Broadband Provider - Maynooth

Inthepoorhouse

What internet providers are those in Maynooth using and how do they find the actual speeds they are getting compared to advertised?

Looking at getting 500mb or 1gb and a good choice between, Sky, Virgin, Eir, Vodafone, Siri.

Based in Castlepark/Lyreen side of the town.

L1011

If you can get SIRO, get service over SIRO from one of the providers that offers it. On SIRO, Virgin or Eir actual fibre, you'll get the advertised speeds in pretty much every circumstance - at least once you use a good wifi router not the Virgin junk.

Eir mostly only offer max 100mbit copper "efibre" in Maynooth, which is junk, but some new estates and adjoining old bits have the real fibre.

Inthepoorhouse

Thanks, is Siro basically FTTH? I was reading about FTTH v FTTC and FTTH seems better.

When I look up bonkers for example, for 500mb/1gb it says Fibre from the likes of Sky, Eir, Vodafone. But for 100mb it says part fibre.

Is there anyway to find out if it is FTTH? Or is anything 500mb + FTTH?

Thanks

crl84

Yes, 500mb+ will be FTTH (Fibre cables all the way to your home).

If it says that you can get 500mb+ from Sky/Eir/Vodafone, then you should have FTTH.

The next quickest (common) option would be Virgin Media, which uses different cble technology, but can also provide speeds up to 1Gb/s.

100mb/"Part Fibre" is FTTC

FTTC is fibre to the cabinet, a big metal cabinet somewhere in the estate probably. From the cabinet to your house will be over older copper cables, which are only capable of taking much lower speeds (eg up to 100mb). This is generally the case for older estates, unless the road through the estate has been dug up, and the older copper cables replaced with fibre cables.

Sean Seoighe

Check with the different service providers what speed is available to your exact address. Broadband offerings can differ from road to road never mind in an entire town. If you can get FTTH that's the best that you can get.

Inthepoorhouse

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120744054#Comment_120744054

Thanks for the explanation, all those providers you mentioned are an option for 500mb plus. Probably a case of deciding which supplier offers the best combo (tv & broadband) package.

crl84

Yep, although one advantage with the FTTH would be that Sky/Eir/Vodfone/etc al use the same infrastructure, so if you want to jump to another provider after 12 months, when the new customer discount ends and the price goes up, the cabling will already be installed, and it should be a simple switch.

To go to/from Virgin would require different cabling into the house, so another engineer visit to run a new cable into the house, probably with new drilling.

Worth bearing in mind that a 4k Netflix stream uses about 20Mbps (regular HD uses about 8Mbps), so unless you're going to have 20+ 4k streams going at once, or constantly downloading large files for some reason, a 500Mb line is more than enough for the vast, vast majority of people.

L1011

You can get 1gb on Virgin's copper service but it's an outlier in non FTTH tech.

Inthepoorhouse

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120744803#Comment_120744803

Very good point re: Sky/Eir/Vodafone using the same infrastructure & switching provider after 12 months. That helps with the decision making.

Will a hole have to be drilled as part of getting Sky/Eir/Vodafone? Or due to how new build houses are wired internally, would it negate the need for a hole to be drilled or is it still a case the outside wire needs to get into the house?

If going with a Sky (tv basic package) combo (broadband & tv), you would probably need a satellite installed too presumably? Maybe not if going with Eirs tv package.