Accept patchy service on NBS or go for Satellite BB??

ToadVine

I have the NBS from 3 since March 2010. I had a LOT of problems over the last few months, but I now have an external antenna and "coiler" repeated and my BB now seems to be working ok I can get speeds of over 1mbps fairly consistently, and sometimes speeds are over 3mbps with pings of less than 100ms.

However, I'm sitting if front of my computer up to 10 hours a day working from home and sometimes the service is awful with no connection to the internet or speeds of less that 0.1 mbps and pings of over 800ms. I dont need anything over 1mbps, but I do need reliability. These slow speeds are about 20% of the time, and I can (sort of) live with them. What I cant live with is 3 days of no connection which has happened twice in the last 3 weeks. I was talking to the Irish network team about this and they assure me that there was a problem with my cell and this is now fixed. This was about 3 weeks ago and there have been no problems since then.

So my question is this ... should I be happy with my current service or should I push 3 really hard for the satellite option? I think I could get this as 3 are clearly in breach of contract as per wattys excellent post below.

All opinions welcome.

ToadVine

Thanks for this watty ... excellent post.

Should I keep my "not too bad, but sorta unreliable" 3 NBS external antenna and repeater, or go for the satellite option?

watty wrote: »

They (3) are legally obliged to provide the Satellite service to those in NBS area with less than 1.2Mbps 3G signal...

Signal level is not relevant. Only speeds and Latency. It also must be "Always on", always connect. Inherently 3G is a mobile service thus can't provide this! Nor can 3's mobile service provide the 36:1 contention (sales per area, not users connected!)

Minimum for 3G "Dongle", MiFi, or Repeater users in NBS area

Minimum Service provided by a Device
1 Minimum download speed – minimum speed in Mbps that files are 
downloaded by a Customer from the Internet at 3’s ISP.  
[I]1.2 Mbps[/I]
2 Maximum contention ratio – maximum number of Customers that may be 
sharing the Service at any one time. 
[I]36:1[/I]
3 Minimum upload speed – minimum speed in which files are uploaded by 
a Customer to the Internet at 3’s ISP.
[I]200Kbps[/I]
4 Always On [Yes / No] [I]Yes[/I]
5 Minimum Data Cap (Uncharged) [I]15GB – Data Cap (Uncharged) 
12GB download, 3GB upload[/I]
6 Latency – The maximum round trip delay of a packet (ms) from the 
Customer to the Internet and back.
[I]~120ms[/I]

3 is Legally Obliged to negotiate a special NBS compliant package from the actual satellite Provider (Tooway in this case) if the 3G signal doesn't meet spec.

Feed back from other users suggests that when 3's previous arrangment with a different supplier fell through (capacity exhusted probabily) that 3 are just suppling the closest package off the shelf.

People with 3's NBS Satellite provision need to check that their cap is a 30day/monthly 10Gbyte with no lesser limit or hourly/weekly /daily limit.

Minimum Service provided by Equipment (Satellite) Service Standards
1 Minimum download speed – minimum speed in Mbps that files are 
downloaded by a Customer from the Internet at the 3’s ISP. 
[I]1 Mbps [/I]
2 Maximum contention ratio – maximum number of Customers that may be 
sharing the Service at any one time. 
[I]48:1[/I]
3 Minimum upload speed – minimum speed in which files are uploaded by 
a Customer to the Internet at ISP.
[I]128Kbps[/I]
4 Always On [Yes / No] [I]Yes[/I]
5 Minimum Data Cap (Uncharged) 11GB – Data Cap (Uncharged) 
10GB download, 1GB upload
6 Latency – The maximum round trip delay of a packet (ms) from the 
Customer to the Internet and back.
< 800ms
Table 2

from http://www.three.ie/pdf/NBS_smallprint.pdf Both page 11


I'd check too that these agree with the NBS contract from Government.

If someone had enough money they could take Government and 3 to court and win as 3 only have a Mobile Phone service with iHSPA running on it and inherently it's impossible for it to meet the NBS spec.

Only the satellite part of 3's service has any chance of meeting NBS spec, and they have messed up on that too.

Sponge Bob

The sat service, while stable, does not meet the NBS spec. Be prepared to complain formally when you hit these hidden limits, this is explained in detail here

watty

The satellite service as defined by NBS is better than the 3G service.

But the actual service 3 supplies may have wrong cap. If you complain they are legally obliged to sort this (difference between reality and spec). (Basically 3 needs to pay more for the service).