Broadband in a box - false advertising?

Demonique

Irish Broadband advertises Ripwave as 'broadband in a box', but surely to qualify as broadband it should be of a speed faster than dial-up?

Niall1234

I've always been more interesting by Eircom's "Unlimited" broadband which of course has download limits.

SneakyRob

More interested by your comment... Dont ever remember Eircom claming that, which of course they didnt. I do remember them saying "Always On" Broadband though, which is true.

Niall1234

No they did say unlimited.

I made the point of starting a thread on here when they started that advertising campaign. "Always on unlimited broadband" they said.

In fact, they still say "Unlimited monthly usage" on their website: http://www.eircom.ie/cgi-bin/bvsm/bveircom/bladerunner/showContent.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0042448236.1192375258@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccchaddmfgfkmfdcefeceiedffndffg.0&cid=BroadbandAlwaysonRes&site=Res&chanId=-536889573

jor el

When eircom say unlimited they are referring to time and not data transfer since they also offer a time limited broadband.

The two "Broadband in a box" offerings ala Ripwave and Clearwire are not what I would describe as broadband at all given the general uselessness of both of them.

Niall1234

Then they should say Unlimited By Time.

What they are saying is false advertising as it is not Unlimited in all aspects.

If they said.

1. Unlimited with fair usage policy
2. Unlimited by time.

but they quite clearly didn't.

highlydebased

Plus, with "broadband in a box" (IBB etc) all you get is a modem. You need an antenna etc therefore its false advertising

watty

jor el wrote: »

When eircom say unlimited they are referring to time and not data transfer since they also offer a time limited broadband.

The two "Broadband in a box" offerings ala Ripwave and Clearwire are not what I would describe as broadband at all given the general uselessness of both of them.

time limited broadband = oxymoron

Ripwave is described by Navini as pre-WiMax. But so is WiFi 802.11g

watty

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Plus, with "broadband in a box" (IBB etc) all you get is a modem. You need an antenna etc therefore its false advertising

The Modem has an integral antenna. It is a "portable" (but not mobile) solution.

A bit of a click and twist at the right position and the aerial unclips so a higher gain outdoor aerial can be installed. I've seen a lot of Ripwave (USB and ethernet) but none with external aerial.

highlydebased

Aha. I see. My bad.....

thebman

Demonique wrote: »

Irish Broadband advertises Ripwave as 'broadband in a box', but surely to qualify as broadband it should be of a speed faster than dial-up?

Its capable of faster speeds than dial up but its dependant on location. Most people can't probably can't get great speeds out of it but its dependant on coverage and I'm sure some people are getting broadband speeds out of it.

I think most people know how useful it is anyway and you can return if if your unhappy.

Random

It's not unlimited if there's a limit. A fair usage policy is a limit - i.e. you can get to a point where they will tell you to stop.

Such advertising should be banned.

watty

I don't think any country apart from Ireland includes Mobile 3G and Ripwave as Broadband in statistics. The Czech replublic I think counts FIXED 3G connections with outdoor aerials.

Sam Vimes

jor el wrote: »

When eircom say unlimited they are referring to time and not data transfer since they also offer a time limited broadband.

so its unlimited except for the limits that they put on it. Right so

event

these limits, how many of you have been charged for going over it?

watty

Some of the "in a box" systems are slow enough that in a month you couldn't use up as much as the cap on fixed external aerial system.
You'll get charged on 3g/HSDPA mobile a huge amount for over cap.
Some fixed system/cable/DSL operators will throttle you to about ISDN speed while you are over cap.
Some operators will disconnect you if you are consistently over cap.

jor el

Commander Vimes wrote: »

so its unlimited except for the limits that they put on it. Right so

Exactly.

In eircom's case, they define (without actually defining it in any written form I might add) limit as being a time limit and not data transfer limit. It's implied that they mean time because of the eircom Broadband Time package, that is limited to 20 hours usage, that is also available. Though they really should explicitly state that "unlimited" refers to time and not usage.

If anyone can find a print, TV or radio ad where eircom say their broadband is unlimited then you could submit a complaint to the ASAI. You can't raise their website as an issue as I previously submitted a complaint about Imagine's website and was told that the ASAI don't rule over what a company says on their own website. I guess that area comes under Comreg's reign, so nothing will change there.

If anyone can figure out who you would report eircom to on this issue then please do. Anyone who's an eircom customer should email them and ask what their definition of "unlimited" is. Would be interesting to see if you get a response.

Tiamant888

Demonique, when I had it up in Dublin we made a CANtenna, improved the signal nearlt 100% + you get to eat the pringles mmmmmmmmmm.....pringles

MrVestek

Tiamant888 wrote: »

Demonique, when I had it up in Dublin we made a CANtenna, improved the signal nearlt 100% + you get to eat the pringles mmmmmmmmmm.....pringles

Yeah pics of such things have been posted on this forum before. Hell even here in the office where I work we came across a company in the states that sells professionally made cantennas. I kid you not.

http://www.cantenna.com/

SBob

jor el wrote: »

Exactly.

In eircom's case, they define (without actually defining it in any written form I might add) limit as being a time limit and not data transfer limit. It's implied that they mean time because of the eircom Broadband Time package, that is limited to 20 hours usage, that is also available. Though they really should explicitly state that "unlimited" refers to time and not usage.

If anyone can find a print, TV or radio ad where eircom say their broadband is unlimited then you could submit a complaint to the ASAI. You can't raise their website as an issue as I previously submitted a complaint about Imagine's website and was told that the ASAI don't rule over what a company says on their own website. I guess that area comes under Comreg's reign, so nothing will change there.

If anyone can figure out who you would report eircom to on this issue then please do. Anyone who's an eircom customer should email them and ask what their definition of "unlimited" is. Would be interesting to see if you get a response.

To be fair, the term 'unlimited' is more apropriate when talking about the download limits.

The amount of time in any one month is not actually unlimited, you can either have it always on, in which case you get your full 24 hours a day (limited to 24 hours!!) or not always on, so limited to less then 24 hours per day.

So using the term unlimited with respect to time is a clear attempt to mislead customers looking for good downloading packages

MrVestek

I wouldn't say so, unlimited would mean exactly that... although a customer may be affected by contention that doesn't take away from the fact that there are no limits or blocks on the connection, no download cap and no ports are blocked or anything like that.

Same can't be said for the likes of clearwire, good luck trying to use skype or anything on their connections as they have them and their ports completely locked down. As far as I'm aware they've just had a class action suit against them in the states by skype themselves for doing this...

jor el

SBob wrote: »

To be fair, the term 'unlimited' is more apropriate when talking about the download limits.

That may be obvious to you and I, but it could equally apply to time limits. When you consider that the other package that is available clearly has a time limit marked in the same way that unlimited is marked on the standard, non time limited packages, then it's fairly obvious that they are referring to unlimited time.

I'm the last person to defend eircom, but they have a perfect get out free clause that they will use if anyone questions them.

In general broadband terms "unlimited" normally refers to data limits, but there's no hard and fast rule and nothing that says it can't be referring to time.

gamer

I,D get from 3ook/persec to 450k on ripwave 1meg modem.at least theres no dl cap.ANYONE know where i,d get an external aerial to plug into the modem.i,d get ibb breeze if i could, its just not practical,breeze is much faster around1 meg/per second.MAYBE wimax will be avaidable in 5 years to bring more competition into the market.

MrVestek

Well the Ripwave device itself is already WiMAX compatible, it's just not a standard that's been implimented on their end yet...

The slowest connection they offer for their breeze connections is 2Mb from what I hear... could be wrong though.