Broadband in waterford city

obi604

hi


I am down with the out laws for a few days and have to work from here. yesterday was dreadful - broadband kept dropping and really bad speeds, essentially unworkable



Am based in Ballinakill, I don't know much about the broadband scenario in this area. Neighbors are elderly and don't seem to know either etc

I thought being in a big city that broadband speeds would be ok, not as if it’s out in a remote rural location etc.



I am connected directly to the modem with an RJ 45 cable, and I am getting max 6 meg download and max 0.3 upload

On wifi on my mobile, its the same, when standing right beside modem
Brought down Alexa show and she spends more time offline than online !!



Does anybody know if there is a general issue with broadband in this area?
or is it just I need to get on to the supplier to upgrade the line if possible

Flyin Irishman

Do you know what ISP they are with? I haven't been having any issues with Virgin lately (~10ms ping, ~240 down, ~24 up)

obi604

Flyin Irishman wrote: »

Do you know what ISP they are with? I haven't been having any issues with Virgin lately (~10ms ping, ~240 down, ~24 up)

Jaysus, thats good.


With Vodafone
Have been for years, Modem itself is years old etc, (not that the modem will magically fox this )

killbillvol2

obi604 wrote: »

Jaysus, thats good.


With Vodafone
Have been for years, Modem itself is years old etc, (not that the modem will magically fox this )

My VM is 500/50 all the time. You have a specific problem which could be solved by changing providers.

obi604

killbillvol2 wrote: »

My VM is 500/50 all the time. You have a specific problem which could be solved by changing providers.

to be honest, they have not rang the provider in years
haven't even alerted them there is an issue
so maybe if I get in contact, there may be some solution

Wanderer78

obi604 wrote: »

to be honest, they have not rang the provider in years
haven't even alerted them there is an issue
so maybe if I get in contact, there may be some solution

definitely give them a ring, theyre brutal speeds, thats like dial up. virgin here to, rock solid, and im hammering the sh1te outta the line last few months streaming, not a bother to it

obi604

Wanderer78 wrote: »

definitely give them a ring, theyre brutal speeds, thats like dial up. virgin here to, rock solid, and im hammering the sh1te outta the line last few months streaming, not a bother to it

rang them just now, bleedin egypt call center, haven't heard that one before



they said right now its not possible to upgrade, and they they have to initiate a 'surve'y to see if its possible to get faster speeds


then we will be contacted about the 'survey' to see if its possible to upgrade the line and of course any extra costs

Wanderer78

obi604 wrote: »

rang them just now, bleedin egypt call center, haven't heard that one before



they said right now its not possible to upgrade, and they they have to initiate a 'surve'y to see if its possible to get faster speeds


then we will be contacted about the 'survey' to see if its possible to upgrade the line and of course any extra costs

'thanks, but moving on'! lifes too short for that nonsense, would they be okay with you moving providers for them, you cant be working with that?

obi604

Wanderer78 wrote: »

'thanks, but moving on'! lifes too short for that nonsense, would they be okay with you moving providers for them, you cant be working with that?

see im only here for a day or 2 so can manage
the in laws are not overly concerned about it - and any talk of disruption or change will just 'frighten' them

Wanderer78

obi604 wrote: »

see im only here for a day or 2 so can manage
the in laws are not overly concerned about it - and any talk of disruption or change will just 'frighten' them

best to do nothing then, or life may create more drama, and lifes really too short for that, but slow bb is beyond painful, particularly when trying to work

BBM77

obi604 wrote: »

hi


I am down with the out laws for a few days and have to work from here. yesterday was dreadful - broadband kept dropping and really bad speeds, essentially unworkable



Am based in Ballinakill, I don't know much about the broadband scenario in this area. Neighbors are elderly and don't seem to know either etc

I thought being in a big city that broadband speeds would be ok, not as if it’s out in a remote rural location etc.



I am connected directly to the modem with an RJ 45 cable, and I am getting max 6 meg download and max 0.3 upload

On wifi on my mobile, its the same, when standing right beside modem
Brought down Alexa show and she spends more time offline than online !!



Does anybody know if there is a general issue with broadband in this area?
or is it just I need to get on to the supplier to upgrade the line if possible

I live across the road from Ballinakill and have virgin media broadband and it is ****e. On a 500Mb/s plan, even plugged-in 300Mb/s is about the best I ever got. Most of the time it is around 170Mb/s and it often much worse. Only waiting for SIRO to come here and I am going to change. Which should not be long now as I saw them working here the last week or two.

obi604

Wanderer78 wrote: »

best to do nothing then, or life may create more drama, and lifes really too short for that, but slow bb is beyond painful, particularly when trying to work

I’d like to change it for them, but they may get flustered with new bills, new provider etc etc. You know old people, they dont like change.

