Change from UPC & Sky to Eircom?

Coat22

Hi All,

Firstly – apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere but…..

I currently have
• UPC broadband and home phone which is costing me €44 a month (may have actually gone up but its around that)
• Sky TV with Sky Sports, no HD and 1 multiroom - €66 a month
• Emobile unlimited half price €37.50 per month

Total TV/Phone Broadband = €110 a month or €147.50 inc the mobile.

I’m out of contract on all 3 so free to move all.

Eventually eircom’s efibre has been rolled out in my area so I checked their offering and can get TV/Broadband/Phone with multiroom, HD, Sky Sports for €96 a month (this included the upgraded TV pack with the extra kids channels similar to what I have on Sky at the moment)

So it seems a no brainer – switch and save €15 a month and have HD thrown in for the bargain.

• I am sceptical however about the quality. I notice a lot of posts on the quality (or lack thereof) of the UPC Horizon offering which is part of the reason I haven’t switched to them. Whats the experience like with the eircom TV offering? Better than UPC?

• The eircom broadband offering is also 85mb/100mb depending on where I click on their site. Currently lucky to get 30mb out of the 120 I’m supposed to have with UPC so would be happy if I got this but have people experience of the eircom speeds?

Also interested on whether anyone has negotiated a bundle for the above including the mobile – should be a standard offering from eircom but doesn’t seem to be.

Thanks for your help

C22

yomamasflavour

30 out of 120?

Coat22

Yep.

On Wifi - I'm told wifi cuts the speed by about 50% anyway and also the router is the supplied one from UPC so looking at upgrading this but 30 is at the top end of what I'm getting at the moment

ED E

Firstly wifi is pretty similar across providers. So if you're maxing out at 30Mb on the UPC kit dont expect a huge amount more on anyone else's. Invest in a high speed dual band wireless access point to sort that out.

Secondly, Im assuming you dont have an active eircom phone line in the premises, so the site is going to be guessing speed, not actually pre-testing you. This means you wanna work out what speed you'll actually get in advance.

http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/Our_Network/#nga-map

That will let you guesstimate how close to the nearest cab you are. Even better is to find a neighbour with eFibre and get their sync speed(or do a wired speedtest). That'll give you a real world figure as to approx what you'll get.

The last thing is if you're used to Sky tv, neither Horizon or eVision can match it. The UI on both PVRs is way slower and more clunky than sky. If you watch a lot of TV this will probably be a very big deal.

yomamasflavour

In that case you need to check what speed UPC are actually giving you, as in use a network cable to connect your laptop to your router.
It's quite possible that you're getting the full speed just that you have an old/****ty wireless router.

You aren't guaranteed that you'll be eligible for efibre, even if the cabinet is in your front garden. Speeds are not guaranteed - it depends on line distance/quality. All of which you only find out once you've signed the contract and had a line installed. Also if you wish to run evision it degrades the level of service that they will provide. (they limit your connection speed for stability and further limit it to provide the tv service)

An inferior tv service, a possibly vastly inferior internet service just to save €15? Check your upc connection properly, assuming it works get a decent router.

Dinarius

ED E wrote: »

Firstly wifi is pretty similar across providers. So if you're maxing out at 30Mb on the UPC kit dont expect a huge amount more on anyone else's. Invest in a high speed dual band wireless access point to sort that out.

Please could you provide a link or two to dual band routers that you would recommend?

Secondly, shouldn't UPC be providing me with one? (I'm not sure what make of router I have - it only has a symbol on the left front panel, no name.)

Thanks.

D.

Ps. Haven't had internet radio via wifi or Ethernet cable for almost two weeks now.

Pps. Via cable I get about 100Mpbs download/10Mbps upload on my computer with this UPC connection.

ED E

Dinarius wrote: »

Please could you provide a link or two to dual band routers that you would recommend?

Secondly, shouldn't UPC be providing me with one? (I'm not sure what make of router I have - it only has a symbol on the left front panel, no name.)

Thanks.

D.

Ps. Haven't had internet radio via wifi or Ethernet cable for almost two weeks now.

Pps. Via cable I get about 100Mpbs download/10Mbps upload on my computer with this UPC connection.

Personally I use a Netgear N600(WNDR3800) but there are better options now. If you want to invest in something you can keep for a good long while then you can pick up an .11AC compliant one(fastest standard).

TP:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-AC1750-Wireless-Gigabit-1300Mbps/dp/B00CEB53MS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1400227999&sr=8-3&keywords=Wireless+AC+Router
Netgear:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NetGear-D6200-100UKS-AC1200-Wireless-Router/dp/B00D849XTE/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1400227999&sr=8-7&keywords=Wireless+AC+Router

Cheaper N(older standard, slower):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-TD-W8980-Wireless-Gigabit-Connections/dp/B00BP0SASI/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1400228089&sr=8-15&keywords=dualband+wireless+N+router


And nope, UPC wont and probably never will. Neither will eircom, vodafone or magnet. They provide the speed to your modem, past that is your problem. That said UPCs own equipment is particularly bad.

