Broadband speed for you living in the Countryside/Rural area?

Arrow in the Knee

''However due to the distance from the exchange (in terms of how the telephone lines are laid) is "up to 1MB".

I checked a few neighbouring lines who have eircom broadband from the same exchange and they are getting between 600 - 700kbps.''

What do you think of this broadband speed as I am a Novice about broadband speeds?

I live outside a town.

reilig

Don't know a lot about it, but i recon that's pi$$ poor speed. I live outside a town too and have three mobile broadband with a very poor signal - however it always delivers between 1.5 and 3 MBps when I do a speed test. 1 MB is barely enough to watch a video with but abover 1.5MB and I can watch netflix with comfort.

Conmaicne Mara

Ask your neighbours what service they use. I ran for Eircom like a scalded cat as soon as something else became available. That said I don't know what my BB speed is but I'm happy with it. Have had experience of the 3 dongle and I would say to stay away from it.

countryjimbo

I'm with Eircom as well, same story too far from the exchange to get anything other then "1mb".

Problem is that if I even got 1mb I'd be happy, measured with speedtest.net yesterday and download was .4 Mbps and upload was .07 Mbps :mad:

I did borrow a three mobile broadband for a few weeks and found it varied a lot , it could be go from .7 to 1.5. Positioning the modem at a window and turning it a little while watching the reception bars helps.

Overall I think three is better than Eircom. Its also very portable, can take it with you on the road or to a relative/neighbor etc...

redzerologhlen

Getting 2mbps with Lighthouse Networks and we are in the back of beyonds.

kevthegaff

getting 5mb download and .4mb upload is that good

Arrow in the Knee

Here's a link about possible broadband options for me.

http://www.carphonewarehouse.ie/category/Mobile-Broadband/5.5

Any of you's have any experience using Dongles or USB Broadband Modem sticks that you use on the laptop,computer or iPad?
They say you can get up to 7.2Mbps. What do you actual get?

Timmaay

Ugh where do I start! I'm with eircom at the minute, have spend hours on the phone to them over the last 2 years, Countless engineers have come out and replaced wires / junction boxes etc, but I'm still left with max 0.5mb/s download , however this can be as low as 0.1mb/s! I did switch to IFA telecom for afew months last year, however I found that the eircom network support (for which you pay the very same for as if you were with eircom) went down the tubes totally, as fair as I can see, eircom basically thought sure he's not even with us, so why bother fixing the line!

My main problem is we are too far from the local exchange, and eircom have no interest in setting up an exchange any closer, or bringing a fibreoptic line out any closer to the house. Utterly frustrating, at the end of every call to eircom broadband support I tell them straight out how can they call 0.5mb/s a "broadband service"

restive

kevthegaff wrote: »

getting 5mb download and .4mb upload is that good

I am with brisknet county roscommon. I have an ariel on my roof which picks up its signal from brisknets aerial. It has a direct line of sight.

It is 2 mb download. It is not excrptionally fast but it plays youtube videos ok. I am paying €400 a year.

Arrow in the Knee

At the moment I'm getting from Dial-up 37.5kbps.

Yesterday I contacted Eircom and they said I could get up to 1Mbps but they said that my neighbours are getting 600-700kbps. Which I think is crap. That's why I am looking at other options.

As Timmaay said above how can you call even 1Mbps as broadband service.

It's pathetic. It would be a waste of time and money to get broadband with Eircom at the moment for me anyway!

bbam

We live too far from any exchange to get fixed line.
We have three mobile and it's very slow, congestion is our problem.
I have my modem up in a bedroom window running a wireless router and laptop/phone connect over wifi to it.
The speed is poor and inconsistent however it's the only option for the moment.

vanderbadger

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Getting 2mbps with Lighthouse Networks and we are in the back of beyonds.

we are getting 3mb of them now, when on 2mb previously i found it was impossible to watch video

Black Smoke

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

At the moment I'm getting from Dial-up 37.5kbps.