Vodafone are making out it’s an issue with the exchange, that it’s just all copper, but there is a possibility of getting part fibre, part copper.

Is this just rubbish?

My Real questions
if I was to move to a new provider, is there anything better they could do to get the speed improved? Or is it purely down to the physical line into the house and the exchange etc?

Would moving to a new provider mean they would automatically just upgrade the line as part of the scenario?

Last thing I want is the hassle of moving to a new provider and then be stuck with same speeds due to it being an actual line to the house issue.

jmcc

obi604 wrote: »

I am connected directly to the modem with an RJ 45 cable, and I am getting max 6 meg download and max 0.3 upload

That sounds like an ADSL connection using a phoneline. The speed for ADSL is generally limited by the distance to the local exchange.

Does anybody know if there is a general issue with broadband in this area?
or is it just I need to get on to the supplier to upgrade the line if possible

It depends on the provider and the connection. There is a faster option for phonelines/copper and that that's Fibre to the Cabinet. (Eircom Fibre) That provides higher speeds due to the distance from the subscriber's premises being generally a few hundred metres from the cabinet rather than a few kilometres. The speeds on Eir Fibre are quite good and I generally get over 65Mb/s on a 70Mb/s connection. That's about 6 Megabytes download speed. The 'b' means bits and the 'B' means bytes. An ADSL connection maxes out around 4.4Mb/s download and 0.5 Mb/s upload.

From what I remember, there were two exchanges serving the area. (This may have changed.) One was in the city near the Post Office and one was out around Knockboy (Brasscock?). Connections to the exchange in the city would have lower speeds.

Virgin broadband tends to be the best option in terms of speed. Virgin generally provide their own router to customers. Not sure if the Gigabit fibre operators are covering Ballinakill yet so Virgin is probably the best for speeds over 100 Mb/s. It is cable broadband.

The providers generally quote the maximum available speed for connections in advertising but they vary depending on where the customer is and the number of customers using the same infrastructure. At zero dark thirty, the bandwidth/speed might be near the maximum but at peak time when people are watching Netflix or playing Fortnite the speeds will drop.

Regards...jmcc

hardybuck

BBM77 wrote: »

I live across the road from Ballinakill and have virgin media broadband and it is ****e. On a 500Mb/s plan, even plugged-in 300Mb/s is about the best I ever got. Most of the time it is around 170Mb/s and it often much worse. Only waiting for SIRO to come here and I am going to change. Which should not be long now as I saw them working here the last week or two.

Let us know how that goes. They've been doing up the area I live in for months.

There are parts of west Clare that currently get faster broadband than places in Dublin city centre.

I thought that if you live in an area where there are services, and the likes of Eir have promised to upgrade, it isn't in the National Broadband plan and the likes of SIRO won't be coming?. If you live in an area without services, it feels like you can nearly expect to get the network upgraded quicker.

obi604

obi604 wrote: »

I’d like to change it for them, but they may get flustered with new bills, new provider etc etc. You know old people, they dont like change.

Vodafone are making out it’s an issue with the exchange, that it’s just all copper, but there is a possibility of getting part fibre, part copper.

Is this just rubbish?

My Real questions
if I was to move to a new provider, is there anything better they could do to get the speed improved? Or is it purely down to the physical line into the house and the exchange etc?

Would moving to a new provider mean they would automatically just upgrade the line as part of the scenario?

Last thing I want is the hassle of moving to a new provider and then be stuck with same speeds due to it being an actual line to the house issue.

The above is very long winded.

In simple terms - would changing the supplier somehow improve the situation, meaning that when they were to do the install they would upgrade the line etc?

Or am I still in the same boat with the new supplier - still have the underlying issue of copper to the house?

CoBo55

Ok. Let's start at the beginning. What package are they on at present? Do they have a bill you can look at? Go to bonkers or any other comparison site and put in the eircode to see what's available to their address. Looks like they're on an ancient ADSL package.

obi604

CoBo55 wrote: »

Ok. Let's start at the beginning. What package are they on at present? Do they have a bill you can look at? Go to bonkers or any other comparison site and put in the eircode to see what's available to their address. Looks like they're on an ancient ADSL package.

