Lightnet broadband 100mb?

johnnystork

Hi All,

I see lightnet are now offering "up to 100mb" broadband via wireless or fibre.
I'm out in kylebrack so it would be the wireless version I'd be getting.

Anyone have broadband from them and what sort of speeds are they getting?

funnyname

http://www.lightnet.ie/broadband-packages-ireland/

Looks to be the same as Imagine LTE

johnnystork wrote: »

Hi All,

I see lightnet are now offering "up to 100mb" broadband via wireless or fibre.
I'm out in kylebrack so it would be the wireless version I'd be getting.

Anyone have broadband from them and what sort of speeds are they getting?

funnyname

I made an enquiry and got the following details

Site Test
The installer will complete a site test to confirm we can provide you with connection and to ensure the quality of the connection.
If the site test is successful the connection will be installed, if unsuccessful, there will be no installation and no charge.

Installation
The cost of standard residential installation is €100 payable on the day of installation.
The installer will install a unit on the outside of the house and run a cable to the inside of the house to another small internal unit.
Lightnet do not supply wireless routers. If you are purchasing a wireless router please ensure it is for a cable connection.

Contract & Payment
The minimum contract is 18 months.
If the contract is broken a €20 fee is charged for each month remaining in the contract.
A direct debit mandate must be submitted for all connections.
Please have your IBAN and BIC number available on the date of installation to complete the direct debit mandate.
The installation amount and first month is payable on the day of installation, your direct debit payment will begin from month two.

Package Data
You can choose which package you want on the day of installation. If you choose a p package with a Data Allowance, the data usage applies from your billing date for the month.
We will notified you by email once your data allowance reaches 80%, 90% and 98% usage.

Once your data allowance reaches 100% your connection speed will reduce to 1mb download, 0.25mb upload.

You then have three options:
Upgrade your package
Purchase additional data with a Data Top up.
Wait until your monthly billing date at which point your data allowance renews.

Lightnet will NOT disconnect or automatically charge you extra, so you have full control of your monthly package.
You can continue to use the connection with zero data allowance but at a 1mb speed.

Unlimited is 1TB of data per month

Data Top Up
A Data Top up is a once off Data amount added to the monthly package amount
The Data Top up expires after 30 days and is used prior to the monthly data allowance

irishchris

funnyname wrote: »

I made an enquiry and got the following details

Anyone in here who has it installed, would love to hear your experience of it. I found them on when on the 3mb package (their highest at the time) but as months went by the contention was dreadful and struggled to get 0.5 mb at peak times. About halfway through my contact they changed the antenna and told me it was being broadcast over LTE technology but although speeds temporarily increased, the ping times went so much higher and none of the kids could game online anymore.
Be interested to hear what tech they are using and especially of people's experiences of the service when connected

Scruff

Had Lightnet a couple of years back but cancelled due to terrible pings though speed at the time were decent, hopefully their new platform is better!
Good to see that competition from Imagine has forced them to improve their offering and have a competitively priced "unlimited" package. Those data add on they had for the last few months were a complete rip off.

Would also love to hear from anyone gets it installed. Unfortunately it'll probably be great for the first few early subscribers like on Imagine LTE until subscriber numbers ramp up and cause contention issues***
Mind you that might be less of an issue as Lighnet seem to have next to no advertising of the availability.

How does their fair usage policy come into play with a 100mb connection and 1TB transfer limit??


*** imagine disclaimer: there is no such thing as contention on Imagine LTE as according to their customer service the laws of physics do not apply to them.

irishchris

Scruff wrote: »

Had Lightnet a couple of years back but cancelled due to terrible pings though speed at the time were decent, hopefully their new platform is better!
Good to see that competition from Imagine has forced them to improve their offering and have a competitively priced "unlimited" package. Those data add on they had for the last few months were a complete rip off.

Would also love to hear from anyone gets it installed. Unfortunately it'll probably be great for the first few early subscribers like on Imagine LTE until subscriber numbers ramp up and cause contention issues***
Mind you that might be less of an issue as Lighnet seem to have next to no advertising of the availability.

How does their fair usage policy come into play with a 100mb connection and 1TB transfer limit??


*** imagine disclaimer: there is no such thing as contention on Imagine LTE as according to their customer service the laws of physics do not apply to them.

