UPC Broadband Customers - Opinions Wanted

Malice

I'm looking to get broadband installed into where I'm living. I got recommendations to check out Eircom and UPC. Eircom seem to be very pricey - Then they want €122 to install a phone line which will take 10 working days, €30 to connect to broadband and then €49 or €57 per month for the actual broadband. They also don't do the line installation outside office hours and don't give any reasonable advance notice of their arrival. Worst of all though, you have a minimum 12 month contract. While you can bring it with you if you move, the contract gets reset so you could move on month 11 and it will get reset to 0 again.

UPC seem to be much more reasonable - they charge a once-off connection fee and then the monthly fee for the broadband itself. They also have a minimum contract but it doesn't get reset and they will cancel the contract if you move somewhere that UPC don't support.

So, I'm just wondering if there are other UPC customers out there and what your experience has been. At the moment it's a no-brainer as to which provider I will go with.

parsi

I recently migrated from Vodafone to UPC for broadband and phone services.

I'm happy with the service. Having been an unhappy Chorus customer many years ago I had canvassed work colleagues about UPC and they gave glowing reviews.

The entire process went to schedule and there was plenty of information. The first bill was accurate.

sham2

parsi wrote: »

I recently migrated from Vodafone to UPC for broadband and phone services.

I'm happy with the service. Having been an unhappy Chorus customer many years ago I had canvassed work colleagues about UPC and they gave glowing reviews.

The entire process went to schedule and there was plenty of information. The first bill was accurate.

What part of Cork are you living in? I tried to get a quote for Glanmire and they said they were concentrating on Dublin for now. The combined package from UPC would be cheaper than what I'm paying Eircom now.

minidazzler

UPC is the best broadband connection you can get in Cork city and suburbs at the moment.

I have a 20 Mb package in my house and routinely get 19mb on speedtest.net, that is phenomenal throughput, where friends on eircom 5 mb package are only getting 3.

Service interruptions are minimal, there is no cap, they aren't bending over and taking it prison style from IMRA.

I actually can't laud over them enough, it is a perfect connection almost all the time I have found.

Compare that to people I know with eircom, they get outages at least twice a month for hours on end, the packages without caps are hugely expensive, and eircom swallow when IMRA tell them.

Go with UPC is my advice.

Though not the TV package...that still sucks.

P.S. I am not now, nor have I ever been associated with UPC, Chorus or NTL. Just really love the internet connection!

parsi

sham2 wrote: »

What part of Cork are you living in? .

The Cork Con - Pairc Ui Rinn - Pairc Ui Chaoimh triangle.

Malice

minidazzler wrote: »

UPC is the best broadband connection you can get in Cork city and suburbs at the moment.

I have a 20 Mb package in my house and routinely get 19mb on speedtest.net, that is phenomenal throughput, where friends on eircom 5 mb package are only getting 3.

Service interruptions are minimal, there is no cap, they aren't bending over and taking it prison style from IMRA.

I actually can't laud over them enough, it is a perfect connection almost all the time I have found.

Compare that to people I know with eircom, they get outages at least twice a month for hours on end, the packages without caps are hugely expensive, and eircom swallow when IMRA tell them.

Go with UPC is my advice.

Though not the TV package...that still sucks.

P.S. I am not now, nor have I ever been associated with UPC, Chorus or NTL. Just really love the internet connection!

That sounds like a ringing endorsement there . I recently moved house and the last place I lived in had an Eircom line and I have O2 mobile broadband but I'm sick to death of having to make do with its rubbish speed and miniscule cap so I think I'll be giving UPC a call tomorrow to get set up.

aidan_walsh

I would agree with everything here. If they could put as much effort into their TV service as their internet, things would be golden.

Owen

I recently switched from o2 to UPC. I have a 5 Meg package, and I'm getting ... 5 Megs. They're odd to deal with though, I have to pay for a 'standalone' charge. So I decided to add a landline so herself could phone Poland free with one of their billing packages. I got told that even with the phone, I'd have to pay a standalone charge, even though I was buying 2 products. So ... standalone seems to mean 'without TV', which is what they should state on their site.

