North West Electronics/BlueBox

Hamill92

Fu*king awful their service is.

Still don't know why I haven't left them yet. It's 05.37 now and download speed is 0.67 & Upload is 0.21

LOL

WHAT THE HELL?

gooner99

editorsean wrote: »

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.

Hi, this is interesting as my Eir DSL is pretty damn crap. I can get 4g in my house, just checked on my smartphone there now and got 55ms ping and about 10 up and 10 down. So seems like it's pretty good. What are my best options. I know you can get the three payg sim with €20 all you can eat data and install that into a mobile modem, but I'd be weary as to what deal three will offer once the all you can eat expires in July. Anyway I guess if I were to get the three or iD mobile modem. then I could use both a three payg sim or an iD mobile sim. Is that correct or would the three or iD mobile modems be locked?

Thanks

editorsean

I do know Three network lock their routers, however, I'm not sure about iD Mobile. I only recently found out they are doing mobile broadband, so haven't seen it in action but would expect their performance to be similar to what Three offers.

I would suggest getting a SIM-free 4G modem or router such as from Amazon, making sure it mentions support for LTE (4G) bands 3 (1800MHz) and 20 (800MHz). This way you can use the one modem and not have to reconnect all your devices to a different router when switching between networks.

After using Vodafone for about a week now, it actually turned out to be a disappointment. As mentioned above, the uplink speed in my home area fluctuates like my NWE Bluebox uplink speed, so that itself is a killer for me.

For car Internet radio, I only lose about 5 to 8 minutes reception on my hour drive to Ballybofey compared to about 10 minutes for Meteor and 20 minutes for Three. However, unlike Meteor where it cuts out at specific points for several minutes, with Vodafone it cuts out intermittently for 10 to 30 second intervals at random points along my journey even with my phone set to WCDMA/LTE only, quite annoying when listening to the news.

Basically it seems like when Vodafone switches mast, it takes up to minute to make a data connection by which time the Internet radio buffer runs out, whereas both Three and Meteor connect to data within seconds of connecting to a 3G or 4G mast.

NWE Bluebox at this time of posting, 2nd attempt as the first speed test timed out!:



NWE was down for me all day Saturday and Sunday.

TireeTerror

gooner99 wrote: »

Hi, this is interesting as my Eir DSL is pretty damn crap. I can get 4g in my house, just checked on my smartphone there now and got 55ms ping and about 10 up and 10 down. So seems like it's pretty good. What are my best options. I know you can get the three payg sim with €20 all you can eat data and install that into a mobile modem, but I'd be weary as to what deal three will offer once the all you can eat expires in July. Anyway I guess if I were to get the three or iD mobile modem. then I could use both a three payg sim or an iD mobile sim. Is that correct or would the three or iD mobile modems be locked?

Thanks

I would not be too concerned about the current expiration of the All You Can Eat data offer, Ive had a PAYG sim from them since 2011 and that offer has always been there, and it always had an expiration date. Most likely when we get to July they will extend the offer again, its what keeps a lot of their customers. Without that offer, their call packages are not great currently, especially if you want unlimited national and all networks mobile calls as they dont provide a decent solution for that. If they did, I would be on 3 for my mobile phone as well.

Hamill92

Need advise since Home signal won't work in Ireland.

Planning to get mifi (dongle). I'm on Three UK contract.


Which mifi is best for me? Also could I buy exteral actenta to improve the signal as signal is poor inside the house.

Don't mind any price on deals. 50 - 80GB would suit me.

Any tips please kindly pass it on thank

Cheers

editorsean

About two weeks ago I had an unexpected call from an NWE engineer checking if I was home, which I wasn't as I was at work. So I told them a day I'll be home and that day came and went without anyone showing up. Then I got an e-mail mentioning a new call out date, so I stayed at home that day.

The engineers came in and one asked what's the problem. I mentioned about the issues I am having, but straight away the engineer said - If I see Internet access from your connection, there will be a service charge for this call out. The enginner would not accept my explanation of problems as he insisted that nothing matters to him other than whether the he sees a live Internet connection from the antenna.

