Save €'s on O2 Broadband

Chipboard

O2 are currently offering wireless broadband to new clients for €20 whereas existing clients pay €30.12.

If your currently paying more than €20 and your out of your contract, send them an email saying you want to cancel and they will offer to provide it at the lower rate.

I got the folowing email back

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email (Query Number XXXXXX).

We are very sorry to lose you as an O2 customer, and so as a reward for your loyalty we would like to offer you a reduced line rental package on your O2 Broadband of €20 per month. If you would be interested in accepting this offer or if there is anything else we can do to keep you as a customer please let us know via email or on the contact details below, alternatively your account is set to cancel on the XX/XX/09 as you have already paid up to this date.

If you should require further assistance, please call O2 Data & Internet Support on 1740 from your o2 mobile (€0.19c per call) or 1850 60 1740 (Please contact your network provider to query the charges to this number). We are available from 8.00am to 10.00pm seven days a week.

We hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards,

XXXXX
O2 Data & Internet Support
Telefónica O2 Ireland

www.o2.ie/broadband

Irelands Best Technical Support Helpdesk, CCMA Awards 2008

watty

Because 3 Ireland is advertising Massively at €20

Neither can ever be broadband. It's a Mobile Phone service.

Cabaal

Such a shame its not actually Broadband

Robo_Mike

Im getting o2 for €13.05 a month!! The advantages of being a student!!! Check it out at http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/connect/O2/Home/Explore+Services/Broadband/Mobile+Broadband/Student+Broadband/

Brian

I too have the O2/HEAnet €13 a month offer, I love it. I can see where you're coming from with the "not broadband" accusation, but to be honest I've been quite impressed by its performance - I once got 300 KB/s download while driving at 100 km/h somewhere in Co. Meath. The only thing that really lets it down in my eyes is the upload speed, which is much lower.

watty

That means no-one else was using the mast sector you were on. Maybe a mast to give phone coverage on the road rather than for an area of housing.

This is why anecdotal performance reports aren't too useful.

Brian

What you say might be true, but in Dublin city centre I get 200+ when I'm surely not the only person in the cell. I would average over 150 pretty much anywhere there is 3G coverage, which is most places to be honest - O2's coverage is good, decidedly better than the Meteor coverage I get in my phone (though that is in rather remote North Co. Cork...). It's not a replacement for a proper home broadband (I had to discourage my parents from replacing our home ADSL with this €13 offer - they're both academics and can avail of it too), but the mobility it affords is absolutely fabulous.

Edit: Here's an example from earlier in the year http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=57549081&highlight=speedtest#post57549081
With a ping of a quarter of a second you're never going to use it for gaming or anything like that, but it's perfectly adequate for browsing.

watty

Yes. It's a great Mobile solution. In some areas it would x5 better for Mobile if people were not using it a fixed solution.

Robo_Mike

watty wrote: »

Yes. It's a great Mobile solution. In some areas it would x5 better for Mobile if people were not using it a fixed solution.

Well in some areas there is no fixed solution so it is the only option besides dial-up.... I myself use it at home as a fixed solution.... I live in a remote area where the best coverage is edge, so the max that we get is 25KB/s down, absolute max. Its not ideal, but about 10 times better than what we were getting with dial-up. Sometimes there is no other choice!

Brian

Robo_Mike wrote: »

Well in some areas there is no fixed solution so it is the only option besides dial-up.... I myself use it at home as a fixed solution.... I live in a remote area where the best coverage is edge, so the max that we get is 25KB/s down, absolute max. Its not ideal, but about 10 times better than what we were getting with dial-up. Sometimes there is no other choice!

Have you tried testing the 3G coverage with different networks? They all have mobile broadband now, so it's possible that one network would have faster speeds than another in your area.

Robo_Mike

Baza210 wrote: »

Have you tried testing the 3G coverage with different networks? They all have mobile broadband now, so it's possible that one network would have faster speeds than another in your area.

Three - no coverage
Meteor - no coverage
O2 - Edge
Vodafone - Gprs
Ive tried everything believe me, were stuck waiting for 3's NBS "Broadband". We are in such a remote area that if eircom wanted to supply us with broadband they would have to run over 20km of a cable to just get into the area.........

Brian

Hmm. Whereabouts do you live (roughly) ? I live in North Cork, and we get Wireless-line-of-sight broadband from a company called Amocom, because we couldn't get broadband via cable either. We get 2 megs, €40 a month which isn't cheap I know but I think it's worth it considering our dial-up was 14.4 kbps...

Robo_Mike

Baza210 wrote: »

Hmm. Whereabouts do you live (roughly) ? I live in North Cork, and we get Wireless-line-of-sight broadband from a company called Amocom, because we couldn't get broadband via cable either. We get 2 megs, €40 a month which isn't cheap I know but I think it's worth it considering our dial-up was 14.4 kbps...

I also live in north cork, quite near to the cork kerry limerick border.... If i lived about 2 miles away in any direction i would be able to pick up wireless broadband....... But im stuck surrounded by hills which block the line of sight.........:(:(

Brian

The only other option I can think of is sattelite broadband, but I think that's prohibitively expensive if memory serves...

padocon

Is the mobile broadband not slower than wired?

tbaymusicman

I cancelled with them when i could never get the hsdpa or what ever its called and they gave me back the money i had paid over the 4months:D:D

watty

padocon wrote: »

Is the mobile broadband not slower than wired?

On average it is slower. But not simple. It can sometimes be faster, but never lower latency, and never "always on".