That disclaimer gave me a good laugh :-)

I week hold off on getting lightnet until I see how people's experience works out after mast starts to fill first. Got stung in that regard with imagine and won't be caught out again

km79

Im torn between the 2 now as well BUT lightnet are booked to install at start of December and imagine have just kicked any possible installation back till after Xmas so it looks like Lightnet
all could be immaterial of course if we fail the install test which could well happen

km79

hhhmmmmmm lightnets fair usage policy screams THROTTLING to me!
Whole appeal of theirs is unlimited .......

Scruff

km79 wrote: »

hhhmmmmmm lightnets fair usage policy screams THROTTLING to me!
Whole appeal of theirs is unlimited .......

to be fair to them i never experienced throttling when i was with them and i regularly would have been downloading at the max rate for a couple of hours at a time. Might be worth clarifying it with them.

Icyseanfitz

are lightnet just galway or do they do more of the west? in kerry myself

km79

Scruff wrote: »

to be fair to them i never experienced throttling when i was with them and i regularly would have been downloading at the max rate for a couple of hours at a time. Might be worth clarifying it with them.

Are you on the new LTE package ?
If so what kind of router did you buy thanks

Scruff

km79 wrote: »

Are you on the new LTE package ?
If so what kind of router did you buy thanks

i was on their older non LTE 10mb package. You just need a "cable" router. The one i used with them and now with imagine is a TP-Link TL-WDR3600.

lolliedog

Anyone have this in Limerick?

Hoki

I rang Lightnet last friday to enquire about their service and a couple of days later they came out to my house (Galway) to test if I could get a signal, few hours after that and it's up and running! Imagine couldn't get a signal where I am so was delighted when Lightnet could.
I was told at the start the most I'd get is about 20mb where I am, as of last night I've been receiving between 16-18mb with about the same upload speed and pings in the mid 20's. Again, I'm very happy with this considering I was only on a 2mb connection beforehand. Long may it continue as it's early days yet....

km79

Hoki wrote: »

I rang Lightnet last friday to enquire about their service and a couple of days later they came out to my house (Galway) to test if I could get a signal, few hours after that and it's up and running! Imagine couldn't get a signal where I am so was delighted when Lightnet could.
I was told at the start the most I'd get is about 20mb where I am, as of last night I've been receiving between 16-18mb with about the same upload speed and pings in the mid 20's. Again, I'm very happy with this considering I was only on a 2mb connection beforehand. Long may it continue as it's early days yet....

Sounds good
What part of galway

irishchris

Hoki wrote: »

I rang Lightnet last friday to enquire about their service and a couple of days later they came out to my house (Galway) to test if I could get a signal, few hours after that and it's up and running! Imagine couldn't get a signal where I am so was delighted when Lightnet could.
I was told at the start the most I'd get is about 20mb where I am, as of last night I've been receiving between 16-18mb with about the same upload speed and pings in the mid 20's. Again, I'm very happy with this considering I was only on a 2mb connection beforehand. Long may it continue as it's early days yet....

Brill to hear. Can you keep us updated as to how it tastes at peak times. Are the ones always in the 20ms range? My oldest games a lot and with imagine pings are too high to use but this sounds perfect. Would it be possible for you to attach a pingtest.net result.

Also which part of galway are you in if you don't mind telling us?

Hoki

They have masts in Tonabroky, Oughterard, Parkmore Industrial estate & Abbeyknockmoy according to their sales rep. Havent actually been home much to check speeds but last night it had dropped to 8 mb download and 18 mb upload with 21 ms ping. That test was done on my phone and not laptop if that makes a difference..... I'm in the west galway direction.

9726_9726

Hoki wrote: »

They have masts in Tonabroky, Oughterard, Parkmore Industrial estate & Abbeyknockmoy according to their sales rep. Havent actually been home much to check speeds but last night it had dropped to 8 mb download and 18 mb upload with 21 ms ping. That test was done on my phone and not laptop if that makes a difference..... I'm in the west galway direction.

But isn't it sold as 100M? Obviously "up-to", but this trend of naming packages by speed that is far from reality is becoming questionable.

Strawberry HillBilly

Anyone got Speedtest to share for a potential customer ?

I have ca 4Mbps d/l with a WISP which is reliable enough but would love a boost in speeds if Lightnet was consistent.

