Digiweb Metro replacement options

Wetbench4

I,ve been with digiweb 8Mb metro for the last few years and when i first got it, it was good value for money but over the years( mainly because of the stupid 30GB download limit), its become less & less value for money. I now have the desktop, the laptop, the missuses netbook, the ps3 and the xbox all running through it and i'm constantly near the 30gig limit just from everyday surfing. I do most of my proper downloading through my work internet.
I also have the digiweb phone in the house, so on average im paying €70 - €90 a month for 30gig and some average local and mobile calls and i'm tired of it.
I don't have any hardwired phoneline in the house so i'm asking, whats the best wireless alternative with phone included? I'm living on the outskirts of Limerick city so there should be loadsa alternatives, i hope.
Any ideas?

watty

No. There are only much worse Wireless alternatives. For Wireless, no fibre, no coax, no phone line, Metro is the best solution (Price, Performance, Cap) in the whole country. If you are more than 2km from exchange and want higher speed it beats DSL too.

Only Cable, Fibre and decent DSL packages beat it for "real" Cap. (Check out the Woolly "Fair usage policies FUP of some and high contention of others).

The only better alternative is UPC (coax Cable, TV optional, NOT the MMDS) aka Chorus-NTL

You will not go above 12Gbyte a month with 5 users and just surfing + email. You must be watching videos, downloading Xbox stuff etc.. Make sure Skype can't use you as a node (or super node) by having NO incoming ports for Skype.



I agree that for heavy usage the 30Gbyte is low. Most wireless has lower cap to limit contention. Mobile (which can't come near DSL, Cable or Metro performance) is 2G to 12G download (15G offering is 12 + 3). Wireless can't offer higher caps due to limited spectrum (Comreg).

For phone calls and 8Mbps you'd pay a lot more on DSL phone line.

UPC has 120Gbyte cap on comparitive package.

The 8Mbps 30Gbyte rolling cap package is about €40 a month. http://www.digiweb.ie/home/broadband/metro/index.html. So you must be spending €50 on phone calls. Apart from Line rental (about €26 pm) eircom is more expensive for calls and UPC is not much different (might be cheaper on some calls). This is unusual as most people make majority of calls on Mobile (more expensive unless to same network!).

Is someone using premium numbers, dialling TV quiz shows or USA, Africa, Ukraine, Poland? Get your friends to use Metro or Skype and then the call cost is zero

Wetbench4

Do you work for digiweb?
Yes of course we watch youtube and use facebook etc, thats the whole point of having broadband in the first place. By everyday surfing, i meant i don't download movies or torrents through it. I do download xbox and ps3 updates but not games(maybe the odd arcade game here and there but i only have 13gb drive on the xbox anyway).Whats the point of have broadband if i cant use the internet the way its supposed to be used?
I made 27euro worth of calls last month, plus the wireless metro which was 33euro plus vat of 12eur = 72euros. That was all local and mobile calls. Not a single national or premium or any other high price call and that was a cheap month. Your telling me thats the best value for money in the country? That can't be right.
I suppose i originally only asked to get some ideas, or see if anyone else is in the same postion as myself, but looks like i'll have to get off my ass and shop around myself, but thanks for the reply anyway.

Simi

Wetbench4 wrote: »

Do you work for digiweb?

Yes he does/did.

If you're making that many local calls then you may find it cheaper to just bite the bullet & get a phoneline.

Most dsl providers have an all in one pack, that covers local & national calls. Mobile calls are almost always charged as extra though.

UPC would be your cheapest high cap option, IF it's available.

watty

An eircom phone line will cost more. More for line rental, more for 8Mbps and more for calls.

I did work for Digiweb for a while, but I had Metro 6 months earlier and a year after leaving Digiweb I still use Metro. I'm 900m from an ADSL2 enabled exchange.

I've tried Breeze, Ripwave and Mobile EDGE/3G/HSPA.


The only advantage of the DSL is higher Cap.

UPC (cable) will work out same price or cheaper than Metro, i.e. MUCH cheaper than DSL. I said that in my 1st post.

