'Consumer' Broadband not Regulated in Ireland

I M Wright

I would just like to point out to everyone out there that consumer broadband within Ireland is not regulated. This is an official quote from ComReg, the communications regulator, which has its powers directly from the Department of Communications. I would like to add that funnily enough the Broadband industry between companies is regulated!!! Big business being protected for the sake of the general public. ComReg is a total misnomer as in essence it only deals with the phone network itself and its basic requirement to provide a minimal service to the general public as per the European Community Universal Service Regulations SI 308.

In a nutshell this means that I can set up a company offering speeds of 'Up to 100gb' (believe me this is astronomical) and advertise this on the internet (again Internet advertisement is not regulated in Ireland) and charge customers what ever I like but because I have in the contract that I only offer speeds of 'Up to 100gb' I do not have to fulfill this or anywhere near this amount so I can indeed provide a dreadful service.

So tell me those civil servants who work for the government who marched on our streets on Sat 21st of Feb, what do you do all day long and how exactly do you serve the public?

Sponge Bob

I M Wright wrote: »

In a nutshell this means that I can set up a company offering speeds of 'Up to 100gb' (believe me this is astronomical) and advertise this on the internet (again Internet advertisement is not regulated in Ireland) and charge customers what ever I like but because I have in the contract that I only offer speeds of 'Up to 100gb' I do not have to fulfill this or anywhere near this amount so I can indeed provide a dreadful service.

You are selling yourself short mate, you can offer up to 1000 Gigabits and Comreg will do absolutely nothing about it and will do absolutely nothing for the consumer.

Comreg is what is known as a 'captured regulator' or is an example of "Regulatory Capture"

Best join the new Irelandoffline @ www.irelandoffline.org non?

I M Wright

thanks for the link Sponge Bob, I intend to write the Minister for Communications and ask for his department's legal definition of the word Broadband. On receipt of this reply I will commence legal action against Vodafone, ComReg and the Department through the small claims court. Should be interesting as to how it all enfolds.

drunkmonkey

I M Wright wrote: »

thanks for the link Sponge Bob, I intend to write the Minister for Communications and ask for his department's legal definition of the word Broadband. On receipt of this reply I will commence legal action against Vodafone, ComReg and the Department through the small claims court. Should be interesting as to how it all enfolds.

You must have deep pockets, if Vodafone are failing to provide you a service with which you were offered they should terminate your contract without charge....

best of luck with getting a definition of broadband...i've eircom 7mb broadband and it's crap for streming HD over the net...not just vodafone that should be taken to task....as far as i'm aware vodafone broadband is up to 3.6mb not 3.6mb...

axer

I M Wright wrote: »

I would just like to point out to everyone out there that consumer broadband within Ireland is not regulated. This is an official quote from ComReg, the communications regulator, which has its powers directly from the Department of Communications. I would like to add that funnily enough the Broadband industry between companies is regulated!!! Big business being protected for the sake of the general public. ComReg is a total misnomer as in essence it only deals with the phone network itself and its basic requirement to provide a minimal service to the general public as per the European Community Universal Service Regulations SI 308.

In a nutshell this means that I can set up a company offering speeds of 'Up to 100gb' (believe me this is astronomical) and advertise this on the internet (again Internet advertisement is not regulated in Ireland) and charge customers what ever I like but because I have in the contract that I only offer speeds of 'Up to 100gb' I do not have to fulfill this or anywhere near this amount so I can indeed provide a dreadful service.

So tell me those civil servants who work for the government who marched on our streets on Sat 21st of Feb, what do you do all day long and how exactly do you serve the public?

You could not offer connection speeds of up to 100gb/sec unless you could actually offer that connection speed to customers. If it is impossible for all customers to achieve that speed then you are false advertising.

Unfortunately it is the nature of RADSL and other technologies that both connection speeds and file transfer speeds cannot be guarenteed - there are too many variables.

If you were, for example, willing to pay for a better service with an SLA agreement then you could be guarenteed your speeds.