He plugged the Ethernet cable from the antenna straight into his laptop and did a signal test, which had a very strong signal and quality reading. He then went to speedtest.net and got 3Mbps down and 0.2Mbps up (if I recall right) and said straight away "Your connection is fine, I'm going to have to call the office to get a price for this call out". I insisted on running further speed tests and thankfully saw his laptop throw up a "Connection timed out" error midway through the next download test and again at the start of the ping test.

He then updated the firmware on the antenna and did some more speed tests. This time it gave around 12Mbps down and 1Mbps up on several servers he tested and took snapshots of his laptop with his phone (probably doesn't now how to use print screen!). He again said that there will be a service charge and showed me the speed test on his screen. As I saw the timed out error messages, I pointed these out and finally got him to agree that the problem was fixed with an antenna firmware update.

30 minutes after the engineer and his colleague headed off, the connection went back to a snail's crawl again, throwing up time-out messages, etc. I've written to them to cancel the service and cannot ever imagine recommending their service to anyone, especially after that engineer visit.

If anything, at least I managed to get roughly 5 months of usable service and for sure will no longer be wondering what that service is like on top of the hill.

@Hamill92 - Unfortunately it looks like Three UK's large mobile broadband package is 20GB/month which is either £21/month (12 month contract) or £23/month (1 month contract). I do know their network is a lot more strict about data access, for example, their firewall will disable data access if one attempts to tether or use a phone SIM in a dongle. On the other hand, from what I've heard, their network has much better data performance than the Irish network.

I got a decent LTE/3G panel antenna now which gives a fairly solid 10Mbps down and 0.8Mbps up in the loft with Meteor. I'll probably go with Meteor's 30GB bill pay plan and use it in combination with my DSL connection, e.g. Meteor for uploads, YouTube videos I want to watch in 1080p, etc. and DSL for streaming, downloads, etc. As for location, I think I'll re-use the existing mount the Bluebox antenna is on and drill a wider hole in the wall to feed both cables through.

fooker!

Has anyone else's internet not been working the last few days?
mines connected but wont loads web pages then tells me the dns server isn't responding!

ninyule

Mine's not working either - been down for over 48 hours now. Something damaged by the storm the other night maybe??

editorsean

Apart from the Intermittent connection drop-outs and erratic speed, I still have Internet connectivity on mine.

Try a trace route from the command line:

tracert -d 8.8.8.8

The the last hop (if not 8.8.8.8) is the point of failure.

If it reaches 8.8.8.8, you can try using the Google DNS settings:

1. 8.8.8.8
2. 8.8.4.4

For reference, these are the NWE's DNS settings:

1. 78.155.250.1
2. 78.155.251.1

Their cancellation team called me trying to get me to reconsider my cancellation, but there is no way I was going to continue with their service after how terrible my link has been since August, especially with my connection still giving erratic speed and intermittently going down.

fooker!

Thats fixed it thanks, changed it to the google one, it finished the trace route ok when i tested it beforehand though!
My DNS was set to 1) 194.73.106.133 2) 194.74.65.68
They replied to my email easrier about it being down asking what brand of router i have so maybe they are gonna ask me to change the dns!

yeah if you have a better option go for it, these guys are useless!

ninyule

Yeah, fixed it for me too!! Thanks a lot...does this mean Bluebox changed the DNS addresses without informing their customers??

My dns addresses were set same as above, same as they have been for the past 7 years...

editorsean

Glad to hear you're both back online.

In case they cut me off before my actual end date, the following gives a rough idea of how much my speed fluctuates in just minutes:



There's no upload speed in the left one as it kept timing out on the 96KB upload part of the test. The main reason I originally ordered Bluebox was so I could upload files quickly, especially to work and it actually worked much better than I expected initially, until near the end of August. I have an existing DSL connection which gives about 300Kbps (38KB/s) on the uplink and I thought if I got at least 1/10th what Bluebox offered of its 50Mb/10Mb package, that would be great.

