UPC have upgraded their speeds again! :)

ADSLUSER

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/upc-upgrade-to-double-speed-of-broadband-29657254.html

KTRIC

Excellent, when is it happening and what about the people currently on 100mb ?

lotas

200mb/s down as the top package is nice, but 10mb/s up? thats still a little silly, right?

ADSLUSER

KTRIC wrote: »

Excellent, when is it happening and what about the people currently on 100mb ?[/QUOTE

No change to users on 100mb unless you ring them i.e. you won't be upgraded automatically. You can ring them to upgrade you to the new 120 basic package but you'll need to enter into a new 12 month contract. Worth it as you're paying less for more unless you want to avoid being tied into a 12 month contract again. They no longer have a middle package, just 120 or 200.

lotas

are current 150mb customers automagically upgraded? trying to reboot my modem, but doing it remotely may end badly...

ADSLUSER

lotas wrote: »

are current 150mb customers automagically upgraded? trying to reboot my modem, but doing it remotely may end badly...

I would suspect no unless you ring them up - again I suspect to avail of the new speed increases, UPC would like you to enter a new 12 month contract for that privilege. Not an issue if you have no plans to move I still think BB wise, they're the best

lotas

Ayyy, will need to give them a ring and get the upgrade... got 2 150mb lines currently... 400Mb/s down would be very nice!

seanie27

Just speaking to a care agent said they'll be automatically upgrading 100mb customers to 120. Not sure if everyone will begetting it today or what though. I'd imagine if you're on the Horizon TV max package and on 100 Bband then you'll be auto upgraded.
Though this contradicts what Adsluser says above somewhat so prob safer if you ring.

Mech1

I am on the 150mb and phone only no tv or Horison, I just called and was told I wasnt eligible it was for horizon customers only.

Can anyone confirm?

zl1whqvjs75cdy

UPC are not a good company to deal with but their sexy sexy broadband just keeps me coming back for more.

ADSLUSER

Mech1 wrote: »

I am on the 150mb and phone only no tv or Horison, I just called and was told I wasnt eligible it was for horizon customers only.

Can anyone confirm?

That's doesn't sound right, they clearly indicate these packages are available separately without the need for Horizon.

http://www.upc.ie/broadbandandphone/

As it was launched today, it's possible their customer care unit is not up to date on all the new packages

I was on the 100Mb and rang them today and they upgraded me to 120Mb

circadian

My 150 package was already clocking 180 so I doubt I'll notice any real increase.

Might drop to the lowest package at renewal since 120 is adequite enough.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

Why are UPC able to offer this great service where as Sky and Eircom are beyond **** (in relative terms) .

wes

Will have to give them a ring today, and get moved onto the faster package .

ADSLUSER

A good breakdown of new packages compared with old from silicon republic
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/34501-upc-ups-the-standard-with/

TCP/IP

circadian wrote: »

My 150 package was already clocking 180 so I doubt I'll notice any real increase.

Might drop to the lowest package at renewal since 120 is adequite enough.

Very simply infrastructure even Eircom and with that all other providers have missed the boat again with there FTTC offerings as you still need a copper phone line for the last point of connection and that massively limits speed. Only areas with FTTH from Eircom can dream of these sort of speeds.

Gonzo

TCP/IP wrote: »

Very simply infrastructure even Eircom and with that all other providers have missed the boat again with there FTTC offerings as you still need a copper phone line for the last point of connection and that massively limits speed. Only areas with FTTH from Eircom can dream of these sort of speeds.

so basically Eircom's FTTC 70meg and vectoring 100meg is going to get outdated very quickly over next few years with the speed ceiling already reached?.

AT this stage it's not hard to imagine UPC will be offering speeds close to 500meg in about 2 years while Eircom will still be rolling out 70meg Fibre.

