eVision & Efiber a warning

Aepos

Just a warning to any Efiber customers who are thinking of getting the eVision service:

Check out this thread:-

http://community.eircom.net/t5/Broadband/Efiber-Speeds/td-p/58226

Quote from Alan on the Eircom broadband forum:-

"I have had it confirmed that evision automatically reduces your speeds by 20MB and when the evision box is in use a further 9MB can be taken from download speeds"

I cancelled my request for the service a day after applying for it as they reduced my download speed from almost 50mbps to 35-36mbps immediately even though I had no TV Service & would not have for at least 2 weeks when an installer would supply & fit the box. & then they would throttle me back even more.

So I will stay with Sky...Caveat Emptor

Aepos

gorehoundess

oops, hadn't thought of that.
thanks for the tip

crawler

This is correct - standard broadband and voice uses the rate adaptive high speed profile but if Multicast is used (for delivering TV) then the stable profile is used which is a fair bit lower than the rate adaptive one but more predictable.

Vectoring will help a bit later on.

Aepos

I can't see any reference to this in the advertising blurb and indeed when I signed up for the service on the phone I was not made aware of this.
Lucky I noticed the drop and was able to cancel.

This should be pointed out to prospective customers as the effect on some users could be huge, resulting in speeds less than with non efiber accounts.


Aepos

crawler

Aepos wrote: »

I can't see any reference to this in the advertising blurb and indeed when I signed up for the service on the phone I was not made aware of this.
Lucky I noticed the drop and was able to cancel.

This should be pointed out to prospective customers as the effect on some users could be huge, resulting in speeds less than with non efiber accounts.


Aepos

Dunno - I dont work for eircom

Danny Boy

Does it really make a big difference - you have fast broadband with 1 option, you have fast broadband + tv with the other, what change do you really notice?

bk

Danny Boy wrote: »

Does it really make a big difference - you have fast broadband with 1 option, you have fast broadband + tv with the other, what change do you really notice?

Remember the speed you get is dependent on your distance from the cab.

You could be getting as low as 18mb/s. Then just watch one HD channel on eFibre and you speed drops to 9mb/s!

That isn't fast broadband.

And the thing is, if you get a cheaper package from Vodafone, then having Sky separate is much better value for money, with way more channels, free mirroring mulitroom and the full broadband speed.

Aepos

My point Exactly bk, I'm lucky to be near a cabinet & get 50mbps and that is what I signed up for & am paying for. I don't want downgraded Broad Band and pay extra for a limited TV service that screws that up.

From the comment and reply to my query on the Eircom forum Alan said the speeds could be down by 29mbps!!

I don't Like paying Sky but as there is no UPC or alternative where I live I'll hang on to it for the time being. I have Freesat also, but that doesn't have Discovery, the History channel or Nat Geo.

I hope prospective eVision customers are made fully aware of what they are signing up for.

Have a good dy,

Aepos

The Real B-man

Its Simple you are Streaming HD Content over the Internet, Speed will Drop its not a Con, unlike UPC Where TV & Broadband Frequencies use the Same Cable.

Its Set like that so Your TV Service isnt interrupted

crawler

The Real B-man wrote: »

Its Simple you are Streaming HD Content over the Internet, Speed will Drop its not a Con, unlike UPC Where TV & Broadband Frequencies use the Same Cable.

Its Set like that so Your TV Service isnt interrupted

No, sadly that is not correct - you are moved from the high speed profile to the stable profile so even if you are not watching TV the maximum speed you get is less.

The stable (lower speed profile) is needed for TV to ensure the service you get on day 1 is the same at all times.

Streaming uses unicast, whereas broadcast TV (SD or HD) uses Multicast, which in turn uses the stable VDSL profile

See attachemnt

Aepos

The Real B-man wrote: »

Its Simple you are Streaming HD Content over the Internet, Speed will Drop its not a Con, unlike UPC Where TV & Broadband Frequencies use the Same Cable.