Hoki

I just did two speed tests. One on my phone which resulted in a Ping of 16 ms, download of 7.2 mb and 16.7 mb upload. The other on my laptop with a Ping of 24 ms, download of 13.4 mb and 6.5 mb upload. There seems to be a bit of variation between the two devices. I'm still very happy with what I'm getting, download speeds are between 5 and 6 times faster than before.

km79

This is encouraging
Keep the updates coming please

ArKl0w

Hoki wrote: »

I just did two speed tests. One on my phone which resulted in a Ping of 16 ms, download of 7.2 mb and 16.7 mb upload. The other on my laptop with a Ping of 24 ms, download of 13.4 mb and 6.5 mb upload. There seems to be a bit of variation between the two devices. I'm still very happy with what I'm getting, download speeds are between 5 and 6 times faster than before.

Were both of those over wifi?
If they are , a true test of your speed would be with the laptop connected by Ethernet cable to your router
Speed tests over wifi are very inaccurate because you lose signal and get interference over wifi
It will always be slower even stood beside the router
It will be much slower two or three rooms away though a couple of walls

If the laptop one was done on wifi,can you try a speed test with an Ethernet cable connected and let us know? You might get a very pleasant surprise

Hoki

ArKl0w wrote: »

Were both of those over wifi?
If they are , a true test of your speed would be with the laptop connected by Ethernet cable to your router
Speed tests over wifi are very inaccurate because you lose signal and get interference over wifi
It will always be slower even stood beside the router
It will be much slower two or three rooms away though a couple of walls

If the laptop one was done on wifi,can you try a speed test with an Ethernet cable connected and let us know? You might get a very pleasant surprise

Yea all done over wifi. Will try with an ethernet cable tonight.

OverRide

Hoki wrote: »

Yea all done over wifi. Will try with an ethernet cable tonight.

Thanks,looking forward to seeing that
As a rule of thumb,torrents will be a lot faster with the cable connection,as will smart tv's,x boxes,play stations etc for the simple reason you are on a direct faster connection

I would not be surprised if your speed is near twice as fast that way or at least 15 or 17 versus 9 or 11 depending on how far you were from the router when you took the tests and definitely if you took them in a different room

Scruff

Hoki wrote: »

I rang Lightnet last friday to enquire about their service and a couple of days later they came out to my house (Galway) to test if I could get a signal, few hours after that and it's up and running! Imagine couldn't get a signal where I am so was delighted when Lightnet could.
I was told at the start the most I'd get is about 20mb where I am, as of last night I've been receiving between 16-18mb with about the same upload speed and pings in the mid 20's. Again, I'm very happy with this considering I was only on a 2mb connection beforehand. Long may it continue as it's early days yet....

Sounds to me like they are just reselling their previous 20mb package under this upto 100mb umbrella package and the only way you will get near the 100mb is if you are on fibre and not the wireless. What a con if its true.

Hoki

They never once mentioned 100mb to me so I don't feel conned. The technician was very open from the get go saying I could expect around the 20mb mark, something which I'm very happy with. Did a speed test tonight with an ethernet cable in to my laptop, much improved speeds alright - 21 ms Ping, 18 mb download and 17mb upload. Long may it last.....

SCOOP 64

Sorry might have missed it somewere, but whats the monthly cost?

km79

Hoki wrote: »

They never once mentioned 100mb to me so I don't feel conned. The technician was very open from the get go saying I could expect around the 20mb mark, something which I'm very happy with. Did a speed test tonight with an ethernet cable in to my laptop, much improved speeds alright - 21 ms Ping, 18 mb download and 17mb upload. Long may it last.....

Once it's a steady connection at those speeds I'd be delighted
I've an unopened router ready to go Thursday week OR be returned

irishchris

km79 wrote: »

Once it's a steady connection at those speeds I'd be delighted
I've an unopened router ready to go Thursday week OR be returned

Let us know how you get on when connected but by looks of it this is exactly the product I wanted but never got with imagine

Hoki

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Sorry might have missed it somewere, but whats the monthly cost?

80 gb monthly cap for €35, 250 gb for €45 and unlimited for €55.

km79

irishchris wrote: »

Let us know how you get on when connected but by looks of it this is exactly the product I wanted but never got with imagine

Will do
Thursday week I'm booked in for
Still trying to get my refund from Imagine
Even if lightnet doesn't work out I won't be going near them

OverRide

Hoki wrote: »

They never once mentioned 100mb to me so I don't feel conned. The technician was very open from the get go saying I could expect around the 20mb mark, something which I'm very happy with. Did a speed test tonight with an ethernet cable in to my laptop, much improved speeds alright - 21 ms Ping, 18 mb download and 17mb upload. Long may it last.....

