Broadband in Maynooth

princess_calico

We're moving into Kingsbry in September and need to get internet sorted as soon as we can. I have no idea which service providers are available in the area or which is the best/ cheapest. I'm considering Wi-Max simply because their jungle is so damn catchy, but perhaps this isn't the best reason to go about choosing an internet provider. Since we're only going to be in the house for 9 months would we be better off getting dongles instead of Broadband in the house? There are 5 of us in the house so I assume the cost won't be too bad if we got a modem, but the dongles will probably end up costing more in the long run.

Brain fart over. Can anyone help me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXwTxySVuyQ

Ms. Koi

UPC internet is really fast and fairly cheap. http://www.upc.ie/broadband/
42 each month between 5 people is quite cheap!
€8.40 each.
It's very good quality internet.

cython

UPC might be worth looking into, because I'm fairly sure that last year they did a student offer on broadband whereby you paid for 9 months, and got 3 free, so while it was still a 12 month contract, you didn't pay for what you weren't there for, in essence. Be warned though, it may get tricky if you want to also get a tv service from them in parallel to this offer, assuming they even run it again this year

princess_calico

Coolio, just emailed them there and asked what deals they could do for TV and internet!

LeixlipRed

UPC also have minimum contract lengths. So if you cancel before 12 months you owe them money, etc,.

princess_calico

LeixlipRed wrote: »

UPC also have minimum contract lengths. So if you cancel before 12 months you owe them money, etc,.

Yup, I think all of the broadband providers are the same as well as the ones for phone and TV

banquo

In my personal experience, only go Eircom and UPC in Maynooth.

princess_calico

UPC seems the way to go...

irish_goat

We had UPC and it was rubbish, really slow during peak times.

On the plus side, we signed up in January for 9 months (3 free) but just stopped paying in May and since they never asked for bank details or in fact, for our real names we probably won't be hearing from them again.

princess_calico

Eugh... UPC finally got back to me and told me they don't offer broadband in Kingsbry... Any other good suggestions??

banquo

Eircom. Kills me to recommend them, but if you want fast and reliable broadband in Maynooth than you pretty much have to go with them. In fairness to them, their service is the best out here. I honestly wouldn't recommend any other provider for the town.

princess_calico

banquo wrote: »

Eircom. Kills me to recommend them, but if you want fast and reliable broadband in Maynooth than you pretty much have to go with them. In fairness to them, their service is the best out here. I honestly wouldn't recommend any other provider for the town.

I'll give them a shout today!

smiles302

We ordered UPC at the start of June! One guy came out about a week later, said he needed to get a cable, left, never came back. We rang them a week later asking when he was coming back. She said she would check and ring me back, never rang me! I rang them again a few days later, complained, got through to a supervisor. She apologized, and said she would send someone out, he arrived an hour later, had a look around, said we needed a cable. He left and didn't come back. We rang again a week later, complained again. Different manager apologized and said he would send someone out asap. No one arrived!

So I don't like UPC.

I am ordering Wi-Max.

Moonbeam

Eircom wasn't an option for us as our phone line is rubbish.
We found upc a complete nightmare to deal with.
We have 12mb digiweb metro in the house and it is excellent,We also have o2 dongles which work very well in the area.

http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/myconnect/O2/About+O2/Terms+and+Conditions/O2+Broadband/Student+Broadband

banquo

The dongles are spotty at best: brilliant for some, worse than dial up for most.

funky penguin

I hate dongles.

princess_calico

Argh I dunno what to do.... I'm going to be honest and say that I have no idea what a megabyte is, I have no idea what deals are good ones and I have no idea why it's been left up to me to organise it...

I found the house, sorted the extra person living with us, and the finances (I'm so proud of the fact I got the rent reduced from €85 to €70 weekly)... So I've decided that if they want broadband they can get up off their arses and do it themselves because I'm having nothing more to do with it!

And if no one bothers to sort it, I'll get myself a dongle and hope for the best!

funky penguin

Careful with that....you'll end up getting people asking to 'borrow' the dongle real quick to check notes, or moodle, email or whatever and it keeps piling up.

Unless you have no problem telling them to **** off!

princess_calico

funky penguin wrote: »

Careful with that....you'll end up getting people asking to 'borrow' the dongle real quick to check notes, or moodle, email or whatever and it keeps piling up.

Unless you have no problem telling them to **** off!

I'll just have to learn! I'm going to be living with 3 guys (and hopefully another girl- she's not definite yet!) so they're going to have to learn that I'm not mammy!

smiles302

Get out of the mammy role fast! Trust me, been there, it's beyond frustrating.

banquo

princess_calico wrote: »

Argh I dunno what to do.... I'm going to be honest and say that I have no idea what a megabyte is, I have no idea what deals are good ones and I have no idea why it's been left up to me to organise it...

I found the house, sorted the extra person living with us, and the finances (I'm so proud of the fact I got the rent reduced from €85 to €70 weekly)... So I've decided that if they want broadband they can get up off their arses and do it themselves because I'm having nothing more to do with it!

And if no one bothers to sort it, I'll get myself a dongle and hope for the best!

