Eircom 1mb for XBox live?

RGDATA!

I tried searching to see if this had been answered before. Finally caved and got a phone line installed at home, largely to play XBox live. Now that it's installed Eircom are telling me that it will only support 1mb broadband.

Just looking for some feedback whether there's any point in signing up to a 12 month contract to try it out. Has anyone here used a similar connection successfully?
cheers guys

TheMooseInNam

RGDATA! wrote: »

I tried searching to see if this had been answered before. Finally caved and got a phone line installed at home, largely to play XBox live. Now that it's installed Eircom are telling me that it will only support 1mb broadband.

Just looking for some feedback whether there's any point in signing up to a 12 month contract to try it out. Has anyone here used a similar connection successfully?
cheers guys

You shouldn't have any problem playing online even with a 1mg line. Xbox Live only uses a fraction of that speed. Just make sure that you're the only person using your home network at the time and don't have any other PC or program sucking up the bandwidth on you.

However, you may only be able to join in other games with that speed and not be able to host your own games. In general, you should be fine though.

muff03

i had the 1mb for over a year before we were upgraded to 3mb, and i never had a problem with it. I think th eonly game that ever dropped out on me online was COD 3 and that was because the game's servers were useless.

Mossyman

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

TheMooseInNam

Mossyman wrote: »

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

probably around a gig a week then, haven't calculated the exact figures. XBL uses about 6-10 KB/s up and down. It'd take you about three hours to download a 700meg file at 120 KB/s. So you'll be using about a tenth of that speed. It shouldn't be an issue for you with a 10gig limit.

RGDATA!

guys, thanks for the quick replies on this, very helpful.

naughto

Mossyman wrote: »

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

10 gig a month man thats very low. i used to be on the 02 bband dongle and i had a 15gb a month cap.iam now with vodafone and have 40gb a month and its still not enough for me

siblers

Mossyman wrote: »

I also have the 1MB package with eircom at home. I want to get an Xbox for Christmas (if Santa comes ).

How much of my download limit (I have 10GB) will be used, say for example I play for around 20 hours per week? This would probably be the maximum I would play.

How much a month is that? Eircom guy said you can get Broadband for 9.99 a month but I never enquired what you actually get with it.

Shiminay

10 Gigs?!?!?! People need to learn that this sort of nonsense has to stop and stop supporting companies with such ricidulous restrictions. I'd use 10 gigs in a quiet week (i.e just my PC, no XBox or laptop online)

Anyway, anyone who's serious about playing online should have DSL or Cable - those Midband USB Dongle things are a farce. If you can't get it, then scream at Errorcom until they fix it. I moved away from Mayo because I couldn't get proper internets for gaming and work.

For the record, I currently sit on a 24Mb uncapped Magnet account for €50+ change a month and it's awesome

siblers

Eircom is so dear though, I changed to 3 midband because it's a lot faster and a heck of a lot cheaper with the same DL allowance. If I could get eircom for 9.99 a month for gaming I'd be sorted. Although 3 was the same as eircom when playing online in terms of performance but you can't rely too much on it staying stable.

naughto

iam paying 38 euro a month with vodafone line rental included with 40gb download cap they have options to buy more which i probly will in the near futher.

Squaker

i also want xbox live for christmas
i have a 3g wireless router with a built in modem (its the B260a)
i usually have an download speed of 1 - 1.5 mb, and if i get up a 10 its 2 mb.. and an upload speed of usually 1mb. would i be able to get xbox live with this wireless connection ?

Squaredude

yup u should have no problem with xbox live with the 3g router

Squaker

thank you very much for your reply

siblers

What's your ping when you do speedtests? 90ms or under and you're grand, sometimes you can have good speeds but your ping will can be anything from a 100ms to 300ms if not more. You should be grand most of the times but there's no stability with 3, especially when it's windy and rainy it'll be pretty much unuseable.

Squaker

it varys sometimes as low as 65 and very rarely does it go over 100 tho

Squaker

i just did a speed test there and my download was 2.11
my upload was 1.56
and my ping was 83 ms

naughto

you sound so .u will prob get a certain amount of lag.

thats a nice upload speed:D

Squaker

nice one man:)

.E_C_K_S.

Speedtest can vary largely with the results so if you want to test your ping speed open up a command propmt and type

ping <enter website name here> and press enter


it will show a list of your times!

TheMooseInNam

WALSHY16291 wrote: »

Speedtest can vary largely with the results so if you want to test your ping speed open up a command propmt and type

ping <enter website name here> and press enter


it will show a list of your times!