Praetorian

120 and 200 m/bit options simplifies matters. I can only imagine the very greediest of people will go for the 200 package. On the download side 120 is plenty for now. Again UPC missed the opportunity to put Eircom in their place in terms of upload speed. 20 m/bit or 30 m/bit upload speed would be a real reason to go for the higher priced pacakge. I'm still happier with 70 x 20 than I would be with 200 x 10.

Does anyone know the definitive reason why UPC stick with 10m/bit upload rate across all packages?

bk

While it is great news that UPC are upgrading, I wouldn't necessarily say that this blows Eircom out of the water.

The biggest obvious problem is that UPC only offers 10mb/s up. Eircom offer 20mb/s up on all their products. To be honest, most people would see little difference between 70mb/s down versus 120mb/s down, at these speeds you are usually limited by the site you are downloading from. However people would definitely notice a difference between 20mb/s and 10mb/s when uploading videos, pictures, etc.

The other issue is that €44 is a relatively high price for the entry level package.

For instance Vodafone offer 70mb/20mb for €35 per month. That would be a very attractive package to many people, more attractive then paying another €9 for download speed they won't use.

So a good move my UPC, but I feel they have more to do.

bk

Praetorian wrote: »

Does anyone know the definitive reason why UPC stick with 10m/bit upload rate across all packages?

I don't have a definitive answer or any inside knowledge, this issue seems to effect the cable industry throughout the world, but I posted the following explanation in a previous thread:

I think the biggest issue is that the cable industry simply wasn't focused on increasing upload speeds, instead focusing just on download speeds. They now have been caught out by this with the growth of cloud computing type services with high upload speed demands.

While the DOCSIS 3 standard supports 4 bonded upstream channels, thus supporting a theoretical 120mb/s upload speed, some of the problems being face by the cable industry are:

- Some DOCSIS 3 modems only support one upstream channel, thus would need to be upgraded.
- Some CMTS are only certified for one upstream channel, thus would need to be upgraded.
- A lot of reconfiguration of ports at the CMTS is needed to support channel bonding.
- Currently most seem to be only using 16 QAM for upstream, versus the 64 or 256 QAM for Downstream. This makes the upload speed slower, notice UPC only offer 10mb/s upstream, despite it theoretically supporting 30mb/s, even without channel bonding. I can only assume this is because they are using slower 16 QAM, perhaps because of backwards compatibility issues with older DOCSIS 1.0 modems.

mitosis

bk wrote: »

While it is great news that UPC are upgrading, I wouldn't necessarily say that this blows Eircom out of the water.

The biggest obvious problem is that UPC only offers 10mb/s up. Eircom offer 20mb/s up on all their products. To be honest, most people would see little difference between 70mb/s down versus 120mb/s down, at these speeds you are usually limited by the site you are downloading from. However people would definitely notice a difference between 20mb/s and 10mb/s when uploading videos, pictures, etc.

The other issue is that €44 is a relatively high price for the entry level package.

For instance Vodafone offer 70mb/20mb for €35 per month. That would be a very attractive package to many people, more attractive then paying another €9 for download speed they won't use.

So a good move my UPC, but I feel they have more to do.

Don't you also have to pay phoneline rental, though?

bk

bk wrote: »

The other issue is that €44 is a relatively high price for the entry level package.

For instance Vodafone offer 70mb/20mb for €35 per month. That would be a very attractive package to many people, more attractive then paying another €9 for download speed they won't use.

Thinking about it further, I guess UPC are hoping that people don't hear about the Vodafone package and only compare it to the Eircom entry level package, which in fairness, UPC is much better value for money.

UPC:
€44, 120mb/s down, 10mb/s up, unlimited cap, free off peak calls

Eircom:
€45, 50mb/s down, 20mb/s up, 30GB cap, free off peak calls

Vodafone:
€35 *, 70mb/s down, 20mb/s up, unlimited cap, no phone line

* €32 for Vodafone mobile customers.

Ok so in fairness, Vodafone doesn't include a phone service, but in reality I don't think most people want a phone service these days!