Yesterday I contacted Eircom and they said I could get up to 1Mbps but they said that my neighbours are getting 600-700kbps. Which I think is crap. That's why I am looking at other options.

As Timmaay said above how can you call even 1Mbps as broadband service.

It's pathetic. It would be a waste of time and money to get broadband with Eircom at the moment for me anyway!

I have the Eircom 1mb per sec broadband deal. I am three miles by road from the exchange, and over four miles from the exchange, if I follow the telecom poles route. I am at the very end of the spectrum within which I could get even the 1Mb service. My neighbour a mere 500 yards further up the road from cant get it. He is outside the cut off point. Eircom even came out recently and tested his connection and confirmed it's a no go.

My speeds are actually ok. Not into Netflix or any of that heavy stuff, but can watch youtube stuff no bother. So no stopping and faffing about as in my old dial up method. This youtube video works perfectly for instance and all farmers will appreciate http://www.youtube.com/embed/2h-WhhqFjv4?feature=player_detailpage

towzer2010

Speeds are important but equally important is the contention ratio.

Basically if you have a contention ration of 14:1 that means 14 connections can share the available bandwith. The higher the contention ratio the slower the connection you can get. In an ideal world it would be 1:1.

As for your original question that speed will not allow you to do much. Forget about the likes of Netflix and downloading stuff in general

You could check out wireless broadband or satelite broadband. If you are near or have line of sight to a mobile phone mast you could try mobile broadband from that company. In my experience it doesnt work well in rural locations otherwise.

Go to http://www.bonkers.ie/ or other comparison sites to see whats available in your area.

redzerologhlen

vanderbadger wrote: »

we are getting 3mb of them now, when on 2mb previously i found it was impossible to watch video

Who are you with vander? Its the only thing we can get here and to be honest we are lucky to get it. We had to get sky because we cant get a picture on the telly where we are.

doyleshill

Distance from exchange is the main problem with BB, 6 km plus and you are in dodgy territory.All other providers use the exact same hardware and physical telephone line as Eircom for landline BB,so if 1 Meg is the max Eircom can provide ,then other providers can't do better. The house wiring is also very important factor,ie ,extensions,etc.

dar31

we have no choice but to get satelitte? broadband,
€40 month, on the up side we get 5mb consistently

flyingfarmer

Gents,. If you're 5 k's from the exchange forget the landline broadband. Mobile broadband is also a waste of space. Get satellite and choose what download speed you want. I chose 7 megs and it's perfect. We rural folk will all be on satellite anyway to get the beebs from next month and the telly can come in on the broadband dish as well.
Simple!

restive

What satellite providers are ye with.

CRM Ireland

I was getting 1.1mb from Eircom and the ping was spiking every minute or so, making it impossible to game. Also it took ages to download anything. General web viewing, so long as it wasnt picture or video intensive, was bearable, but just not a great experience.

I got Net1, which is a fixed line of site wireless connection. They put an antenna on the side of my house. For 47EUR per month I have 8mb up and 8mb down. Its a constant speed and Ive tested it solidly throughout every hour of the day. Depsite having a contention of up to 15:1, my speed has been unaffected. The pinbgs are awesome, UK servers are about 15-30ms and its rock solid. That 47EUR also gives me 1000 landline minutes to Irish and UK landlines. I think I get some to US/Canada as well, but I didnt read into that as I wont be calling there.

So far Im delighted with the service, although Im paranoid my usage will get me cut off as I use torrents a lot, so Ive had to be ultra selective over what I download. They specify there are no limits to the downloads I can make, but there is a fair use policy that Im not allowed to adversely affect others use of the service. From some research, I think its about 5GB per day I can use without too much grief from them. This actually seriously restricts my online usage, but at least its a million times better than with Eircom. I can stream 1080 YouTube videos without any buffering at all.

vanderbadger

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Who are you with vander? Its the only thing we can get here and to be honest we are lucky to get it. We had to get sky because we cant get a picture on the telly where we are.

same gang as yourself, we had eircom but we are a bit far from exchange and it was poor

flyingfarmer

restive wrote: »

What satellite providers are ye with.

