UPC satifaction poll

grizzly

I've heard lots of conflicting reports on the quality (or lack) of UPCs support/customer service. I'm wondering if people are happy overall with there UPC broadband, as you tend to the horror stories the loudest.

So my question is...

EDIT

There's a very comprehensive poll about all broadband providers (including NTL) – but as it goes back a few years, I don't think it provides an accurate snapshot of how people few about there current service.

Purple Gorilla

I'm medium happy. I'm on 20mb so I can't complain but I usually only get speeds of around 9/10mb

ajc100

I am back with UPC with 10 mb's, phone and tv service after 2 years with 'Dodgey' box and ........

so far so good.

MagicMarker

I'm happy with the service, just not the customer service.

Dinner

Very happy with them. Usually solid speeds from 20Mb.

I've had to contact them 3 times. First was before I signed up and i got a reply within 3 days. The other 2 times I didn't get a reply at all. So customer service not great, but the rest is brilliant.

Jilm

I've had UPC broadband & TV for the last 12 months. Initially I signed up for 20Mbit but later downgraded to 10Mbit after a couple of months.

I'm getting ~10Mbit download speeds, so I've no real complaints.

jeffreylebowski

I'm on 20mb, my speeds have never really dipped below 17mb which I figure is pretty acceptable.

I had little trouble setting up port forwarding on the Netgear router, which is nothing special but works fine.

In terms of reliability, they've had network problems I think four times in the eight months I've been with them, but it's important to note that none of those four times was longer than six hours, and two of them were less than two hours. Having been with a couple of different providers and worked for a third myself, I view that as a reasonable amount of downtime.


I find the price alright, when you add everything together they're not really all that expensive, and their "fair usage policy" isn't really so bad. I have god knows how many hundreds of GB traffic per month and they've never bothered me about it.

Overall, no ISP is perfect but I've had good experiences with them.

Oh yeah, one more thing: When I got my router first, the tech who came to install it messed up and registered the wrong router with the back-end people. I rang tech support, the girl was nice but explained it was too late to do anything about it and I should ring tomorrow. I wasn't at all pleased but I just asked her politely to log that I wasn't happy, and said I realized it wasn't her fault. She rang me back twenty minutes later, she had managed to find someone to unlock my account (It was the wrong mac address registered) and now stuff was working. I know that's just one person but that's pretty above and beyond, so UPC probably has a special place in my heart for that.

monty_python

im very unhappy with them due to connection problems im having and the lack of any useful help i am reciving from them.

i will be leaving them soon

jimmycrackcorm

Purple Gorilla wrote: »

I'm medium happy. I'm on 20mb so I can't complain but I usually only get speeds of around 9/10mb

I'm in the same position. However the speed difference doesn't make much of a difference to me and the unlimited cap does so I'm ok...

Tea_Bag

im on the 10mb package, and i can tell you it really depends on how you use your internets.

the new modem router they are supplying is absolutely rubbish, and cannot be used to surf and DL at the same time. it can be used for torrenting, and ive DL'ed at 1mb/s fine, but try torrent at maybe 200kbps and surfing becomes near impossible/highly annoying, with reloading pages etc. every time, and thats with very very low upload speeds. it IS impossible when uploading higher than 20kbps.

for use on normal internet/youtube/surfing /b/ its fine. very good.

i have not yet been able to stream to my xbox since recieving the new modem, and doubt ill find a real reason besides that the Cisco2425 is utter smelly shiete.

im in the process of buying a new router, a linksys wrtxx series, which is amazing, and im hoping that it'll solve ALL of the problems. ill post up how it works out, but i reccomend everyone who gets upc's new Cisco2425 to do the same. the old netgear router works fine.

Chris_533976

I'm on the 20mb package and no problems at all. Can be a little slower than advertised at peak (but still > 10mb), but the right speed the rest of the time.