Max001

Had UPC in '05 & '06 and service was awful at times, mainly cause they were upgrading from the old copper wrapped in paper lines :eek: to fibre optic etc etc. '07 & '08 great service in the city centre. Living somewhere without UPC now and miss it Eircom = complete rip-off!

edhead

UPC all the way, with them two years now. No problem whatsoever. We had the TV channels with them, but decided to go with SKY, and its the better option. So best of both worlds really.

JohnK

minidazzler wrote: »

Though not the TV package...that still sucks.

Out of curiosity, whats wrong with the TV package? I'm apartment hunting at the moment and my current thinking is to get the full UPC phone, tv & internet bundle once I find a place.

edhead

JohnK wrote: »

Out of curiosity, whats wrong with the TV package? I'm apartment hunting at the moment and my current thinking is to get the full UPC phone, tv & internet bundle once I find a place.

I found nothing wrong with it, but compared to sky, sky definitly has the edge. Worked out an extra 5 euro a month for us to change from UPC tv to sky tv. Worth it

Cian92

Switching to UPC for TV soon, I was just wondering what they are like for the home phone? Is it still run through the home phone?

Papa_Lazarou

If you use Hotfile there are a lot of people finding that it simply wont download stuff from there. Was thinking of getting the parents to switch over to UPC last week until i read that about hotfile. Once its sorted i probably will switch.

mcko

I must say I find it excellent and really fast

minidazzler

JohnK wrote: »

Out of curiosity, whats wrong with the TV package? I'm apartment hunting at the moment and my current thinking is to get the full UPC phone, tv & internet bundle once I find a place.

I'll be honest and say nothing, but I don't watch TV anymore. I use skyplayer for somethings (which would work for me even if we got rid of sky ) But for alot of TV, I stream and their internet connection brings it fast.

So, since it's been years since I have actually had to use their TV service, I will say that it might be better.

That all said, the user interface is still kinda sucky looking for UPC, not sure about channels.

Malice

Thanks for all the advice folks. I have contacted UPC and will be getting connected next Saturday morning.

minidazzler

Malice_ wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice folks. I have contacted UPC and will be getting connected next Saturday morning.

You did tell them minidazzler sent ya so I can get my commission right? :P


(Only messing, don't actually work for them )

Wooden Jesus

Malice_ wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice folks. I have contacted UPC and will be getting connected next Saturday morning.

Expect a call friday evening saying they cant make it saturday
They cancelled on us twice but when they eventually got here there hasnt been a bother since.

babo9

I'm happy with UPC too in Grange, but I have to move to Frankfield and bizarrly they don't do broadband there, only tv... :mad::(
I mean it's 10 minutes from where I live now!!

Malice

minidazzler wrote: »

You did tell them minidazzler sent ya so I can get my commission right? :P


(Only messing, don't actually work for them )

I'm sure if I ring them up they'll be saying "Minnnie who? WTF?"

Wooden Jesus wrote: »

Expect a call friday evening saying they cant make it saturday
They cancelled on us twice but when they eventually got here there hasnt been a bother since.

Ah don't say that! I was supposed to go home to Galway next weekend so I'm staying down here just to get the broadband installed.

FoxT

I have UPC for broadband for a couple of years now & they are the bees knees. I get phone & TV from them as well. TV service not as good as sky ( no PVR) but I dont watch TV so I dont care.

And, they have taken on IMRO, and won. yes:D

I would avoid eircom. Their commercial certain is unclear/insecure, and their level of commitment to the Irish market will vary depending on who takes them over next.

- FoxT

FoxT

PS - I recall that when they did the initial installation, they screwed up on the installation of the wireless router. 2 emails later & i had a new router & a refund of 1 month subscription.

Daycent.

