My line is enabled for Fibre now... choosing the next step

MichaelR

Hello,

I have 17M (real 10-14M) Eir ADSL.

I found out yesterday that my line is enabled for Fibre (FTTC) at 30M (which would probably increase my upload speed too, quite important for me as I work from home). I found out today that I still have 4 months of contract with Eir, formerly Eircom, for my existing line/broadband. And I don't actually use the landline for phone - just broadband.

Also, my town is listed in this article as allegedly planned for FTTH in the "next 12 months" as of March 2016: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/2016/03/03/eir-reveals-first-100k-rural-locations-to-get-1gbps-broadband

So... what I can do...

- Ask Eir to put me on Fibre. This will bring me into a new 18 month contract. They quoted 55 Eur/mo for me (45 for the first 4 months) for line and "unlimited" fibre broadband, but they also said I could, after having fibre installed, cancel the landline within 14 days and pay just 45/mo for the "unlimited" broadband for all of the contract.

- Wait 4 months and go for Sky, with 45/mo for broadband and phone.

I don't really use the phone, so the spending appears to be the same (if cancelling the landline really works). But, Eir also has the 1 TB FUP. I do not have a large-screen TV, but my family does watch a lot of Youtube - which, unlike Netflix, does not have an easy setting to limit quality. And, of course, any high-quality streaming TV service (like Eir's own) would be way too risky.

Sky does not seem to have that 1TB limit. But I'd have to wait 4 more months with my existing connection before I could go to Sky. Also, if I am on Sky, I might lose out on the FTTH?..

Nonoperational

You're getting too caught up on the FUP. You're not going to have any issues with Eir VDSL usage limits.

+1. I find it highly unlikely that you'd hit 1TB a month. It's a massive amount of data, especially on a 30Mb line.

jca

I'm with Vodafone €40 per month BB only massive downloading in my house but I was never charged extra.

colm_mcm

Don't Vodafone do a cheaper option?

Edit: as above

MichaelR

I have calculated that if a TV box (like Eir's own) takes 10 mbit/s broadband, the TV running in th ebackground for 10 hours/day will go well over 1 Tb.

Funnily I don't even *need* that sort of quality, as the biggest screen in the home is 22 inches. I am quite all right with 480p than you very much! But I am not aware of a way to limit streaming to non-HD on anything except Netflix (reliably on all devices). Even mobile phones will stream HD if speed permits

If you're concerned about the FUP, go with Vodafone I suppose. Just be aware that they were throttling YouTube recently.

MichaelR

I would rather throttle YouTube (and other streaming sites) myself on the router if the option was there.

I'm definitely not going with Vodafone. Their non-mobile tech support is a known nightmare. Sky are an option, though. I was with them at a different address on 4MB ADSL and it was good (moreover, they gave me 4MB while Eircom would not give more than 2). I left Sky solely because I was moving house, the new house did not have a working line (it was off for a few years) and I went with Eircom to get the line installed faster.

But I'd need to wait until October for my contract to end, so I can go to Sky. And then FTTH could come and I could be locked into the Sky contract.

But then again, if FTTH has the same 1TB FUP, I would definitely have to install my own Linux device with throttling software after their router to have *any* chance of staying within a 1TB FUP at such speeds. Perhaps I should go with Eir now and shell out for such a device already... basically I will want to throttle incoming UDP to any single host to something 5 mbit/s - this would hopefully hold youtube etc down, preventing them from going all HD, while allowing enough bandwidth for any audio/video chatting and keeping TCP unthrottled for downloads.

(This has its downsides. I don't torrent very much, but I would need to add an exception for my work VPN 0 this is not going to be easy, and I'll end up with a double NAT too).

...or perhaps the Eir router actually provides some built-in throttling setting?

Nonoperational

Do Eircom actually enforce a 1GB FUP? Does the Eircom IPTV count to the FUP?

MichaelR

They do enforce it, there have been discussions online.

A sales rep on the phone told me that Eir's own IPTV counts towards the FUP but she might have been mistaken. I have now started a thread with this question (and a few other FUP-related questions) on Talk to Eir here on boards.ie.

I think I read on here recently that Eir won't install their TV service on anything less than 40Mb.

Johnboy1951

MichaelR wrote: »

I have calculated that if a TV box (like Eir's own) takes 10 mbit/s broadband, the TV running in th ebackground for 10 hours/day will go well over 1 Tb.