Yet, as I write this post, it's having great difficulty just uploading a 96KB test block over what's suppose to be a 10Mb uplink. :rolleyes:

Ping test for anyone curious:

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 272, Received = 234, Lost = 38 (13% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 101ms, Maximum = 302ms, Average = 117ms

I have a test set up at the moment consisting of a high gain panel antenna and MiFi with a Meteor prepay SIM. So once NWE comes and takes away their antenna, I plan mounting the antenna outside where the Bluebox dish is and going on their 30GB bill pay plan. With the prepay SIM, it currently gets a fairly consistent 10Mb down and 800Kbps up in the loft, so reckon the uplink will be a little quicker outside as the upload speed reaches 3Mb when I drive to an area that has clear line of sight of the Meteor mast. Even still, 800Kbps is already about 3 times faster than my DSL connection for uploading and it's not like a game of data roulette wondering if my uploads will upload quickly, time out or get corrupt.

ninyule

Yeah thank you editorsean, I am in your debt!!

Excuse my techie ignorance, but does the DNS make any difference to speed?? I am getting the best speeds I have in ages - admittedly this is at 1125 on a weekday morning - 15Mbps down, 10MBps up, 15ms ping.

If only it were like this in the evenings...weird as it may sound, a lack of decent broadband and issues with infrastucture here generally are on the point of driving us back to live in England....

editorsean

The DNS shouldn't affect your actual speed, but can make a difference to the speed your web browser can resolve domain names. It's a bit like having a faster directory inquiry number, i.e. you'll get through quicker, but doesn't necessarily mean you'll spend less time speaking to the person you tried to reach.

It's similar for connection speeds - your browser, FTP client, etc. will connect to the host quicker with a faster DNS, but the speed will depend on the congestion of the network.

On the other hand, if many other people connected to your mast are having the same issue, then that indeed will mean less traffic on the mast since their web browser, streaming boxes, etc., can't connect if they cannot do DNS look-ups.

You're currently getting what I was was able to get until August. I sure miss them days.

Going back through my speed tests on TestMy, I found this result I conducted about this time of day also on a Thursday, just before my connection speed fell off a cliff:



NWE speed test at the moment, using the same UK server on TestMy:



An FTP upload example, which use to always go about 1.1MB/s at this time of day:

editorsean

In case anyone is interested in seeing a demo of what my connection is like before it's gone, I made this recording about 4pm, basically doing some basics such as trying to run a few speed tests, load a few Amazon pages, etc. along with a continuous ping test running in the background.

I admit up front that this is quite a boring long video, for anyone considering getting their service reading this thread, I'm sure it will be an eye opener for what I've faced since August leading up to this post with just a handful of days it worked fine and a few weeks where it was totally down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uawp7CGb3tI

I would have tried to do an evening demo, but the speed test on the left says enough - It's like trying to access the web over a mobile GPRS connection.

NWE Bluebox vs Meteor 3G vs Vodafone DSL:

ninyule

The outgoing mail server address I have been using for years seems to have gone too - mail.nwewn.com.

Is there a newer address??

Applebhoy

Just a note on meteor, if you have a student in 3rd level in the family you can get a 50GB package for 19.99 per month.
I was getting 50mb down/20 up when i got it at the start (galdonagh, manorcunningham) but once 4G was improved in areas in Letterkenny, mines has dropped to between 10-15 down and around 5-7 up.
I also have an uncapped irish broadband breeze package , getting 6mb down and 2mb up, which i find really reliable (from mongorry hill)
I then use a Linksys LRT224 router, which is dual wan router, it will combine both internet connections and give a good reliable speed.
The excellent thing about the router is that i can send certain devices over the different connections (i.e streaming devices over my uncapped connection)
As a Computer technician i find NWE a complete shambles, blaming everything apart from themselves.

chris_ie

Connection down all evening for me. Mailed them and no reply. Need the connection for work tomorrow too. Ridiculous.

editorsean

My connection is currently down at this time of checking with the trace route ending at 10.108.7.1, so the next hop which should be 10.100.7.1 is down at this time of posting.

ninyule wrote: »

The outgoing mail server address I have been using for years seems to have gone too - mail.nwewn.com.

What e-mail provider do you use? Most providers also have their own SMTP, so you may be able to use theirs instead of NWE's.

ninyule

email provider is iol.ie - I thought I'd tried their smtp ages ago and it didn't work via nwewn...

I'll have another go - thanks!

fooker!

They replied to my email today to tell me to change the DNS to 1 - 78.155.251.1
2 - 78.155.250.1, so they must have changed it and didnt bother to say to anyone!

editorsean

Despite my subscription being paid until near the end of February (contract end date), it looks like I've finally been cut off as my end has now been offline for a week. Either that or there's another extended outage in this area. The trace route ends a hop after my router, i.e. the antenna IP address.

