Is there much of a difference between eir 150fibre and 1gig FTTH?

bobbysands81

There’s a big price difference - €30pm compared to €55pm but is the price difference worth it?

If two people were working from home at the same time with kids on devices, would there be a big difference in broadband performance between the two different speeds?

The working from home would include a lot of online meetings.

Thanks.

jd

I think there is a 500 down 50 up option available now, which is the one I'd probably go for if there are people doing zoom/gsuite calls and uploading files etc.

ED E

No difference. Let's be generous and say both adults are using 10Mb. Then the kids are watching 3x Netflix streams at 8Mb. 44Mb. Massive. Huge.

Even if you got gig do you have any devices that can leverage it? Your work laptop probably won't, your iPad certainly won't. Get 150.

Gonzo

The only real difference is upload speed.

30 meg upload on the 150 plan vs 100 upload on the 1000 plan. Most people won't need an upload of 30 or more but if you regularly upload large video files then the 1000 plan might be better.

Manion

If cost is a concern you might try looking at another provider. A lot of the price comparison websites are not reflecting the most recent roll outs.

Keep in mind not just to factor in your current needs but also future needs if you are signing that 2 year contract.

The bandwidth you need for streaming say a 4K UHD video depends on how the video is encoded and any other compression tweaks your service provided might have. That's ranges from ~15Mbps to 30Mbps. You average zoom meeting call in 720p isn't using much by comparison so 6Mbps for each concurrent Zoom/Teams/Google Meet call. But these numbers don't really reflect the experience.

I was on a VDSL OpenEir provided connection up until this week. I found the connection extremely frustrating as it was prone to peaks and troughs. Someone downloading a game on steam would result in video quality dropping on calls. Latency was also an issue with pings sometimes hitting 100ms or more, which from real time calls is a problem. I moved to 1Gbps because I didn't want to think about the internet connection as a factor ever again, I didn't want to have the sequence large download. Latency improved 20x as well.

bobbysands81

Thanks all.

It seems there’s a massive price difference between the 1gig fibre and 150 fibre for very little difference (in real terms).

kippy

bobbysands81 wrote: »

Thanks all.

It seems there’s a massive price difference between the 1gig fibre and 150 fibre for very little difference (in real terms).

Thee reality is most homes wouldn't get the benefit from the increased speeds or need it.
A lot of homes are using wireless devices primarily and unless you have a very very good setup with the right hardware configured correctly, you won't get 1 gig at the device, nor would you generally need it.

alan4cult

bobbysands81 wrote: »

Thanks all.

It seems there’s a massive price difference between the 1gig fibre and 150 fibre for very little difference (in real terms).

The difference is in the upload speed. That's what you are paying for. If you are pushing large file transfers or lots of HD video calls, the upload speed is a dream.

TheDriver

I'm on SIRO but sentiment would be similar. Go for 150 if there is a price difference. Most households will be comfortable in 100Mb VDSL or 150 FTTH, you can do 6 people watching Full HD Netflix simultaneously. Specialist cases require more than this speed but price would dictate the 150 for most other than "I have gig internet"

TheDoc

bobbysands81 wrote: »

Thanks all.

It seems there’s a massive price difference between the 1gig fibre and 150 fibre for very little difference (in real terms).

Seeing a weird trend of forum recently where people are dismissing 1gig benefits.

If you consider that a massive price difference then fair enough you might want to keep to the 150. But 1gig FTTH is a huge difference from 150. Even in real terms.

Again all scenarios and households are different but when presented a choice there is never a scenario where I pick a slower speed. Just my two cents

MarkR

Pure telecom sky, and Vodafone have siro for between 30 and 40. Should look into other providers.

kippy

TheDoc wrote: »

Seeing a weird trend of forum recently where people are dismissing 1gig benefits.

If you consider that a massive price difference then fair enough you might want to keep to the 150. But 1gig FTTH is a huge difference from 150. Even in real terms.

Again all scenarios and households are different but when presented a choice there is never a scenario where I pick a slower speed. Just my two cents

The last statement is just silly.
You mightn't but there are plenty reasons why one would.
Cost, internal network infrastructure, household profile.

plodder

Why would you pay for a higher bit-rate than you can actually use? At the moment, I'm not even making full use of my 150. Even assuming you have the right set up with multiple CAT wired links to the router, it's very unlikely that any server you are talking to will deliver anything close to 1Gbit. They just don't have that capacity to go around. Even at 150mbit, I'm getting as good if not better VPN throughput to work than when I'm in the office.

MarkR

Why do people buy fast cars? Could be on the premise of, better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. Like another poster said, I don't want lack of speed to be an issue at any stage, when I'm working from home. The price difference is also often negligible, so why not?

plodder

I suppose the equivalent of the fast-cars analogy is just being able to tell people that you have 1 Gbit.

You can upgrade with a phone-call though, in the event that you actually need it. I think most contracts allow you to upgrade to a faster more expensive option at any time.

Flyer1

Got the 150 installed yesterday - can't see any justification for anything more.

3 of us in the house flat out on it last night, I do a bit of online gaming too and it was perfect

jimmycrackcorm

Can't speak for Eir, but in general terms of speeds, I have VF Gigabit and at quiet times I can a speed test that shows the full 1GB, but in the evenings this can go down to 30MB. I don't notice any difference in what I use so I don't think Gigabit is justified in most cases.

Manion

plodder wrote: »

I suppose the equivalent of the fast-cars analogy is just being able to tell people that you have 1 Gbit.

You can upgrade with a phone-call though, in the event that you actually need it. I think most contracts allow you to upgrade to a faster more expensive option at any time.

Upgrading restarts your contract period.

Some providers are offering introduction rates for 12 months where the cost different relatively small between the 150mbps and 1gbps.