ditching eircom broadband for 02 3g?

Honda08

hi folks am considering ditching my eircom 3mb broadband, which costs me around 50 euros per month, including line rental, for the 02 bundle which costs €19.99 per mth.


i have the 02 sierra modem, and have been testing it and overall it is very good, pages load as normal, and speeds vary, but acceptable to use.
have just tested it now, and im getting 1mb down and 1mb up..


here is the results from my eircom BB



this speed on eircom is usually only obtainable late at night, during normal daytime usage, the 02 usb modem gets simiar speed tests ( around 640kb) to the eircom BB..

so am considering cancelling my eircom line..

jor el

Ditching broadband for midband is a really bad idea. Midband products will never, ever, be what broadband is.

Speed isn't everything, latency (pings) on 3G will be anything from 5x to 50x as bad as DSL, killing VOIP and gaming straight away. Contention is poor, and will only get worse as more people sign up. It may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for.

Mobile broadband was designed for mobility, and was never meant as a home substitute, no matter what the marketing blurb might say.

Honda08

jor el wrote: »

Ditching broadband for midband is a really bad idea. Midband products will never, ever, be what broadband is.

Speed isn't everything, latency (pings) on 3G will be anything from 5x to 50x as bad as DSL, killing VOIP and gaming straight away. Contention is poor, and will only get worse as more people sign up. It may be cheaper, but you get what you pay for.

Mobile broadband was designed for mobility, and was never meant as a home substitute, no matter what the marketing blurb might say.

i dont use voip, nor online gaming, latency in the pings on the o2 link were aroud 170ms if i recall. for the time i have been testing it, it appears to be working fine.

the only issue i see is the radio waves from the usb modem, was using it today, and got headaches, however if i just use wifi to the eircom BB i dont get them!, strange.

smellslikeshoes

Honda08 wrote: »

i dont use voip, nor online gaming, latency in the pings on the o2 link were aroud 170ms if i recall. for the time i have been testing it, it appears to be working fine.

the only issue i see is the radio waves from the usb modem, was using it today, and got headaches, however if i just use wifi to the eircom BB i dont get them!, strange.

Wear a tin foil hat

No seriously though, its not something that should be giving headaches.

watty

The speed on the 3G Mobile can get very slow as more customers join the mast you use. If you are happy with a cheap version of Dialup, go ahead. But it can only get poorer.

Latency varies from 120ms to 2000ms
Speed from 5Mbps down to 0.045Mbps (45kbps). Upload speed is often poor.
It does not stay always connected.
If it's busy it may not connect.
Capacity is shared with phone calls.
Exceeding Cap is very expensive.
If 10 others connect you may disconnect due to the "Cell Breathe" mechanism.

If you want to save on Line rental /eircom BB look at:
Bundles from BT/UTV/Digiweb/Vodaphone/Imagine on phone line
Wireless using Imagine/IBB or Digiweb (not Ripwave or Clearwire)
Digiweb Metro (Special high performance Wirless like Cable including a phone)
UPC (ex Chorus/NTL) cable, can be got without the TV package.

But your O2 performance is unusually good and suggests an almost empty Mast sector.

Mobile is likely to be more expensive in long term as they make almost x400 from voice calls vs connect time and true Broadband in real terms is likely to fall in price or increase speed.

However if all you do is a few emails a week and odd post on Boards, then maybe O2 is a worthwhile saving.

Honda08

watty wrote: »

The speed on the 3G Mobile can get very slow as more customers join the mast you use. If you are happy with a cheap version of Dialup, go ahead. But it can only get poorer.

Latency varies from 120ms to 2000ms
Speed from 5Mbps down to 0.045Mbps (45kbps). Upload speed is often poor.
It does not stay always connected.
If it's busy it may not connect.
Capacity is shared with phone calls.
Exceeding Cap is very expensive.
If 10 others connect you may disconnect due to the "Cell Breathe" mechanism.

If you want to save on Line rental /eircom BB look at:
Bundles from BT/UTV/Digiweb/Vodaphone/Imagine on phone line
Wireless using Imagine/IBB or Digiweb (not Ripwave or Clearwire)
Digiweb Metro (Special high performance Wirless like Cable including a phone)
UPC (ex Chorus/NTL) cable, can be got without the TV package.

But your O2 performance is unusually good and suggests an almost empty Mast sector.