The other issue is really light users, who don't want to get stuck in a longterm contract. While I'm not crazy about mobile wireless tech, I think 4G modems with lets say a 50gig cap for around €20 per month will be very popular.

bk

mitosis wrote: »

Don't you also have to pay phoneline rental, though?

No, no extra cost, "line rental" is included in the €35 cost, however you can't actually use it to make calls as it is broadband only.

This is sort of a new concept to the Irish broadband market, but a welcome one.

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

And...when and how much will this "free" upgrade cost us? I have no doubt there is another price increase coming soon.
After nearly every "free" upgrade in the past, there was a price increase shortly afterwards.

tteknulp

Thats great ,i am on 150 meg ,so it looks like 200 meg is new speed ,upload could be better 10meg still

stimpson

Just off the phone - I took my free bump as I have been on a new 12 months since a couple of weeks ago.

And I just checked my account there - my bill hasn't risen at all in the last 12 months, despite being told that it would - I seem to have been paying €52 plus calls for the whole year.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

I've been with UPC for about 4 or 5 years and I'm fairly sure I'm paying double now compared to what I paid back then. I told them that after the last price increase I would leave if they do it to me again.

I don't want faster speeds. I don't want to pay more. I can play FIFA online and watch Netflix in HD wirelessly. The odd time I want to download an album or a concert, I just go in for a wee and by the time I come back it's already done. UPC better leave me alone or I am going to break up with them!

Lord Spence

what about people on 50mb will we get boosted to 120mb!!! if so is it automatic, great news

unkel

Just upgraded to the horizon service max package keeping my unlimited international phone calls, broadband speed going up from 100mbps to 200mbps and I'm paying €3 less per month than I'm paying now

galait

BK what about the UTV 25 euro package

http://utvconnect.com/ie/residential/broadband/fibre-optic-broadband/broadband-only/

3wayswitch

Just rang there. My 150Mb line is now 200Mb and I still keep what's left of my 6 month discount from the UPC boards deal.

Greenmachine

3wayswitch wrote: »

Just rang there. My 150Mb line is now 200Mb and I still keep what's left of my 6 month discount from the UPC boards deal.

So you are still on the 6 month intro rate and were able to upgrade. Wow interesting.

3wayswitch

Greenmachine wrote: »

So you are still on the 6 month intro rate and were able to upgrade. Wow interesting.

Yup. I wasn't sure if I could keep the discount since I was technically signing a new 12 month contract but the customer service rep confirmed I would still be on my intro rate.

dub45

bk wrote: »

While it is great news that UPC are upgrading, I wouldn't necessarily say that this blows Eircom out of the water.

The biggest obvious problem is that UPC only offers 10mb/s up. Eircom offer 20mb/s up on all their products. To be honest, most people would see little difference between 70mb/s down versus 120mb/s down, at these speeds you are usually limited by the site you are downloading from. However people would definitely notice a difference between 20mb/s and 10mb/s when uploading videos, pictures, etc.

The other issue is that €44 is a relatively high price for the entry level package.

For instance Vodafone offer 70mb/20mb for €35 per month. That would be a very attractive package to many people, more attractive then paying another €9 for download speed they won't use.

So a good move my UPC, but I feel they have more to do.

I wonder if UPC are falling into the "Intel" trap? I think they have been blinded by speed whereas surely the benefits of these speed increases will actually be lost for many customers.

To get the benefits of these type of speeds you need to be on ethernet and even then I am sure many pcs and laptops still have old ethernet cards.

I am sure many if not most people now are connecting by wifi. The wifi performance of the equipment being provided by UPC seems poor to judge by customers's reactions. While the Horizon box by definition will be placed in most cases in a location which is very poor for wifi prospects. (Under a tv in a corner?)