The thing is that people post here when they complain but dont post here when they are happy. So to the outsider coming into this place UPC are awful.

angel01

I am very happy with the service, wouldn't dream of switching to anyone else.

d-a-s-h

Tea_Bag wrote: »

im on the 10mb package, and i can tell you it really depends on how you use your internets.

the new modem router they are supplying is absolutely rubbish, and cannot be used to surf and DL at the same time. it can be used for torrenting, and ive DL'ed at 1mb/s fine, but try torrent at maybe 200kbps and surfing becomes near impossible/highly annoying, with reloading pages etc. every time, and thats with very very low upload speeds. it IS impossible when uploading higher than 20kbps.

for use on normal internet/youtube/surfing /b/ its fine. very good.

I read on a thread here that UPC have locked the routers to their network, not sure what that means but it doesnt sound good in terms of replacing the router.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055679930

Oh and thank you very much for explaining that the torrents will interfere with regular surfing. I didnt realise this and have been convinced that it was a problem with the router. Currently have the laptop wired directly in (very inconvenient) and is working perfectly. Will you let us know when you get the new router and whether or not its working? Would really love to get a proper router in :rolleyes:

Oh and I got the streaming to work for the xbox but only when plugged in directly and using the Zune software.

dunworth1

have been with chorus now upc for the last fifteen years (i think anyway i have them a long time)

had tv with them frist then got phone and broadband

have only ever had a small few problems most not upcs fault

some fella down the road kept trying to tap into the cable upc stop him by covering the cable and it never goes down now

hasn't been down for the last couple for years:D

Donald-Duck

Never had a major issue since I've had them, must be about 10 years at this stage.

ghost26ie

i'm on the 20mb broadband only, no tv or phone. i've had the odd outage every once in a while,especially on the few warm days we get, but the last few months its a lot more stable and the speed have improved aswell. so i can have no real complaints.

thebman

Its the same with virtually every ISP for home broadband. They are all great unless you have a problem as they only care about business customers.

Home customers are just free money to them, once you have a problem your going to cost them so they don't want to know.

donal.hunt

experience has generally been good.

I've had 1-2 issues in the past year (both at my house and a friends) and on both occasions they've sent an engineer out once they've gone through their call-center script.

It's kind of annoying to have to go through the script with them when you've done most of the checks before calling them but that's the way most support centres are setup.

I've only been present for one of the call-outs but the engineer that came out to fix one of the internet issues showed up on time, replaced a bunch of old coax cable and did a bunch of signal checks. He didn't leave until everything was checked and I was happy.

that's much much better than 2-3+ years ago when the engineer wouldn't show up at all on multiple occasions, didn't give you a heads up 1-2 hours before they arrived and generally didn't fix anything...

The one thing I would like to see UPC/NTL/Chorus do is implement something along the lines of http://www.google.com/appsstatus for their service. On their website, they've committed to keeping people looped in but haven't implemented anything. The nice thing about the Google site is that they provide an update and you can go back and check if the issue you were seeing corresponded to the issue on that day.

cdb

Generally happy with UPC.

Have tv & broadband with them and they offer relatively good value in my opinion but the customer support, while improving, still leaves a lot to be desired.

electrolinks

Just signed up for 20Mb broadband. They messed up the install and I was on the phone twice and last time for 40 mins trying to get it sorted. They did that last time I signed up as well. Speeds aren't 20Mb, getting slow 5-15Mb with an average of 10Mb. Torrenting is slow and doesn't currently work while surfing normally (Im not a big uploader). I guess I need to open ports and try some other tweaks.

electrolinks

Its expensive for 20Mb and the Cisco cable/modem router is the hardest to configure Ive ever used.

jd83

I have 10 mb broadband with upc, very happy with it. Customer service is terrible though. Never have had a problem with broadband but did have to ring them about tv and their customer service is awful.

dunworth1

electrolinks wrote: »

Its expensive for 20Mb[/QU


your wrong its cheap for 20mb broadband eircom charge 40 euro for the up to 7mb off them and only a very small amount of people can get 7mb

so 40 euro for 20mb is good

thebman

dunworth1 wrote: »

electrolinks wrote: »

