North West Electronics/BlueBox

cushte

schizo1014 wrote: »

Has anyone else been having problems with this lot for the last week? Internet was down since last Thursday and only got through to them today said they were going to send an engineer is 5 to 7 days, a lot of people I know using this provider have been without interent for the last week. Where I am in Donegal bluebox is the only one atm where I can get broadband but for anyone interested another company called Beacon Broadband is being set up but it's a bit more expensive and has no real feedback from it

i know of people off since 19th may and still waiting.i checked out beacon broadband and yes its more expensive but if it was consistant i think it would be worth it.i heard of another company called all digital systems but theres no prices on the webpage.

chris_ie

I've noticed a slight increase in speeds but having more problems strangely enough....

I'd usually watch and episode or two on Netflix at night, alot of the time the quality would drop and sometimes stop and buffer. However, now the stream has problems starting at times or will start and cut out. So I'm wondering have they started doing something with Netflix streams, to try and boost their speeds. Although I still need to a bit more investigating on my connection to rule out the main router.... I'm actually using the connection less and less these days, the 4G isnt great but works better.

fooker!

Has anyone been having any problems being able to upload things using NWE?
Same as above I dont really use it that often anymore, only if I want to download big files and aint in a hurry or if 4G is acting up!
But I tried to do a speedtest today and everytime it would stick at testing the upload part, so I tried uploading stuff like a picture to google image search but it wouldnt upload! tried a few other things but its the same!

editorsean

It sounds like you've the exact issue I had before leaving NWE where it was practically impossible to upload anything for most of the 5 last months I was with them. Jump to the 2:30 mark of this earlier video I posted and this clearly shows where the TestMy upload test kept failing to complete a tiny 96KB upload.

I originally got NWE so I could quickly upload ~50MB publications to my workplace and in the end I could not even send small e-mail attachments let alone FTP anything up most of the day.

So far Three's 4G in my area has been very stable and reliable. During the day it feels like VDSL, which is something I rarely experienced with NWE.

With Imagine LTE now setting up sites in Co. Donegal, I wonder if that will give NWE a shake-up...

cushte

so i just got off the phone with imagine , unfotunately they will not be in my area for a few months. they have 2 masts live in donegal but they are at the other end of the county. back to nwe, its not been so bad this last while. maybe they are going to improve since theres a bit of competition in donegal.just wondering if the meeting that was discussed earlier went ahead?

chris_ie

cushte wrote: »

so i just got off the phone with imagine , unfotunately they will not be in my area for a few months. they have 2 masts live in donegal but they are at the other end of the county. back to nwe, its not been so bad this last while. maybe they are going to improve since theres a bit of competition in donegal.just wondering if the meeting that was discussed earlier went ahead?

I had a similar response. They said it would be a matter of months. Where abouts did they say they were installing? NWE is still pretty poor for me. Have to jump on to 4G quite a bit at times.

They had more issues recently :

http://www.derrydaily.net/2016/05/26/boyle-raises-bluebox-broadband-blackout-with-economy-minister/

http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/40069

cushte

i think he said bundoran or bunbeg, its not in my range anyway, unfotunately. i also asked about contention but they said everyone would get 70mb/s,just wondering if that is right? I explained that bluebox contention is 48/1 and they said its limited to 400 per mast?

chris_ie

cushte wrote: »

i think he said bundoran or bunbeg, its not in my range anyway, unfotunately. i also asked about contention but they said everyone would get 70mb/s,just wondering if that is right? I explained that bluebox contention is 48/1 and they said its limited to 400 per mast?

Yeah Imagine seem to be limiting the number per mast at the moment. The site states a minimum of 30mb/s which would be the main number to go with. Alot of people have been getting around the 70 mark and up to 90 at times.

Just to add to this. BlueBox/NWE are 48/1 contention on a 50Mb connection. When Imagine say limited to 400 and you should get around 70Mb, it doesn't mean its a 70Mb connection with 400/1 contention, so don't worry about that bit

cushte

chris_ie wrote: »

Yeah Imagine seem to be limiting the number per mast at the moment. The site states a minimum of 30mb/s which would be the main number to go with. Alot of people have been getting around the 70 mark and up to 90 at times.

