IBB still free install for students?

kasintahan

A while ago I noted a thread which gave mentioned something about IBB being a free install for students.
It may have just been DCU or DIT, I don't remember.

Does anyone know if this applies to UCD students and if the offer is still available?

I'm sick of my €90pm (Netsource + line rental) charges.

Drapper

kasintahan wrote:

A while ago I noted a thread which gave mentioned something about IBB being a free install for students.
It may have just been DCU or DIT, I don't remember.

Does anyone know if this applies to UCD students and if the offer is still available?

I'm sick of my €90pm (Netsource + line rental) charges.

stay well clear !

kasintahan

Drapper wrote:

stay well clear !

I understand some peoples reservations re:IBB but
(a) I don't game, so ping times are as good as irrelvent.
(b) I don't need more than 256/256.

I do need
(a) Reliability
(b) Low Price

PlasmaFish

I am looking into getting them to give free install and 6 months contract for GMIT Galway Students. They said that it won't be a problem they just have to clear it all in their offices.

That was about a month ago so haven’t heard anything yet.

Did you email their sales dept about it?
Also They have free install till 31st of August anyways

beller b

kasintahan wrote:

I understand some peoples reservations re:IBB but
(a) I don't game, so ping times are as good as irrelvent.
(b) I don't need more than 256/256.

I do need
(a) Reliability
(b) Low Price

Dont bother believe me....In relation to a) above....reliability is not a concept IBB understand....Do you have any other options?

Adey2002

kasintahan wrote:

(b) I don't need more than 256/256.

I do need
(a) Reliability

(a) Definitely stay well clear of Irishbroadband. If theres one word that describes IBB, reliable isn't it.

(b) You'd be lucky to get 40/40

Macker1

IBB should be free for everyone because given the poor level of service that they provide ther is no way they should charge monthly fees.

regards another happy IBB customer LOL

kaizersoze

I'm sick of my €90pm (Netsource + line rental) charges

How does €40pm incl. line rental with BT sound. 1mb/128kb
or
€50 incl. line rental. 2mb/128kb.

optiplexgx270

Installation is free till 31st of July for EVERYONE.

And i find the service great always 240/240+ ALL day EVERY day. I understand that a lot of ppl have had trouble BUT when it works it works great.

And its uncapped too 90Gb per month for the last 2 months.

Druid

If you can get DSL then I would suggest you stick with that technology.

If you cant get DSL then IBB are very good. Its incredible that so many people here moan continously about IBB. They are not a telco, thus dont need to provide 99.999% availability. I think some here have unrealistic expectations for what is essentially a 'best effort' service. If you want amazingly low pings and 99.999% availability then get a rather large roll of fibre and a shovel (oh and a couple wads of cash would be handy too).


My 2c
-M-

Blaster99

They are very good because they promise a service they don't deliver and take money off customers? Or how are they very good exactly?

the jew

I have ripwave and no problems here, sure it ain't as fast as my broadband connection with eircom at home but sure it does the job. All i use it for is web browsing and downloading a few mp3's, which it's fine for. It's never gone down on me. Did that isp test, something like 380 kbps download and about 40 upload. I'm a student and it suits me because you don't have to sign a contract, if you change house or anything it will still work (once you stay in the area) and you don't need a phone line.

JNive

how are they not a telco, just cause they dont have a voice service ? lol
they offer a telecommunications service = telco
they dont however deliver it in an equal fashion, nor seem able to cope with their own advertising, they sell what they dont have a lot of the time.

Druid

They are an ISP, not a telco. It may be confusing to seperate the two since Eircom did kinda blur the lines for a long time.

kasintahan can get DSL which is more reliable due to the media it uses (the telco network which has to be up 99.999% of the time). IBB use radio antenna's as their media - its inherently unreliable thus they cant (and if they do, they shouldnt) claim to be as reliable as DSL.

I have yet to see an advert from IBB (or indeed any other ISP) that claim that a service they provide will offer extremely low pings and perfect reliability.

I can remember days when my phoneline worked fine, yet I could not connect eircom/indigo as I was getting engaged tone when dialing in.

If IBB can not provide the service they are contractally obliged to provide, you can cancel your connection and try somebody else. Its better to read a contract than to listen to marketing blurb.

So my advice is to stick with DSL, but if you cant get DSL then IBB are good!

PlasmaFish

Hi Druid, I am not trying to support IBB but just a note on wireless tech.

It can be as reliable as your standard PSTN line (DSL Broadband) and has proven to be as reliable as Fibre.

IBB have done it all wrong with there equipment. Their Alvarion wireless equipment costs them S**t loads, like €2k for the customers unit and about €10k up for a Base station, Just one 60 degrees sector. So you are getting the state of the art equipment and it can do 54Mbps! 1:1 Cont Upload and Download,
Once the equipment is installed, signal good at your end and the base station, clear site of mast and it will works to it’s potential.
They use the same equipment on a 1Mbps connection as a 4Mbps Leased line (1:1), it’s just settings.

