North West Electronics/BlueBox

Tommy Lagahan

editorsean wrote: »

However, despite the consistent speed Meteor gives here, their ping response time is quite strange in that it goes over 200ms when the connection is idle and occasionally spikes, so that would probably rule out gaming for anyone considering them (I'm not a gamer).

That's probably the 3G connection going into idle low-speed mode, I keep a ping running constantly to keep my modem at full speed once connected. Try doing that and see if the ping stays low when its running!
With that running, there is still occasional spikes for me on Three, really annoying for gaming,
However on Vodafone despite its lower speeds there is no / far less random spikes.

Running 3 internet connections now, NWE as a backup / house wifi, Three for general use and Vodafone for gaming :rolleyes:

editorsean

That indeed explains what I'm seeing and also seems to explain why my modem LED changes colour. When the connection is idle, the LED colour is a deep blue colour and changes to a light blue when there is activity.

I did a continuous ping test without any other activity and indeed the pinging alone keeps its the connection in the active state. Once I stopped the pinging, the LED colour changed back to dark blue 5 seconds later.

Although I'm not a gamer, I do admit buying a mechanical gaming keyboard. It's a Corsair Strafe bought on a Amazon Black Friday deal, which I received today. It's such a difference for typing on (the reason I also bought it). Not sure if I can get my boss at work to get the same for my workplace PC... :pac:

If I recall right, the packet loss on NWE varied according to the traffic. I'm fairly sure the packet loss was 1% or less around 20ms while idle and shot way up over 10% with 500ms+ ping times with YouTube playing. Once the link is back up here, I'll try various ping tests.

bob skunkhouse

chris_ie wrote: »

They hardly get back to me now. I've reported issues and they keep telling me to the same crap, connect direct to router, do speedtests, take a screenshot and paste into a word document! I sent them the links to speedtest.net and explained I had done the tests connected directly but they insist on that rubbish. So after doing that a few times and nothing being done I refuse to do it anymore so they say they wont do anything :rolleyes:

Seems like they just send the same crap out to everyone as I got the same instructions and my 'ticket' request is heading into it's nth week. The back's been broken at this stage so I told them to cancel the contract. They then had the cheek to tell me to ensure that the final DD payment is made and then they'll cancel the contract. No can do I'm afraid! The DD has been cancelled and they can sing for the final 30 bucks payment. They way I look at it, they're providing a sub quality service so why should I pay for it!?

Anyone au fait with consumer law might be able to see me straight with this one.:D

editorsean

They just made a quick reply today saying they did changes on the network and to please retest. Just like yesterday, no connectivity and no trace route response beyond the first hop after my router, which I'm sure is IP address of the dish antenna. I also power cycled it again just to rule that out.

It looks like if Three 3G/LTE eventually makes it to my area, I don't have high hopes for its speed and I'm also thinking of moving my mobile number to Meteor. I ran several speed tests at my workplace between 3pm and 5pm on both with a linear test to represent what I'd get with YouTube stream or a browser/FTP based download. These times are approximate as it took a minute or two to switch between SIMs:

3:06pm - Three: 2.91 Mbps down / 11.38 Mbps up, Meteor: 19.70 Mbps down / 2.66 Mbps up
3:33pm - Three: 3.74 Mbps down / 9.41 Mbps up, Meteor: 18.50 Mbps down / 3.01 Mbps up
4:01pm - Three: 2.51 Mbps down / 11.00 Mbps up, Meteor: 17.64 Mbps down / 3.17 Mbps up
4:33pm - Three: 3.05 Mbps down / 9.39 Mbps up, Meteor: 24.55 Mbps down / 3.52 Mbps up
5:01pm - Three: 2.35 Mbps down / 8.97 Mbps up, Meteor: 23.57 Mbps down / 2.80 Mbps up

The 4:33pm test was the fastest 3G (HSPA+) downlink speed I've seen to date, not far of my workplace's VDSL downlink of 28Mbps.