To be completely honest: don't get a dongle. Dongles are not broadband. They can only say that because Ireland is one of the few countries that doesn't have a legal definition of it - I could advertise cheese as broadband, legally.

Get a home subscription from Eircom. It's about the same price, then divided by four! So it's quite cheap. Get the 3mb home package and you'll be sorted, I promise.

Listen to the nerd!

Ian Beale

If your going to get dsl smart telecom would be better value, €10 a month each for 5mb. However if you do go for eircom/smart/whatever you'd have to get the account in your name and if those people don't pay up you'll have to pay for it.

Alt_Grrr

kellief wrote: »

It's very good quality internet.

*Cringes in pain* I'm not going to be a grammar nazi. but I'm sure you meant to say that its a very good quality internet connection. rather then make generalizations about the internet as a whole.

princess_calico wrote: »

I'm going to be honest and say that I have no idea what a megabyte is

1 megabyte = 8388608 bits and a bit is a 1 or 0.

Network connections are almost never rated or measured in Megabytes per second, its another (confusingly similarly named) unit called the megabit is used instead. which is a 1,000,000 bits (Or ones and zeros in plain English).

And just for completeness a byte is 8 bits. and a kilobyte is 1024 bytes and so on.

princess_calico

smiles302 wrote: »

Get out of the mammy role fast! Trust me, been there, it's beyond frustrating.

Eugh I know! I was Mammy in the apartment this year and ended up doing EVERYTHING! My boyfriend's going to be living in the house too and he said that it was great that there was a washing machine and looked at me... So I told him I'd show him how to use it because I sure ain't washing his dirty socks!

I could advertise cheese as broadband, legally.

:D:D

Get the 3mb home package and you'll be sorted, I promise.

ARGH! Someone told me yesterday that we'd need a minimum of 8mb for 5 people??

if those people don't pay up you'll have to pay for it.

Here's where I am being Mammy... I'm insisting that everyone has a direct debit set up from their account with a set amount every week so that rent is covered, and then every time we get a bill, the money is in the account to pay it.

1 megabyte = 8388608 bits and a bit is a 1 or 0.

Network connections are almost never rated or measured in Megabytes per second, its another (confusingly similarly named) unit called the megabit is used instead. which is a 1,000,000 bits (Or ones and zeros in plain English).

And just for completeness a byte is 8 bits. and a kilobyte is 1024 bytes and so on.

Me no speeky english.....

princess_calico

http://www.eircom.net/broadband/products/


Ok... Which of these should we get??


I'm thinking the first one, the 7mb one... Would I be right?


Sorry again, but is 50GB download good...? For 5 people?

princess_calico

7Mb broadband features

Up to 7Mb download speed & up to 384kbps upload speed

Why up to? Because you share the eircom network with other customers in your area. At certain times of the day there may be more people connected to the Internet (e.g. in the evenings) and this can slow down your broadband speed. We call this 'contention rate'.

Monthly download allowance is 50GB

This is the maximum amount of data you can download from the Internet each month. If you go over 50GB, each extra 1GB will cost €2. Think of it this way: there are 1,024MB in 1GB. Your 50GB are over 30,000MB. A song is about 5MB of data. So you could download over 6,000 songs every month with your 50GB.

Wi–Fi router with firewall included**

This is a wireless modem worth €49.78 that we give to you for FREE. It allows up to 4 users to surf at the same time anywhere in the house.

1 email address: yourname@eircom.net included



With eircom broadband you also get these exclusive extras

eircom StudyHub

This package gives access to eircom StudyHub. eircom StudyHub contains 400 hours of Video and Audio content prepared by 34 teachers for 19 subjects in the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert.

eircom StudyHub is a must for any secondary school student who doesn't want to miss out on video eLessons, videos of Model Answers for exams, Lesson notes for each of the above and audio versions of the lessons.

FREE Setanta Sports

Never miss a match with the best action from Setanta Sports. All eircom broadband customers get FREE & exclusive access to Setanta Sports on eircom.net plus a 7 day catch up service.

eSecurity

Get your first 3 months of Norton Internet Security FREE with eircom broadband.

FREE Wireless Access

Free wireless access in over 1,000 eircom WiFi hotspots nationwide.

eircom Store & Share (FREE storage)

FREE 5Gb online storage to store & back-up your precious photos & music, so that your data is always safe.









Eugh... I don't want studyhub, I don't want Setanta Sports, I don't want Norton Security, I don't want eircom Store & Share...


I just want the internet...

Ian Beale

This would be more then enough, http://www.smarttelecom.ie/home_broadband/more_details/Home_Value_5Mb.aspx
170gb monthly limit, and 5Mb download.

princess_calico wrote: »

Sorry again, but is 50GB download good...? For 5 people?

Depends on who's using it, do they watch/download movies tv shows and how often they might do that etc and 50Gb is shíte if anyone does that.

Ms. Koi

Alt_Grrr wrote: »

*Cringes in pain* I'm not going to be a grammar nazi. but I'm sure you meant to say that its a very good quality internet connection. rather then make generalizations about the internet as a whole.

Please accept my apologies for this statement, such a poor reflection on my grammar skills.