- FoxT

seniorstaff

hi,i left eircom to move to upc , what a mistake, got upc installled on a tuesday,connected for 15 mins then got a DNS SERVER ERROR message, rang upc techy help they say must be problem with my computer, following day,same problem ,over the space of 7 days i spent 14 hours on phone to upc techy help, they said they couldnt figure it out etc,i had my laptop checked,it was fine,no issues at all, eventualy after 3 more days of no service i rang them and got them to uninstall there equipment, i logged a complaint about the terrible service etc and was told that a customer service rep would ring me asap, 3 weeks later they rang me asking had i a problem with there service etc etc, what a shower of spoofers and wasters, steer well cear of upc, GOOGLE , upc dns server error and read the results on here etc, i know another guy had the same problem since my time with them and there techys told him they never came across the problem before, so take from that what you want, i hope this helps you

Owen

I haven't had a single issue yet, I'm thrilled with them TBH.

For anyone thinking of signing up, in the Bargain Alerts forum, there's a UPC thread with a link, if you sign up using that link, you get a 50 Euro voucher for your time. I didn't see it when I was signing up ...

Malice

seniorstaff wrote: »

hi,i left eircom to move to upc , what a mistake, got upc installled on a tuesday,connected for 15 mins then got a DNS SERVER ERROR message, rang upc techy help they say must be problem with my computer, following day,same problem ,over the space of 7 days i spent 14 hours on phone to upc techy help, they said they couldnt figure it out etc,i had my laptop checked,it was fine,no issues at all, eventualy after 3 more days of no service i rang them and got them to uninstall there equipment, i logged a complaint about the terrible service etc and was told that a customer service rep would ring me asap, 3 weeks later they rang me asking had i a problem with there service etc etc, what a shower of spoofers and wasters, steer well cear of upc, GOOGLE , upc dns server error and read the results on here etc, i know another guy had the same problem since my time with them and there techys told him they never came across the problem before, so take from that what you want, i hope this helps you

That's not good. Hopefully my experience will be better. Did you get internet access sorted in the end?

PaintDoctor wrote: »

For anyone thinking of signing up, in the Bargain Alerts forum, there's a UPC thread with a link, if you sign up using that link, you get a 50 Euro voucher for your time. I didn't see it when I was signing up ...

Whoops, I didn't see it myself either .

Malice

Well the UPC guys left earlier and unfortunately things didn't go as planned at all. The first warning sign was when they called to confirm they were on their way to the house. I got them to confirm my address just to be on the safe side. Somehow, despite speaking to two different people last week and giving them the same address each time, the driver was on his way to some completely different location on the north side of the city! I'd love to know how my address had gotten garbled as both phone monkeys that I spoke to were Irish and I'd like to think my accent isn't so strong that people can get something as important as an address wrong over the phone.

Anyway I thought to myself that if my address had gone into their system wrong is there a possibility that UPC isn't available in my estate? Sadly that proved to be the case. After a few minutes checking something in his van he said that UPC is available on one side of the estate but not the other. Guess which side of the estate I live in?

Apparently it's down to whatever way the estate was wired up when it was built. As the estate is a few years old I guess corners were cut to maximise profit (thank you yet again Celtic Tiger) and nobody's going to go to the trouble of re-wiring the estate now.

I guess I'll ring Smart Telecom and see how their terms and conditions compare to Eircom's.

FTGFOP

There's Magnet as well. If you plug in the phone number of a neighbour or a business near you, you can find out what kind of package you can get.

Malice

Smart Telecom don't answer their phones on the weekend :rolleyes: but I did get in touch with someone from Magnet who has promised to get a sales agent to call me first thing on Monday.
I think I should request the title of this thread to be changed to "The Trials and Tribulations of Getting Broadband in Cork City" .

Ricky91t

Got UPC broadband is my student house, It's excellent, The TV isn't great, menu is abit slow and sometime a green line flashes across the screen for a few mileseconds.

But the internet is seriously quick and stable.

unlocker

hello

upc is the best broadband in cork i've 15MBPS it's stable but sometimes it's freeze and stop and you have to refresh the broadband by disable then activating the ethernet card but only somtimes because i download too much per day but it's ok upc is the best in cork

regards

WhoElse

Disappointing - Glanmire still has no fibre connection. This means slower and more expensive service - line based braodband only (subject to eircom service interruptions, and any provider having to pay eircom 26e a month, so passign the cost onto us).