Its Set like that so Your TV Service isnt interrupted

I did not say it was a con, I am simply saying that the total speed limitations on signing up (in my case 20-25% reduction) before even having the equipment installed, plus a further reduction on installation and use could result in a very low download speed especially for those distant to the cabinet.

Of course I know that use of TV down the line would reduce overall speeds but this fact needs to be made very clear to prospective customers.

As I said before none of the limitations were referred to by the sales staff or indeed appear in printed literature or on-line advertisments.

Please remember not everybody is as tech savvy as some folks on these fora.

You are signing up for a 12 or 18 month contract for the service which would be difficult and or costly to extricate oneself from if not satisfied with the product after the 7 days cooling off period.

As soon as I realised the limitations I cancelled the installation over the phone some 24 hours later and gave my reasons. Sales staff tried their hardest to say it was no problem and would I accept extra packages for a month or two etc. free but I resisted as in my opinion the product had been miss-sold.

Aepos

littlemaxi

Anybody else having problems with the efibre speed? Considering switching to it from my sky broadband. 2 neighbours have it , one with Tv & the other on its own and both are getting 35mb on the ookla speed test.. I'm currently getting 3.5mb.. Any advice on switching or should I sit tight & wait for sky to bring out their fibre?? They say is likely only a couple of months away but don't really believe them

Nonoperational

No problems here. Far superior to Sky ADSL

Alpha Dog 1

No problems either, I find the service great despite all the negative publicity it gets.

fat-tony

No problems on VF fibre - have it over 4 months and download speeds on ookla never drop below 66Mb/s

jca

I love it. I have it 3 months I had about 3 slow evenings during the terrible weather down to around 12 meg from my usual 45-48 meg. My experience with sky was a complete nightmare 0.6 meg most evenings terrible stuff.

Bog Standard User

bk wrote: »

Remember the speed you get is dependent on your distance from the cab.

You could be getting as low as 18mb/s. Then just watch one HD channel on eFibre and you speed drops to 9mb/s!

That isn't fast broadband.

And the thing is, if you get a cheaper package from Vodafone, then having Sky separate is much better value for money, with way more channels, free mirroring mulitroom and the full broadband speed.

hd is not available to customers with lines speeds less than 28mb

bk

Bog Standard User wrote: »

hd is not available to customers with lines speeds less than 28mb

And that is supposed to be a good thing?

So users with less then 28mb/s won't even get HD channels!! pretty dreadful product in this age of HD.

Even if you get 28mb/s and then watch/record two HD channels, you'll be left with just 10mb/s.

This is all fine as long as people are aware what they are getting when they sign up. Buyer beware.

crawler

bk wrote: »

And that is supposed to be a good thing?

So users with less then 28mb/s won't even get HD channels!! pretty dreadful product in this age of HD.

Even if you get 28mb/s and then watch/record two HD channels, you'll be left with just 10mb/s.

This is all fine as long as people are aware what they are getting when they sign up. Buyer beware.

And if you throw multiroom viewing into the mix.....

Bog Standard User

vectoring is helping improve things a bit.

BionicRasher

Not everyone needs 70mbps speeds 24x7.

I know a good few households that need decent speeds to load a page on Facebook on an iPad and occasionally want to watch something on Netflix or the RTE Player. 30mbps is ample speed for most normal houses.
We are used to 1mbps for crying out loud so a jump to fiber speeds is a massive boost.

I could rattle off loads of people who would take 30mbps and eVision over the crap they get on DSL and having to pay Sky €30 is quid a month.

Not suitable for everyone but what is these days?

bk

BionicRasher wrote: »

Not everyone needs 70mbps speeds 24x7.

Absolutely, but everyone should be clearly told the downside of taking up eVision, so they can make the decision for themselves.

And no, some * and small print at the bottom of the page isn't informing people.

It should be made very clear to everyone signing up.

BionicRasher

bk wrote: »

Absolutely, but everyone should be clearly told the downside of taking up eVision, so they can make the decision for themselves.

And no, some * and small print at the bottom of the page isn't informing people.

