2013 UPC Too expensive. There is Alternative; Tough Love

ctgarvey

Please join me in leaving UPC and sending them the message that a new broadband only product for 20 euro+vat / month is something customers want.many people (myself included) dont need their bundled phone and tv.

Having been a chorus then ntl then UPC customer since 2006 , I have watched as they increased their prices regularly in the height of a recession when the average take home pay has reduced by 25%. Their last hike to 65 euro + vat for broadband & tv in june 2013 is the last straw. they have made over 7000 euro from me over 7 years and will not answer my calls directly.

please leave upc, buy a freeview box/smart tv or install satellite! I have smart tv and satellite and have access to rte HD, BBC, Channel 4, UTV etc etc HD!! for free. so its better than basic upc package.

I have internet through ''all you can eat data' samsung portable wifi hotspot smartphones already. You can do this too! the service is not as good as upc but its good enough if you have no money. I can do this because 3G is good in rathfarnham.Not all people can do this admittedly.
In the past 2 years i have not been able to get through to their support, and they ring me back at obtuse times so call is missed. they tried to charge me for bills that are more than 1 year old, that revenue were requesting.
I went to comreg. they said that upc can hike prices as much as they want. and they can charge me for archived bills.

Send this arrogant company the message that freeview and a decent phone data package is a much cheaper alternative to them.The tv will be better (modern smart tvs can record to disk - i use SSD with samsung 6508), the internet will be worse, but you will be approx 1000 euro better off per year. this is the only conversation this smug contemptuous corporate outfit understands.

So Please leave UPC and tell them why. They may react with the new cheaper no frills service. Its called tough love.

icdg

Its easier said than done. Free to air is only free once you've already paid to have it installed. It is certainly not free to install and installing satellite and Saorview can for many cable homes cost upwards of a couple of hundred euro. Remember for many cable homes its not just a dish that needs to be installed but an aerial also and the house wired for same. This can end up costing well over a years worth of UPC.

Some people can't install either satellite or Saorview - many apartment owners have restrictive coveneants written into their leases prohibiting them from installing an external aerial or dish. Likewise if you're renting you can't (or shouldn't) do so without your landlord's consent and they may not want a dish.

Finally if you want premium sport such as the FA Premier League or the Heineken Cup, Freesat/Saorview is not an option at all.

ctgarvey

I installed the lidl big dish (with dual LNB) and ran the cable to the new receiver in sitting room myself. Entire cost < 100 Euro.No biggie.Their latest silvercrest receiver does HD too. Say 3 hours for a DIY enthusiast (at most). The dish comes with a brace and anchor bolts that have to be drilled so naturally you need a drill , a ladder and someone to hold the ladder etc but not especially difficult.you guess the dish orientation by copying everyones elses, and fine tune the signal with the earpiece before locking dish position. So the ladder holding guy needs to check the signal for you on the tv as well.

But I accept that not everyone can do this and some are simply not allowed in a non owner occupier situation.
Still, a lot of apartment blocks have shared dishes with quad / 8 LNB receivers (separate one going to each apartment) so these folks should ask the management company about whats installed and who actually owns the dish.

As for irish free to air digital, this was literally as simple as plugging in an old self powered indoor amplifier aerial for analogue into the digital coax on the smart tv. Install time 5 minutes! Now anyone can do that. And this gives you all irish digital free to air (RTE/TG4/3e etc) terrestrial and you dont need a saorview box either, if you have modern tv. The samsung 6508 smart tv has integrated digital terrestrial AND integrated satellite receiver. And Im using one that wasnt even designed for Ireland but still works.

If you want premium sport, you pay super premium sky/upc prices . No argument there. There are webTV streaming options for premium sport, but a 3G phone data connection wont cut it for these.

ftakeith

I have upc broadband and phone package because its cheaper than upc broadband only
don't have the phone line connected

upc broadband is fine for me

Sunny!!

Their broadband is really good in terms of quality .

But i cant understand why the entry level is 50Mb for 37e . Money is tight these days and i'm not too worried about speed myself.