I have a bill alright. they are on 'Vodafone at home Talk Bundle' which has:

• Home extra broadband
• Simply talk National extra

CoBo55

obi604 wrote: »

I have a bill alright. they are on 'Vodafone at home Talk Bundle' which has:

• Home extra broadband
• Simply talk National extra

Any results on the comparison sites? Does home extra BB exist on the VF site now? Try the eircode on the VF site to see what available now.

obi604

CoBo55 wrote: »

Any results on the comparison sites? Does home extra BB exist on the VF site now? Try the eircode on the VF site to see what available now.

Yeah, as follows:



https://ibb.co/Wf7dzg6
https://ibb.co/ZGv2ZCD


saying 'part fibre'
speeds seems a bit optimistic, based on what is available now.

jmcc

obi604 wrote: »

Yeah, as follows:



https://ibb.co/Wf7dzg6
https://ibb.co/ZGv2ZCD


saying 'part fibre'
speeds seems a bit optimistic, based on what is available now.

Part fibre means that it is Fibre to the cabinet. It is generally more stable than ADSL. Have you done any speed tests (speedtest.net etc) that you could post?

Regards...jmcc

obi604

jmcc wrote: »

Part fibre means that it is Fibre to the cabinet. It is generally more stable than ADSL. Have you done any speed tests (speedtest.net etc) that you could post?

Regards...jmcc

download speeds slightly up today
this is when I can get speedtest to actually work - half the time it times out

this is via a wired cable connected directly to the modem about 2 ft away



https://ibb.co/TWd2vZg
https://ibb.co/GTLxz4W

obi604

And attached is from WiFi on my mobile, again about 2ft away from the modem.

CoBo55

obi604 wrote: »

Yeah, as follows:



https://ibb.co/Wf7dzg6
https://ibb.co/ZGv2ZCD


saying 'part fibre'
speeds seems a bit optimistic, based on what is available now.

What you have now is copper wire all the way back to the exchange that's why the speeds are so low. A new connection would be copper from the house to the cabinet and fibre from there to the exchange. The maximum available speed on this system is 100meg. Distance from the cabinet affects it greatly. Do you know where the cabinet is? When I was on that system before I went to VM I was about 660meters from the cabinet and was getting a rock solid 65 down and 15 up and it worked perfectly. It would be easy enough to get changed over to the fttc system although an engineer's visit would be required. Once that's done everything would still look the same etc.

obi604

CoBo55 wrote: »

What you have now is copper wire all the way back to the exchange that's why the speeds are so low. A new connection would be copper from the house to the cabinet and fibre from there to the exchange. The maximum available speed on this system is 100meg. Distance from the cabinet affects it greatly. Do you know where the cabinet is? When I was on that system before I went to VM I was about 660meters from the cabinet and was getting a rock solid 65 down and 15 up and it worked perfectly. It would be easy enough to get changed over to the fttc system although an engineer's visit would be required. Once that's done everything would still look the same etc.

Great info.

Even if I got 30 meg download and 10 upload, it would be massive. ANYTHING but the cr@p I have now.


I’m not overly familiar with the area so don’t know where the cabinet is. Any way or map to check this out?

Would fibre to the cabinet be done by current supplier? Or is this more so a general infrastructure thing?

Why would an engineer need to visit the house if work is done at cabinet?


What do you mean by everything would still look the same?

Sorry for all the silly q’s

jmcc

obi604 wrote: »

download speeds slightly up today
this is when I can get speedtest to actually work - half the time it times out

this is via a wired cable connected directly to the modem about 2 ft away



https://ibb.co/TWd2vZg
https://ibb.co/GTLxz4W

If it is Fibre to the cabinet and the distance is only a few hundred metres, the stats should be better than that.

I'm getting 58.7 Mb/s and 6.4 Mb/s up on an Eir 70Mb/s FTTC connection to Vodafone. It varies throughout the day.

Wired is the best way to test the speed. Also check if there are modems nearby using the same WiFi channels. Sometimes neighbours will be using the same WiFi channels and they will interfere. The modem should have a feature in the admin control panel where it is possible to do a scan of WiFi channels and set the WiFi channel.

Regards...jmcc

obi604

jmcc wrote: »

If it is Fibre to the cabinet and the distance is only a few hundred metres, the stats should be better than that.

I'm getting 58.7 Mb/s and 6.4 Mb/s up on an Eir 70Mb/s FTTC connection to Vodafone. It varies throughout the day.

Wired is the best way to test the speed. Also check if there are modems nearby using the same WiFi channels. Sometimes neighbours will be using the same WiFi channels and they will interfere. The modem should have a feature in the admin control panel where it is possible to do a scan of WiFi channels and set the WiFi channel.

