SBP Confirms UPC to introduce 100Mbps

dub45

bk wrote: »

First of all, They use EuroDOCSIS, rather then DOCSIS so it is 55.62 Mb/s per channel.

The point is that they are moving to EuroDOCSIS 3 which uses 4 channels so 222.48 Mb/s shared.

Yes, it is shared, welcome to the internet, where contention is a fact of life.
Do you want to tell people what their Eircom 1Mb/s DSL connection really is with it's 48:1 contention?

I'd much prefer to have 120Mb/s at 24:1 contention then 1Mb/s at 48:1.

Why the snarkyness SB, UPC seem to be the only people in Ireland who are actually investing in their network and pushing competition here, surely a good thing.

Where do you get the contention ratio
for UPC? As far as I can see they studiously avoid ever mentioning it. I cannot find it anywhere on their site.

From their customer support page in respone to a search for 'contention ratio'

FAQ search results

Your search "contention ratio" did not match any documents.
Suggestions:

* Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
* Try different keywords.
* Try more general keywords.

I wrote to them over a year ago asking them what it was and needless to say I am still waiting. Surely if it was as low as 24:1 they would be trumpeting it from on high?

Sponge Bob

It is constantly variable Dub45 . Everybody on a cable segment shares 45mbits .

Therefore 2 x 20mbit hogs will severely degrade a segment where 2 x 3mbit hogs will not . It cannot be descirbed as a ratio because UPC cannot predict where hogs live and sign up .

vandriver

I just tested on speedtest.net @ 98.75 Mbps ! (In Walkinstown)

bk

vandriver wrote: »

I just tested on speedtest.net @ 98.75 Mbps ! (In Walkinstown)

Nice, but are you on some sort of trial? Do you ave a DOCSIS 3 modem?

Most modems UPC have been sending out till now are DOCSIS 2 and couldn't get this speed. Perhaps can you confirm it by trying to download an ISO from heanet?

The uload speed doesn't look so great.

AlmightyCushion

Yeah try downloading something from heanet/rapidshare and post up what speed you are getting.

GigaByte

weisses wrote: »

how many people in Ireland would have access to this service ???

Currently they have 114,001 broadband subsribers so there's 114,000 people who have it now that could get it. Not sure how many can get it but chose not to?

weisses wrote: »

IMO claiming you are in the top of European broadband you need to be covering at least 90%of the population

I'm happy you can avail of this service but it isn't representing the Irish situation in broadband ... is it?

Yes that is only your opinion, for 114,000 other user's your opinion doesn't matter one bit. So to me and the rest UPC will be one of the best but to you that doesn't matter one bit

weisses wrote: »

time to descent from the cloud ur living on :P

Nah, its lovely and sunny up here now!

GigaByte

CutzEr wrote: »

100mb eh?

Your a bit a way from 1gb anyways..

What does mb mean where you are? Up here on my cloud it actually means millibar.

GigaByte

dub45 wrote: »

Surely if it was as low as 24:1 they would be trumpeting it from on high?

They used to have it on there website at 17:1, I don't know where 24:1 comes from??

EDIT: A quick google found this
http://broadbandireland.blogs.ie/category/contention-ratio/

The quick google also found this!
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53379298&postcount=11

_Sidhe_

Be carefull BK.
No matter how you deny it, anyone who doesn't contest their undying hatred for UPC on boards is considered a super secret company spy.

bk

_Sidhe_ wrote: »

Be carefull BK.
No matter how you deny it, anyone who doesn't contest their undying hatred for UPC on boards is considered a super secret company spy.

LOL, yup, however I think most regulars here know exactly who I am, I got involved here on boards through IOFFL.

BTW Yes I'm wrong about 24:1, I remember NTL previously saying it was 17:1 on their website, 24:1 is for some of Eircoms DSL products.

Either way the point I was trying to make is that I would rather even 48:1 of 120mb/s then 48:1 of 1mb/s.

Sponge Bob

NTL pass around 300,000 homes with Broadband out of 575,000 homes passed with cable which is in turn out of 1.6m homes in the state . They could serve 20% of all homes now and 40% when they are fuly upgraded . They will never provide broadband to the other 60% of us who live off their cable networks and will stick on 40% of homes at most .

Of the 300,000 homes they pass with BB out of their 575000 homes passed by cable they have 114000 signed up . eircom serve more business premises than NTL do and therefore it is difficult to work out how they have done as they do not break out residential DSL from their totals .

I think eircom have around 650,000 DSL connections of which c four fifths or 520,000 are residential but eircom pass around 1.3m homes within a reasonable distance of an enabled exchange @ say 3 miles .

480,000 out of 1.3m is a netch OVER 40% penetration by those passed
114,000 out of 300,000 is also a netch UNDER 40% by those passed but UPC were much further ahead 4 or 5 years ago and eircom caught up !!!!!! However these are 4 month old figures and that is now almost level .

They are almost neck and neck. However eircom is losing customers right now as its high line rental pains people and UPC is gaining many of them off eircom , as they are the fastest growing technology right now ( fater than 3g yes!) apart from wimax as it starts at 0 and UPC want to keep the squeeze on eircom who cannot serve as many of their passed homes with 10 or 20 megabits .