RagnarTheGlum

Anyone seen the BBC NI news "Details of more than 3,000 customers or potential customers of Bluebox Broadband have been published online" "It is currently unknown who is responsible for the leak of names, email addresses and phone numbers.
Scott McClelland, managing director of the Londonderry-based broadband provider, said it had strict data protection policies in place.
The company has contacted all of those it believes were affected by the breach and apologised to them, he added.
A spokesperson from the Information Commissioner's Office, which is responsible for upholding information rights, said it was aware of the incident and was making inquiries."

editorsean

The following is the BBC story on the data leak:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-34947595

darth_maul

I would be shocked if he contacted anybody. His network is wide open and has been highlighted repeatedly

No Freeview From Limavady

darth_maul wrote: »

I would be shocked if he contacted anybody. His network is wide open and has been highlighted repeatedly

Your right I don't think so either hasn't contacted anyone did you see Donegal Daily/Derry daily news websites psste the story here.

Tommy Lagahan

I was waiting for an excuse to cancel this, looks like I have it.

chris_ie

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

I was waiting for an excuse to cancel this, looks like I have it.

Ah now Tommy I think there were plenty excuses before that aswell!

I'm surprised there was a statement about it. Guessing no one on here heard from them regarding it?

editorsean

Just to update, my NWE connection remains down since the 26th November.

From the 10th November to 10th December, it has only worked for 5 full days and 4 partial days, i.e. roughly a week uptime over the past month.

I spoke with another house on the mast I'm connected to and it's the same on their end, but unlike me they don't have DSL.

editorsean

My NWE connection is back online after a 2 week solid outage and it looks like they finally fixed the erratic speed issue at my end. The upload speeds are varying between 500Kbps and 2Mbps at the moment and the packet loss no longer shoots above 30% like before when I upload.

The following is an extended ping test to Google's DNS while idle:

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 400, Received = 399, Lost = 1 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 50ms, Average = 21ms

For comparison to the above test on Meteor, I played Q102's 128kbps stream during the following test:

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 400, Received = 400, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 41ms, Average = 21ms

The following is a linear speed test and a multithreaded test, speeds I haven't seen this time of evening on NWE since August:



These tests were with my laptop connected directly to the antenna. I'm curious to see long this holds out for over the Christmas.

tekkiemetal

I find them useless - terrible customer service, always breaking down, have to make numerous phone calls and emails before someone does something. If I had any other choice I would drop them straight away.

editorsean

For anyone who has recently complained to ComReg or plans to, be sure to periodically check with ComReg that the case is still open.

For example, during my two week total outage, I contacted ComReg for a status update and ComReg's reply was "We have been advised by NWE that they contacted you on the 08/12/15 stating your issues has been resolved."

The 4th December was the last time I heard from NWE and that was to say that an Engineer would be working on the mast. The connection came up last Friday (but wasn't informed about it) and degraded again over the past few days with the uplink speed today back to a snail's crawl again:

chris_ie

editorsean wrote: »

For anyone who has recently complained to ComReg or plans to, be sure to periodically check with ComReg that the case is still open.

Yeah they did the exact same thing to me. ComReg said they were told the issue was resolved.

editorsean

With NWE back to a snail's crawl on my end, I decided to repeat the ping test:



Such a vast difference from this post last Friday.

One useful tip if you're watching YouTube and notice it buffering - Right-click the picture and select "Stats for nerds". I originally thought the bitrate shown was the video bitrate, but it's actually the bitrate that YouTube is receiving from the Internet and matches up pretty well to the downlink speed test I get on the TestMy UK server. For example, on my workplace VDSL connection, it will show around 28000Kbps (the actual VDSL throughput) even though the video itself may only be 5Mbps.

The following is an example with my NWE connection:

editorsean

On Christmas Eve, we had plenty of lightning around the area and surprisingly our electricity remained on. A short while later, my uncle dropped by to say that several areas have no power and I’m fairly sure Glencolmcille and Meenaneary were two areas he mentioned. If I remember someone mentioning right, the mast I'm connected to links on to Glencolmcille.