Its expensive for 20Mb[/QU


your wrong its cheap for 20mb broadband eircom charge 40 euro for the up to 7mb off them and only a very small amount of people can get 7mb

so 40 euro for 20mb is good

lol was going to say, its cheap for 20Mbps, hell its probably the only residential 20Mbps connection in the country outside of the obvious one that I can't remember (only available in one town).

electrolinks

I might have been better to qualify that statement: that compared to to other countries broadband is expensive. Is it magnet that offers 20Mb residential as well?

hightower1

electrolinks wrote: »

I might have been better to qualify that statement: that compared to to other countries broadband is expensive. Is it magnet that offers 20Mb residential as well?

Ya they do .... if your address is number 1 magnet exchange drive, exchange road, magnet offices , dublin.

Otherwise its gonna be less than 20.

electrolinks

Funny. All speeds offerings are delivered at less than advertised, due to contention rates and what not.

<off topic>Optical fibre to the door. Mnnn. Oh wait the government didnt unbundle the local loop when it sold Eircom, thus crippling competition for years and the progress of Broadband in Ireland forever. </off topic>

thebman

electrolinks wrote: »

I might have been better to qualify that statement: that compared to to other countries broadband is expensive. Is it magnet that offers 20Mb residential as well?

lol go with Magnet then, I'm guessing the reason is its not available in your area as it only available in a very limited area.

Can't really compare to other countries, our regulator has a weird way of doing things compared to most normal countries.

d-a-s-h

electrolinks wrote: »

Just signed up for 20Mb broadband. They messed up the install and I was on the phone twice and last time for 40 mins trying to get it sorted. They did that last time I signed up as well. Speeds aren't 20Mb, getting slow 5-15Mb with an average of 10Mb. Torrenting is slow and doesn't currently work while surfing normally (Im not a big uploader). I guess I need to open ports and try some other tweaks.

Hi electrolinks, I'm having a similar problem as yourself in regards to I'm not able to download torrents and surf at the same time - browser (all three of them) keep timing out and takes about 5 refreshes to load a page if I'm stubborn and keep trying to download a torrent. Because of this I was just wondering did you ever manage to solve the problem?

I've very little experience with routers only ever having setup one before (this was a nice expensive one however - and actually worked straight out of the box and with the useful instruction manual provided).

Think it is also kinda daft that when you call UPC your just told that they'll change the frequency. Before I discovered (thank you boards.ie) that it was the torrents that was messing with my browsing and had gone through half my internet settings looking for the problem. I tweaked things that even vista didnt know it had

electrolinks

Yes, I think I have managed to make it a little better by changing some settings on my bittorrent client. Ill send them on to you

d-a-s-h

electrolinks wrote: »

Yes, I think I have managed to make it a little better by changing some settings on my bittorrent client. Ill send them on to you

cheers for the settings there man, not to mention the extra bit of knowledge. After having played with a couple of settings I can see a noticeable difference already.
Nice to see that there are lads still out there who are working to keep p2p going, despite the isp's efforts.

KilOit

i'm with them over 10 years now, i get great speeds i play games online and i always have a low ping and solid connection.

oceanclub

I'm with them many years and on the whole, very happy, certainly compared to the alternatives I tried (Digiweb and Eircom).

P.

d-a-s-h

oceanclub wrote: »

I'm with them many years and on the whole, very happy, certainly compared to the alternatives I tried (Digiweb and Eircom).

P.

yes when compared the alternatives we really have very little to complain about

Krieg

Im middle ground

Been with them for 4 years.
Went through hell with them for the first 3 months, but it was fine after that, I still go through the odd bad spell with them, slow connection/ connection drops.

Overall, I would pick them over the other ISP's due to the service they provide (high speed, no cap, decent price). And no isp in this country is perfect, best of a bad bunch so to speak.

yayamark

Ive the 3mb connection.

Service has been excellent.

Constantly surfing and playing Ps3 and all goes well.