Speedtest.net isn't that accurate, I find. I generally find www.irishisptest.com much better. It'll also show your jitter and packet loss which are more relevant to online gaming than actual upload and download speeds. What you want is 0-1% packet loss and a low jitter, below 8ms at least. This shows that your connection can maintain a constant stream of data, which is as important as having a low ping time.

siblers

Squaker, I just had a bash on Fifa and my ping was about 80ms and it ran as smooth as when I had DSL, so you'll be grand. Like I said, it's not exactly stable so be prepared for some frustrating evenings when you randomly lose connection

Squaker

TheMooseInNam wrote: »

Speedtest.net isn't that accurate, I find. I generally find www.irishisptest.com much better. It'll also show your jitter and packet loss which are more relevant to online gaming than actual upload and download speeds. What you want is 0-1% packet loss and a low jitter, below 8ms at least. This shows that your connection can maintain a constant stream of data, which is as important as having a low ping time.

just did it there and my packet loss was 0% and my jitter was 7.1 .
would i be able to play smoothly with that ?

Squaker

siblers wrote: »

Squaker, I just had a bash on Fifa and my ping was about 80ms and it ran as smooth as when I had DSL, so you'll be grand. Like I said, it's not exactly stable so be prepared for some frustrating evenings when you randomly lose connection

sound
are you on a landline tho ?

TheMooseInNam

Squaker wrote: »

just did it there and my packet loss was 0% and my jitter was 7.1 .
would i be able to play smoothly with that ?

That's perfectly fine. You should have no problem with those figures. As long as you have a ping of less than 100ms, you shouldn't have any issues at your end.

AdMMM

I'd be very worried about the quality of your line if 1mb is the maximum it can support! If you do opt to get it, I'd monitor the connection like a hawk and if it's dropping at all, cancel straight away. You have a 14 day cooling off period (see here) that you can use to evaluate the performance.

Owen

Back in the days of the v92 56k modem, we used to play quake iii online without problems. When you've copies of the game locally, all you usually end up transmitting/receiving is co-ordinates of players/ordinance and scores (Unless you've maps/textures to download for that specific game). Very little data is consumed, which is why it's hilarious when you see the ads on TV telling you that 30MB broadband is best for gaming. My arse.

Squaker

thanks for the help guys

siblers

Squaker wrote: »

sound
are you on a landline tho ?

Was on eircom, cancelled and am with three at the moment. I presumed you were with three/02/vodafone because of your 3g router, who are you with?

Squaker

im with three. what is your download speed ?

siblers

Varys really, usually between 2 and 4 meg, upload is usually 1mb. Ping is usually 80 or 90ms.

Squaker

thats a pretty solid connection

danois

Speed

---

Download speed: 4272 bps
Upload speed: 155880 bps
Quality of service: 70 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: HTTP
Maximum TCP delay: 8437 ms
Average download pause: 6532 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 62 ms
Average round trip time to server: 655 ms

VoIP
----
Jitter: you --> server: 22.5 ms
Jitter: server --> you: off
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.2 %
Packet loss: server --> you: off
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of VoIP lines supported: 0
Estimated MOS score: 3.6

VoIP test statistics

---

Jitter: you --> server: 22.5 ms
Jitter: server --> you: off
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.2 %
Packet loss: server --> you: off
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Estimated MOS score: 3.6

Speed test statistics

---

Download speed: 4272 bps
Upload speed: 155880 bps
Quality of service: 70 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: HTTP
Maximum TCP delay: 8437 ms
Average download pause: 6532 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 62 ms
Average round trip time to server: 655 ms
Estimated download bandwidth: 4272bps
Route concurrency: 1.0
Download TCP forced idle: 0 %
Maximum route speed: 8456128bps





this is what i get when i go to www.irishptest.com and to be honest it means nothing to me i have clearwire at the min and my son is desperate for xbl is there anychance in even trying with clearwire or should i go with eircom or vodafone??

thanks

siblers

4272 bps, think that's like 0.4mbs p/s (could be wrong) which in case would be too slow, but then your upload speed 1.5 mb so I don't see why your download speed would be that low. Go on Speedtest. net and pingtest.net and when the results are shown, click on the copy forum link option and post them here.

Vodafone or Eircom are the best for online gaming as DSL is very stable and more than fast enough for it, not sure what clearwire is like as I've no experience with it, I had Eircom and it was perfect for xbox live.

naughto

i am with vodafone and find it realy good for xbox live and a at 38 euro a month with a 40 gb download cap i cant complain

danois

siblers wrote: »

4272 bps, think that's like 0.4mbs p/s (could be wrong) which in case would be too slow, but then your upload speed 1.5 mb so I don't see why your download speed would be that low. Go on Speedtest. net and pingtest.net and when the results are shown, click on the copy forum link option and post them here.