So I thought let’s just see if my Bluebox link was hit. Not only did it remain up, it got a heck of a lot faster for the time of evening, such as the following example:



By around 9pm, the speed fell off as power outages were being fixed and it was back to a crawl after 10pm:



So not only are masts having heavy contention, it is pretty clear that their backhaul connections between the masts don’t have enough capacity either.

On windy days such as today, the connection becomes quite unstable. A wrote a batch file to test the link in minute intervals and each time the link goes up or down, it outputs to a log file and the screen:



For anyone that cancelled, is an e-mail to give 30 days’ notice sufficient? Otherwise I’ll send a registered letter.

TireeTerror

After reading these posts about this lot I decided not to bother wasting my time even trying, despite the guy on the phone saying it could be very fast. This house, which I just moved into, actually has their dish up on the wall, but the previous tenant stopped using them because they were so bad.

I bought a 4G modem from 3 the other day and I stuck my PAYG sim in it, €20 for unlimited data. SLowest I had was about 2Mb and fastest for 38Mb.

CustomPCs1

TireeTerror wrote: »

After reading these posts about this lot I decided not to bother wasting my time even trying, despite the guy on the phone saying it could be very fast. This house, which I just moved into, actually has their dish up on the wall, but the previous tenant stopped using them because they were so bad.

I bought a 4G modem from 3 the other day and I stuck my PAYG sim in it, €20 for unlimited data. SLowest I had was about 2Mb and fastest for 38Mb.

Hi was just wondering what kind of modem you bought I wouldn't mind getting myself one.

Thanks

TireeTerror

I bought this for €69.99 from the 3 store. If you are unsure about coverage, I would suggest buying it from the 3 online store, that way you can return it without having to argue about coverage etc, as you would be able to return it for ANY reason under Distance Selling regulations. If you get it in the store it will be difficult as you need to prove you cannot get any service, regardless of how poor it is.

This device is handy, I even put it in my pocket and when I was in Tesco the other day I was still using it saving my mobile data on my phone which is only 10GB per month. 3 do not permit you to tether with a prepay sim, but of course shhhhhhhhhh

http://www.three.ie/online/data/prepay/huawei-e5573-black/?src=p

CustomPCs1

TireeTerror wrote: »

I bought this for €69.99 from the 3 store. If you are unsure about coverage, I would suggest buying it from the 3 online store, that way you can return it without having to argue about coverage etc, as you would be able to return it for ANY reason under Distance Selling regulations. If you get it in the store it will be difficult as you need to prove you cannot get any service, regardless of how poor it is.

This device is handy, I even put it in my pocket and when I was in Tesco the other day I was still using it saving my mobile data on my phone which is only 10GB per month. 3 do not permit you to tether with a prepay sim, but of course shhhhhhhhhh


Thanks. I'm using my 3 phone as a hotspot at the minute and I'm getting really good speeds. I get between 10 & 20 megs nearly all the time.

I had to cancel Bluebox it was terrible plus they have no customer support.

I might get one it would save me using my phone all the time.

jay93

I always used their prepay unlimited data deal in a router until I got Sky fibre installed :P just don't tell them your using it in a router say the SIM is for a phone they won't even know and won't do anything about it either.

CustomPCs1

jay93 wrote: »

I always used their prepay unlimited data deal in a router until I got Sky fibre installed :P just don't tell them your using it in a router say the SIM is for a phone they won't even know and won't do anything about it either.

So can i just use the prepay sim I have in my phone or do I need a different sim?