It should be made very clear to everyone signing up.

So should everyone that takes any other broadband packages for example with any provider also be told that even though they promise speeds of up to xyz that you will more than likely get congested cr@p and about 1 tenth of the speed you are told you could get. And a side note or astrix won't be sufficient.

Get real folks its a salesman's pitch to sell you the best thing possible only for it to turn out to be mediocre in the long run. This is no different and I am sure an astrix and some t&c is all they are required to mention.
I don't get the bad blood against this product

As I said before it is cheaper than other offerings for some people and it suits some but not all. It's also a heck of a lot easier to use than what I am reading for other TV providers in Ireland and seems to be pretty good once installed

bk

BionicRasher wrote: »

As I said before it is cheaper than other offerings for some people and it suits some but not all. It's also a heck of a lot easier to use than what I am reading for other TV providers in Ireland and seems to be pretty good once installed

It really isn't cheaper for the majority of people, it is sly sales tactics by Eircom. The majority of people would not be better off and would get far better value for money with one of their competitors.

As to your point about internet speeds, I agree, however fortunately things seem to be improving greatly in this area.

With UPC, when they say you get 200mb/s for the vast majority, you actually get that, in fact you often get a few mb/s more.

And now with the rollout of VDSL, we can see even Eircom greatly improving in this area, with them setting the profiles below the actual attainable speeds and with they being able to tell you pretty accurately what profile you will get if you sign up.

With the exception of some seeming congestion issues on parts of the Eircom network, for the most part you seem to get exactly what is profiled on the VDSL products. I say fair play to Eircom for that.

Mickalus

bk wrote: »

It really isn't cheaper for the majority of people, it is sly sales tactics by Eircom. The majority of people would not be better off and would get far better value for money with one of their competitors.

As to your point about internet speeds, I agree, however fortunately things seem to be improving greatly in this area.

With UPC, when they say you get 200mb/s for the vast majority, you actually get that, in fact you often get a few mb/s more.

And now with the rollout of VDSL, we can see even Eircom greatly improving in this area, with them setting the profiles below the actual attainable speeds and with they being able to tell you pretty accurately what profile you will get if you sign up.

With the exception of some seeming congestion issues on parts of the Eircom network, for the most part you seem to get exactly what is profiled on the VDSL products. I say fair play to Eircom for that.

Just had a call from Eircom to offer me a 6 month trail for eVision.
First of all, he said it wouldn't affect my internet speed at all, I questioned him on the siphoning of a portion of the line for eVision and he confirmed it.
Then he said it's "only 3 Meg". Sly isn't the word. I asked him megabits or megabytes, he said megabytes - 8 bits in a byte, so that's 24meg in real speed as it's measured.

Took ages to get a half decent explanation of the system from him. Lots of smoke and mirrors, no straight answers.

ED E

Mickalus wrote: »

Just had a call from Eircom to offer me a 6 month trail for eVision.
First of all, he said it wouldn't affect my internet speed at all, I questioned him on the siphoning of a portion of the line for eVision and he confirmed it.
Then he said it's "only 3 Meg". Sly isn't the word. I asked him megabits or megabytes, he said megabytes - 8 bits in a byte, so that's 24meg in real speed as it's measured.

Took ages to get a half decent explanation of the system from him. Lots of smoke and mirrors, no straight answers.

He's wrong two. They can sell evison on a 12Mb VDSL line so its using a chunk less than that, AFAIK around 6Mbps for HD. Salespeople wont have a clue what a megabit is though, they all say Megabyte even though that could technically be considered misselling.

bk

ED E wrote: »

He's wrong two. They can sell evison on a 12Mb VDSL line so its using a chunk less than that, AFAIK around 6Mbps for HD. Salespeople wont have a clue what a megabit is though, they all say Megabyte even though that could technically be considered misselling.

Actually they can't.

The 12mb/s line would be on a stable profile, which means you would have gotten about 25mb/s out of the line on a regular profile.

In order to get eVision you most first be moved from a higher speed regular line to a lower speed "stable" line.