Vodafone or Eircom are the best for online gaming as DSL is very stable and more than fast enough for it, not sure what clearwire is like as I've no experience with it, I had Eircom and it was perfect for xbox live.

thanks

siblers

That's a pretty poor service you're getting from clearwire. Xbox live wouldn't work on those speeds, you'd be better off cancelling if you can and going with vodafone or eircom, not just for xbox live but for everday surfing it'll be a heck of a lot faster than your current connection, it's very stable as well so you're speed wont drop either.

danois

thanks i figured as much just dont really want to have to pay the extra lol only paying 14.00 a month with clearwire tho so guess thats maybe why its crap!

RGDATA!

Based on some of the early replies I got the eircom 1 meg, and I'm happy with it. It's overpriced, but that's offset by being able to enjoy xbox live properly now.

Switching from O2 mobile (which was pretty decent and better value otherwise), the eircom is way more solid for gaming, even though I'm actually getting a lower dl and much lower ul now.

Ping is clearly better and more consistent, although it does fluctuate a bit too. Best I ever got on o2 was around 100ms (typically 200ms+) with loads of jitter. Eircom peaks for me at 33ms, averages around 60ms, very little jitter.
It seems this is considered decent or acceptable, although I've also read here that even 50ms is high.

siblers

Depends really on what kinda gamer your are, people who takes online gaming really seriously and play all the time will what the lowest ping as possible, for casual gamers the difference betweem 20ms and 50ms doesn't really matter.

Danois, you can always try the likes of Permanet, they do fixed wireless where they stick a little antenna on your chimney and you get a signal off another antenna on a mountain or hill etc, it's cheaper than DSL and is also quite consistent. Although youcan get Vodafone with line rental for about 40 a month which is pretty decent.

TheMooseInNam

RGDATA! wrote: »

Based on some of the early replies I got the eircom 1 meg, and I'm happy with it. It's overpriced, but that's offset by being able to enjoy xbox live properly now.

Switching from O2 mobile (which was pretty decent and better value otherwise), the eircom is way more solid for gaming, even though I'm actually getting a lower dl and much lower ul now.

Ping is clearly better and more consistent, although it does fluctuate a bit too. Best I ever got on o2 was around 100ms (typically 200ms+) with loads of jitter. Eircom peaks for me at 33ms, averages around 60ms, very little jitter.
It seems this is considered decent or acceptable, although I've also read here that even 50ms is high.

To be honest, I'm a little disgusted that the regulator is still allowing Irish mobile operators to advertise their medium-band products, such as what mobile broadband is, as a full broadband type product. This probably isn't the thread to voice my opinion on that issue.

50ms isn't high, that's quite normal. I would say above 80ms would be getting higher than you'd prefer and above 100ms you'll be getting a lot of lag, especially on UK based severs as it'll probably be closer to 200ms ping to there.

danois

does anyone here use wimax?? would that do the trick?? its cheaper set up cost than eircom or vodafone?

siblers

I'd avoid, wimax has had some appauling reviews by members on here. There's better alternatives like permanet.

danois

siblers wrote: »

I'd avoid, wimax has had some appauling reviews by members on here. There's better alternatives like permanet.

thanks for that cant afford the set up costs of permanet at the min tho

TheMooseInNam

danois wrote: »

thanks for that cant afford the set up costs of permanet at the min tho

Then save up for permanet cause I find them excellent!

I'm about 15-20 miles from their mast. These are my results from 8.55pm tonight, right in the middle of peak time! I've a 2meg down and .5meg up package and am getting virtually no contention. Maybe I'm just lucky.

Pinged www.boards.ie at 29ms, 28ms, 27ms & 28ms, impressive for a wireless provider.


Speed

---

Download speed: 1922424 bps
Upload speed: 490600 bps
Quality of service: 84 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum TCP delay: 124 ms
Average download pause: 17 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 37 ms
Average round trip time to server: 49 ms

VoIP
----
Jitter: you --> server: 2.4 ms
Jitter: server --> you: off
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.5 %
Packet loss: server --> you: off
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of VoIP lines supported: 23
Estimated MOS score: 3.8

VoIP test statistics

---

Jitter: you --> server: 2.4 ms
Jitter: server --> you: off
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.5 %
Packet loss: server --> you: off
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Estimated MOS score: 3.8

Speed test statistics

---

Download speed: 1922424 bps
Upload speed: 490600 bps
Quality of service: 84 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum TCP delay: 124 ms
Average download pause: 17 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 37 ms
Average round trip time to server: 49 ms
Estimated download bandwidth: 1922424bps
Route concurrency: 1.0
Download TCP forced idle: 0 %
Maximum route speed: 14169728bps

Squaker

hey again guys.
i was just wondering if the new 3g deltanna wibe was compatible with xbox live because if it was is would be a great help with my connection ?

joker@

If he has enthernet port always worth try.