Long may it continue.

potsy11

My major issue with UPC is that they supplied me with a wireless router. That router is constantly resetting itself and not giving any signal.

In order for me to get assistance I need to ring the Call Centre in India who supplied the hardware. i dont have a land line as I moved from Ricom to UPC. No need for landline anymore. If i use my mobile to call them it slike 1.40 per minute and its a guaranteed 45 min call. UPC not willing to help at all.

Its a joke.

Everything else is fine apart from the 20m cable i have to run through the house to hardwire the computer. I dont know what I cant stand more, UPCs crazy customer service or my wife screaming at me to move the cable:D:D

oceanclub

potsy11 wrote: »

My major issue with UPC is that they supplied me with a wireless router. That router is constantly resetting itself and not giving any signal.

In order for me to get assistance I need to ring the Call Centre in India who supplied the hardware. i dont have a land line as I moved from Ricom to UPC. No need for landline anymore. If i use my mobile to call them it slike 1.40 per minute and its a guaranteed 45 min call. UPC not willing to help at all.

Its a joke.

Everything else is fine apart from the 20m cable i have to run through the house to hardwire the computer. I dont know what I cant stand more, UPCs crazy customer service or my wife screaming at me to move the cable:D:D

If I was you, I'd save myself hassle and just buy my own; the Linksys ones are pretty good.

P.

hightower1

potsy11 wrote: »

My major issue with UPC is that they supplied me with a wireless router. That router is constantly resetting itself and not giving any signal.

In order for me to get assistance I need to ring the Call Centre in India who supplied the hardware. i dont have a land line as I moved from Ricom to UPC. No need for landline anymore. If i use my mobile to call them it slike 1.40 per minute and its a guaranteed 45 min call. UPC not willing to help at all.

Its a joke.

Everything else is fine apart from the 20m cable i have to run through the house to hardwire the computer. I dont know what I cant stand more, UPCs crazy customer service or my wife screaming at me to move the cable:D:D

I take it they gave you a netgear router ya? Have you tried the netgear site, pretty usefull stuff and there is a particular section under "cannot see my ssid network name". ..... http://kb.netgear.com/app/products/model/a_id/2591

Have a lookski.

L31mr0d

Went through BT and Eircom before moving to UPC for my BB about a year ago. Haven't had any issues since, line has never really been down that I can remember (might of been down for an evening around when they rolled out the 20Mb package)

Most evenings I'm getting 2.3MB/s down. Upload is solid as well. I remote into my home PC from work and use it via RDC and I've never had any issues with slowdown, it's exactly like being at the PC.

Don't seriously game online, but the pings are rarely above 60, and never above 100, not when I've been playing anyway.

Overall I've had very little issues with UPC and recommend them to most of my friends with Eircom woes.

robby^5

I'm really not happy with it at all, considering going back to BT... my connection is decent off-peak but it's a constant struggle to load webpages, nothing but cannot connect to server or connection timed out

Anti

Was on Ntl/upc for about 9 months out in sandyford on the 10mb package, when the line was working i was very happy, obviously not so much when it was down/slow... which was quite alot of the time.

Their customer support was an absolute joke though. Had been promised an engineer one day, so i took the morning off to wait for him, no sign of him. So i thought yeah it happens, busy day and all that. So rang them, no appologies or anything and then they booked an engineer in for the next day, so the girlfriend took the morning off... No sign of an engineer again. She rang, no appology or explination and booked one in for the friday. So this time i took off the the afternoon off work, obviously at my expense, and guess what, no engineer at all. So this time i rang up and was quite polite but just concerned as to why for a whole week they couldn't turn up or notify us. The girl on the phone, Carly i believe her name was.. Absolute cow of a girl, no manners, rude. When i demanded to speak to a manager i got the usual "there are no managers working here" She claimed there was no one above the people on the phones working there. So the monday i went and cancelled my Direct debit, the day after they contacted me as they couldn't take payment from the account.

How ironic, when i had a problem they cant contact me or help me, but when they dont receive payment they are on the phone straight away. I'm glad to be away from these muppets.