UPC best value????

littleredspot

Hi, I'm looking at switching provider, currently with BT 24mb package, tired of the "unlimited" cap of 80-100GB. From reading on here, UPC, Magnet or Smart all appear to have a higher cap on their "unlimited" products.

For the faster BB Magnet is €65 and Smart €72. UPC are charging €72 for basic TV and (not quite as fast) BB.

(I use UPC for my television which is about €25 for the basic package.
I'm ignoring slight differences in set up costs and any short term promotional offers. 250GB limit would be fine) The only thing worrying me about UPC is the hassle we've had in the past contacting customer care. Has this improved? Am I missing something or is UPC by far the best bet?

vibe666

yes, they're the best value and word on the street (i.e. here) seems to be that their customer service is gradually improving from what people remember of them when UPC took over NTL & Chorus.

if yo're already a customer why not give them a call and ask a few test questions to see how they respond?

just out of curiosity, how are you perfrming on the BT 24mbps in speed tests?

you'll probably find that you'll get closer to the advertised speeds on NTL and the unofficial CAP/FUP is 250gb compared to the much lower BT one, although remember it includes uploaded data as well as downloaded so it's not the same as comparing like for like, so if you'd be a big torrenter you might find it getting eaten up a little quicker, but you're still likely to be a good 50-100gb better off than with BT depending on how you use it, obviously.

littleredspot

This would be a typical result, highest was 17.74. Summerhill exchange in Dublin. No complaints on that front. Not much point having it quite so fast if you don't stream much (which I don't) as far as I can see.

I always thought the BT cap counted your upload and download combined anyway.

Rang UPC today and had already decided that if it took half an hour to get through I wasn't going to bother. Straight through, no wait (but it was sales as opposed to tech help)

Thanks for prompt reply:)

vibe666

littleredspot wrote: »

Rang UPC today and had already decided that if it took half an hour to get through I wasn't going to bother. Straight through, no wait (but it was sales as opposed to tech help)

thats something that always bugs the crap out of me with most companies. no matter howlong a wait you have on support lines you can ALWAYS get straight through to the sales department. :mad:

hope it goes well for you anyway, i've had a few minor issues with them since i took it up in november last year, but it's no where near as bad as they used to be when we had telly off them a few years ago and general opinion seems to be that they are improving all round (gradually).

ooh, did i mention that they're upgrading all their broadband customers by the end of the year?

20mbps should go up to 60mbps with an option of 120mbps (for twice the price, obviously) if you've got deep enough pockets.

h2s

Interesting, I'm looking at UPC offers at moment. Basically I can cut a monthly bill by about 50% if I scrapped Sky and Eircom and still get near same service.

My only hesitation is that BB is vital in this house and if UPC fecked up with that service that would be a killer. Eircom BB has always been excellent over past 5 years, never went belly up once.

As for SKy - I wanted to upgrade to a + box and they want to charge me €200, what a way to treat a long term customer.

paddydriver

I just got UPC installed yesterday and got the whole shooting match - Full TV w/multi room, anytime phone and 20Mb BB.

Have/Had Sky HD w/multi room and BT business package for BB w/(supposed 7Mb) and phone.

Have had enough of the Sky HD boxes, they are beyond useless and we just do not watch HD - am on the 4th box now, and the BT BB has gone to muck too since they let the 24Mb hoodlums online;)

So far impressed. Picture quality is as good as Sky, BB is blisteringly fast - downloading stuff at 2.5MB (notice Big per second, and their multi media boxes seem to respond to remote commands - so far.

TBH most we watch on TV is downloaded .AVI's to the PS3 and kids just watch Disney all day... We are getting through "The Wire" at present then have all series of The Sopranos, Then as many CSI's as you can think of... have not even started on Lost, Prison Break... Desperate for Housewives etc

All above and I will knock about €70 off monthly bill and can put big chunk of it through work as it has BB and phone on there. Half price for 3 months too.