We've had the old canard of me being baised before here, and it was disproved. I've clearly said the limitation of Metro is the cap, which can't really be improved. Your €90 is misleading as the non-calls part of your package is €40 and Digiweb, while not the cheapest on calls, is broadly similar.

So you won't save much money, if any with anyone, given that €27 to €50 is calls and €40 is the 8Mbps broadband and there is no line rental.

I made 27euro worth of calls last month, plus the wireless metro which was 33euro plus vat of 12eur = 72euros.

so on average im paying €70 - €90 a month for 30gig

You can get higher cap but only via DSL or cable. Not from Wireless on any decent platform. DSL is more expensive than Cable or Metro when line rental is included. What is biased about that?

YouTube use has risen by 90% and now accounts for more than P2P (29%) on Mobile and nearly 30% traffic on other networks.

P2P is about 80% traffic on some networks, yet only 10% of users. Youtube and other streaming traffic is not "regular browsing". If you want Video on Demand, Streaming Video and such the only suitable supplier is UPC. Only 30% of DSL is fast enough for shared connections with video streaming.

Fibre is the best solution. Only a few developments are fibre fed (Magnet, Digiweb's Smart), though much of ex Chorus/NTL (UPC) has now much more fibre feeding the coax which gives almost the same result.

I've never worked for UPC

ZeRoY

Wetbench4 wrote: »

I now have the desktop, the laptop, the missuses netbook, the ps3 and the xbox all running through it and i'm constantly near the 30gig limit just from everyday surfing. I do most of my proper downloading through my work internet.

I find this hard to believe sorry. As Watty said 4-5 regular users on web surfing + email should certainly not add up to 1Gb of traffic a day! I would check for open Wireless access (maybe someone is sucking your Bandwidth?), P2P left on and the Skype thing mentionned above.

BlackWizard

I average 223mb of download bandwidth each evening on my laptop. Someone else in the house averages roughly the same.

That's from Mon-Fri. Weekends can be more or less.

So for 4-5 people, I can see how he comes close to his 30gig a day. I'm surprised he doesn't go over that limit each month.

watty

I agree, you CAN easily run up 1G a day with people watching YouTube and reading Comic books etc.

Our 4 to 5 people 12GByte usage is low because we have flashblock on Firefox and only watch DVD video.

Wcool

If you can live with the 30Gb cap (will only get harder in the future), you could save some money on your telephone costs by using VOIP.

Ignore the phone provided by Digiweb and buy a box that converts your network signal to telephone. If you search for PAP2 ATA on Ebay, you will find a lot of boxes for around 25 euro. You can then use a VOIP provider like blueface.ie to get cheaper calls, the quality will be the same.

Else you could go for Eircom 7Mb broadband only, it shows up as 40 euro and buy the VOIP. But I am not sure of that includes line rental! I saw it here : Eircom Broadband products
As far as I can see, connection fees are waved at the moment but maybe this is only for Bundle products.

Not sure if you can port your number from Digiweb

misslt

You can also buy extra traffic and phone add ons - if you made €27 worth of local and national calls, you might want to look at some of the Metro Talk bundles.

Wetbench4

I thinking of just getting the phone line in altogether and eircom bundle, for 75euro i can get 24Mb download speed, unlimited local and national calls and 75GB download limit (which according to my friends with eircom broadband, isn't really enforced anyway).
It seems to be great value compared to other options and its around the same or less than what i'm paying for smelly digiweb at the moment. I can't get chorus in my house and smart is slightly more for the same package. I must find out how much it is to get the eircom line installed. Its a newbuild house and i never bothered with the line before now.

BlackWizard

75 euro plus your calls to mobiles.

It seems like you could swing either way really. Only uncertainty is what sort of line quality do you have in your new house. If it's bad then your "up to" 24mb wont be great. Then you have to find out if the exchange you are on is having issues at the moment. Many of them are being upgraded this year but for the next good few months the internet is very bad.

GIMickey

im currently on the metro 12mb package, 50 gb wasnt enough for me, so i phoned digiweb told them i wasnt happy and then they gave me the 50gb add on for 13 euro extra, ask and u shall recieve, now i have 100gb per month.

GIMickey

sorry but dnt no wat u can do about the calls tho.