BK on here got a new router recently and is getting over 100Mbps on wifi, if you check his posts you'll find the model, he highly recommends it.

Coat22

BK is using the TP-Link Archer C7 and getting 200MB according to a reply he gave me in a seperate thread.

Cheapest I'm geeting it is around £85 on Amazon inc postage but from my research over the past couple of days it does seem to be the bee's knees. Going to have to weigh up getting new tyres or a new router so reckon the router will have to wait until after the hols.

Also need to do a speed check over the wired internet over the weekend to ensure I am getting 120mps before I invest in anything.

One other thing I have noticed is my traffic which is astrnomical according to my UPC billing. Regularly using 100gb per month somehow even though my usage is maybe one or two movies, a couple of hours (max) on demand and the kids streaming from youtube. Honestly think there is something wrong with this and worried someone else is using my wifi so a new router might kill this.

ED E

Coat22 wrote: »

One other thing I have noticed is my traffic which is astrnomical according to my UPC billing. Regularly using 100gb per month somehow even though my usage is maybe one or two movies, a couple of hours (max) on demand and the kids streaming from youtube. Honestly think there is something wrong with this and worried someone else is using my wifi so a new router might kill this.

Dont worry about it, thats light usage.

Coat22

Sweet love of God - what are you up to :-)

I can't fathom what's driving mine though - 2gb a day by a 6 year old watching a few videos on youtube is not right surely

Dinarius

http://www.dabs.ie/products/tp-link-ac1750-wireless-dual-band-gigabit-router-8PVP.html

D.

Gotham

Coat22 wrote: »

Sweet love of God - what are you up to :-)

I can't fathom what's driving mine though - 2gb a day by a 6 year old watching a few videos on youtube is not right surely

Have you checked that someone isint running torrent software on a computer?
It sends and receives data long after the files have completed downloading.

2Gb a day is about 3-4 hours of YouTube or a couple of torrents left idle.


Also I cannot figure out why anyone would want to use Eircom. They are the worst of the worst of the worst in every single way, whatever speed they claim you can use is basically lies.

Coat22

3-4 hours of youtube seems reasonable! Didn't think it used that much as was streaming but makesa sense if thats what it is.

Think I'm convinced to stick with Sky & UPC but gonna give Sky a shout to get them down a few quid.

As above I'm actually happy with both services so only reason to change would be cost if the level of service was the same elsewhere (also irks me that Sky want €15 for both multi room and HD which is a rip off)

Think the new router is a must have by the sounds of things

Coat22

Rang Sky to cancel the Sky Sports off my account and left a bit flat by the experience.

First up I was informed my next bill would be for €81 - I had been paying €66 although I noticed my last DD was for €69.12 for some random reason.

They then offered half price sports for the next 3 months - which magically would bring me back to €66! Half price is still too much for the 5 minutes I will watch it before the football comes back so declined. Surprised they didn't try harder as the chances of me re-subscribing are now minimal.

Then asked about HD. Normally €15 but wait and see what we can do for you....nope can't do anything - €15 it is. Keep it lads.

So I've dropped their premium add on with no effort made to upsell me. I've been with them for 6 years, pay in full by DD every month and am pure marginal revenue for them at this stage but they don't seem to care about my dropping subscription even though I've expressed an interest in adding more services (ie the HD). Must be hard times at Sky - reckon the new Premiership deal is biting hard into profits. Will leave it until August and ring them for a price to add sports again and see what they have on offer - UPC or eircom might come back into play at the point.

bk

ED E wrote: »

BK on here got a new router recently and is getting over 100Mbps on wifi, if you check his posts you'll find the model, he highly recommends it.

Yup, TP-Link Archer C7, I'm getting 180 to 200mb/s in the same room and 70 to 80mb/s at the furthest distance over 802.11n at 5GHz

I'm very happy with it. However note that I believe my Mac Book Air has three antennas, so it can benefit from higher speeds, I'm not sure all laptops would reach these speeds.

Very, very happy with it. BTW from my research, it isn't the absolutely best AC router, but then the best are almost double the price! So I think it is the best balance of price and performance.

Coat22, I would upgrade your wireless router to a dual radio 5GHz model and use the 5GHz, you will definitely get closer to the full UPC speed.

UPC BB is better then VDSL, I'd stick with it. You should also look at getting a bundle of UPC BB + Horizon TV, it should be cheaper then getting Sky separate.

Also you could try calling Sky and ask to cancel everything, say you are moving to UPC. They usually give people much better deals in this situation.

For your mobile, you should look at Tesco Mobile, for €15 per month you get unlimited calls to any network including landlines, unlimited texts and 1GB of data. Or the same but 5GB of data for €20

Definitely savings to be made.

who_me

Agree with the suggestions above regarding the Wifi. It used to be a huge limiting factor (and if you've older or poor - cough Horizon cough - equipment it still is) but with a modern dual-band AC or N router that supports MIMO, you should be getting 100-200Mbps of real-world speeds.

I've a good TP-Link N router (basically one step down from the Archer C7 mentioned above) and have seen 130Mbps download speeds, AC should be better again.