broadband in Kilkenny

maryd18

Hi,

I want to get broadband in my house in KK, the faster the better although is only for occasional use. Can anyone recommend. There seems to be an ocean of companies and offers and am at a loss at which offers the best service and value for money.

Thanks:)

fabbydabby

Eircom are doing packages for super duper fast ones at the moment and are comparitvely reliable. AND you can bundle them with your phone bill landline and all that jazz.

The routers are easy peasy to hack into though so make sure you change your WEP key if you live in a housing estate if you don't want people mooching off your waves, man.

In my experience the wireless ones are quite tempermental, especially in bad weather, though if anyone has had any other experience of them I am open to correction.

Stephen

If you live in town and you don't have a phone line then Chorus/NTL/UPC/whatever they're called this week are your best option.

maryd18

Thanks a million. Not currently using or paid up to landline,although there is a phone connection in house. Will investigate further.

Stephen

Well if you have no need for a landline then chorus or one of the wireless isp's should be the best for you - no eircom line rental necessary.

maryd18

thanks Stephen

jiggajt

I have BT. I get what im told is the fastest broadband available in KK i.e. 24 Mb and free landline calls to the UK and ireland at any time for 70 euro a month. That price includes VAT and barring of mobile calls (which they charge for for some reason). Sometimes i think its expensive but the broadband is bloody quick and i cant get the same package anywhere else for that price!
I used to have chorus and it was pretty cheap but unreliable and slow. Then i had irish braodband and they had the worst customer service EVER and tried to rip me off with contracts and the broadband kept going down.
I would say for speed go with the landline providers (Eircom, BT) and for value go with Chorus or one of the wireless ones.

PS. Beware of minimum 18 month contracts. Got stung with that before and almost ended up in small claims court over stupid name changing on bill.

hillerbees

Hi, I am living in Kilkenny city (Mayfield, off the Kells Road...roughly 10 min walk from city centre). I am currently with BT ( have been for years) I am on their 24MB package and pay for phone calls seperately with them. This costs €56 per month approx incl VAT but before any calls. However, I am only getting download speeds of approx 12MB and upload of about 1MB. I have been on to customer services several times and after they tried to blame factors inside my house they told me it was due to the fact that I was 2km from the exchange. They were not able/willing to tell me whether other customers near me had better or worse connection speeds. My router also drops the connection at least once a day, though usually no more than about 2 times a day.

I have been toying with the idea of moving my phone and broadband to NTL / Choras but am reluctant to put myself through the hassle without knowing whether I will actually get their 20MB speed that is offered and reading the last post on here I don't know whether it would be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. Advise please?!!

All I would say is to choose wisely....as you can see, the speeds advertised can be way off the mark compared to what you actually end up getting and there is always more than just price to consider when making your mind up.

jiggajt

You'll notice on the BT website that it says up to 24Mbps braoadband. Their ability to provide the stated speeds depends upon a number of factors including distance from exchange and the ammount of people online at that exchange and what they are doing. I am on the same package as you but my speeds have never been above 14Mbps.

However, this is not exclusive to BT. When i was on NTL i was paying for 3Mbps ( fastest available at the time) and getting just over 1 Mbps. In my experience BT have consistently provided the fastest broadband in Kilkenny despite it being half what they advertise it to be!

hillerbees

jiggajt wrote: »

You'll notice on the BT website that it says up to 24Mbps braoadband. Their ability to provide the stated speeds depends upon a number of factors including distance from exchange and the ammount of people online at that exchange and what they are doing. I am on the same package as you but my speeds have never been above 14Mbps.

However, this is not exclusive to BT. When i was on NTL i was paying for 3Mbps ( fastest available at the time) and getting just over 1 Mbps. In my experience BT have consistently provided the fastest broadband in Kilkenny despite it being half what they advertise it to be!

Hi jiggajt, I appreciate your comments, I understand the "UP TO" preface to the 24MB gives service providers ridiculous freedom in the advertising they manage to get away with and I also agree that most people would bite my arm off to be getting the speeds I am getting from BT but I still think they are extracting the urine out of me.

Since you replied to my post I visited a lady near Luke's Hospital who has NTL/Choras 10MB and I ran a speedtest.net speed check on it at about 7.30pm and it was showing 9.8MB download and 0.9MB upload speed. (I am getting about 12 up and 0.8 down on that site) She has this package about 6 months and says she has never had a problem with it and the speeds are consistant. I have also looked on boards.ie and the speed tests for NTL seem to reflect this also. Can you let me know how long ago you were with NTL as I am getting the feeling that they might have upped their game.

I really appreciate any feedback as I am hoping to make an informed decision whether to stay with BT in the next week or so. The lazy part of me says leave well enough alone and the reccesion bitten part of me is telling me to demand what I am paying for!! I'm a torn man!!

Cabaal

hillerbees wrote: »

Hi jiggajt, I appreciate your comments, I understand the "UP TO" preface to the 24MB gives service providers ridiculous freedom in the advertising they manage to get away with and I also agree that most people would bite my arm off to be getting the speeds I am getting from BT but I still think they are extracting the urine out of me.

Since you replied to my post I visited a lady near Luke's Hospital who has NTL/Choras 10MB and I ran a speedtest.net speed check on it at about 7.30pm and it was showing 9.8MB download and 0.9MB upload speed. (I am getting about 12 up and 0.8 down on that site) She has this package about 6 months and says she has never had a problem with it and the speeds are consistant. I have also looked on boards.ie and the speed tests for NTL seem to reflect this also. Can you let me know how long ago you were with NTL as I am getting the feeling that they might have upped their game.