It's Onwave.ie apparently based in Mullingar

siblers

Had Eircom but eventually cancelled as our speed dropped significantly, went with 3. Getting speeds of about 3-4 mbps, its pretty good but can be very inconsistent. Can't get fixed wireless as there are trees blocking our line of sight, which is an awful pity,

Dazza

Avoid satellite broadband like the plague. The contention ratios are very high ping is 800ms which rules out voip ,gaming and reasonable browsing and forget about using it in the rain..
If eircom dont provide a decent service go for a Fixed Wireless operator. In most cases they are superior to eircom. Look at these providers and see if they cover your area.
http://www.ripplecom.net/(Over most of Ireland)
http://www.digiweb.ie/home/broadband/metro/index.html(Over most of Ireland)
http://www.novanetworks.ie/Cork only. Rated No1 isp in ireland ) Ratemyisp.ie
More regional are
Carnsore Broadband
East Cork Broadband
Wicklow Broadband
Celtic broadband
Reach Broadband
Clearwire
.


If a fixed wireless operator isnt available in your area then 3g is your best option. It can be a reliable broadband option once you have it set up properly. An external anntenna will help loads with 3g. Have a look at what this guy did: Remote3GInstallation
Also by setting up an antenna you will become slightly less prone to congestion. What we did before was have an antenna on an shed about 200 meters away from the house , connect antenna router in the shed and then send the internet through the pre existing electrical wiring. Homeplugs are needed for this(DevoloHomeplugs)
Also sending it over an antenna is also a good option as long as you have line of sight between your dwellings. If anyone wants more info on setting up a system lke this send me a pm and il try an help .

Dazza

siblers wrote: »

Had Eircom but eventually cancelled as our speed dropped significantly, went with 3. Getting speeds of about 3-4 mbps, its pretty good but can be very inconsistent. Can't get fixed wireless as there are trees blocking our line of sight, which is an awful pity,

Are the trees on your property? You could run a cable underground and connect it to a pole on the other side of the tree. Requires a bit of work but it might be worth it!

CRM Ireland

Dazza wrote: »

Are the trees on your property? You could run a cable underground and connect it to a pole on the other side of the tree. Requires a bit of work but it might be worth it!

Or sneak out in the middle of a stormy night and bring a chainsaw...

Timmaay

Some contrasting opinions here on satellite broadband! Is Onwave the only provider here in Ireland at the minute? I have heard nothing but bad things about them, plus 40quid for a total monthly allowance of 8gb is fairly bad, I probably download more then that at the minute even with my rubbish 0.5mb/s eircom connection. On top of the 40quid, 220 installation ugh!

Arrow in the Knee

I went into O2 store today.

Up to 21Mbps with 15GB per month allowance for 21 euro per month for Bill pay with 9+12 month contracts.
Free USB Modem.

What do you think of this?

Upstream

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

I went into O2 store today.

Up to 21Mbps with 15GB per month allowance for 21 euro per month for Bill pay with 9+12 month contracts.
Free USB Modem.

What do you think of this?

Get it on trial first and see how it performs for you over a couple of days.

Not all mobile providers will give you the same speeds in your area. Depending on where their masts are located one provider may perform much better than another. The number of nearby users has a big influence as well, especially as you get further from the mast. At times when the number of users on a mast are high, the coverage area actually shrinks. All providers have maps indicating their coverage areas on their websites (three tend to exaggerate their coverage more than others), but you will get a truer idea if you get the best one or two on trial.