Regards...jmcc

Ok previous poster reckons it’s copper all the way.

Thanks for tips, but Somehow I reckon charging WiFi channels etc will not do much

jmcc

obi604 wrote: »

Ok previous poster reckons it’s copper all the way.

Thanks for tips, but Somehow I reckon charging WiFi channels etc will not do much

Possibly. The ping can be an indicator. The WiFi channel issue is more of a local thing due to neighbours using the same WiFi channel. The router/modem control panel would generally show the connection type and the maximum attainable speeds.

Regards...jmcc

CoBo55

obi604 wrote: »

Great info.

Even if I got 30 meg download and 10 upload, it would be massive. ANYTHING but the cr@p I have now.


I’m not overly familiar with the area so don’t know where the cabinet is. Any way or map to check this out?

Would fibre to the cabinet be done by current supplier? Or is this more so a general infrastructure thing?

Why would an engineer need to visit the house if work is done at cabinet?


What do you mean by everything would still look the same?

Sorry for all the silly q’s

Yes VF should be able to give you fttc. The engineer needs to come into the house and remove the faceplate to connect a small device to the copper wires that are going back to the cabinet. He then finds this pair in the cabinet and connects them to the fibre section, he goes back to the house removes the device and puts the faceplate back on the wall, plugs the router back in and you're sorted, after this is done everything looks exactly as it was before, no extra wires or anything like that, things like that upset older people, believe me I know what you mean. I can't help you with finding your cabinet, maybe others might be able to help with that.

obi604

CoBo55 wrote: »

Yes VF should be able to give you fttc. The engineer needs to come into the house and remove the faceplate to connect a small device to the copper wires that are going back to the cabinet. He then finds this pair in the cabinet and connects them to the fibre section, he goes back to the house removes the device and puts the faceplate back on the wall, plugs the router back in and you're sorted, after this is done everything looks exactly as it was before, no extra wires or anything like that, things like that upset older people, believe me I know what you mean. I can't help you with finding your cabinet, maybe others might be able to help with that.

Yeah, you know yourself, any change like this is massive for older people, the thoughts of potential disruption and the absolute blind panic of the landline number changed would be carnage

Would doing this work mean a higher monthly bill etc due to the potential ‘upgrade’?

CoBo55

obi604 wrote: »

Yeah, you know yourself, any change like this is massive for older people, the thoughts of potential disruption and the absolute blind panic of the landline number changed would be carnage

Would doing this work mean a higher monthly bill etc due to the potential ‘upgrade’?

What are they paying now? VF are doing good deals at the minute, BB and phone for €30 per month, one of the comparison sites are giving an extra fiver off for a few months if you sign up through them.

obi604

CoBo55 wrote: »

What are they paying now? VF are doing good deals at the minute, BB and phone for €30 per month, one of the comparison sites are giving an extra fiver off for a few months if you sign up through them.

Last bill was 61 Euro !

CoBo55

obi604 wrote: »

Last bill was 61 Euro !

Ah shur my late father was the same, he was with Eircom paying phone rental and for a messaging service he couldn't use as it kept asking for a password he couldn't remember:o I think it was around the 60 mark too.

reni10

Just grab a Gomo or 48 4G simcard and stick it into an old phone and turn the hotspot on.

You could also grab a cheap 4G modem and use that instead.

If they don't work better in your area you are only out about €20.

obi604

CoBo55 wrote: »

Ah shur my late father was the same, he was with Eircom paying phone rental and for a messaging service he couldn't use as it kept asking for a password he couldn't remember:o I think it was around the 60 mark too.

They are with NTL for tv, the box still has ntl written on it. Is virgin the new ntl?

Which shows how long they gave the same television service too !! Must have the box for last 15 years I guess

killbillvol2

obi604 wrote: »

They are with NTL for tv, the box still has ntl written on it. Is virgin the new ntl?

Which shows how long they gave the same television service too !! Must have the box for last 15 years I guess

Virgin is the new NTL. The good news is the cabling is there so they have the option of switching to Virgin for broadband.

obi604

killbillvol2 wrote: »

Virgin is the new NTL. The good news is the cabling is there so they have the option of switching to Virgin for broadband.

That could be an option so.
I know I asked this before kinda

If I did switch to Virgin, would they do their due diligence on the install scenario and investigate the fibre to the cabinet?

Aquos76

obi604 wrote: »

That could be an option so.
I know I asked this before kinda

If I did switch to Virgin, would they do their due diligence on the install scenario and investigate the fibre to the cabinet?