So for anyone planning to cancel, be sure to have an alternative Internet connection during the final 30 days notice. For me, it went offline 6 days after they e-mailed me to confirm the cancellation.

fooker!

anyone else's internet offline today?

pipcoo

Have you all seen the petition on change dot org ? As I am a new user the board won`t let me post a link but if you search for Bluebox petition you should find it .

editorsean

The petition already has quite a surprising number of supporters considering the small company size. :cool:

Here's the link.

As I suspected, I've already been cut off since the beginning of February, which was a few days after they called me trying to get me to reconsider my cancellation. So while they require payment for the 30 days notice, they certainly don't wait that period to disconnect. :rolleyes:

pipcoo

I don`t know how many customers Bluebox have but I suspect a large proportion have signed already and when you read the comments it makes you wonder if anyone is getting a decent service from them ? The comments list the same problems over and over again, poor, mostly unusable speeds, drop outs, no customer service, (speed tests anyone ? ) etc.

I`m assuming the starter of this petition will be passing it on to the relevant bodies in the North and South. I hope this goes further because what worries me is that Bluebox may be included in the minimum broadband speed commitment by the Government and nothing will be done to improve rural speeds as they will say it`s already available in your area with out checking the actual services provided.

Tommy Lagahan

Only saw yer petition now, signed and shared it on FB because a few of the family are on this crap as well.

Phil_Osopher

I have been with Bluebox for nearly three years.

I have their Next Generation - 50 mpbs down and 10 mpbs up package which costs in Co Donegal €32.99 per month.
In my time with them I have never seen speeds higher than 8.5 down and 1.9 up.

Clearly this was a lot less than I had hoped for but when I tried to get them to improve it I soon got the impression that I could take it or leave it. Fact is thanks to rural Ireland broadband appalling services I has no better option so I just had to suck it up.

Back in 2013 apart from the slowing down during the evenings to 3 to 4mb and the odd complete outage it served my relatively modest internet needs. However it the last year to 18 months it has been very poor.

After 5pm the speeds become borderline unusable - 1 - 2 mb and less. Impossible to use sites like RTE player or Netflix without pauses to buffer.

Paying top dollar for a getting a mere fraction of what I was paying for.

The customer service from this company is the worst I have ever experienced. When you call them you get hanging on listening to recording machine for unduly long times 15 to 30 minutes. If you log a fault online they never respond.

Because of this I stopped contacting them and just hoped the service would come back up when it went down.

On one occasion the service did not come up after a day so I had to break my policy of not contacting them. I logged the fault online. After a day and half I called them. They guy said there was no record of my request for support ! No record !!

I patiently went through all the checks he wanted me to do even though I told him I had tried all that stuff. He persuaded me that the service would come back up and that there had been a fault in their system. Gullible me!

Long story short .. I called every day - getting a different person. Eventually it was ascertained that my settings had somehow been lost and they would have to send out a technician to my house. I waited a few days for this. All told I was without any service 8 days.

The technician ( with his laptop) got me up and running within five minutes when he finally showed up.
No apology - these guys couldn't care less about you.

Do not use this company unless it is your absolutely last resort.

If you do sign up check the speed over the day/evening for the first few days to see if it is adequate. Do not be taken in by wishful thinking that it might improve. It will not improve - it will get worse and probably break your heart.

Tommy Lagahan

Phil_Osopher wrote: »

If you do sign up check the speed over the day/evening for the first few days to see if it is adequate. Do not be taken in by wishful thinking that it might improve. It will not improve - it will get worse and probably break your heart.

I wouldn't trust this either, I've had the same experience on NWE as Three - the first week to maybe two or three weeks of a new contract the service is great and very satisfactory. Then they bump your priority on the network back down to where everyone else is at and it goes to crap. I'd outright say never, ever go near NWE. Tether your phone - its likely faster.

Penfailed

I did an online search for NWE/Bluebox after hearing about the petition and found this thread. Their customer service is woeful and their internet speeds are (nearly) worse! The problem is, I have no other option. Eircom would have to erect six or seven poles to get a cable up our length and they're not willing to do that for just one customer. It's pants!