I really appreciate any feedback as I am hoping to make an informed decision whether to stay with BT in the next week or so. The lazy part of me says leave well enough alone and the reccesion bitten part of me is telling me to demand what I am paying for!! I'm a torn man!!

BT is ADSL, UPC is cable very different technology's
- One is using PSTN lines which vary widely in quality to provide you with Broadband (you may want to read up on how ADSL actually works)
- The other is custom built to supply Broadband

As such they can not be compared as the same (UPC v BT), BT are supplying you with acceptable speeds and while you may not like their UPTO they are doing nothing illegal or underhandned your welcome to confirm this with the ASAI.

You can demand all you like but unless you physically move closer to the exchange and replace all the cables you will never get 24MB,

The next thing your likely going to say is BT should replace the cables, neither BT or Eircom will do this as you are getting what you paid for

Comreg will also be happy to tell you this I'm sure

jiggajt

hillerbees wrote: »

Hi jiggajt, I appreciate your comments, I understand the "UP TO" preface to the 24MB gives service providers ridiculous freedom in the advertising they manage to get away with and I also agree that most people would bite my arm off to be getting the speeds I am getting from BT but I still think they are extracting the urine out of me.

Since you replied to my post I visited a lady near Luke's Hospital who has NTL/Choras 10MB and I ran a speedtest.net speed check on it at about 7.30pm and it was showing 9.8MB download and 0.9MB upload speed. (I am getting about 12 up and 0.8 down on that site) She has this package about 6 months and says she has never had a problem with it and the speeds are consistant. I have also looked on boards.ie and the speed tests for NTL seem to reflect this also. Can you let me know how long ago you were with NTL as I am getting the feeling that they might have upped their game.

I really appreciate any feedback as I am hoping to make an informed decision whether to stay with BT in the next week or so. The lazy part of me says leave well enough alone and the reccesion bitten part of me is telling me to demand what I am paying for!! I'm a torn man!!

It was a good 3 or 4 years since i was with NTL and in fairness it was good value. I was getting my digital TV and internet for 70 euro a month. We did have a lot of trouble with it cutting out then too but to be fair whenever we complained they would give us a free months internet. I would say they are probably better now. That being said, im sticking with BT as they are usually the first with speed upgrades. Who knows soon they could be advertising 48Mbps and we might get 20!!:D

Stephen

My phone line won't go any faster than 3Mb and I'm too far out of town for cable

/weep

Cabaal

Stephen wrote: »

My phone line won't go any faster than 3Mb and I'm too far out of town for cable

/weep

While I'm not in Kilkenny City I'm happy that I can get ADSL and I can almost see the exchange from my house so "thankfully" I could get about 6MB based on my stats but I'm more then happy with 3MB

35notout

If you dont want a phone line and are too far for cable, then something like Digiweb Metro or IBB is your best bet

Stephen

I'm also living in a black spot for Digiweb (fecking hill between me and their base station) :pac: - had a buddy working there check it out for me, so its going to have to be ADSL over poor quality eircom copper for the foreseeable future!

fabbydabby

I'm on Eircom '3 Meg' but pushing just over 2... I'd say the distance to the exchange is a factor.

I'm just glad I can get broadband at all in this joke of a country. Lots of people can't. Knowledge Economy me ring.

EKRIUQ

I'm only 10 minutes walk from the city centre but can't get NTL, I have BT supposely on the 24MB package but only able to get 6MB down load and .4 upload

medici

For anyone who was trying to make their minds up in the above thread over the last few months, I'd be interested to know what provider you chose and what performance you're getting?

Just bought an XBox and trying to decide what's the best course of action re. getting broadband for online gaming?

Deliverance XXV

medici wrote: »

For anyone who was trying to make their minds up in the above thread over the last few months, I'd be interested to know what provider you chose and what performance you're getting?

Just bought an XBox and trying to decide what's the best course of action re. getting broadband for online gaming?

I use €ircom myself and occasionally play XBox Live and it's good the most of times although pings can get extremely high.

You should check out the Broadband forum as there's plenty of good info in there.

Lump

Dear god, one good thing about living in the UK, 8meg unlimited BB from O2 for £7.34 a month..... oh and I get the first 3 months free. Not bad going.

hillerbees

I stuck with BT Ireland in the end just before they passed their customers over to Vodafone. I was considering NTL/Choras but the thought of letting go of my landline and maybe having to pay a fee to get it back at some later stage put me off.

I do think that NTL might be something I would look at again and I also note that Vodafone do not offer anything faster than 7.6mb download speeds at the moment. I was told by their sales reps that this is likely to change in March/April next year once the changeover is complete but they could not give me speeds or costs at this stage.

I reckon Eircom are bad value still in the market and while their conection speeds might be reliable they always seem to be last to jump when new speeds become available.

Its a lottery out there at the moment and with things changing every year who knows what the best option is for gamers. I did hear mention that Imagine is bring out a 4G mobile (and DSL?) broadband service soon that will give users significant increases in speed and will eventually cover 90% of the country....lets hope the other 10% relates to rivers and lakes!

fabbydabby

They usually cop out by saying 99% of the population as opposed to 99% of the country.

The two are very different, as the 1% of the population who live in the vast swathes of land not covered will testify.

This also means that if you are one of the many people who needs internet on the move, chances are you'll venture into one of these connectivity black holes before long.

But it's OK apparently, because only 1% of people live there...

Captain Havoc

it's down again x(

Captain Havoc

Moaned a bit quick there, it was only gone for 10 minutes