Digiweb Broadband - Metro vs DSL Option

Dunder

Hi,

I'm considering moving from Magnet (3mbs package) - they've been great to us up until a few weeks ago, since then the connection became unreliable, sometimes even completely cutting out for a few hours and their support couldn't help us.
This wouldn't be enough to decide to leave a provider that's been 99% reliable for over a year, but we need a bit more speed in the house so we don't know if we want to upgrade our magnet package or try some of the other options out there.


The two highest rated isps from what I've been hearing lately are Smart and digiweb, but Smart doesn't operate in our area so I've been looking up the Metro and DSL options off digiweb. (They're the options available for my location.)

Our situation is:
-Online gaming (Steam games mostly) is important
-VoIP important
-Streaming tv is important
-P2P/bittorrents are not so important, very rarely used, but FTP would be used quite often
-Reliability is important: We could handle a service that varied so long as it varied within usable levels, eg if the lowest it got was above our current download/upload speeds we probably wouldn't mind. At least for the first few months anyway until we get spoiled by the new speed.
-Having cap limit may be a problem, it's a heavily-used connection

So my question would be if anyone here has used either digiweb option, what would your feedback be on the above?
We're considering the 10mbps package on metro if we go with that, largely because of the traffic quota on the 6mbps one. Generally from what I've read here most people give the metro service good reviews, but presumably the wireless nature of it makes online gaming not so reliable?

And if that's not true, I'm drawing a blank as to why the DSL service costs so much more for what you get than the wireless, am I missing something? I'd love to hear from anybody who has had experience with both packages, or who can give me any sort of pros/cons here.

Also I read in another thread that there was an option to pay extra per month to increase your traffic quota, but can't find any such info on the site, can anyone confirm?


Thanks very much if you got all the way down here, I realise this turned into a bit of an essay!
Any info will help:D

trant

Hi,

Speaking from experience, Digiweb are fantastic. I am on their 10mb Metro package (previously 5mb before upgrades) for the past 2 years, and the service has been excellent with only a few minor outages in that time.

The advantage with Metro is that they own the infrastructure which means they have more control over what goes on. I would go with Metro over DSL as their DSL packages are simply resold Eircom products.

Digiweb's 6mb package is also excellent value - €34.95 per month (€17.48 for the first three months).

Hope this helps,
Justin.

cgarvey

Metro, assuming you have decent signal strength/line of sight, shouldn't add much more to your pings over DSL. However it is a lot more varied than DSL (in my experience anyway). It's that variance that can cause problems withing gaming anv VoIP, but on the main it's fine. I've only used Irish/UK servers (mainly UT), and it's mainly in the peak evening time. I've only had a few nights of trouble (bar the recent Digiweb network issues discussed here, and here only by the look of it).

Given that you save on eircom line rental, it certinaly has been worth the few nights of trouble. I've had downtime on Metro (and probably more than my eircom DSL before that), but nothing worth criticising for a consumer broadband product.

Best way to confirm extra quota addon is to ring them. They certainly had one some time ago, so I presume they still do, though I don't know.

DSL Pro: stable quick pings, superior uptime (just). Con: line rental
Metro Pro: faster cheaper speeds, no line rental, comes with (not so reliable) phone service included. Con: Wireless, phone service isn't reliable (in my experience)

Praetorian

I think DSL is much more reliable than any kind of wireless technology, but if fast downloads are what you want right now then metro is a good choice. DSL in Ireland is going to be upgraded in the summer though so I think it could be worth the wait. Changing DSL providers is still a pain in the as$ despite recent improvements to the procedure, but the problem could be just in the exchange with Eircom's equipment. People in my exchange were having problems recently no matter who their provider was.

Magnet pings are always excellent for gaming, they never ever charge for going over caps perhaps give them another call and tell them if your issues aren't resolved to your satisfaction that you will be leaving for another provider.

Jumpy

Apart from some problems at the start, Metro has been the best connection I have had. Im with Esat now due to a house move, but if you can get Metro with a strong signal go for it, online games are perfect.

Lafortezza

I'm on the DSL 3MB option. It's pretty reliable, d/l speeds are decent and consistant, digiweb support is good the few times I've had to contact them.

Downside for me is the price of DSL+phoneline against the price of Metro. Also the DSL Cap is way too low, 40GB just isn't enough these days if you are a heavy user for gaming and downloads.

I had minor problems recently with the cap tracker which showed I had downloaded 29GB in about 8 hours which threatened to push me over the limit and restrict my connection.
Support had a look and reset my counters to zero which was nice.

watty

Most masts the metro ping is lower than Bitstream DSL which is higher than LLU DSL. Some people on a few masts do seem to have less stable ping. I found that variation with up to 120ms was my WiFi point overloading. The actual ping on Metro via ethernet was stable (Limerick).

RangeR

I have Metro in Naas and my Steam based gaming [HL2CTF / TF2] is pretty flawless. Latency is great too