Check with eir ...... from what I have read their TV channel data is not counted in the FUP.
Other would, such as Netflix, as I understand it.

Funnily I don't even *need* that sort of quality, as the biggest screen in the home is 22 inches. I am quite all right with 480p than you very much! But I am not aware of a way to limit streaming to non-HD on anything except Netflix (reliably on all devices). Even mobile phones will stream HD if speed permits

MichaelR

Karsini wrote: »

I think I read on here recently that Eir won't install their TV service on anything less than 40Mb.

Thought so too but the rep on the phone said it was ok on 30 Mb.

jd

MichaelR wrote:

A sales rep on the phone told me that Eir's own IPTV counts towards the FUP but she might have been mistaken. I have now started a thread with this question (and a few other FUP-related questions) on Talk to Eir here on boards.ie.

Mistaken! It's not counted as part of broadband usage.

Nonoperational

Really if IPTV isn't counted (and it would be crazy if it was), then 1TB FUP on a 30Mbit connection, which will be 20Mbit if the TV is on, is absolutely plenty. I also doubt Eircom would do anything if you went over it.

ED E

IPTV is multicast, one user.and 200 generate the same traffic so it would be insane to meter it.

MichaelR

I have now checked my usage on Eir's website. With formal 17M (real, usually, 13-14M, sometimes 10M) downstream and about 600k upstream the usage in the house is hovering around 150Gb per month.

30M would be twice the bandwidth. The problem I am worried about is auto-enabling HD by Youtube etc. in cases it wsa not currently enabled, which might lead to a growth of traffic to more than twice the levels. But looks like I can take even a five-fold increase without hitting the 1Tb limit. One also hopes that YT etc won't enable full-HD on screens that do not support it, thus limiting the auto-increase. (720p is supported on all devices including mobiles, but only one screen has 1080p - and that one's mine, I can check the quality of any long-running video manually). Any TV box we get for the 22" screen we have, currently unused, will need to have a way to limit itself to 720p.

So looks like it's Eir... along with trying to lock down to SD everywhere I can, watching the traffic monitor on Eir, and hoping for the best. And if things do go pear-shaped, shelling out up to 150 Euro for a traffic-shaping router.

long_b

MichaelR wrote: »

I have now checked my usage on Eir's website. With formal 17M (real, usually, 13-14M, sometimes 10M) downstream and about 600k upstream the usage in the house is hovering around 150Gb per month.

30M would be twice the bandwidth. The problem I am worried about is auto-enabling HD by Youtube etc. in cases it wsa not currently enabled, which might lead to a growth of traffic to more than twice the levels. But looks like I can take even a five-fold increase without hitting the 1Tb limit. One also hopes that YT etc won't enable full-HD on screens that do not support it, thus limiting the auto-increase. (720p is supported on all devices including mobiles, but only one screen has 1080p - and that one's mine, I can check the quality of any long-running video manually). Any TV box we get for the 22" screen we have, currently unused, will need to have a way to limit itself to 720p.

So looks like it's Eir... along with trying to lock down to SD everywhere I can, watching the traffic monitor on Eir, and hoping for the best. And if things do go pear-shaped, shelling out up to 150 Euro for a traffic-shaping router.

You can limit the default quality for YouTube

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/91449?hl=en

Nonoperational

I'm like a broken record, but don't stress it. They almost certainly won't do anything even if you go over the FUP

colm_mcm

I would have thought YouTube would be HD anyway on 15mb

We watch a lot of YouTube in HD and Netflix as well and we've never come near 1TB.

rob808

colm_mcm wrote: »

I would have thought YouTube would be HD anyway on 15mb

We watch a lot of YouTube in HD and Netflix as well and we've never come near 1TB.

yea same my brother watch a good bit of YouTube a day and haven't even come near 1TB.The only way I would see that happening is if there 4 people on YouTube at 1080p.

MichaelR

http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057600196/1

Asked Eir. They do not count count their own Vision (IPTV) traffic in the FUP when you are using their TV box, but they deduct 20 MB from the speed, reserving it just for Vision - making the offer somewhat tough on a 30MB line.

Vision is out for me. Broadband is probably in FTTH has a 1TB FUP too, that sounds tougher, but we'll cross that bridge when we reach it.

MichaelR

Just as an update: eir eFibre 30M was installed Wednesday. Over the few days usage averages somewhat over 6 GB/day, so it seems that the FUP is not a threat.