And then in addition to that you lose more speed in actually using it.

Never listen to a sales person, they are full of bs and just want the sale.

ElNino

I got a call from eircom today offering me a free six months trial of evision. When I told him that I was happy with Sky he was still very pushy and asked if I had a second TV in the house that I could use it on? I told him that I did but would my internet speed be affected? He said only marginally.

I really think that they should be more upfront with their customers. If I didn't know better I would have signed up to it and probably hardly ever use it and lose 20Mb of my 70Mb download for no good reason.

boardzz

The Eircom website has some updated bundles. They don't seem to offer the 50/70 variation anymore. They now just have 100 for all like Vodafone.
If you choose an eVision bundle the speed is 85 and it explains 15 is reserved for TV stability.

BionicRasher

it says in the T&C

The maximum broadband speed you may receive when receiving the Service is 50 MBPS.

but that looks like it needs to be updated as it now says on the new bundles

If you have both TV and broadband with us, we dedicate some of your broadband speed to ensure that you get the very best TV picture quality. So when your TV is on, your broadband speed will be slightly lower than normal. If you can receive our maximum 100Mb broadband, this is adjusted to 85Mb when you are using your TV.


Pretty clear really and I dont think they need to spell it out for people on the website any further but maybe they need to tell their staff that this should be explained to potential customers.

bk

BionicRasher wrote: »

Pretty clear really and I dont think they need to spell it out for people on the website any further but maybe they need to tell their staff that this should be explained to potential customers.

Actually it still isn't clear, nor is it accurate.

First of all it is "upto" 100mb/s which is totally dependent on distance from the cab, you could be only be getting as little as 12mb/s

Second if you sign up to eVision you speed is automatically decreased (e.g. from 100mb/s to 85mb/s) when you subscribe to the service.

Thirdly, you then use up to 8mb/s for each HD stream (about 2mb/s for SD) you watch or record.

Their site still leaves out points one and two above.

It is also a bit misleading saying that it only costs €10 a month, when that is ontop of their expensive €50 broadband product, which is €15 more expensive then the equivalent package from Vodafone.

boardzz

Is the reserved bandwidth not for TV viewing? Why would take an additional amount of bandwidth when you watch a channel.

Bravobabe

ElNino wrote: »

I got a call from eircom today offering me a free six months trial of evision. When I told him that I was happy with Sky he was still very pushy and asked if I had a second TV in the house that I could use it on? I told him that I did but would my internet speed be affected? He said only marginally.

I really think that they should be more upfront with their customers. If I didn't know better I would have signed up to it and probably hardly ever use it and lose 20Mb of my 70Mb download for no good reason.

Hi All,
I having a little discussion with an Eircom rep on Boards.ie about this 6 months free trial. I'm certain that I signed up for Efibre and I have Evision for 6 months FOC. I can cancel the Evision anytime within the 6 month period.

However he is adamant that that there is no 6 month free trial and if you cancel the Evision there is €150 cancellation fee.

Logically I can't see how this could be the case - any comments?

Bravobabe

Update: Reply from EIRCOM

Which clarifies the issue

"No problem you have received conflicting info so I understand completely. ActuallyXXXXX's remarks are relevant for the eFibre plan but on April 13th Eircom did introduce an offer for new customers to try eVision absolutely free for half a year. If they don’t it like they can simply call, cancel without early cease charges.

So regarding the eVision webchat statement he was absolutely correct.
Sorry for mixed message.
Thanks
XXXX

BionicRasher

bk wrote: »

Actually it still isn't clear, nor is it accurate.

First of all it is "upto" 100mb/s which is totally dependent on distance from the cab, you could be only be getting as little as 12mb/s

Same as any other provider so really (excluding UPC Fibre)
Its on the website as clear as day where it says
UP TO
100Mb
DOWNLOAD SPEED

bk wrote: »

Second if you sign up to eVision you speed is automatically decreased (e.g. from 100mb/s to 85mb/s) when you subscribe to the service.