Sponge Bob

Eamon Ryan will simply fob you off with BS about the 'market' in ireland and tell you to write Comreg . He does not care about communications , not in the least.

Sponge Bob

axer wrote: »

If it is impossible for all customers to achieve that speed then you are false advertising.

That sort of explains how the mobile operators offer unsustainable speeds all the time and why nothing is ever done about it . 3g tech is midband , not broadband.

dudara

More suited to the Broadband forum I think.

dudara

Fuzzy Clam

I M Wright wrote: »

On receipt of this reply I will commence legal action against Vodafone, ComReg and the Department through the small claims court. Should be interesting as to how it all enfolds.

I think you will find that the small claims court will not be of any help. Thats not whats its there for.
You could try a civil action, if you can afford it.

I M Wright

I should hope i could bring Vodafone for selling faulty goods and for providing a service they can not provide. I have asked vodafone to clarify where exactly you can reach 3.6mb and they failed to answer. This 3.6mb is not achievable anywhere in the country and we as customers need them to prove it to us.

Sponge Bob

Good explanation as to why it is impossible ( outside a Laboratory ) here

http://irelandoffline.org/wp-content/2009/02/irelandoffline-nbs_briefing_document.pdf

p9 onwards. And Voda are absolute gentlemen compared to Three

GreenHand

I think broadband in ireland is a joke at the moment , i think iif you pay for something you should get it ... im paying waht 60 euro a month for a 10mb line and when i rang up customer support about bad speed they said my spped was fine and the speed they were getting was 8.5, why dont they charge me for 8 and give me extra . sure... Not that i mind 8.5 if i was getting it all the time some times i get 1 or 2 most days and when i ring them up they say it must be my fault router to far from pc and others lol...and hatefull in the middle of a game and it frezzes cause of speed... and im thinking of upgrading to 24 now just so i will have enough sppeed . there should be some authority or national complaints procedure to use or something . But then again i love me internet and i dont want to change id pay the extra 10euro for 24mband ive been with them now for 3 years. so much for customer service

watty

You are not paying for 10Mbps. That would be very much more expensive.

You are paying for shared access and the selling contention is 24:1 or 48:1.

The actual contention you are experiencing is 1.25:1

Experiencing 3:1 isn't uncommon for many people at peak times on 48:1 contention.

Ring up all the ISPs and see how much 10Mbps with no limits and 1:1 (no contention) costs. eircom some years back charged about £10,000 a month. I've no idea what current charges are.

You could be on "up to" 14.4Mbps I-HSDPA or on "up to" 100Mbps LTE and never see 1Mbps never mind a regular 8.5Mbps.

However if you are on DSL, then you are being overcharged by about €10 a month at least for the line rental. Your DSL includes over €21 a month line rental to eircom, even if you are not with eircom.

GreenHand

watty wrote: »

You are not paying for 10Mbps. That would be very much more expensive.

You are paying for shared access and the selling contention is 24:1 or 48:1.

The actual contention you are experiencing is 1.25:1

Experiencing 3:1 isn't uncommon for many people at peak times on 48:1 contention.

Ring up all the ISPs and see how much 10Mbps with no limits and 1:1 (no contention) costs. eircom some years back charged about £10,000 a month. I've no idea what current charges are.

You could be on "up to" 14.4Mbps I-HSDPA or on "up to" 100Mbps LTE and never see 1Mbps never mind a regular 8.5Mbps.

However if you are on DSL, then you are being overcharged by about €10 a month at least for the line rental. Your DSL includes over €21 a month line rental to eircom, even if you are not with eircom.

well it says on it No contention ratio means I don't have to share my connection with anyone else. which ithought meant 1 to 1

PogMoThoin

GreenHand wrote: »

well it says on it No contention ratio means I don't have to share my connection with anyone else. which ithought meant 1 to 1

No such thing, not to the ordinary customer anyway

GreenHand

PogMoThoin wrote: »

No such thing, not to the ordinary customer anyway

must look it up on contract thats wat i thought it SAID

Marlow

GreenHand wrote: »

well it says on it No contention ratio means I don't have to share my connection with anyone else. which ithought meant 1 to 1

It's still rate-adaptive. If your line can't handle it, tough luck. If you check out Eircom, they have 48:1 or 24:1 contention, rate adaptive ness AND a CAP.