Wired connections (or Fixed Wireless) vary from 1Mbps to 24Mbps packages. You typically net 90% or more speed off peak and no worse than 60% on peak, though some fixed packages the on peak speed drops little. Fixed Wireless/DSL/Cable is all also low latency and "always connected".

Mobile is a fast dialup that attempts to connect on demand, so som inward applications never work and you may not connect at all.

It doesn't have "Packages" mostly (Ripwave is an exception). The Speed is the MAXIMUM for a single user close to the mast with a perfect signal. With as few as 10 simultaneous connections your speed can drop from 3Mbps to less than 50kbps or disconnect.
This presentation based on Mobile Base Station Vendors figures explains why 3G/HSPA Mobile can't be considered Broadband and is very unreliable:
http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/CompareHSPAandFixed-v4.html

Latency (ping) is poor to very bad, 80ms best, 120ms typical off peak and nearly 2000ms fully loaded.

As more users near you are added over the months the performance drops rapidly, Fixed Broadband is fairly unaffected.


Illustrated the biggest issue with mobile as customers are added. As people go online the ones further out drop out.
see also the FAQ
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58604214&postcount=1

Ricky91t

Watty,How is it the latency increases though,That's one thing i've never understood?Does it kind of que traffic at the mast?

watty

There are only 15 possible "connections"* (including phones). After that it has to spread them out in time, so data is queued at mast. It also means that Latency jitters terribly


*Codes, really, not Connections:
see http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/img7.html
3G uses W-CDMA, which only achieves more speed than the inferior to GSM, CDMA-one by using channels x4 bigger than CDMA-1. 3G was a retrograde technology to 2G's GSM as it was based on USA 2G's CDMA.

Podman

Robo_Mike wrote: »

I also live in north cork, quite near to the cork kerry limerick border.... If i lived about 2 miles away in any direction i would be able to pick up wireless broadband....... But im stuck surrounded by hills which block the line of sight.........:(:(

If there are enough network users in the local country valleys and that, you could maybe get together and buy a WAN mast for up on the hill?

Robo_Mike

chompy wrote: »

If there are enough network users in the local country valleys and that, you could maybe get together and buy a WAN mast for up on the hill?

And roughly how many users would be needed?? I know that the community has received money from a local windfarm that could be used to subsidise something like this!!!! Where should i look for more information???

watty

10 if you are all desperate and well off

20 is better. You need to be quite well off

100 is magic

Robo_Mike

Well id say we would get 20 easily, no way wed get a 100, plus a few businesses.... Where should i look for more info??

TouchingVirus

Robo_Mike wrote: »

Well id say we would get 20 easily, no way wed get a 100, plus a few businesses.... Where should i look for more info??

To be honest I'd like to know more about setting up a WAN myself, seems to be the only way to go forward with the NBS selling us out.

watty

The local mast is relatively easy. I'm familar with a wide variety of fixed wireless solutions that are not too expensive and give x10 to x20 performance of 3G per MHz. If it's nowhere near anyone else Comreg will licence it and also a separate licence is needed if you have your own Microwave backhaul.

The big issue is backhaul to where?.

You may need a licenced Microwave link to get you to the ESB or Digweb (or other Microwave backbones) or BT's ESAT/CIE fibre.

http://www.esbtelecoms.ie/
http://www.wdc.ie/

Digiweb, Global Crossing, Magnet and Smart all have various backhaul solutions too and some will provide you with backhaul or wholesale Internet access (not the same thing)
eNet do the MANs, they only good to take you from one side of a town/city to the other..

Some outfits have used Satellite to feed a mast, either temp. or long term. The only issues with Professional Satellite service shared is
:: Latency minimum about 790ms
:: Cost high on ongoing basis.
:: 1.2m dish
If you pay it's reliable and fast.

Podman

Check out thewan.net

Its been a good few years since I had any contact with the wan people, I always got a good vibe.

I don't know all the technical ins and outs myself, just trying to think of a few options.. I am presuming that O2 or 3 won't build a tower there already, I have no idea if that sort of thing can be bought privately or not.. I also don't know if broadband can be got directly by satellite/dish.

mk6705

Robo_Mike wrote: »

Well in some areas there is no fixed solution so it is the only option besides dial-up.... I myself use it at home as a fixed solution.... I live in a remote area where the best coverage is edge, so the max that we get is 25KB/s down, absolute max. Its not ideal, but about 10 times better than what we were getting with dial-up. Sometimes there is no other choice!

You only get 25k from EDGE? You actually could get better speeds from the Vodafone GPRS, depending on signal level. I can get 44k from Meteor's GPRS. EDGE is significantly better. 25k is very bad performance for EDGE.

Robo_Mike

Adro947 wrote: »

You only get 25k from EDGE? You actually could get better speeds from the Vodafone GPRS, depending on signal level. I can get 44k from Meteor's GPRS. EDGE is significantly better. 25k is very bad performance for EDGE.

No, i get 25kB/s(Bytes) download, i connect at 236kb(bits) There are 8 bits in a byte!!!

zynaps

Robo_Mike wrote: »

And roughly how many users would be needed?? I know that the community has received money from a local windfarm that could be used to subsidise something like this!!!! Where should i look for more information???

What about using the windfarm as a set of wireless masts (or just one)? They're already big visible things... maybe they could have FWA transceivers mounted on 'em somewhere.

mk6705

Robo_Mike wrote: »

No, i get 25kB/s(Bytes) download, i connect at 236kb(bits) There are 8 bits in a byte!!!

Sorry, I understand bits and bytes, I just thought you were talking in bytes! .