some news about IOL march upgrade

CyberGhost

hey,

Just got off the phone with a sales person, he told me IOL will prolly be doubling their speed and capacity that is 1mb/256kb and 30-32gb download cap

eircom will prolly offer 20gb cap and 1mb too

btw, after 11'th of March they will stop their trials(maybe he was just trying to scare me)

how are iol's pings?

do they charge for going over the cap?

bk

I was expecting Eircom to introduce new Bitstream products in March, they always launch their new ADSL products in March.

This product seems like a reasonable response to the Smart threat.

IOL's free trial promotion is based on Eircoms promotion that they are required to pass on to their Bitstream partners. This promotion ends 30th of March. With them launching new, higher spec products, it is likely they won't offer the promotion anymore.

I don't expect Eircom will re-introduce the promotion until around next Christmas.

From what I have heard, IOL's pings are pretty good and stable, not the very best, but certainly good enough.

I haven't heard of them charging for going over the cap. I believe UTV is the only company who does.

dlofnep

Hrm.. this is good news.. If Eircom double their speed, at least I'll have 1meg until I get smart.

Chalk

if eircom double their speed ill do a merry jig round my router

Xcellor

A 1 meg connection would be sweeeeeeeeeeeeet. However I refrain from gettnig my hopes up because IOL has many conflicting ideas about what is actually going on within their organization. I asked an IOL staff member the other day, "When are we going to get a faster broadband connection than the current 512k?" And he replied, "What do you mean?"

Either he didn't understand my question or he believes 512k is still fast... Worrying in either case if you ask me.

I love IOL BB of course I have not been able to compare it with other providers.... I haven't had serious problems and pings are usually around the 29ms mark to irish servers which is great.

I'm just back from Mexico after spending 7 months there. The house I stayed in had cable internet. Sounds good? It was brutal. I can ping Mexican servers from ireland and get a better result than pinging the same site sitting a few miles away from the physical location of the server!! We are talking about latency which was worse than dialup. Too many users and not enough capacity probably ... I vowed never to complain at my pings again...

Xcellor

dlofnep

I wouldn't worry about that.. Communication between staff in ISP's is like communication between a monkey and a sausage. I walked into work one morning and found out that we had doubled the speed of our clients.. Some guy was like "I heard you are doubling the speeds?" I was like "no.. i'm afraid not" - He was like "Butthe last agent just told me".. So low and behold, we were actually upgrading. I had missed the announcement because I was not working the day they announced it..

So don't be too skeptic if one guy says something and the other guy doesn't. The guys that tell you info are usuallythe guys who don't miss days like I do

CyberGhost

what is this bitstream product? can anyone please explain or give a link?
the excisting customers are going to be upgraded too right?

thanks for answers!

bk

CyberGhost wrote:

what is this bitstream product? can anyone please explain or give a link?
the excisting customers are going to be upgraded too right?

thanks for answers!

Bitstream is the technical name for Eircoms wolesale RADSL product that they sell to other ISP's.

So companies like IOL, UTV, Netsource, Digiweb are actually reselling Eircoms Bitstream product to you.

Eircom control the specification and pricing of Bitstream, so if Eircom introduce new higher spec products or if they reduce or increase the wholesale price, then IOL, UTV, Netsource, Digiweb can pass on the changes to you.

I hope that makes sense.

As for upgrading, I assume there will in fact be two products, a cheaper 512/128k product and a more expensive 1M/256k product.

It is up to each company weither they allow you to upgrade or not. However with the exception of Netsource, I'd imagine that they will all give you the option.

cregser

dlofnep wrote:

I wouldn't worry about that.. Communication between staff in ISP's is like communication between a monkey and a sausage

... I had missed the announcement because I was not working the day they announced it..

The fact that there was an announcement was more than could be expected .

It is true that communications companies have the worst communication. Having worked a summer as a student in one small one, I heard that phrase alot.

1Mb/256Kb would certainly satisfy my upgrade itch for the moment. Especially as I'm looking to network my home. I would be happier with an official announcement for the moment.

Am I right in saying that Esat would have to reduce the contention ratio to at least 16:1 (preferably 12 or 10:1) to achieve that? (as ADSL is 8Mb/1Mb )

Jammer

i ordered my iolBB trial last saturday, will i get hooked up to the 1meg speeds or be stuck on 512k?

cregser

Difficult to say Jammer. The last time Esat introduced an improved service, they offered 2 packages (premium and standard). Existing users were transfered to premium with the option of dropping down to standard (which was their previous service but at a lower price).

Esat may introduce a third service (basic,standard,& premium) and basic may be the 512/128. Since you'll be on a free trial I would doubt if they upgrade your service.

Sorry for the long winded no

Jammer

that is kind of a cheat then. i'd sign the contract for the 1meg service, so i should get a trial of the service im interested in! But still, once its faster then dial up im happy. smart should be here in 3 months anyway so all is not lost

padraigf

*drools* at the prospect of 1m/256k

that would be sweet beyond belief...