I asked UPC if they had plans to roll it out and they couldn't say. Glanmire is effectively the city now, and was only still classified as county for political infighting. I wonder has this affected the decision to not roll it out here?

basically UPC's loss, Vodafone and sky's gain, and my loss...

horgan_p

I'm in Bishopstown , moved from Sky and Eircom to UPC (the basic tv package ,basic phone package and 50mb Bband). Bill every month hovers around the 70 euro mark , including phone calls.
To be honest with 50mb broadband live TV becomes somewhat of a novelty.
I never watch live tv anymore. I think to add the basic package costed 10 - 15 euro per month.
Best service I've used , ever.I'm working as an IT manager and if I could I'd move the office across to UPC in a heartbeat.

Outkast_IRE

im a customer for over 7 years now , first just broadband now bb,tv and phone. Have always been treated well , and the broadband is the best around without a doubt.

Chuck Stone

The TV package is a complete waste of money unless you have no way of receiving Freesat and Saorview with a combi set top box or if you want Sky Sports.

UPC broadband is excellent.

54kroc

WhoElse wrote: »

Disappointing - Glanmire still has no fibre connection. This means slower and more expensive service - line based braodband only (subject to eircom service interruptions, and any provider having to pay eircom 26e a month, so passign the cost onto us).

I asked UPC if they had plans to roll it out and they couldn't say. Glanmire is effectively the city now, and was only still classified as county for political infighting. I wonder has this affected the decision to not roll it out here?

basically UPC's loss, Vodafone and sky's gain, and my loss...

UPC broadband works perfect in Glanmire, has done for a good few years.
They won't install down here though.

EyeSight

horgan_p wrote: »

I'm working as an IT manager and if I could I'd move the office across to UPC in a heartbeat.

not sure if they would be a great choice for a large business but they would for a small one

i think they have great home broadband. I find it difficult to see why people who can go to UPC would choose eircom who are slower and more expensive. i think both companies have equally poor customer service

I find UPC tv to be painful, i have the old box and if i make a mistake typing in a channel number or if i'm not super fast at typing the number i'll be taken to the UPC information channel. everytime that happens i get a strong urge to slowly kill the idiot who thought that'd be a good idea. their remotes suck too

run_Forrest_run

only UPC TV available in Passage, no broadband yet...doubt it will be available soon either.

horgan_p

EyeSight wrote: »

not sure if they would be a great choice for a large business but they would for a small one

i think they have great home broadband. I find it difficult to see why people who can go to UPC would choose eircom who are slower and more expensive. i think both companies have equally poor customer service

I find UPC tv to be painful, i have the old box and if i make a mistake typing in a channel number or if i'm not super fast at typing the number i'll be taken to the UPC information channel. everytime that happens i get a strong urge to slowly kill the idiot who thought that'd be a good idea. their remotes suck too

Well I'd use it for browsing. e-mail , vpn and other backend services I'd keep with Eircom.

Sephiroth_dude

Anyone from ballincollig using upc?whats it like ?

babo9

54kroc wrote: »

UPC broadband works perfect in Glanmire, has done for a good few years.
They won't install down here though.

What does that mean? It works perfectly, but they won't install it!?

Roar

I'm in Ballyphehane. have UPC and no complaints whatsoever. Great service. Cancelled my sky last year because I have no need for it - any sport I can stream, and any movies or shows I can download. Well worth getting if you can.

Milly33

UPC seems the way..We have it also and have to say they are great...Every year also they top up the speed as such, without any extra charge which is quite nice...Never had ny problems with them, and with the installing it only took half an hour or so, and no problems of ill be there in a hour and so on...

I wouldnt go near them for the tv channels they are a bit slow on that side, we got the package this year and despite TV being rubbish anywho they have messed up charges and all that goes so I wouldnt be too happy with that service

booboo88

minidazzler wrote: »

UPC is the best broadband connection you can get in Cork city and suburbs at the moment.

I have a 20 Mb package in my house and routinely get 19mb on speedtest.net, that is phenomenal throughput, where friends on eircom 5 mb package are only getting 3.

Service interruptions are minimal, there is no cap, they aren't bending over and taking it prison style from IMRA.