I have never been fan of Cablelink, NTL... etc but so far it seems good.

vibe666

did you just get the analogue TV or digital too? did youget the digital+? someone who had itsaid that it was crap compared to sky+ (which we have now).

the one downside of having the NTL phone is they don't have a UK calls package which was a little disappointing and has actually pushed up the calls side of my bill since i moved from BT.

i'm half tempted to move the phoneline to blueface and just keep the broadband, but then i'm thinking maybe go with the digital+ and have everything with ntl, but rumour has it they have no serieslink with it like on sky+ which would be a major off-put for me.

too many desisions.

23:59

paddydriver wrote: »

BT BB has gone to muck too since they let the 24Mb hoodlums online.

Agree completely - but presumed it was their equipment rather than users

vibe666 wrote: »

did youget the digital+? someone who had itsaid that it was crap compared to sky+ (which we have now).

Hmmm. I had decided to change to UPC but not for TV as I heard this too. Can anyone confirm that it doesn't have series link and that there is a lesser quality on the picture front.

vibe666 wrote: »

i'm half tempted to move the phoneline to blueface and just keep the broadband

Does anyone know what the minimum spec is for blueface to work on the broadband connection? Cheers

littleredspot

Ah it was all sooo much easier when there was only one reply:rolleyes:

I'm going for the digital+. Currently on analogue, I've heard that it doesn't do series link alright, but for the difference in cash I can live with it. As you say Paddydriver there's other means of viewing entire series. I don't need the movie or kids etc packages for the same reason.

Not including the UK on the call package is not hugely important to me, but Skype could solve that one easily.

Had a look at blueface before, but as you say too many decisions

Irishdudedave

Series Linking now works with UPC's Digital+

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055420892&page=16

h2s

Well I've decided to go for UPC 10mg with TV and phone, their coming next week.

The deciding factor was when the Sky box went bust and sky wanted €100 call out to send an engineer, no thanks.

h2s

Got UPC installed on Thursday and so far excellent.

TV is great especially now I can record what I want and it does series link too.

BB is excellent got the 10meg, I have four of us here surfing and online gaming and doing great.

The lads arrived when they said and were in and out in an hour.

All I need to do now is cancel Eircom BB and port over my number to UPC.

They provide clear and concise documentation regarding setup and the lads took us through everything and set up the modem.

Plus I have shaved about 50% of my previous TV and Phone/BB bills.:D

gerryk

h2s wrote: »

All I need to do now is cancel Eircom BB and port over my number to UPC.

You might want to hold off a week or so before you do that.
I connected to UPC a while back and had 2 24 hour outages within the first week, followed by another 2 shorter outages (4/5hr +) within the next 2 weeks.

I immediately disconnected and requested that they collect their equipment, which they did not do. It also took me months to get an account credit and refund.

Not saying this will happen to you, but leopards and spots and all that...

vibe666

gerryk wrote: »

You might want to hold off a week or so before you do that.
I connected to UPC a while back and had 2 24 hour outages within the first week, followed by another 2 shorter outages (4/5hr +) within the next 2 weeks.

were they new in your area with the 20mbps broadband?

i had something similar myself within a month or so of getting it last November, but it's been rock solid more or less 100% of the time ever since.

you might have jumped the gun a bit changing back maybe?

h2s

gerryk wrote: »

You might want to hold off a week or so before you do that.
I connected to UPC a while back and had 2 24 hour outages within the first week, followed by another 2 shorter outages (4/5hr +) within the next 2 weeks.

I immediately disconnected and requested that they collect their equipment, which they did not do. It also took me months to get an account credit and refund.

Not saying this will happen to you, but leopards and spots and all that...

Feck I hope not, I cancelled the BB with Eircom today.

Mind you I have two neighbours with UPC BB and they say there is never a problem.

I think it is a lot to do where you are living, I've seen horror stories with Eircom and yet in 5 years I never had an outage or any other problem.