Again thats on the site where it says
If you have both TV and broadband with us, we dedicate some of your broadband speed to ensure that you get the very best TV picture quality. So when your TV is on, your broadband speed will be slightly lower than normal. If you can receive our maximum 100Mb broadband, this is adjusted to 85Mb when you are using your TV.

bk wrote: »

It is also a bit misleading saying that it only costs €10 a month, when that is ontop of their expensive €50 broadband product, which is €15 more expensive then the equivalent package from Vodafone.

But it is only €10 for the TV service per month (in fact first 12 months are free too)
Again its mentioned on the site
eVision is only available to eircom's residential customers who have signed up to eFibre and is subject to a minimum contract of 18 months.

eFibre customers who have Sky TV switch to eVison and save €336 in your first year.

When you try to buy the service it also asks if you currently have e-fibre and if you dont it will bring you through the steps of getting the whole package and gives you a total cost per month - very well laid out and self explanatory really.

bk

boardzz wrote: »

Is the reserved bandwidth not for TV viewing? Why would take an additional amount of bandwidth when you watch a channel.

No, they first put you on a "stable" profile which reduces your speed to make it suitable for TV services.

It then takes additional bandwidth (8mb/s per HD stream) for each channel you watch/record.

The fact that you asked this just goes to show that Eircoms information on this product is still misleading.

ElNino

By the way if you are an eircom fibre customer and you want the 6 months free evision trial then all you need to do is to ring them up and ask to be put on it.

Coat22

bk wrote: »

No, they first put you on a "stable" profile which reduces your speed to make it suitable for TV services.

It then takes additional bandwidth (8mb/s per HD stream) for each channel you watch/record.

The fact that you asked this just goes to show that Eircoms information on this product is still misleading.

By “stream” I assume you mean each channel watched or recording therefore on the off chance that there are 2 things worth watching on TV at the same time, I watch one, record the other and the kids are watching the other TV then my broadband drops by 24mps from the max 85mps?

At the moment I have UPC broadband. Should be 120mps – on a good day I get 30 through WIFI. Assuming (big assumption) that I get the same 30mps through eircom efinbre (upto 85mps rather than 120 mps) then I could lose upto a further 24 mps in the above scenario (likely on say a Tuesday evening with footie on) leaving a mere 6mps wifi speed?

My Sky / UPC combination is looking safer and safer by the hour.

bk

Coat22 wrote: »

By “stream” I assume you mean each channel watched or recording therefore on the off chance that there are 2 things worth watching on TV at the same time, I watch one, record the other and the kids are watching the other TV then my broadband drops by 24mps from the max 85mps?

Yes, if each was a HD stream. SD streams/channels use about 2.5mb/s

Coat22 wrote: »

At the moment I have UPC broadband. Should be 120mps – on a good day I get 30 through WIFI. Assuming (big assumption) that I get the same 30mps through eircom efinbre (upto 85mps rather than 120 mps) then I could lose upto a further 24 mps in the above scenario (likely on say a Tuesday evening with footie on) leaving a mere 6mps wifi speed?

No, Eircom uses ethernet over power adaptors to connect the TV box with their router, so the bandwidth it would use wouldn't effect the wifi in this scenario.

If you were actually getting 85mb/s *, but only 30mb/s on wifi, then you would continue to get 30mb/s on wifi while the eVision takes another 24mb/s over the ethernet over power adaptors.

BTW I'm sure you are actually getting 120mb/s from UPC, it is just the wifi that is the problem. I just got a new wifi router yesterday (I'm on UPC 120mb). It is giving me 200mb/s in the same room and 70mb/s in the opposite end of the apartment from the router!

* Please remember that it is "upto" 85mb/s and it is very much dependent on your distance from the cab. Many if not most people will get much slower then this.

Coat22

[BTW I'm sure you are actually getting 120mb/s from UPC, it is just the wifi that is the problem. I just got a new wifi router yesterday (I'm on UPC 120mb). It is giving me 200mb/s in the same room and 70mb/s in the opposite end of the apartment from the router!