Mobile is likely to be more expensive in long term as they make almost x400 from voice calls vs connect time and true Broadband in real terms is likely to fall in price or increase speed.

However if all you do is a few emails a week and odd post on Boards, then maybe O2 is a worthwhile saving.

i know a few people who have the o2 broadband and they are very happy with it , heres my speed test today using 02




i have tried using youtube etc , and all work fine. im about 2 miles from a large town, but since i got the 02 it works great!

the worst the 02 has gone down to is 650kb or so.. im using the new sierra wireless 888 modem, set to only use 3g mode.

apart from putting the modem outside , is there any way of shielding / preventing / limiting the radio waves coming from this device back in to the room.? the mast its talking to is line of sight from the window about 2-3 miles away.

foggy_lad

Honda08 wrote: »

i know a few people who have the o2 broadband and they are very happy with it , heres my speed test today using 02




i have tried using youtube etc , and all work fine. im about 2 miles from a large town, but since i got the 02 it works great!

the worst the 02 has gone down to is 650kb or so.. im using the new sierra wireless 888 modem, set to only use 3g mode.

apart from putting the modem outside , is there any way of shielding / preventing / limiting the radio waves coming from this device back in to the room.? the mast its talking to is line of sight from the window about 2-3 miles away.

do speed tests at night every half hour from 5pm onwards and see what kind of results you get as all the mobile broadband services are far less contended during the day as less people make calls send texts or use their broadband during the day. my o2 speeds regularly drop below 100kbps after 7pm and also the modem wont stay connected for more than a few hours at a time when it is idle.

this test was stuck at 500kbps and shot up in the last second also the ping is quite high

watty

Honda08 wrote: »

i know a few people who have the o2 broadband and they are very happy with it

.....

the worst the 02 has gone down to is 650kb or so.. im using the new sierra wireless 888 modem, set to only use 3g mode.

apart from putting the modem outside , is there any way of shielding / preventing / limiting the radio waves coming from this device back in to the room.? the mast its talking to is line of sight from the window about 2-3 miles away.

I know people happy with dialup.

You will likely get 1/10th speeds regularly, eventually. i.e. 70kbps to 400kbps, if the service sells in your area. Better to tell everyone it's rubbish to have the mast sector to your self as you appear to at the moment

Type of Modem and setting isn't very relevant.


Wrap the house in Chicken Wire or Tin Foil completely.
Once the modem is about 60cm / 2ft away the power isn't significant.

Do you use a Mobile phone? At 1cm, that's 120 times closer to Brain = 14400 times the power on your Skull when using phone, which is an identical signal.

Enough phone calls nearby and the modem won't connect.

Honda08

watty wrote: »

I know people happy with dialup.

You will likely get 1/10th speeds regularly, eventually. i.e. 70kbps to 400kbps, if the service sells in your area. Better to tell everyone it's rubbish to have the mast sector to your self as you appear to at the moment

Type of Modem and setting isn't very relevant.


Wrap the house in Chicken Wire or Tin Foil completely.
Once the modem is about 60cm / 2ft away the power isn't significant.

Do you use a Mobile phone? At 1cm, that's 120 times closer to Brain = 14400 times the power on your Skull when using phone, which is an identical signal.

Enough phone calls nearby and the modem won't connect.

have been testing this for a good while now, and to be honest its grand, actually setting is actually very relevant, if you live on the fringe of 3g signal you might get stuck on edge, where as if you set it as 3g only, even with one bar signal, it will get good speed.:)

watty

Only if no-one else is using it. At the fringe the 3G will vanish if more connect, then EDGE is better. But that's not the important issue.

The fact is that the speed you get today is no relationship to what speed or lack of it you get in 3 to 6 months and you are locked into contract for another 9 to 11 Months.

Fuzzy Clam

Honda08 wrote: »

apart from putting the modem outside , is there any way of shielding / preventing / limiting the radio waves coming from this device back in to the room.? the mast its talking to is line of sight from the window about 2-3 miles away.

If you're quite serious about this, you could try placing the modem on the window sill facing the mast and place a metal container, like a square biscuit tin on its side, around it with the modem sitting in the box with the open side facing the mast. This could result in either improving or degrading the signal and a bit of messing around may be needed. I also would be surprised if its causing your headaches but RF is a strange thing.