Gonzo

if this is true this is great, only problem is will I be able to avail for an improved 1mb connection being nearly 2.5km from the exchange...I would be gutted if I still defaulted to 512k after the upgrade...

Lex_Diamonds

Wowee, I can hardly contain myself. 1meg = 56k of broadband.

Bring on the Smart.

Mr_Man

If this news is correct it is a bit of a mixed blessing. While the upgrade is nice it is unlikely to bring true competition in the Irish Broadband market. Why ?

If enough people remain with the Eircom bitstream product, despite the Smart offering being better, then there is no incentive for the other Teleco's to get off their arse and unbundle the Eircom exchanges so they can offer their own innovative products.

It also leesens Smart's incentive to innovate, why would they bother offering a superior product when they can rake in as much money by not disturbing the status quo.

So heopfully people will vote with their feet, overcome the inertia and switch to the better product. This will then force the others to come up with a better offering, better than upgrading to a 1mb from a 512kb. When that happens it puts pressure on Smart to come up witrh something even better and so on.


M.

CyberGhost

bk wrote:

Bitstream is the technical name for Eircoms wolesale RADSL product that they sell to other ISP's.

So companies like IOL, UTV, Netsource, Digiweb are actually reselling Eircoms Bitstream product to you.

Eircom control the specification and pricing of Bitstream, so if Eircom introduce new higher spec products or if they reduce or increase the wholesale price, then IOL, UTV, Netsource, Digiweb can pass on the changes to you.

I hope that makes sense.

As for upgrading, I assume there will in fact be two products, a cheaper 512/128k product and a more expensive 1M/256k product.

It is up to each company weither they allow you to upgrade or not. However with the exception of Netsource, I'd imagine that they will all give you the option.

Thanks for explaining bk.

btw, talked to iol agian, the existing customers(trial ones too) are going to be upgraded

jozi

Whats this smart thing mentioned above?

1 meg would be a nice upgrade

Jozi

EDIT: i see there's a thread about it

clearz

bk wrote:

This product seems like a reasonable response to the Smart threat.

Eh I dont think so. Persuming they offer this upgrade at the same price how is it.

How is 1Mb at 50 Euro a reasonable response to 2Mbs at 35 Euro.

Xcellor

clearz wrote:

Eh I dont think so. Persuming they offer this upgrade at the same price how is it.

How is 1Mb at 50 Euro a reasonable response to 2Mbs at 35 Euro.

Probably since Smart isn't going to be available to 90% of the population so the fact that IOL is releasing a faster product at the same price doesn't seem all that bad. I mean if you were willing to pay 50€ for 512 then IMO you shouldn't moan if they give you 1024 for the same price...

Sure everyone would like free broadband with no caps, low ping and no contention ratios but get real this is Ireland.

Not a defeatist attitude but a realistic attitude. Any advancement no matter how small has to me met with a level of enthusiasm. Bear in mind the high end users i.e. most people on these boards represent a small percentage of users, the other day one of my customers told me she has broadband to check her email faster?!?! I really felt like telling her "What a waste...." because she will undoubtedly never use that connection to it's fullest capability and the day Eircom switch her to 1mb per second she won't even notice... Tis too sad all that wasted bandwidth,, hahaha but I dont know what's sadder the wasted bandwidth or the fact that I care so much about it!!!

Xcellor

BigMoose

But wasted bandwidth is good!! Means others can stop worrying about contention! :cool:

mayordenis

any ideas if digiweb are gonna be offering this double??

Xcellor

BigMoose wrote:

But wasted bandwidth is good!! Means others can stop worrying about contention! :cool:

Aye but also means there is zero demand (or next to zero) for faster services. Besides why do we need contention anyway? The only people that benefit from that are the ISPs. Provide enough bandwidth for all your customers and provide an uncontended service where everyone gets 100% of their download capacity 24 hours a day. (hahah, that's so far fetched it's laughable.)

Can anyone else confirm this upgrade to 1mb. I'd phone them myself only I got very annoyed the last day when I had to ring tech support and had to wait 25 minutes. Of course they now give you the option to let them ring (Just press "2") you back but I trust a machine even less than the staff there who have on many occasions promised to phone back but never did.

X

Giblet

The press 2 thing is actually pretty good.

bk

clearz wrote:

Eh I dont think so. Persuming they offer this upgrade at the same price how is it.

How is 1Mb at 50 Euro a reasonable response to 2Mbs at 35 Euro.

I said reasonable, not perfect.

Firstly we have no idea how much the IOL product will cost, it hasn't been announced yet.

Second the IOL product is 1Mb/256k versus 2Mb/128k

IMHO the IOL product is much more balanced then the Smart product due to the upload speed. For the most part most people won't see much difference between 2m and 1m. Not unless you spend all day long downloading stuff.