That's what I was expecting ,I bet you're happy with that
Not enough people know how inaccurate wifi speed tests are,or mores the point that their network works a hell of a lot better wired
Is this service available around Bearna do you know?

emm80

Can anyone comment on the installation these guys provide? Is it a shortest route into the house type of job, or can you ask them to cable it where you want (within reason).

And also would this router be suitable
TP-LINK Archer C50 AC1200 Wireless Dual Band Cable Router (Fast Wireless Speed with 802.11ac, USB Port for Storage and Sharing, 2 External Antennas, USB Port for Storage and Sharing) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013RYTL1Y/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_zdnpyb4B47CJ2

Thanks!

I'm due to be tested and hopefully connected this Friday afternoon in the kilconnell area. Fingers crossed.

Scruff

Hoki wrote: »

They never once mentioned 100mb to me so I don't feel conned. The technician was very open from the get go saying I could expect around the 20mb mark, something which I'm very happy with. Did a speed test tonight with an ethernet cable in to my laptop, much improved speeds alright - 21 ms Ping, 18 mb download and 17mb upload. Long may it last.....

fair nuff but they should also include the "(Fibre products only)" on their advertised package speeds if they cannot provide anything above 20mb to wireless customers as they do for other parts of the package that are not applicable to wireless. Its very misleading otherwise. The title and 1st post in this thread are evidence enough of that.

emm80

I just got a call about my installation and happened to ask about the voip service, apparently I need to purchase their €100 router to avail of this.... And it's extra on top of the bb package. Anyone used their own router for this?

9726_9726

Scruff wrote: »

fair nuff but they should also include the "(Fibre products only)" on their advertised package speeds if they cannot provide anything above 20mb to wireless customers as they do for other parts of the package that are not applicable to wireless. Its very misleading otherwise. The title and 1st post in this thread are evidence enough of that.

Wow, it clearly says Up to 100M in the headline and then says fibre or wireless. If the wireless can't do the 100M that's very very misleading.

I do like that they are differentiating package tiers by data rather then speed though. That far more actually reflects the cost of providing the service.

Hoki

emm80 wrote: »

I just got a call about my installation and happened to ask about the voip service, apparently I need to purchase their €100 router to avail of this.... And it's extra on top of the bb package. Anyone used their own router for this?

I used my wireless router yea. They brought in their cable into a power supply and from there it's an ethernet cable into my router.

emm80

Ok so you used your own router no problems, did you use it for voip too? Thanks

Also, did they install the cable to where you wanted it or did they go the shortest /easiest route until the house.

Cheers

Hoki

emm80 wrote: »

Ok so you used your own router no problems, did you use it for voip too? Thanks

Also, did they install the cable to where you wanted it or did they go the shortest /easiest route until the house.

Cheers

I'm not too familiar with voip so il just say no to that one! I had a pre existing cable running into my house from previous internet connection so I just told him to follow that which he did.

km79

irishchris wrote: »

Let us know how you get on when connected but by looks of it this is exactly the product I wanted but never got with imagine

Failed install
Too many trees
Cries

ArKl0w

km79 wrote: »

Failed install
Too many trees
Cries

Trees around your house or nearby?
Can you locate their aerial up to 100 mtrs via cat5E away to avoid trees ?

km79

ArKl0w wrote: »

Trees around your house or nearby?
Can you locate their aerial up to 100 mtrs via cat5E away to avoid trees ?

