Broadband provider

patrickc

I know there was a thread some time back on Broadband in Ballon, but county wise, who's your provider and how do you rate them?

this might be useful for new people joining up to providers also.

I'm with utv, 2mb and I'm with them 3 years approx, overall I'd give them a 9/10 except over the last 3 weeks they've been a bit dodgy but apparently thats due to upgrade works.

tommycahir

Using Aptus just outside Ballon got the 2mb down and 126 up package with them and is running pretty good.

ShayK1

I use Clearwire. I'm not a big downloader so Its fine for me but it does slow down in bad weather.

stick-dan

Im using 3's extrememly 5h1t3 Portable Mobile Broadband and i must say it is the worst service ever. I, honest to god at most times, am surfing the net at dial-up speeds at it is absolutely ridiculous. I'm a compulsive downloader and have had serious withdrawal symptoms for the duration of the summer being home but thank god im back in waterford now with 12mb Broadband and no Download Cap.

** Yes i know that sounds nerdy ** :D

tommycahir

ShayK1 wrote: »

I use Clearwire. I'm not a big downloader so Its fine for me but it does slow down in bad weather.

{RANT}
I had clearwire in town for about 2 years and as you said it was grand for the browsing of the net but when trying to download anything was a nightmare.

They also have the nice habit of resetting the router which then used to end up with me having a rant at their support to get them to open port 2222 again (used to access hosting panels) even though they kept denying that they ever closed off ports!

{/RANT}

ShayK1

tommycahir wrote: »

{RANT}
I had clearwire in town for about 2 years and as you said it was grand for the browsing of the net but when trying to download anything was a nightmare.

They also have the nice habit of resetting the router which then used to end up with me having a rant at their support to get them to open port 2222 again (used to access hosting panels) even though they kept denying that they ever closed off ports!

{/RANT}

The Fags!

patrickc

has anyone in carlow had there broadband speed upgraded for free yet? it hasn't been done for me, but apparently Carlow is on the list as having been upgraded.

lotdpd

not had any upgrade in speed and i am with digiweb... anyone else?

Queen-Mise

no idea, haven't heard anything - i'm with bt though, it may be an eircom thing though.

patrickc

everyone should get it like, provided they have dsl broadband, doesnt matter who the provider is.

ShayK1

I'm with clearwire so no. If anything I feel like my service has degraded lately. Its gone to sh1te tbh

eddiehead

Its Eircom, and apparently it has been upgraded. Al I can say is I downloaded a PS3 firmware update in 25 mins the other night when it usually takes over an hour.

patrickc

eddiehead wrote: »

Its Eircom, and apparently it has been upgraded. Al I can say is I downloaded a PS3 firmware update in 25 mins the other night when it usually takes over an hour.

do a speedcheck and see for sure, it's bugging me now that some people seem to have and others havent..

stick-dan

is ntl ever going to carlow? i have 20mb in waterford. it's scary going home to carlow to that at the weekends.

patrickc

stick-dan wrote: »

is ntl ever going to carlow? i have 20mb in waterford. it's scary going home to carlow to that at the weekends.

yeh there rolling it out at present, but there tv is crap, so that would say no to me.

stick-dan

their tv is brutal, but imo their broadband is outstanding. 20mb baby.

ShayK1

i'll be switching to NTL as soon as its ready. I'm already on their list.

patrickc

ShayK1 wrote: »

i'll be switching to NTL as soon as its ready. I'm already on their list.

will you go tv and all?

eddiehead

I wouldnt get their tv anyway, its muck compared to sky, very cheap though.

ShayK1

patrickc wrote: »

will you go tv and all?

already have it.

stick-dan

Their tv quality really depends on the package you choose. They offer all you could want if you're willing to pay for it.

patrickc

ShayK1 wrote: »

already have it.

how do you find it?

stick-dan wrote: »

Their tv quality really depends on the package you choose. They offer all you could want if you're willing to pay for it.

yeh but ive heard nothing but outages with them recently and taking weeks to fix it also.

eddiehead

patrickc wrote: »

how do you find it?

Its the big boxey sort of a thing in the corner of the room with a screen and an on/off button, hard to miss really.....







/gets coat

ShayK1

I'm convinced we have a faulty box. We've one upstairs and one downstairs. Upstairs is normally fine but downstairs can be fairly iffy at times. We've tired to flag it with them but they're fobbing us off with "There's upgrades happening in your area at the moment".

I don't doubt there are upgrades happening but, I do query the fact that our upstairs setup is perfect and at the sametime our downstairs setup is blank.... ?

I will get back on the them eventually but by the time I get home from work I just couldn't be bothered spending an hour on the phone waiting to get through to Customer Service.

eddiehead

God I remember when I used to work for them, at times I felt so bad for some of the customers, their support is disgraceful. Some people were just sent round and round in circles trying to get things done, one woman told me she had the phone on hold from 9am - 3pm one saturday, she just went off about her daily business and simply never got a reply.

carter001

patrickc wrote: »

has anyone in carlow had there broadband speed upgraded for free yet? it hasn't been done for me, but apparently Carlow is on the list as having been upgraded.

In carlow town myself,no upgrade as yet,starting to worry now

testicle

ShayK1 wrote: »

I don't doubt there are upgrades happening

All the roadworks in town are UPC digging up the place.