However a lot of people will see a real, noticeable improvement in going from 128k to 256k upload. Specially if you are a SOHO user, run servers or have multiple people in the house using the BB at the same time.

Thirdly Eircoms broadband is installed in far more exchanges then Smart, therefore it is available to a far greater precentage of the population.

Fourthly, for existing BB customers upgrading their existing BB connection with their current provider should be a far smoother process, with little or no downtime. Moving to Smart will probably entail weeks of downtime (going by past performance of Eircom), this is simply not acceptable for most SOHO users.

Fifthly, Eircom and IOL are tried and trusted companies, with a relatively good track record. Smart at the moment is vapourware, they may turn out to be great, but again for SOHO users dependability is more important then price. I fear Smart may turn into another Netsource.

Don't get me wrong, I hope Smart succeed and if they offered a product with at least 256k up and a minimal of downtime on changing over to them, then I certainly would consider them, however for most people IOL/Eircom with a higher spec product is probably just good enough.

BTW this is similiar to how things work in the UK, typically the LLU operators (like Bulldog) offer better products then BT, but are harder to get on.

Xcellor

bk wrote:

I said reasonable, not perfect.

Firstly we have no idea how much the IOL product will cost, it hasn't been announced yet.

Second the IOL product is 1Mb/256k versus 2Mb/128k

IMHO the IOL product is much more balanced then the Smart product due to the upload speed. For the most part most people won't see much difference between 2m and 1m. Not unless you spend all day long downloading stuff.

However a lot of people will see a real, noticeable improvement in going from 128k to 256k upload. Specially if you are a SOHO user, run servers or have multiple people in the house using the BB at the same time.

Thirdly Eircoms broadband is installed in far more exchanges then Smart, therefore it is available to a far greater precentage of the population.

Fourthly, for existing BB customers upgrading their existing BB connection with their current provider should be a far smoother process, with little or no downtime. Moving to Smart will probably entail weeks of downtime (going by past performance of Eircom), this is simply not acceptable for most SOHO users.

Fifthly, Eircom and IOL are tried and trusted companies, with a relatively good track record. Smart at the moment is vapourware, they may turn out to be great, but again for SOHO users dependability is more important then price. I fear Smart may turn into another Netsource.

Don't get me wrong, I hope Smart succeed and if they offered a product with at least 256k up and a minimal of downtime on changing over to them, then I certainly would consider them, however for most people IOL/Eircom with a higher spec product is probably just good enough.

BTW this is similiar to how things work in the UK, typically the LLU operators (like Bulldog) offer better products then BT, but are harder to get on.

Here here agree with all of those points.

I hope they have done proper tests to make sure that their network can cope with upgrade. I wouldn't like the case where yes we all get 1mb connections but sacrifice what I think are excellent pings of 27ms... I worry too much but I've waited longgggggggg time...

X

Vadrefjorde

I would definitely have to agree with BK on the point of upload speed. And on the point of latency, remember when IOL started up first!! There was always bottlenecks on their servers as they were signing up more customers than their servers could handle. Lets hope they've prepared in advance this time....

digitaldr

clearz wrote:

Eh I dont think so. Persuming they offer this upgrade at the same price how is it.

How is 1Mb at 50 Euro a reasonable response to 2Mbs at 35 Euro.

Don't forget the free line rental for the first 100,000 Smart telecom customers!

Sponge Bob

From IIU today"

"I have a 512k bitstream line. I want it upgraded to 1M. Eircom prequal
it, declare it passing for up to 2M, and put through the upgrade. The
line immediately stops working reliably, dropping all packets every
few minutes for approx 2-3 minutes (thereby causing the PPPoE
connection to drop).

The response from Eircom: "Oh, when we say the line prequals for 2M,
we don't really mean that. It's probably not good enough for 1M ". Can
they do a *real* test? No. Can they provide the numeric prequal
results? No.

So, what gives here? The prequal system generates a bunch of numbers,
AFAIK. These detail things like noise, SNR etc on the line. These are
unlikely to be incorrect. These are then mapped to "Pass" or "Fail"
for each DSL product, based on Eircom's algorithm.

SO: (and here's my suspicion) are their thresholds way too optimistic,
leading to unrealistic passes?
"

Dearie dearie me.

Enjoy

DirksDiggler

Regarding up/download speeds with the possible 1mb upgrade, if I'm not mistaken this will mean we can download data at a rate of about 100kb per second, but at what speed will/should data upload?

Oh yeah, it seems based upon an alleged email sent by esat to a board member that one thing has been overlooked by everybody participating in this thread, didn't IOL promise the best broadband package in Ireland?

If thats the case shouldn't we be expecting either a 2mb uncapped package identical to Smart's at a cheaper monthly price or a package at a higher cost but with better upload speeds?

padraigf

Companies can promise anything they want and use any slant they like to say that their package is the best

1024/256 would download at ~115kB a second and upload ~28kB a second