* Please remember that it is "upto" 85mb/s and it is very much dependent on your distance from the cab. Many if not most people will get much slower then this.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reply – much appreciated

What router did you change too? I am using the Thompson one they supplied (not sure of model). I’m using 3 ports (one for the sky multi room, one for the landline and one for a powerline extender which I use to connect the playstation to via ethernet) – I assume none of this should affect the WIFI though. Would definitely consider upgrading the router if it offered that much of a difference.

I’m about 1km from the CAB (at least I’m guessing that’s what all the little green eircom boxes that have sprung up in the village in the past couple of weeks are!) – this shouldn’t effect speed that much?

bk

Thanks for the reply – much appreciated

What router did you change too? I am using the Thompson one they supplied (not sure of model). I’m using 3 ports (one for the sky multi room, one for the landline and one for a powerline extender which I use to connect the playstation to via ethernet) – I assume none of this should affect the WIFI though. Would definitely consider upgrading the router if it offered that much of a difference.

This is the one I got and make sure to use the 5GHz frequency:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-AC1750-Wireless-Gigabit-1300Mbps/dp/B00CEB53MS/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400072742&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=rcher+c7

You are correct, any devices wired directly to your router shouldn't effect the wifi speed. They would all be able to get the full speed of UPC.

I’m about 1km from the CAB (at least I’m guessing that’s what all the little green eircom boxes that have sprung up in the village in the past couple of weeks are!) – this shouldn’t effect speed that much?

1km is quiet far from the cab, probably in the region of 30mb/s

At this distance, you would definitely be better off sticking with UPC

Coat22

Thanks for the head up

SlappyTheSeal

I seem to be having problems with this as well, we got in the evison yesterday, And they use power line adapters for the TV. Which is a problem for me because I use power line adapters for my PC. Now I'm stuck on 10Mbps down and still the usual 20Mbps up. Yet my phone manages to pull 50 down? Seriously pissed off about this. Worst thing is I'm not even the house owner so I can't exactly call them up and tell them to get over here and sort it!

captain_boycott

Just got a call from Eircom sales guy offering eVision. I told him I did not think I could possibly qualify, being about 1.5 km from the cab and having only 15Mb down and 0.7 up.

However he was adamant, so went ahead and agreed to schedule the install for week after next -should be interesting!!

Unless they are planning to enable vectoring before then? And if so, still can't see that making that much a difference to me as my max attainable is 0.9/19

ElNino

captain_boycott wrote: »

Just got a call from Eircom sales guy offering eVision. I told him I did not think I could possibly qualify, being about 1.5 km from the cab and having only 15Mb down and 0.7 up.

However he was adamant, so went ahead and agreed to schedule the install for week after next -should be interesting!!

Unless they are planning to enable vectoring before then? And if so, still can't see that making that much a difference to me as my max attainable is 0.9/19

Are you aware that they are going to profile some of your bandwith specifically for eVision and you are going to lose half or more of your 15mb down for your general internet usage?

captain_boycott

ElNino wrote: »

Are you aware that they are going to profile some of your bandwith specifically for eVision and you are going to lose half or more of your 15mb down for your general internet usage?

Thats my point exactly - I only get 15mb, and according to this thread, they reserve 20Mb, do that leaves me with -5mb download speeds - nice!

incidentally, checked my DSL stats this morning and now down to 12mb -that's them moving me to a stable profile. So really depends on the impact on the remaining bandwidth of watching/recording shows in parallel after that.

RTT

captain_boycott wrote: »

Thats my point exactly - I only get 15mb, and according to this thread, they reserve 20Mb, do that leaves me with -5mb download speeds - nice!

incidentally, checked my DSL stats this morning and now down to 12mb -that's them moving me to a stable profile. So really depends on the impact on the remaining bandwidth of watching/recording shows in parallel after that.

So how has it been working out for you for the past few weeks? I'm toying with the idea of giving it a go. If it is rubbish then I have a 14 day cooling off period in which I can cancel.