Just to add to this. BlueBox/NWE are 48/1 contention on a 50Mb connection. When Imagine say limited to 400 and you should get around 70Mb, it doesn't mean its a 70Mb connection with 400/1 contention, so don't worry about that bit

thanks for that, was a bit worried about contention rate when 400 others would be on their network. In the evening time with bluebox i cant even get a speedtest done.On youtube stats for nerds my speed is as low as 14kb/s. i think that warrants a phonecall to their customer service if i can get through.

schizo1014

As far as I know NWE are upgrading there masts sometime this year in a few places like Mountcharles and Barnesmore Gap so hopefully that will give us a stable speed, mines is only between 2-3mbs at most when I do a speed test

cushte

i just seen on the highland radio news website that imagine are slowing down their rollout in donegal. its on hold due to a slow uptake although it says west donegal, so maybe they are still coming to inishowen. As for bluebox i can still measure my speed in kilobits per sec. if i was getting 2-3mbs i would be extremely happy. I cant figure out how they are still in business.

tates1979

Any updates on performance in last few weeks? Considering it as an alternative to BT that barely makes it to 0.5mb in my area (Rural Co Derry). Or is the recent silence due to everyone deserting them?

Tommy Lagahan

tates1979 wrote: »

Any updates on performance in last few weeks? Considering it as an alternative to BT that barely makes it to 0.5mb in my area (Rural Co Derry). Or is the recent silence due to everyone deserting them?

Finally cancelled them last week but did test it out for a few days before to make sure they hadn't improved. It was still dropping to under 1Mbit at peak times. Yer better off with 3G/4G unfortunately. Went to them in person to cancel it, when they asked why I was cancelling I told them about the big dual antenna 4G setup I installed and the speeds I was getting (20-40mbit). I told them unless they could drop the contention down to a 10th of what it was and actually guarantee 10mbit I was still cancelling. Yer wan at the desk didn't have anything to say, so needless to say they know rightly how bad it is.

fooker!

I gotta say for me these past few weeks I'm finding that Bluebox has been better than 3 4G, just done a test on both and had 9.3mb download on bluebox and 0.65 on 3 4G!

But when fibre becomes available here next year they are both getting the boot as neither can be really depended on!

ednwireland

we have it at work as a backup to the eircom BB we use as our main provider.
(as if the phone lines go down we have a backup outside of that infrastructure)
we ha d anew service installed recently and its much better aerial replaced and account switched and its much cheaper
getting 30mb download from barnesmore, i'd be tempted to put it in at home if i could see a mast it would be an improvement on my 3mb

schizo1014

fooker! wrote: »

I gotta say for me these past few weeks I'm finding that Bluebox has been better than 3 4G, just done a test on both and had 9.3mb download on bluebox and 0.65 on 3 4G!

But when fibre becomes available here next year they are both getting the boot as neither can be really depended on!

I'm going off the mast in Barnesmore here and in the last few weeks its has gotten noticeably better alright, as you say up in the 9mb range, which is decent considering I only pay €24.99 a month.

schizo1014

ednwireland wrote: »

we have it at work as a backup to the eircom BB we use as our main provider.
(as if the phone lines go down we have a backup outside of that infrastructure)
we ha d anew service installed recently and its much better aerial replaced and account switched and its much cheaper
getting 30mb download from barnesmore, i'd be tempted to put it in at home if i could see a mast it would be an improvement on my 3mb

What is the name of the one you are getting 30mb off? as I know a few in Barnes who can't get bluebox (can't see the mast) and have been using a 3 modem for the last few years.

Tommy Lagahan

schizo1014 wrote: »

I'm going off the mast in Barnesmore here and in the last few weeks its has gotten noticeably better alright, as you say up in the 9mb range, which is decent considering I only pay €24.99 a month.

Are yis feckin jokin, as soon as I cancel it :pac:
FTTH is coming to barnes now within the next year though so at least yas will be able to switch to that. I'm 2KM away from even the rural FTTH though so I'm feckin shafted.
At least the MIMO antennas and 4G modem are managing to pull 12-30Mbit from the barnes Three mast for now. Latency is ****e though, getting a heart condition from bad hitreg on CSGO at this stage.

chris_ie

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Are yis feckin jokin, as soon as I cancel it :pac:
FTTH is coming to barnes now within the next year though so at least yas will be able to switch to that. I'm 2KM away from even the rural FTTH though so I'm feckin shafted.
At least the MIMO antennas and 4G modem are managing to pull 12-30Mbit from the barnes Three mast for now. Latency is ****e though, getting a heart condition from bad hitreg on CSGO at this stage.