Also you upgrading to 24 mbit might not give you more than 8.5

If you want wirespeed, buy a leased line or fiber, that also would get you uncontended access. You might however realise, that broadband are expensive goods when you want quality instead of rubbish.

/Martin

axer

GreenHand wrote: »

must look it up on contract thats wat i thought it SAID

must look it up on contract thats wat i THOUGHT it said. Fixed.

Nody

GreenHand wrote: »

well it says on it No contention ratio means I don't have to share my connection with anyone else. which ithought meant 1 to 1

For that price you ARE sharing your bandwidth with a lot of other people before it goes out on the Internet, it is not a question of if but where. I know a company who ran no contention as advertisment and it was 1:1 ratio as long as you was in THEIR network; as soon as you left it though you where contended as any other connection.

Marlow

Nody wrote: »

For that price you ARE sharing your bandwidth with a lot of other people before it goes out on the Internet, it is not a question of if but where. I know a company who ran no contention as advertisment and it was 1:1 ratio as long as you was in THEIR network; as soon as you left it though you where contended as any other connection.

The contention outside any ISPs network is actually something, that is outside of any ISPs control.

Even though they might be buying their bandwidth 1:1 to what they are selling (which they are not) from carriers, they can never guarantee wirespeed all across the world. Uncontended is always within your ISPs network.

If you now are referring to, that they might have overcontended the internet connectivity, that they are buying (often referred to as transit or upstream), that's a complete different alley.

ISPs usually buy bandwidth according to their peak traffic pattern + a bit extra (typically 20%) or a connection, where they pay a fixed price and then pay extra if they use above their limit. Their circuits can be up to 3 times bigger than what they are paying for on their fixed fee. No ISP will ever spend money on bandwidth that is unused for years.

/Martin

Nody

Nah, they where simply selling you a 1:1 contention in their network but their actual internet pipe ran on a 50:1 ratio or worse depending on which node it connected out via.

Marlow

Nody wrote: »

Nah, they where simply selling you a 1:1 contention in their network but their actual internet pipe ran on a 50:1 ratio or worse depending on which node it connected out via.

Still, that only becomes a problem, if they have more traffic than the pipe can take at some point. If they manage their bandwidth properly and look to, that they upgrade once 80% is reached, you'd hardly notice it.

/Martin

derry

No way about it the info is not good and certianly needs polcing .As fro CoNreg what else do you expect from this regime.They set it up the TeleCoNs to rip yor face and then you go tell it to the CoNreg who get thiier salary from TelCons .
The 1:1 is just jumped up 1:1 and that not good eneogh as later down stream you share with others possibly contension ratios likiem 50:1.
The rate adaptative CON means that for example the guys with 1meg line you find the nearest to the exchange might get 0.9meg and the dip stick at the end say afew milkes away will be down in the 0.5 or even 0.2Meg if the line is noisy(other speeds 2meg 3meg etc will be pro rata )
My 3g speed test noiw so called ~7 meg never seen faster than ~2 meg and mostly ~0.5 and uplink is barely over 25k best case 56k no matter what time for the day it is .Trying to use 3g in flat land rathmines and similar forget it slows to a crawl if it works mostly wont connect for 20 minutes periods and cuts of every few minutes

Regime change is the only hope

Derry

PogMoThoin

Also a 1mbit DSL connection never delivers more than 750kbps, even next door to the exchange, its the overheads of the copper and the protocol used to deliver it to your house.
1mbit=max of ~750kbps
3mbit=max of ~2800kbps
7.6mbit=max of ~6600kbps