I seem to see a lot of complaints from people in Limerick, regardless of the isp which is interesting since I did several speed tests over the weekend which were consistently excellent at top speed, using servers Dublin, Galway, France and Holland. Yet Limerick and Cork gave the worst test of only 3meg down and .3 up. I also know a lot depend on the server load at the time too.

I think we are lucky here in Newbridge with the BB.

vibe666

ah you'll be fine.

even if you do get one or two teething problems it should sort itself out like mine did (fingers crossed).

mines better than ever now, consistently getting 18-19mbps down in speedtests.

JJ

I'm going to be moving house soon and checked with UPC to see if they'll have BB in my area and they told me it's not on the agenda for at least the next 3 months so I'll have to look elsewhere.

Sudsy86

h2s wrote: »

I seem to see a lot of complaints from people in Limerick, regardless of the isp which is interesting since I did several speed tests over the weekend which were consistently excellent at top speed, using servers Dublin, Galway, France and Holland. Yet Limerick and Cork gave the worst test of only 3meg down and .3 up. I also know a lot depend on the server load at the time too.

Well with Limerick and Dublin for 1 the difference between the 2 is the limerick server is not actually a server but an exchange and it is highly used by the UL and LIT so speedtest always low results...Area's like Londan,France,Amsterdam and Dublin are main European servers so faster speeds built for high conjestion and better for checking speeds...

Guinnessman

UPC's quality of sevice and price is fairly good. However if you ever have to contact them by phone. You will be waiting 20 minutes and also you can almost guarantee that you will be ringing them back after they screw up your request the first time.

I had the 20 meg pack in tallaght and had a few outtages over the years but in general it was pretty reliable. However I remember the pain and heart ache trying to get an engineer to initially setup the service. They cannot call out a specific time hence the need to take a half day off work, in the hope that they show up.

Ive had the same problem recently I moved house to Dublin 6 and am trying to get it setup in new house. Same problem again had to take a half day of work. No sign of NTL. I kept ringing them, eventually anyway I got through, and they said they had me down for a different address in dublin 9. Obviously when i rang up first the person on the phone just took the start of my address and did a check name function and never bothered to check if it is right. They then said it will be a few hours while they register my address on the system

So ye they are very frustrating to deal with but probably worth it in the end. My advice ring them after a few pints, trust me it makes it wasier to deal with them

Knasher

JJ wrote:

I'm going to be moving house soon and checked with UPC to see if they'll have BB in my area and they told me it's not on the agenda for at least the next 3 months so I'll have to look elsewhere.

I'm in a similar situation, we can get UPC television but not broadband. However BT was very unreliable recently, and one of my housemates who had just recently moved in had a cable connection which he hadn't yet canceled. So I got him to plug it in during one of the many BT outages. Thing worked perfectly and a damn sight better than BT. Sadly UPC refuse to offer us the broadband connection due to it being "unreliable" (BT having no such worries).

Sudsy86

UPC actually told u they wont install u cause there service was unreliable? thats shocking...

I find the 20Mb service 10x better than my Smart 5Mb but i kept on to the Smart 5Mb for the ping times...Find them alot better for online gaming...

Knasher

Sudsy86 wrote:

UPC actually told u they wont install u cause there service was unreliable? thats shocking...

Well I'm living in an apartment building, so I'm guessing that they don't have the equipment in place to offer reliable broadband to all the apartments at once, so instead they don't offer it at all. So instead of having to share with the entire apartment block, we have it pretty much to ourselves. So much lower demand on the equipment, otherwise I'd assume special equipment would have to be installed in the apartment.

We haven't decided what to do with it yet, it works so much better that BT, ping times and everything. And I'm reticent to go back to watching my cap every month (there are 3 of us and we usually hit it with no effort at all). So we haven't cancelled the cable yet, or the BT (I should really try multiplexing it while I have the chance). But I'd imagine that UPC will cancel as soon as they realize we are using it from the wrong address (still paying the bills mind you, so hopefully not too angry). We got onto and engineer at one point (though not directly) and from the sound of things, they will be making no effort to change the situation any time soon.