Moving to Westmeath - questions about broadband

Sue de Nimes

My wife and I are moving back to the Westmeath area. We are looking at Athlone and surrounding towns.

I had a question about Broadband availability. What is availability like in towns? We want to get a fibre connection and its availability will be a requirement for houses we look at.

demanufactured

Sue de Nimes wrote: »

My wife and I are moving back to the Westmeath area. We are looking at Athlone and surrounding towns.

I had a question about Broadband availability. What is availability like in towns? We want to get a fibre connection and its availability will be a requirement for houses we look at.

Most housing estates have fibre connectivity.
Where in Athlone are you looking at?

Sue de Nimes

demanufactured wrote: »

Most housing estates have fibre connectivity.
Where in Athlone are you looking at?

I'm looking pretty much everywhere to be honest. I've looked at everything on daft.ie that is listed as Athlone. Although some of it I know isn't actually in Athlone!

I've considered as far west as Bealnamulla - is that still actually classed as Athlone?

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Yep Bealnamullia would be considered Athlone even though it is in County Roscommon. And you'll have access to fibre there, shouldn't be an issue.

SupaCat95

Hi, sorry to hijack the thread but I am moving to Mullingar town. Who are the good internet providers in the town?

Any comments with experience welcomed

coillcam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118081097#Comment_118081097

Depending on what estate you're in it will likely be a SIRO reseller and/or Virgin that are you're best options. The easiest thing to do is to grab an eircode from one of the locations you're considering (use https://finder.eircode.ie/#/), then put that into the providers' websites to check availability. Bonkers.ie actually lets you use the eircode and shows all providers deals, might be the easiest thing to do.

If you can hold a few weeks, there is always a Black Friday deal for new connections. Virgin gave away a Bluetooth soundbar last year and I think Sky did some bundle with discounted sports package in the past.

I've used all of the major players over the years and had all kinds of experiences. Some recent ones:

• Vodafone SIRO: Attempted to sign up three times, they gave me install dates and never turned up. Called Vodafone and they told me the order didn't exist. It was apparently cancelled in the background for "Technical Reasons" and to try again. I went with a different provider in the end.
• EIR (legacy/dsl): Poor customer service history, which is documented at length all over boards and elsewhere. The connection was reliable for the most part. Overcharged me and it took over a month for me to get a refund organised.
• SKY SIRO: Poor customer service and almost impossible to contact or leave the contract as nobody ever answers the phone. No problem picking up if you want to upgrade your package though. Took hours of being on hold over multiple calls to cancel the service. Internet connection was reliable though.
• Virgin: They have upped their game on the customer service side and the website/account page since I was with them years back. I completed a new connection order in 5 minutes, modem and TV box arrived 48 hours later. I plugged everything in and was online in under 30 mins once the kit was all updated. Their white internet modem is middling at best though. At least once a day (sometimes 2-3 times), the WiFi connection disappears for 5-10 mins and it looks like the device has reset or rebooted. Also very restricted if you want to change settings.