Phobious

UPC is the best Wi max is a load of pants!! UPC are rumoured to be releasing 120mb broadband in Augusts if you have the cash for it :P

djhaxman

UPC is by far the best around and that's from someone who has been with Eircom and Vodafone. We've had 10 meg broadband here with them for well over a year now, and I don't think it's been down once. Wish the same could be said for the other two.

smelly sock

I have heard off UPC themselves that they will be upgrading Kingsbry in the next 4 to 7 moths. I won't be holding my breath though.

cian1500ww

I'd kill to be able to get UPC's 30MB package

princess_calico

Just found out there's no phone line in the house and the previous tenants used mobile broadband...

What to do now??

banquo

http://s4dd.yore.ma/eircom/

princess_calico

banquo wrote: »

http://s4dd.yore.ma/eircom/

huh?

banquo

It cracks eircom router passwords. It's not illegal. Eircom are horrifically unsecure. They're aware of the issue but don't see it as a problem. And we're allowed post it publicly - there have been bazillions if threads about this on boards.

Anyway, if you can pick up the neighbour's eircom wifi, you could - purely theoretically - use their Internet this way. Though I "don't recommend it because it's against the law."

cython

banquo wrote: »

It cracks eircom router passwords. It's not illegal. Eircom are horrifically unsecure. They're aware of the issue but don't see it as a problem. And we're allowed post it publicly - there have been bazillions if threads about this on boards.

Anyway, if you can pick up the neighbour's eircom wifi, you could - purely theoretically - use their Internet this way. Though I "don't recommend it because it's against the law."

That's a bit misleading, especially the bit in bold. Yes, the page will generate a WEP key for some eircom routers, but only ones that were deployed a number of years ago. For some time eircom generated the key off the number in the network name, or SSID. They have since stopped this practice, using proper random keys as they should have done from the start, so they did eventually realise it was a problem. While WEP in general can still be cracked by other means, that page will not do it for anything other than those old routers, or maybe replacements that had the exact same settings applied.

banquo

Actually, you're right. It's up to names beginning with 6xxx or 7xxx, IIR.

The guy who made an iPhone and Android app for it must be loaded by now.

mp3guy

banquo wrote: »

Actually, you're right. It's up to names beginning with 6xxx or 7xxx, IIR.

That's because the old algorithm used octal numbers

Anthropology

UPC does seem to be winning the vote on Internet Providers in Maynooth...any more info on Digiweb?

banquo

Stay away.

Anthropology

Looking at UPC 15MB / Value TV - €52.75 a Month (12 Month Contract)...Anyone else with similar plan?

princess_calico

UPC won't do Kingsbry

I'm still sad.

Who can we get that doesn't require a landline?

banquo

Anyone without a landline ain't worth gettin tbh. You know you can get eircom to activate your line?

CFC1905_NK

Is it absolutely essential in the house? Cos I'd say just use the on-campus wifi, at no cost to yourself

smelly sock

princess_calico wrote: »

UPC won't do Kingsbry

I'm still sad.

Who can we get that doesn't require a landline?

Try the wimax perhaps? Trial period only though!! It's been working away fine for browsing etc as of late. When did you ring upc? When I rang them around 2 months ago they said it'd be at least 6 months. Now I'm taking that with a massive pinch of salt. Could be a year really if they have any plans at all.

princess_calico

Yup we have to have it!

I was talking to Eircom yesterday and they said they'd activate our phone line... But then they also said that it'd cost us more than half of what the broadband would cost for just the line rental, plus the cost of a modem, plus the cost of the broadband package.
I was talking to Vodafone and they said they'd put in a phone line, give us a free modem and the line rental would be included in the broadband cost- something like €62 for their best package.

princess_calico

smelly sock wrote: »

Try the wimax perhaps? Trial period only though!! It's been working away fine for browsing etc as of late. When did you ring upc? When I rang them around 2 months ago they said it'd be at least 6 months. Now I'm taking that with a massive pinch of salt. Could be a year really if they have any plans at all.

I rang UPC and tried their online thing too and both said it was unavailable and when I was talking to a member of the customer care team for Wimax she told me it was all sold out in the area!

banquo

Don't go with 02 or vodaphone mobile broadband as a substitute. That's my recommendation anyway.

Technically, it's not actually broadband. And it's slooooooww.

princess_calico

banquo wrote: »

Don't go with 02 or vodaphone mobile broadband as a substitute. That's my recommendation anyway.

Technically, it's not actually broadband. And it's slooooooww.

I have the Vodafone broadband at home and it seems alright, I think we're going to give it a go and see how it works out

Alt_Grrr

banquo wrote: »

Don't go with 02 or vodaphone mobile broadband as a substitute. That's my recommendation anyway.

Technically, it's not actually broadband. And it's slooooooww.

Mobile broadband no,
but the Vodafone wired broadband is quite good from what I gather,
(Moving over to it as soon as we're free from the evil eircom contact, as I refuse to give those bastards another cent).

I'd suggest staying away from the mobile internet solutions offered by O2, Vodafone, Meteor, etc. unless you really need connectivity on the go (Like you work while your on the train)