DANNY22XX

i use to work for upc,,they are upgrading and they were supposed to have it ready for 2008 but due to building work in the town they had to put it back till 2009,,,but dont worry the UPC Internet and Cable is crap anyway,,

Carlow is not on there top list of upgrades anyway,,never was

so far they have upgraded the digital service for tv,,,and you have to be a customer to get the broadband,,,if you want it you have to take the tv package aswell,,,,id stay with what provider you have already
they say 6 meg is the top,,,all you get is 1 or 2,,,but they will happly charge ya for 6:mad:

stick-dan

DANNY22XX wrote: »

i use to work for upc,,they are upgrading and they were supposed to have it ready for 2008 but due to building work in the town they had to put it back till 2009,,,but dont worry the UPC Internet and Cable is crap anyway,,

Carlow is not on there top list of upgrades anyway,,never was

so far they have upgraded the digital service for tv,,,and you have to be a customer to get the broadband,,,if you want it you have to take the tv package aswell,,,,id stay with what provider you have already
they say 6 meg is the top,,,all you get is 1 or 2,,,but they will happly charge ya for 6:mad:

6mb is the through-put vlaue of the connection and is not exageratted. The 1 & 2 meg that you all experience is the BandWidth. The difference being that throughput is the theoritical maximum you can get from that connection and is accurate. However the 6mb throughput value is based on a perfect connection from them to you with no interference. If ntl had only 1 customer that customer would get 6mb. However aspects affect throughput and result in you only getting 1 or 2mb download which is the actual bandwidth. This is due to factors such as demand(amount of users on network at a time), latency(lines and networks being stretched beyond their capabilities to accomodate new customers), and other such factors. They aren't flase advertising at all. Their throughput value is very much so accurate and they are well within their rights to advertise 6mb as the speed becasue it is, just that factors like the ones above decrease it.

To be honest i don't think that their pricing is too bad either. I have no problem paying for the service im subscribed to with them at the moment. I have only ever had one problem with their broadband.I will agree though that i hate the way you have to take TV to be able to avail of the broadband option. It is a complete pain. I wouldn't be a tv viewer yet i am paying for it. That's the only real fault i find with them. I mean when up in carlow i have to have that 3 HSDPA broadband and im paying 20 euro a month for and most of the time it takes 20 minutes to establish a connection. NTL are like heaven compared to that.

patrickc

I've been upgraded today:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

have been emailing utv back and forth and they logged a fault so 3mb down now..

ShayK1

nice one patrick! lucky you

dan: in response to your post....

ShayK1 wrote: »

i'll be switching to NTL as soon as its ready. I'm already on their list.

stick-dan

ShayK1 wrote: »

nice one patrick! lucky you

dan: in response to your post....

i was referring to my namesake with that last post of mine, he seems disgruntled at ntl's charging habits.

ShayK1

ah I see. my bad.

Dathai1

patrickc wrote: »

I've been upgraded today:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

have been emailing utv back and forth and they logged a fault so 3mb down now..

Patrick, how did you get this logged as a 'fault'.

I'm in Carlow town and on UTV 2mb DSL. Have been waiting for the upgrade but keep getting fobbed off with the 'post September' line. Have been on to UTV Tech. Support today and they can offer no more info.

How's the upgrade been for you? Any side-effects?

Cheers.

patrickc

Dathai1 wrote: »

Patrick, how did you get this logged as a 'fault'.

I'm in Carlow town and on UTV 2mb DSL. Have been waiting for the upgrade but keep getting fobbed off with the 'post September' line. Have been on to UTV Tech. Support today and they can offer no more info.

How's the upgrade been for you? Any side-effects?

Cheers.

Hi Daithi

i just emailed them a few weeks back, and they said that Carlow as on the list as having been upgraded, and that they would log it as a fault with Eircom, they told me to check my speeds today/tomorrow, but the day the fault was logged my speeds increased, just did a speed check there now, 2256kb/s down and 302 kbs up.

ping was really high prior to this, seems to have dropped a bit also.

i was also on the 2mb dsl line prior to this.

Dathai1

Thanks for that Patrick.
A bit of consistency from the ISP would not be a bad thing. However it's more of what we've come to expect. A lot of the time, customers tend to be more informed than the Support guys.

joyday

Hi
I am looking for best internet providers in carlow. Any suggestion , link to the providers?
I heard there is no NTL broadband in carlow. is it true?

thx
joyday

RedXIV

What would you be using the internet for and where abouts in carlow are you?

I was with Digiweb for 2 years but their download limit used to piss me off no end. Am with eircom now, and relatively happy

ShayK1

joyday wrote: »

Hi
I am looking for best internet providers in carlow. Any suggestion , link to the providers?
I heard there is no NTL broadband in carlow. is it true?

thx
joyday

No that's not true. I have it. 3mb for €22 per month.
http://www.upc.ie/internet/

It might not be available everywhere in Carlow. Best bet, ring up and ask.

patrickc

thats 4mb in Carlow, the nice guys in UTV played around with my speeds on the 7.6mb package until we got this the most capable for my line

DiarmaidGNR

lotdpd wrote: »

not had any upgrade in speed and i am with digiweb... anyone else?

I had 6mb and they upgraded me to 8mb "at no extra cost" without even asking me, they just sent me an email stating the change. No difference in speed, but the monthly price actually went up by around €5 - it was all bull****!
Digiweb is crap, theres no point having a 6 or 8mb line if you only have a 30 mb download limit, and once you go over that limit they throttle the hell out of you with speeds lower than dial up for ages. And its really unreliable.

You're far better off with eircom, it too is unreliable in my experience (the wireless router) , but they have no download limits, they never hassle you, and you don't have to have a yearly contract, legally they have to let you quit the service.