UPC wont even deign to engage with their customers on the issue of bridging which might solve a lot of practical problems for customers in the wifi area. (Better router, better positioning)

It is great to have speeds that we would never have dreamt of not so long ago but I fear UPC continue to ignore the real needs of most of their customers.

Lord Spence

I agree the wifi is very poor and I have have had to invest in home plugs for my desktop and consoles.

Toast

I tried to upgrade my 50mb phone + internet to the new 120mb on their website and it seemed to want to charge me a 45euro setup charge for the privilege (even though the order form acknowledged I was an existing customer). Anyone who got upgraded calling them get hit with this charge? The modem I have is the newer version so this 45quid charge is for basically a tiny software change on their side from what I can tell.

fl4pj4ck

http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057057486
http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057060818

3wayswitch

Toast wrote: »

I tried to upgrade my 50mb phone + internet to the new 120mb on their website and it seemed to want to charge me a 45euro setup charge for the privilege (even though the order form acknowledged I was an existing customer). Anyone who got upgraded calling them get hit with this charge? The modem I have is the newer version so this 45quid charge is for basically a tiny software change on their side from what I can tell.

I wasn't charged anything extra to go from 150 - 200.

stimpson

dub45 wrote: »

I wonder if UPC are falling into the "Intel" trap? I think they have been blinded by speed whereas surely the benefits of these speed increases will actually be lost for many customers.

To get the benefits of these type of speeds you need to be on ethernet and even then I am sure many pcs and laptops still have old ethernet cards.

I am sure many if not most people now are connecting by wifi. The wifi performance of the equipment being provided by UPC seems poor to judge by customers's reactions. While the Horizon box by definition will be placed in most cases in a location which is very poor for wifi prospects. (Under a tv in a corner?)

UPC wont even deign to engage with their customers on the issue of bridging which might solve a lot of practical problems for customers in the wifi area. (Better router, better positioning)

It is great to have speeds that we would never have dreamt of not so long ago but I fear UPC continue to ignore the real needs of most of their customers.

802.11n will do ~150Mb/s (or more with multi channel). 802.11ac will go close to gigabit speeds. 802.11ad is around the corner (over 6Gigabit wireless!)

I only use wifi for phones/iPad in my house (all at n speeds). All of my PC's have gigabit. Even my satellite box. I can't remember the last time I bought a machine with sub-gigabit speeds.

Something has to give first - if the bandwith isn't there people are less likely to come up with applications for it. I remember going from dialup to 3 megabit and thinking it was awesome. I used my inlaws 3 megabit recently and thought their computer was broken.

smee again

stimpson wrote: »

802.11n will do ~150Mb/s (or more with multi channel). 802.11ac will go close to gigabit speeds. 802.11ad is around the corner (over 6Gigabit wireless!)

I only use wifi for phones/iPad in my house (all at n speeds). All of my PC's have gigabit. Even my satellite box. I can't remember the last time I bought a machine with sub-gigabit speeds.

Something has to give first - if the bandwith isn't there people are less likely to come up with applications for it. I remember going from dialup to 3 megabit and thinking it was awesome. I used my inlaws 3 megabit recently and thought their computer was broken.

In a lab, in a faraday cage with only one device connected. Don't believe the hype, the achievable speeds in home surrounding is much less than this, often much less than half. None of this gets over the fact that wireless is half duplex, you use the same medium to transmit and receive therefore you can do one or the other, not both like a cable. Also, to have a wireless "AC" network every single device needs to be "AC" or it falls back to "N" or "G"

Wanderer2010

Im currently on 50MB, home phone and digital tv for 78euro a month. Can i request an upgrade without any extra cost or does the cost go up too? Basically Im looking to see what upgrades Im entitled to as a long term customer. Ringing the customer care line is a nightmare, anyone have any answers in simple english?

7upfree

dub45 wrote: »

I wonder if UPC are falling into the "Intel" trap? I think they have been blinded by speed whereas surely the benefits of these speed increases will actually be lost for many customers.