Trees everywhere !
Said he needed line of sight and couldn't get one

celtic_oz

is there a coverage map ? or is this just Galway

OverRide

km79 wrote: »

Trees everywhere !
Said he needed line of sight and couldn't get one

He won't know your house and garden though
As a last resort,I'd be surveying the whole place seeing if I can find a LoS anywhere within 100 metres of the house
Do you know which hill the masts are and where they are direction wise from your house?
Where is the nearest house to you with it? If it's not to far,go there and see exactly what the aerial is looking at
The guy would not have came out I'd say if there was technically no hope
It might be worth investing a bit of time into this

km79

OverRide wrote: »

He won't know your house and garden though
As a last resort,I'd be surveying the whole place seeing if I can find a LoS anywhere within 100 metres of the house
Do you know which hill the masts are and where they are direction wise from your house?
Where is the nearest house to you with it? If it's not to far,go there and see exactly what the aerial is looking at
The guy would not have came out I'd say if there was technically no hope
It might be worth investing a bit of time into this

The guy said the nearest "masts " were antenna on top of a hotel and a motorway service station........that didn't fill me with much hope for a start.
Nobody in immediate locality was able to get it he said

My 3 coverage comes from a mast which faces the front of the house with less treees
I'm thinking of sitting tight and keeping an ye on IMAGINE thread for a few weeks

OverRide

Yeah,thing is,4G doesn't need line of sight at all it seems
I would presume the Imagine mast is on a hill but the question is whether that's at the front or back of your house
Thinking about it the lightnet people probably do have a better grasp of local topography than a multi county Imagine crew
So if you go back that route,it's even more important to find that sweet spot/gap in the trees within a 100 metres of your house
If it involves clipping a few branches,do it
Out of curiosity are you on open Eir's blue line at all?

oscarBravo

OverRide wrote: »

Yeah,thing is,4G doesn't need line of sight at all it seems

That would be an ecumenical matter.

The question of whether or not a given radio technology "needs" line of sight is a tradeoff between a whole bunch of different criteria: how good is the frequency in question at non-LoS? Is there a threshold at which you decide "this isn't a good enough signal to continue"?

Imagine LTE uses 3.6GHz spectrum, which performs worse in non-LoS conditions than the lower frequencies used by mobile operators for 4G (which is also LTE).

Imagine also want to manage the spectral efficiency of each individual installation, which means that they make a conscious decision not to install if the signal isn't good enough. By contrast, when your 4G dongle or handset attempts to get a signal, it doesn't care whether it can achieve 30Mb/s: whatever speed it's capable of delivering with the signal it has is what it delivers.

funnyname

Too right re advertising it as up to 100mb by lumping the two types of technology together in their spiel.

I nearly ordered the wireless product yesterday but the install date was the 3/3 so that would have only left me 4 days to test it out.

You get 14 days to change your mind however lightnet start this on the day you order the product rather than the day it is installed. An 18 month contract is very long to be tied in for if the product doesn't do as it says on the tin.

When I quizzed the salesperson about the expected speed she said their technology has been updated to cadmium ones. She also mentioned that some wireless customers have seen speeds as high as 45mb and that the upload was close to 20mb.

I was previously a customer but the speed was only 5/1 however I would pull the trigger if I could get something like 20/10.

Does anyone have any speed tests and also is there much congestion?

9726_9726 wrote: »

Wow, it clearly says Up to 100M in the headline and then says fibre or wireless. If the wireless can't do the 100M that's very very misleading.

I do like that they are differentiating package tiers by data rather then speed though. That far more actually reflects the cost of providing the service.

johnnystork

Sorry for the delayed update. Got them out to do a site test (35 euro) I wasn't home but the installation guy proudly told the wife you'll have great speed now. When she asked how fast, he said 25mb. His face dropped when she said we are already getting the from 3 so not to bother with the install. He then went on to say a tree was badly affecting the speed.

My parents live in another part of galway and got it in. Great line of site no trees etc. They still average around 25mb, though one time it hit 70mb.

So long story short the up to 100mb is theoretical imho and just a sales spiel. 25mb "unlimited" (its actually 1tb which is good) for 55 euro a month.

funnyname

Thanks Johnny

How is the upload speed, important for me as I work from home? I think I'll go for the site test and take it from there.

johnnystork wrote: »

Sorry for the delayed update. Got them out to do a site test (35 euro) I wasn't home but the installation guy proudly told the wife you'll have great speed now. When she asked how fast, he said 25mb. His face dropped when she said we are already getting the from 3 so not to bother with the install. He then went on to say a tree was badly affecting the speed.

My parents live in another part of galway and got it in. Great line of site no trees etc. They still average around 25mb, though one time it hit 70mb.

So long story short the up to 100mb is theoretical imho and just a sales spiel. 25mb "unlimited" (its actually 1tb which is good) for 55 euro a month.

johnnystork

Around 10+mb upload speed.