I'm just waiting on Eir fibre to be completed in my area it should be finished soon hopefully.

editorsean

That trick unfortunately will not work for me as I'm in a valley and need to drive at least 5km (~3 miles) to pick up the nearest 3G signal on Three:



With a high gain antenna carefully aimed, it will list Three 3G & 4G, but I seem to be outside the range limit for both. It also lists Vodafone 4G, but I'm not about to go through the hassle of signing up to a Vodafone contract just to find out if it will connect. On the other hand, I can confirm my Three prepay phone SIM works fine with O2 Ireland (with dial-up like speed) and on 4G when I briefly tested it at my workplace in Ballybofey using the dongle.

Three's "The Big Upgrade is here" map has been rather unhelpful. They already showed my town as getting a 3G/4G upgrade three times since August. No Three 3G yet in the town and a barely usable O2 2G signal in the front window for picking up text messages. The above screenshot was taken in the town.

I currently get 3.9Mbps down / 0.3Mbps up on DSL, so my plan is to use it as my main connection for streaming and downloads and a Meteor 3G SIM for uploads such as connecting to my workplace and the odd content I want to watch in 1080p.

NWE Bluebox speed test at this time of posting:

TireeTerror

CustomPCs1 wrote: »

So can i just use the prepay sim I have in my phone or do I need a different sim?

I'm just waiting on Eir fibre to be completed in my area it should be finished soon hopefully.

You can use the sim from your phone. I got a new phone from Meteor which doesnt have 4G in this area, hence why I wanted the modem. The modem requires a full size sim, so if you dont have the adapter, you can just use the adapter you get when you buy the modem. They will offer you another sim which you should take, just dont top it up as its not All You Can Eat Data for €20 on it, but take it anyway and just tell them you will top up later.

If you want to pay extra, you can go legit on 3, they have several data plans, including one with 250GB per month limit for around €69 per month.

If youre using another phone you will end up piling up €20 each month when you top up, you could simply buy more mobile addons at the end of the month which could last you a few days, makes sense to make use of the €20 credit you will be accumulating. If you dont buy addons, make sure you make at least one chargeable voice call every 6 months, if you dont they will wipe out your cash credit.

editorsean

If Three decides to block tethering or using a mobile SIM in a dongle (like what Three UK already does), another alternative to a contract plan is to get a prepay iD Mobile broadband SIM from the Carphone Warehouse. If you don't have an unlocked modem, their prepay 4G MiFi is €69.

They piggyback on the Three 3G/4G network and their 30 day plans are 25GB for €15, 40GB for €25 and 60GB for €30, which are the largest data bundles I'm aware of on prepay apart from Three's AYCE mobile SIM. iD Mobile also permits tethering on its phone SIMs, however, their largest data bundle is 20GB for €17/month. Excess usage is 2c/MB (=€20/GB), but at least with prepay it can only eat into whatever credit is left instead of running up a massive bill.

The next time I'm in Letterkenny, I intend pick one up just to compare the data speed with Three itself in Ballybofey as Three's data speed drops down to around 1Mbps to 3Mbps just before I depart at 5pm. When I had a 3 UK data SIM (for when I visited the USA), it got substantially faster speed tests than my Three Ireland SIM on 3G, which makes me wonder what the MVNO's on 3 are like during peak congestion. I couldn't compare with 4G as the 3 UK SIM only worked on 3G.

Hamill92

Has anyone ever buy Signal booster for smartphone via online? Are they worth it? I'm ion Three in Burt and looking to improve the signal. I'm getting 2 bars signal - 1.3mb from Speedtest.
I'm with BB now for 4 years and now going to cancel it on Monday. Going back to Eircom with steady speed of 2mb

editorsean

^ Personally I would strongly recommend going for a dongle and external antenna instead of a booster for data. Besides legality issues, they require careful positioning as the internal antenna must not pick up feedback from the external antenna and the external antenna must be carefully aimed at the mast. For example, if the external antenna is quite far off target, the phone and in turn the booster will ramp up the transmission power, which will potentially cause interference with whatever distant masts are in the direction of the antenna. Some 3G boosters that lack proper filtering can amplify unwanted signals such as interference picked up from Wi-Fi, microwave oven, EMI from motors, feedback from external antenna, etc. which will degrade the service for other users on the mast.