To get the benefits of these type of speeds you need to be on ethernet and even then I am sure many pcs and laptops still have old ethernet cards.

I am sure many if not most people now are connecting by wifi. The wifi performance of the equipment being provided by UPC seems poor to judge by customers's reactions. While the Horizon box by definition will be placed in most cases in a location which is very poor for wifi prospects. (Under a tv in a corner?)

UPC wont even deign to engage with their customers on the issue of bridging which might solve a lot of practical problems for customers in the wifi area. (Better router, better positioning)

It is great to have speeds that we would never have dreamt of not so long ago but I fear UPC continue to ignore the real needs of most of their customers.

There's always one.:) Seems to be at odds with your comments here Dub45:

"http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056426633
There is no such thing as Eircom Wireless bb. As pointed out above Eircom supply you with bb with which appears to be working fine. It is your decision as to whether or not you use a wireless network. Its the same situation with all the dsl isps.

There are any number of reasons why users have problems with wireless and one basic one is the ever increasing number of wireless networks in existence."

So it's not confined to just UPC then?:rolleyes:

bk

galait wrote: »

BK what about the UTV 25 euro package

http://utvconnect.com/ie/residential/broadband/fibre-optic-broadband/broadband-only/

Yes it looks interesting and potentially fantastic value for money.

However it is a brand new product, that no one has reported signing up to yet. So it remains to be seen the quality of the product and if there is any gotchas.

Lord Spence

ok upgraded from 50mbs to 120mbs but cant get speeds any faster then 50mbs, I have tp link 500mbs home plugs will this cause any problems for me? technician calling out thursday

stimpson

smee again wrote: »

In a lab, in a faraday cage with only one device connected. Don't believe the hype, the achievable speeds in home surrounding is much less than this, often much less than half. None of this gets over the fact that wireless is half duplex, you use the same medium to transmit and receive therefore you can do one or the other, not both like a cable. Also, to have a wireless "AC" network every single device needs to be "AC" or it falls back to "N" or "G"

I can get within 80% of my n speeds at home.

And ac operstes on 5GHz exclusively so it's only a problem with n which can operate on either (or both) as g is exclusively 2.4 GHz. When you have ac and n devices on the same network they don't drop back to n speeds. When they are used simultaneously they are sharing time on the radio. The ac device will still shift bits at ac speed, but the n device will hog the radio for longer when transferring the same amount of data, restricting the time available for the ac device. When the ac device is used exclusively it works at full speed.

smee again

stimpson wrote: »

I can get within 80% of my n speeds at home.

To a single device with a good signal, add another device in the next room streaming a YT vid at the same time and see how it gets on. You are right though, wireless should be just for mobility, but UPC should be making customers aware of this. Most have no idea and will hide their Horizon router in a press and then get no use of this extra speed.

JayBrah

I dont know what the craic is with upc, Im suppose to be on 100 mb/s yet i barely get over 15 mb/s??

circadian

The wireless routers bundled with UPC are horrendous. You'll be lucky to get over 50mbs on any device (I've tried many).

Wired however, it'll usually blow your face off.

JayBrah

circadian wrote: »

The wireless routers bundled with UPC are horrendous. You'll be lucky to get over 50mbs on any device (I've tried many).

Wired however, it'll usually blow your face off.

can u buy ur own routers and hook them up to the box?

zarquon

JayBrah wrote: »

I dont know what the craic is with upc, Im suppose to be on 100 mb/s yet i barely get over 15 mb/s??

Did you try a direct wired connection to the modem? It could be a poor wireless connection causing the problem.

Additionally some people confuse megabits and megabytes. 100mb will get you a 12.5MB downstream.

JayBrah

zarquon wrote: »

Did you try a direct wired connection to the modem? It could be a poor wireless connection causing the problem.

Additionally some people confuse megabits and megabytes. 100mb will get you a 12.5MB downstream.

ah, that could be the problem. thanks