If they offered 15Mb for something like 25e it would be a lot better. Some people don't need their speeds increased yet upc keep doing this and then put on a price increase.

It really is incredible they put on price increases in a recession. Rant over

former legend

No one likes price increases and if you're happy with the freeview TV package then brilliant.

But 3G is not a substitute for broadband. It's like saying I don't need a car because I have a bike; fine for doing the absolute basics but not much else.

Vahevala

Fair enough if you don't want to pay for UPC but a lot of others do. I think their broadband is top quality and will never compare to 3G alternative. I want to be able to watch Sky Sports and their DVR is top notch for my needs.

The only downside is that I wish UPC did broadband around 20MB as I don't need the top speeds.

whiteshorts

upc keep doing this and then put on a price increase.

That is how they get away with price increases.
"We have increased the BB speed so that's why the bill is a couple of euro higher".
People would walk if it was just an increase at the same speed.
Sky's offer of Ph anytime and max 24mb BB at €47.50 (full price) isn't cheap either.
I have 30mb BB with UPC, old account, I won't upgrade, it does me fine and they charge me €27.50 a month for it.

Sunny!!

whiteshorts wrote: »

That is how they get away with price increases.
"We have increased the BB speed so that's why the bill is a couple of euro higher".
People would walk if it was just an increase at the same speed.
Sky's offer of Ph anytime and max 24mb BB at €47.50 (full price) isn't cheap either.
I have 30mb BB with UPC, old account, I won't upgrade, it does me fine and they charge me €27.50 a month for it.

This price is very viable and i'm sure plenty would avail of it if it was offered. There are a good group of people i'd say don't need 50Mb and 30Mb would be perfect.

UPC aren't as competitive as they used to be eircom now are getting better especially in the larger cities. UPC should be focusing on the prices of their products more than the speed not the other way around.

The celtic tiger days are gone!

Charlie-Bravo

Spotted this advert for fibre broadband from vodafone at a cost of 27euro per month if a vodafone mobile customer, otherwise it's 30euro.
http://www.vodafone.ie/home-phone-broadband/
Of course, you'll need to be near a fibre enabled vodafone exchange (small print)! Is there any around Dublin yet?

cml387

FWIW I have heard from people within SKY that they are very disappointed with the broadband takeup and that managers are under severe pressure because of poor sales.

Morf

cml387 wrote: »

FWIW I have heard from people within SKY that they are very disappointed with the broadband takeup and that managers are under severe pressure because of poor sales.

Well the fact that they are not planning to offer fibre at any point in the near future isn't really going to attract UPC customers.

SpaceTime

Actually, with the up to 70 Mbit/s connections i.e. "e-fibre" or its resold versions from Vodafone, Magnet etc the distance from the exchange is irrelevant. What matters is your distance to the fibre street cabinet as that's where your VDSL2 signal is coming from.

Distance to the exchange is only of concern when you're using older ADSL technology i.e. up to 8 or up to 24 Mbit/s as that's supplied from the exchange, not from a local cabinet.

The speed drops very quickly even a few hundred meters from the cabinet and at beyond 1km you might as well forget it as it's back to ADSL speeds.

Most customers (from what I have seen on here) seem to get something between about 38 and 60 Mbit/s. You'd really only get 70mbit/s if the cabinet were actually outside your house.

Ideally you need to be within about 600m of the cabinet to see good speeds and under 400 to get very good speeds.

That's not the case with cable broadband from UPC or any other cable operator. You generally get what you pay for in terms of speed because it's coming in over a shielded coaxial line that does not suffer signal degradation over normal distances.

On a positive note, when eircom switch on 'vectoring' the speeds should improve again taking some people up and over 100mbit/s in theory. Vectoring is a noise cancellation technology that overcomes crosstalk and some line noise issues.

ctgarvey

it was a far cry from the hoped for 20 euro/month bb, but upc now offer 50Mb broadband for 37euro/month. Probably as a response to sky market entry. They may even have read some boards threads...

icdg

We don't drag up old threads