Stick their eircode in here and it will tell you which packages are available to the address

obi604

Aquos76 wrote: »

Stick their eircode in here and it will tell you which packages are available to the address

So looks good. Attached.

But still though, does this mean their technician will do their due diligence and make sure that fibre to the cabinet is actually done.

Aquos76

obi604 wrote: »

So looks good. Attached.

But still though, does this mean their technician will do their due diligence and make sure that fibre to the cabinet is actually done.

Generally they just send out the equipment and its a self install then, however if there hasnt been any new equipment installed at the address in a few years, then you might be better to request an engineer call and do the install. There wouldn't be any additional charge for this service.

obi604

Aquos76 wrote: »

Generally they just send out the equipment and its a self install then, however if there hasnt been any new equipment installed at the address in a few years, then you might be better to request an engineer call and do the install. There wouldn't be any additional charge for this service.

Yeah, see this is what I don’t want. Self install, brand new modem etc...........but still the crux of the matter would still be there - the same copper line going to the house regardless.

Aquos76

obi604 wrote: »

Yeah, see this is what I don’t want. Self install, brand new modem etc...........but still the crux of the matter would still be there - the same copper line going to the house regardless.

Virgin don’t use the phone line, they use their own coax, the same feed that services the TV.

obi604

Aquos76 wrote: »

Virgin don’t use the phone line, they use their own coax, the same feed that services the TV.

Ah ok. So there should be a definite improvement then.

So in practical terms, the modem would need to be placed where the tv cable comes in?

And even more practical, could they keep the same landline phone number that they have had for the last 40 years?

Wanderer78

obi604 wrote:

So in practical terms, the modem would need to be placed where the tv cable comes in?

Yea the modem would generally be next to the tv equipment

obi604 wrote:

And even more practical, could they keep the same landline phone number that they have had for the last 40 years?

If they convert everything over to virgin, they can port their number, done that myself, handy process

obi604

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Yea the modem would generally be next to the tv equipment



If they convert everything over to virgin, they can port their number, done that myself, handy process

Thanks, yet again.

So I now understand the current situation. Copper all the way to the exchange........and there could be the potential of an upgrade and have fibre from exchange to cabinet and still have copper from cabinet to the house.

Now with Virgin and coax, what route is this taking, still to cabinet and exchange or does it follow a different path due to coax etc?

Wanderer78

obi604 wrote:

Now with Virgin and coax, what route is this taking, still to cabinet and exchange or does it follow a different path due to coax etc?

Fibre backbone, baring in mind, virgin use their own network compared to the other isp's, it's how they got the jump on most, but installing a largely fibre backbone yonks ago. Telcos are on the back foot catching up, but they're slowly getting there. It's coax then from this backbone into the home, apparently it's still capable of extremely high speeds, 10gb, so they're well setup for the foreseeable future

obi604

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Fibre backbone, baring in mind, virgin use their own network compared to the other isp's, it's how they got the jump on most, but installing a largely fibre backbone yonks ago. Telcos are on the back foot catching up, but they're slowly getting there. It's coax then from this backbone into the home, apparently it's still capable of extremely high speeds, 10gb, so they're well setup for the foreseeable future

Right. So if we went with virgin. No upgrade/exchange work needed at all then

Wanderer78

obi604 wrote:

Right. So if we went with virgin. No upgrade/exchange work needed at all then

Theoretical no, but this is the world of tech, sh1t breaks and tech advances extremely quickly, but I'd say virgin are fine for the foreseeable

obi604

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Theoretical no, but this is the world of tech, sh1t breaks and tech advances extremely quickly, but I'd say virgin are fine for the foreseeable

Another pedantic q.

So with Virgin, the modem would need to be placed near the tv.

What does this mean for the phone line from a practical post of view? (Again in the idea of least change, phone has been in this place for last 40 years and hasn’t moved an inch etc etc )

At this time they have the RJ11 phone faceplate box in the hall and this is where the phone is connected to.
Would a fresh phone line need to be run from the Virgin modem to here to replicate the setup now?

Aquos76

The phone would now be placed beside the modem and plugged directly into the back of it. The old phone line will no longer be used

obi604

Aquos76 wrote: »

The phone would now be placed beside the modem and plugged directly into the back of it. The old phone line will no longer be used

That’s gonna cause carnage

CoBo55

Stick with trying to upgrade what you have now it's not worth the hassle. Leave the TV alone. Try creating a new order through the VF website, as you've found out there's absolutely no point in ringing them.