As soon as you cancel things improve hmmmm

I haven't noticed much of an improvement in the evenings. Still around <2MB. But it went down yesterday evening and was still down when I went to bed so I mailed them and received a call from them this morning! It was back up but they said they'd monitor the connection for issues. Bit of a shock but nice to get, hopefully things are starting to improve on both internet and customer service fronts. Will check my speeds in the evenings again and packet loss to see if they've improved.

I'm on the blue lines for FTTH, although probably be one of the last areas done, but if Eir manage to stick to their 2018 end target its not a problem...

schizo1014

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Are yis feckin jokin, as soon as I cancel it :pac:
FTTH is coming to barnes now within the next year though so at least yas will be able to switch to that. I'm 2KM away from even the rural FTTH though so I'm feckin shafted.
At least the MIMO antennas and 4G modem are managing to pull 12-30Mbit from the barnes Three mast for now. Latency is ****e though, getting a heart condition from bad hitreg on CSGO at this stage.

Looking at the ftth rollout map and it doesn't look like fiber is coming anywhere near my own house so I'm not holding my breath.

Tommy Lagahan

schizo1014 wrote: »

Looking at the ftth rollout map and it doesn't look like fiber is coming anywhere near my own house so I'm not holding my breath.

Bah, their coverage is hit and miss isn't it? Uncle works for them, asked why they weren't bringing it up my way and apparently the higher ups said they're going for the places where they can get the most houses with the least work until they get the NBP government money to do the rest.

schizo1014

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Bah, their coverage is hit and miss isn't it? Uncle works for them, asked why they weren't bringing it up my way and apparently the higher ups said they're going for the places where they can get the most houses with the least work until they get the NBP government money to do the rest.

That sounds about right, I'm a wee bit of the beaten track here on an old main road and they are only doing the first few houses and thats it, considering everyone I knew would take fiber over satellite any day It's a shame.

Tommy Lagahan

schizo1014 wrote: »

That sounds about right, I'm a wee bit of the beaten track here on an old main road and they are only doing the first few houses and thats it, considering everyone I knew would take fiber over satellite any day It's a shame.

Jaysus I woulda thought they would have gone on the whole way down the old main road, proper lazy of them not to. I'm over the opposite side of the new main road myself just up a cul de sac half way up the mountain, bit more sense that they wouldnt bother with me lol.

schizo1014

Tommy Lagahan wrote: »

Jaysus I woulda thought they would have gone on the whole way down the old main road, proper lazy of them not to. I'm over the opposite side of the new main road myself just up a cul de sac half way up the mountain, bit more sense that they wouldnt bother with me lol.

Just twigged on who you are, your looking down at my house here lol Yeah it just seems handier for them to do it this way, the cousin got a 4g router for his 3 mobile broadband there and is running 30mb atm its actually better than bluebox its mad the difference.

cushte

have to say my broadband is a lot better in the last month. its still low in the peak times, but its going in the right direction. i was hitting 17 mbps in off peak time but still around 1 mbps a peak. theres a new company starting called beacon broadband offering very good speeds as well so maybe that has something to do with the improvements?

Brogan9

Hi, does anybody know if this new company Beacon Broadband are in anyway connected with Northwest Electronics/ Bluebox Broadband?

cushte

Brogan9 wrote: »

Hi, does anybody know if this new company Beacon Broadband are in anyway connected with Northwest Electronics/ Bluebox Broadband?

cant say for certain but according to their fb page it shows customers in donegal getting 39mbps down and 8,08 upload. dont think bluebox was ever that fast so i dont think they are connected to nwe. also there phone number seems to be for a company called bizvoip?

editorsean

From a quick check, they are two independent companies:

Beacon Broadband LTD:
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/NI638257

Bluebox Broadband LTD:
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/NI059582

Beacon Broadband's address matches up with Com Cubed Computers and unsurprisingly the Whois registrant is also Com Cubed.

http://www.comcubed.co.uk/contact

It'll be interesting to see how quickly they cover the county. Interesting what a little competition does for speed.

schizo1014

Just a note, my bluebox has considerable dropped again within the last few days back to the old 2/3mb upload speed, it was good while it lasted.

Brogan9

Mine never improved at all, but after contacting Beacon Broadband, they don't supply out my way for now, but hope to do so soon....
Fingers it is soon and they are as good as they say they are....