combined with the lower frequency of 802.11b.

So either it's 5.8 GHz, which is 802.11a or it's 802.11g, which would be 802.11b or g, but it's NEVER 5.8 in g mode

/Martin

bigpaddy2004

Marlow wrote:

802.11g is the best of the world of 802.11a (OFDM modulation) combined with the lower frequency of 802.11b.

So either it's 5.8 GHz, which is 802.11a or it's 802.11g, which would be 802.11b or g, but it's NEVER 5.8 in g mode

/Martin

Sorry, tiredness getting to me I guess

Xennon

My point about wifi as a basis for supplying a product to a customer is that it is unlicensed. What happens when more than one provider is trying to cover an area on 2.4 or 5.8?

One side starts pointing antennas at the other, trying to swamp their links with noise etc.

Who loses?...the people who are trying to use the service.

Commercial providers should be allocated frequencies to prevent this type of unprofessional behavior.

Dave_W

watty

oscarBravo wrote:

...and DOCSIS is a cable modem standard not intended for wireless use. Sometimes clever people figure out how to make something work well in an environment for which it wasn't originally intended, watty.

coax is just wireless waveguides for low frequency. Put a sharp kink in coax with 800Mhz + on it and the RF bounces back and leaks out. Not much goes past the kink!

DOCSIS on Microwave is getting popular worldwide as it actually works better than the average cable network (unless you have fibre to end of every street) if you have LOS. Great for Rural areas. No trenches to dig.

Xenon:
There ARE licensed bands, operators do apply for the licences and get them and are then protected.
As home / office WiFi become more prevalent, it becomes harder to use WiFi reliably for WAN services.

JohnnieM

mrplop wrote:

Hello,

Just thought I share the results I've been getting from Speedtest.net for a supposed 3mb connection this morning

Out of interest.... What area are you in?

TCollins

mrplop wrote:

Hello,

Just thought I share the results I've been getting from Speedtest.net for a supposed 3mb connection this morning.



And again:



And again:




No answer from support, in fact the automated message to say the lines are open from 10am to 6pm is still on at 11 o'clock so basically there's no-one there.

It's been like this for a week now and the last time I spoke to one of their support people I was told to ring back the next day if I still had the same problems.
In other words no attempt to fix it.

If you want reliable broadband or want to use Voip avoid this shower like the plague.

Does this kind of crap happen in other European countries?

This crowd is selling a service it can't provide - isn't this false advertising?
I don't see how a company can carry on like this without going out of business...

Ours is less than half your worst speed there, constantly.
We're on the 3Mb business package.
We're only with ICE because we cant get BB anywhere else.
I have complained and called them out on their bull so much now that they dont even answer my calls anymore.

I pray for the day another provider moves to my area.
ICE have absolutely no interest is providing the service you pay for. They know they have a captive market. There is no escape.

They are in fact worse than IBB ever were. I had IBB before and it seemed like heaven.

How about a sticky for ICE like there was for IBB. It seems it worked with IBB.

As for VOIP - remove it from your thought completely. ICE <> good VOIP (or good anything)

Asok

I'm sticking this for a while ala the IBB thread

Sponge Bob

It worked with IBB and IBB have behaved since !!!!

TCollins

Excellent. Now their sins are here for all to see. about time.
i think i'll email them this link.

bushy...

Since its been stickied to achieve the goal of getting a response from them , should really split off the posts #15 to #29 to a new topic.

mrplop

JohnnieM wrote:

Out of interest.... What area are you in?

I'm in Hazelhatch, Celbridge.

inky1

I have been trying to get ICE since last october, I have been told lies after lies after lies about the service being available in my area in 3 weeks. This perpetual 3 weeks still have not arrived.

each time I phone I get promised that some one will phone me back tomorrow which coincidently has not arrived either. If this is their sales attitude I shudder to think what their service will be like.

Unfortunately Like so many others here ICE may be our only option to move away from DIAL-UP Internet. Yes I can hear you laugh, but its true.

mrplop

You're almost better off with dial up to be honest...

TCollins

Called earlier to complain and they told me if i got their voip service then my speeds would improve. So basically if i give them more money they will give me the service i already pay for.

Gillo

Is anyone using them in Balbriggan, I was going to sign up to them tomorrow as they seem to have pretty good pricing, but after reading this thread, well...

Could some do a speed test for me please??

Cabaal

TCollins wrote:

Called earlier to complain and they told me if i got their voip service then my speeds would improve. So basically if i give them more money they will give me the service i already pay for.

So they are forcing you to buy their VoIP product so that your speeds will improve and thus they are ensuring that no other company's can have a workable VoIP service on their network.

Certainly interesting and something I'm sure company's like blueface would be very unhappy to hear

mrplop

gillo wrote:

Is anyone using them in Balbriggan, I was going to sign up to them tomorrow as they seem to have pretty good pricing, but after reading this thread, well...

Could some do a speed test for me please??

Seriously - Don't do it.

I was one of those guys that decided to give it a go despite the warnings.
I did it out of desperation after moving from a house that had solid 3mb cable broadband.

It's been a pain in the ass from start to finish and certainly don't do it if you've got a ready to go phone, I estimate it's cost me about €60 in calls to support alone - that's when they bother answering.
About 85% of the time it goes to voicemail and they NEVER call you back if you leave a message.
Another interesting fact is that after six and on the weekends their support service consists of ONE guy.
During the day it's TWO.
I'm amazed they've got away with this sh!t for as long as they have.

Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob wrote:

It worked with IBB and IBB have behaved since !!!!

Thats debatable. As soon as that thread disappeared my connection went to pot

inky1

I had IBB previously to moving house and suffered their appaling service. but the 6 or 8 months prior to moving I was getting what it said on the tin. I put it down to them finally getting their act together and investing into their network infrastructure. Also the familar 30 minutes that you were on hold waiting for support were also gone. In a nutshell IBB got their act together together.

ICE seem to be almost a mirror image of the poor service & support that we knew all too well from IBB. Unfortunately we are powerless to do anything about it. Comreg currently have little to no control over Broadband providers.

Sponge Bob

4 years ago the rules changed. Licence became "Authorisations"

Comreg have a standard authorisation and ICE applied for an got it . The conditions ICE accepted are here

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0381.pdf

section 18 states (paraphrase) "the applicant shall comply with all directions given on end user rights by comreg"

so ice (and other carriers like clearwire for example ) applied for and accepted section 18 . Lets move to end user rights .

these are outlined here

http://www.comreg.ie/consumer_initiatives/consumer_contracts.492.563.html

The last one in the list on that page is important . An authorised ( means same as licenced used to) carrier such as ICE should tell you what their complaint procedure is .

The method of initiating procedures for settlement of disputes in accordance with Regulation 28.

Not having a complaints procedure is a breach of your end user rights and a breach of their Authorisation , go straight to Comreg . So you start by lodging a formal complaint ...if possible.

If there IS a complaint procedure they usually have about 10 days to fix it from date of formal complaint . After that you can go to Comreg .

The specific detail is here

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg03129.pdf

ComReg would also like to draw attention to the requirements of existing
Community consumer protection legislation relating to contracts, including but not
limited to European Communities(Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts)
Regulations, 1995 S.I. No. 27 of 1995 and European Communities (Unfair Terms in
Consumer Contracts) (Amendment) Regulations, 2000 S. I. No. 307 of 2000. In
addition attention is drawn to S.I. No. 207 of 2001, European Communities
(Protection of Consumers in Respect of Contracts made by means of Distance
Communications) Regulations, 2001. In addition undertakings should be mindful of
relevant data protection legislation and conditions relating to the use of personal
information.

ironingbored

From the ICE website the 3Mb package has a contention ratio of 36:1 so your 1/2 Mb is well within that. Your pings are slightly long though. I'd give their tech support a call and see it this could be tweaked.

mrplop

ironingbored wrote:

From the ICE website the 3Mb package has a contention ratio of 36:1 so your 1/2 Mb is well within that. Your pings are slightly long though. I'd give their tech support a call and see it this could be tweaked.

Did you actually read the rest of the thread?
Calling tech support is a long expensive, arduous process that invariably results in nothing whatsoever.

As far as the contention is concerned are you suggesting that the majority of Ice's customers are online and downloading 24/7?

The connection is ALWAYS bad.

Here are some speedtest results for 3mb packages from other providers and remember the contention for some of these is 48:1.

Digiweb Metro 3mb
2796 download
465 upload

BT 3mb
2503 download
317 upload

Metro 3mb
2815 download
482 upload

Irish Broadband 3mb
2912 download
7779 upload(?)

Eircom 3mb
2634 download
314 upload

UTV 3mb
2664 download
328 upload

chorus 3mb
2891 download
365 upload

nobodythere

You sure it's not a 3 mega BIT line?

The figures kinda matchup!

dd02

While the Download and Upload rates on Speedtest seem valid, the ping times to the Dublin server are consistently bad. You will get better ping times to the London server. This would suggest that the server is not peered at Inex.

Quality Voip service is latency dependant rather than throughput based.

DD

delakota

I've been with this setup since last February, and up until last Thursday had no great problems. 3Mb package, and it performed reasonably well for my needs, with the occassional short-lived drop in speed and a few bouts of off-the-charts latency. Voip quality was a bit hit-and-miss, but nothing too major though. Last Thursday I noticed the speed had dropped off big-time. 200k max. It's been the same ever since, regardless of the time of day, so I can't see it as being contention related in any way.

Rang their 'support' line and eventually got through to somebody(after about an hour of trying). The guy informed me that there was work being done on part of their backhaul infrastrucuture in Stradbally, and this was having a knock-on effect on my bandwidth allocation in Maynooth ...... Apparently this was all being carried out by a mysterious individual known only as "he", so when I asked who this was, he explained to me it was a lone Cisco engineer working round-the-clock to rectify it. ETA? Tomorrow.

It's now 5 days later and the problem has only worsened. I can't get anybody on the telephone, and they NEVER respond to voicemail. I want out of this crock. I'll be lodging a formal complaint, and if this is not enough to resolve the problem, I will be taking it up with Comreg and cancelling the contract.

Digiweb Metro is now available in Maynooth, and if my research serves me correctly, they piggyback on the same ESB Telecom antenna at Taghadoe as do ICE, which means I already have LOS. Can anyone confirm that?

JohnnieM

delakota wrote:

if my research serves me correctly, they piggyback on the same ESB Telecom antenna at Taghadoe as do ICE, which means I already have LOS. Can anyone confirm that?

Dont know bout Digiweb But I do know ..Ice dont use the Esb tower in tagadoe..