An unreliable 3g connection can be as bad as, or worse than dialup, while a good connection can outperform eircom dsl, I can only get 1 meg dsl over phoneline, but it's better than the 3g service locally, more reliable service and consistent if not very high speed, and I'm happy enough with it as it's light years ahead of dialup so try a few options and see what suits you best

just do it

Black Smoke wrote: »

I have the Eircom 1mb per sec broadband deal. I am three miles by road from the exchange, and over four miles from the exchange, if I follow the telecom poles route. I am at the very end of the spectrum within which I could get even the 1Mb service. My neighbour a mere 500 yards further up the road from cant get it. He is outside the cut off point. Eircom even came out recently and tested his connection and confirmed it's a no go.

My speeds are actually ok. Not into Netflix or any of that heavy stuff, but can watch youtube stuff no bother. So no stopping and faffing about as in my old dial up method. This youtube video works perfectly for instance and all farmers will appreciate http://www.youtube.com/embed/2h-WhhqFjv4?feature=player_detailpage

Same as that, at the very end of the line and Eircom won't install BB for my neighbour only 100m away! Speed is poor though and that youtube video stalled to download twice in the first minute. (Those lads are insane! I'd to stop watching it). And that youtube is only 240p, nowhere near 1040p.

Just did a test on O2 speedtest:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 412 kbps (51.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 53 kbps (6.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 131 ms
27 September 2012 23:02:11
i.e. Ping 131ms, Dowload 0.4Mbps, Upload 0.05Mbps - crap:(

Elfinknight

Been with 3 for 18 months and then O2 for 18 months for mobile broadband and while they were "adequate", neither was entirely satisfactory as the speeds were low and the signal often dropped out.

Went to get a quote from Eircom, but apparently our land line cannot support broadband. as Vodafone actually use the Eircom line for their fixed line broadband, I couldn't sign with them either. I refused their offers of mobile broadband as I'd had my fill of mobile and wanted a good fixed service.

So the other day I signed with imagine and so far so good and they are doing a good deal at the moment.

If anything does go wrong with it I'll part from them like I did the others and search around again until I get what I want.

P.S. I'm in east Co. Clare

Farmer Pudsey

I am with eircom 3meg package download speed 2.63m/s, upload 0.3m/s and ping 104ms. Not too bad I suppose.

just do it

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

I am with eircom 3meg package download speed 2.63m/s, upload 0.3m/s and ping 104ms. Not too bad I suppose.

And how do you find using it? Those look like good speeds to me...

Lofty0990

Wireless BB - 35 euro month Skytel Wexford


http://www.speedtest.net/result/2206954003.png

Farmer Pudsey

just do it wrote: »

And how do you find using it? Those look like good speeds to me...

It is grand can watch films/programs on youtube surf away grand, kids are happy with it, herself watches anything she misses on RTE Player. Sometimes one of them are on the labtop and one on the PC and you would harly notice the difference. I know that I was lucky in getting broadband when it became available some neighbours are unable to get it now. I am about 2 miles from the eircom exchange. It is down to what package you opt for.

just do it

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

just do it wrote: »

And how do you find using it? Those look like good speeds to me...

It is grand can watch films/programs on youtube surf away grand, kids are happy with it, herself watches anything she misses on RTE Player. Sometimes one of them are on the labtop and one on the PC and you would harly notice the difference. I know that I was lucky in getting broadband when it became available some neighbours are unable to get it now. I am about 2 miles from the eircom exchange. It is down to what package you opt for.

Good for you. I rang eircom about a year ago and was told there was no point going into a high package :rolleyes:

siblers

Dazza wrote: »

Are the trees on your property? You could run a cable underground and connect it to a pole on the other side of the tree. Requires a bit of work but it might be worth it!

That's an option alright buy my connection with 3 isn't bad enough to go at work. They are meant to be upgrading the speeds with 3 on Monday but due to congestion I doubt there will be any noteable increases in speed. Not sure if everywhere is being upgraded or if it's being phased out.