With the curiousity about Vodafone stuck in my mind, I decided to buy a prepay phone SIM and €20 top-up to check what I can get rather than do the usual Meteor €20 top-up now that its 30 day bundle is up. I selected the 5GB plan and applied the top-up. Sure enough, I'm outside its 4G range limit. The dongle lists Vodafone 4G in the network search, but timed out each time it tried registering with it.

Like Meteor, the Vodafone SIM works fine with 3G in the dongle, but with a full signal using the antenna. For comparison, I can only get 1 to 2 bars with the SIM in my phone. However, its speed seems to be limited about 2.5Mbps down and 0.5Mbps up. I get impression that their 3G mast here is connected by an ADSL modem!



I'll try again early in the day just in case it's contention in this area. On the other hand, I am curious to see what I can pick up along my route to work and how stable the data is for Internet radio. With Three's data speed at a crawl through most of Co. Donegal, my Internet radio intermittently drops out along my drive, compared to a few months ago where I had uninterrupted listening between Ballybofey and Bruckless. My phone is dual SIM, so can use it for data while using my Three SIM for calls & texts, like I have been doing with the Meteor SIM.

Interestingly, my NWE Bluebox connection speed has been doing quite well today, even at the moment. However, the link itself intermittently drops out for a few minutes every hour or so.



This speed most likely indicates that there's an outage somewhere nearby that has made this extra bandwidth available here.

Update: I just wiped out half my Vodafone credit from the above test. When used in a Dongle, Vodafone treats the prepay SIM as a prepay mobile broadband SIM and charges the default 19c/MB out of bundle rate. Whoops!

Hamill92

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^




Thank for your reply.

I've ordered a Three Home signal smart box from Three yesterday and it'll arrive tomorrow morning hopefully.

Basically it'll improve the Three network signal inside the house. Even tho I'm not struggle for signal. I can make Calls/Texts & Data. I'm signal inside the house. Even tho I'm not struggle for signal. I can make Calls/Texts & Data. I'm currently getting 1.7MB on 2 bar signal. So hopefully this Home Signal will boost it up 4 or 5 and improve the speed.

I got this for free as I'm under contract with Three. It'll be hard to get it as you can't buy it in shops or online. They're very strict handing it out.

If anyone want the direct number for Home Signal want the direct number for Home Signal from three. Here it is - 0800 358 4828

•You have to let on you don't have a signal inside your house.
•mention you already install ThreeinToucb app and turn 4G on to improve the signal.
•you have to under contract with Three to get one for Free.
•it's has to be registered address and you can have up to 32 Three mumbers but only 4 user at the time.

Anymore question feel free to ask via PM.

Thank


Note - IT WILL NOT WORK IN IRELAND!!!
I GOT IT TODAY AND IT WILL NOT WORK ANYWHERE IN Ireland. IVE BEEN OFF THE PHONE TO THREE HOME SIGNAL DIRECT CUSTOMER SERIVCE.

editorsean

I had a quick read of Three's UK equivalent. It seems to work like Vodafone's Sure Signal where the connection is carried over the customer's broadband connection. If this is how Three Ireland does it, it will only provide the data speed that is already available on the DSL connection, but should at least mean no dead spots with texts & phone calls.

After a few days of pretty decent speed, this evening it is back to its usual fluctuating about the place, along with the link intermittently cycling up & down. Link is down at this time of posting.



Vodafone's 3G speed in the town here is pretty decent like Meteor, however, its uplink speed is poor. The maximum I got after multiple tests was 506Kbps.



As I was in the Vodafone shop yesterday to purchase the SIM, I checked their bill pay broadband plans for curiosity. Their in-store plans are more generous than the website - 15GB for €22, 30GB for €30 and 50GB for €50, all with 4G access and a 12 month minimum contract. Out of bundle doesn't make much sense though - 2c/MB on 3G and 3c/MB on 4G.