I actually can't laud over them enough, it is a perfect connection almost all the time I have found.

Compare that to people I know with eircom, they get outages at least twice a month for hours on end, the packages without caps are hugely expensive, and eircom swallow when IMRA tell them.

Go with UPC is my advice.

Though not the TV package...that still sucks.

P.S. I am not now, nor have I ever been associated with UPC, Chorus or NTL. Just really love the internet connection!

I have to agree, I was at my wits end trying to figure out what I was doing wrong with eircom as they had always implied it was a fault at my end, not the case, switched to upc and no problems at all. I went from constantly having to reboot the modem maybe 3 or 4 times a day to not a glitch.
and the amount its always the same, eircom were ridiculous with their limits.

Iceylou

i am unfortunately with eircom. omfg do i feel like smacking them and the 4th modem off the wall. we pay for the 7mb package and if we are really really luck we get 5mb but mostly its 2mb. we might switch to upc but they have told us we can only get the normal broadband not the high speed atm.

does anyone know if sky are going to provide broadband soon?

babo9

Iceylou wrote: »

i am unfortunately with eircom. omfg do i feel like smacking them and the 4th modem off the wall. we pay for the 7mb package and if we are really really luck we get 5mb but mostly its 2mb. we might switch to upc but they have told us we can only get the normal broadband not the high speed atm.

does anyone know if sky are going to provide broadband soon?

Well their "normal" broadband is still far far far far superior to Eircom, I think their minimum speed is 20MB, my parents have it and it's brilliant.

54kroc

babo9 wrote: »

What does that mean? It works perfectly, but they won't install it!?

It means what it says.
I had it in my place for around a year but had to give the modem back to the buddy who's house I got it from, Try it, borrow a friends modem and hook it up and see for your self.
I believe they would need to do a lot of upgrades on the line in Glanmire to guarantee the service down here, but at the moment it does work perfect out as far as the arse end of Sallybrook.
I'm trying to find a friend willing to let me have it installed at their place so I can bring it down here.

minidazzler

Iceylou wrote: »

i am unfortunately with eircom. omfg do i feel like smacking them and the 4th modem off the wall. we pay for the 7mb package and if we are really really luck we get 5mb but mostly its 2mb. we might switch to upc but they have told us we can only get the normal broadband not the high speed atm.

does anyone know if sky are going to provide broadband soon?

Their Hi-Speed broadband is the 100mb package, you don't need that. Get their normal package it's still vastly superior and likely cheaper than Eircoms "premium" packages.

babo9

54kroc wrote: »

It means what it says.
I had it in my place for around a year but had to give the modem back to the buddy who's house I got it from, Try it, borrow a friends modem and hook it up and see for your self.
I believe they would need to do a lot of upgrades on the line in Glanmire to guarantee the service down here, but at the moment it does work perfect out as far as the arse end of Sallybrook.
I'm trying to find a friend willing to let me have it installed at their place so I can bring it down here.

Really? So you had UPC tv for example but you just hooked the tv cable up to the UPC modem and you were able to get fibre-powered internet? I often wondered how they could provide tv, but not broadband, thought they came via the same cables.

But if that is the case and it's that easy, what's to stop someone paying for tv and hooking up a cable modem and stealing internet?! Or am I missing some other part of the story?

outofmind6

Has UPC got an unlimited usage, though?

54kroc

babo9 wrote: »

Really? So you had UPC tv for example but you just hooked the tv cable up to the UPC modem and you were able to get fibre-powered internet? I often wondered how they could provide tv, but not broadband, thought they came via the same cables.

But if that is the case and it's that easy, what's to stop someone paying for tv and hooking up a cable modem and stealing internet?! Or am I missing some other part of the story?

All modems would have to be provisioned by upc for them to work.
I didn't just take a random modem and hook it up, I had it installed in a buddies house, then I brought it to my house and paid the bill for the time I had it.
If you did have a dodgy modem you would be very easy to find as opposed to one of the fixed TV boxes of yesteryear.

Fibrepower is just a name they don't run fibre to your house, TV and broadband both come down the same coax cable.