That is why their salesman was blabbing on about 10 and 20 megabit packages in the SBP .

GigaByte

Nice interesting post Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob

One other stat, I amended the DSL ratios above as they were a bit out !!!

At the end of June 2009 the following were the Takeups

Analogue Cable 180k
Digital Cable 240k
BB Cable 125k

These include Dungarvan where the ENTRY level is 20 mbits ...and Longford where the entry level is 9mbits but which are not UPC owned

Now look at the quarterly growth stats

Analogue Cable 180k -8.1%
Digital Cable 240k +4.9%
(but a net loss between them to Freesat and Sky )

BB Cable 125k +10%

That means that BB will be the second most important product for Cable companies early in 2010 and THE most important some time in 2011 .

thebman

Sponge Bob wrote: »

That means that BB will be the second most important product for Cable companies early in 2010 and THE most important some time in 2011 .

I'd consider this to be good news for Irish BB myself. Bad news for other companies in the BB market of course since they will be focusing and investing in it more if it is their most important product.

bk

In some ways BB is already UPC's most important product.

UPC cheap TV + BB bundles are reducing churn of TV customers to Sky, otherwise I believe the churn would be much higher.

Nehaxak

vandriver wrote: »

I just tested on speedtest.net @ 98.75 Mbps ! (In Walkinstown)

I wouldn't really put much faith in testing UPC on Speedtest.net - for some reason, it has always given me huge download speeds reported there, like this one just now (or in my sig)...



I do though always get the full 20Mb in fairness on downloads or whatever.

Can't see myself getting much benefit from 100mb as 20Mb is more than sufficient for me at least but it's great to see UPC looking to invest like this.

thebman

Nehaxak wrote: »

I wouldn't really put much faith in testing UPC on Speedtest.net - for some reason, it has always given me huge download speeds reported there, like this one just now (or in my sig)...



I do though always get the full 20Mb in fairness on downloads or whatever.

Can't see myself getting much benefit from 100mb as 20Mb is more than sufficient for me at least but it's great to see UPC looking to invest like this.

I imagine almost nobody has need for 100Mbps unless your sharing a house with 5 people who each have multiple devices.

Other than that it is just something that is nice to have, I guess especially if it is affordable which will really decide if anyone takes up this 100Mbps offer they plan to implement at some stage.

Sponge Bob

I 'imagine' UPCs filtering system proxys the speedtest request which means that UPC are cheating , large !!!!

Ranicand

Nehaxak wrote: »

I wouldn't really put much faith in testing UPC on Speedtest.net - for some reason, it has always given me huge download speeds reported there, like this one just now (or in my sig)...



I do though always get the full 20Mb in fairness on downloads or whatever.

Can't see myself getting much benefit from 100mb as 20Mb is more than sufficient for me at least but it's great to see UPC looking to invest like this.

Hammer of Thor

Jaysus, ya'd think they'd bring their service to the rest of the country before spending all that money on hooking up 100mb. I hate living here sometimes....

AlmightyCushion

Hammer of Thor wrote: »

Jaysus, ya'd think they'd bring their service to the rest of the country before spending all that money on hooking up 100mb. I hate living here sometimes....

It's probably a lot more cost effective to increase the speeds than to bring it to areas outside of their current reach (I imagine they'll still be ugrading areas where they have cabling but don't have broadband still).

Hammer of Thor

a year now I've been waiting for them to get their act together in Wexford, I'm not interested in a bad tv package by itself, but I'd be more than happy to bundle it with bb. Sweet, sweet bb! Was onto them last week and I'm told there's still no plans to extend the network here, and it'll be at least the second quarter of next year before any news MIGHT be available!!!

I get what you're saying about it being cheaper to upgrade their existing network than expanding it to new regions. On the flip side tho, it'd surely give a greater return with so many new customers signing up! If they got their banker on the phone and worked out some serious investment funds they could bury the majority of our substandard ISP's....

IrishTonyO

Have to say think this is kewl, and well done to UPC for doing it. I am only a customer with them a week or so, but the difference between the service they offer and their competitors is unbelievable well at least for me
From reading posts here though reckon most are not UPC fans, but at least they keep improving their service. Who knows maybe in the future I might change my mind but so far I really rate UPC. (ok u can start thowing the stones at me now :rolleyes:)

slave1

Hammer of Thor

Ha! Thats some stone alright! Lets see your lightning fast broadband get ya out of that one Tony!

IrishTonyO

Don't worry the firewall caught it for me

Automan

GigaByte wrote: »

They used to have it on there website at 17:1, I don't know where 24:1 comes from??

EDIT: A quick google found this
http://broadbandireland.blogs.ie/category/contention-ratio/

The quick google also found this!
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53379298&postcount=11

Dont belive everything you read for the last 4 months im getting an average of 2meg on my 10meg connection (and its down to contention as it was confirmed by UPC) I have been ringing weekly and I asked about 2 months ago how many people I was sharing the line with I was told just over 100 user, I said to the tech that that was very high and she told me it was not bad as the average was 200 per line?
This is obviously why they do not advertise the contention ration on there website.
They are suppose to be upgrading the area and should have me back up to speed in the next 3 weeks, we will see.