When I got them in April I was very curious of what was involved in the LOS test as I didn’t what him to leave in hurry, With out making sure is work right!

Also by the way, basically all our national and international calls made up until 1995 were routed thru a fixed wireless system. So it had to reliable and it was. DSL can only go so far with 2 wires, 12Mbps/1Mbps is as fast as I’ve seen

beller b

12Mbps/1Mbps I'd be happy with that.... Come to think of it IBB woud be doing well with a quarter of that.

optiplexgx270

I still recon IBB are great DEPENDING on where you live and what mast you are on and plasmafish i thought i read the client equipment has a max of 6Mbs no ... ? (heading off to have a look now)

edit: results afaik we are using the 6Mb one no?

The SU-A-ff-3-1D-VL supports a CPE gross rate of up to 3 Mbps for a single user
The SU-A-ff-6-1D-VL supports a CPE gross rate of up to 6 Mbps for a single user
The SU-A-ff-6-BD-VL supports a CPE gross rate of up to 6 Mbps for multiple users
The SU-A-ff-54-BD-VL supports a CPE gross rate of up to 54 Mbps for multiple users

beller b

Depending on Where you live??????????????? That crap!!! I live 500m from the Collins Avenue Mast. I can see the thing from my back garden for gods sake.. IBB could not get me service on either ripwave or breeze....(Thank God!)... Where do you have to live ? in a tent under the mast?

PlasmaFish

Yes we have 6Mbps Muilti-users ones, there is a firmware update that increases it to 54Mbps! this works on the current unit's antenna if you are with in 3.5Km to 4km of the Base Station, 6Mbps works up to 6km to 8km of the Mast.

I had the glowery of a few hours playing around with the unit before if was lock out, as the installer came out twice. Basically everything is setup on the users unit. Bandwidth, contention, burst rate, cap QoS etc… there remotely controlled by Telnet. I updated my firmware while I had the chance but the speed was put down to 2Mbps

There equipment has alot of potential i can't understand why don't they use it?

beller b

The equipment has a lot of potential, I agree. Unfortunatly IBB do not!

PlasmaFish

beller b wrote:

Depending on Where you live??????????????? That crap!!! I live 500m from the Collins Avenue Mast. I can see the thing from my back garden for gods sake.. IBB could not get me service on either ripwave or breeze....(Thank God!)... Where do you have to live ? in a tent under the mast?

Just because you can see the mast clearly doesn’t mean it's going to work!

To have full 360 Degrees, 7km radius coverage area around a mast you need 7 sectors of 60 Degrees not all their masts are 360 Degrees all though in your case because your are so near the mast they should point it away from the base station equipment and face it a large building to get a reflected signal, (It's in the Alvarion Installation manual i don’t think they take heed to this)

I’m basically just stating facts regarding there equipment as they don’t utilize it to it’s potential.

beller b

I agree that distance isn't everything .. But when they tell you that they have already done & passed an LOS test it make you wonder what sort of signal they consider a pass?

PlasmaFish

beller b wrote:

I agree that distance isn't everything .. But when they tell you that they have already done & passed an LOS test it make you wonder what sort of signal they consider a pass?

Well they measure the signal-to-notice ration (SNR) this is both the quality and strength of your signal from the base station and then your transmitting signal at the base station end.

I have it in Galway since April, I am exactly 6.380km from the mast, the unit measures it some where in the settings. Also see attached pic

As I have said early post they came out twice to do a LOS, this is because the minimum SNR for Galway is 19dB, SNR
Dublin from what I was told is 22dB, SNR the unit will work ok at 14dB but this is not good enough when you get bad weather etc..

beller b

But when they PASS a test & the engineer comes to install it & he gets nothing...You have to question thier methods & competence

PlasmaFish

beller b wrote:

But when they PASS a test & the engineer comes to install it & he gets nothing...You have to question thier methods & competence

When you order, don't they book you in for a LOS test and install, if you pass they usually just go ahead and install. That’s the why it was done for me and a few neighbours. He just came out twice for me because they where doing some base station tests.

Really it seams like it’s all up to the installer.

Druid

Hey Plasmaflash,

I do agree with you that if its all setup correctly it can be as reliable as a fixed wired/fibre system. But there is always more potential for wireless system to fail.

Your point about voice traffic being trunked via wireless links is valid but there is one point Id like to mention. They use to (maybe still do) use microwave to transmit the data. I remember reading that rain effected the connections, so they had to put in redundant transmitters all over the place and re-route the data around the rain [tanenbaum].

To the best of my knowledge I think most (if not all) transatlantic voice now goes via the big ass fibre connection on the seabed.

I think wireless is a good media to use. Latency if fairly low and its fairly stable these days (the last equipment IBB used - the 2.4GHz - was known to be quite bad).

If push came to shove, and a company wanted me to consult on a reliable fault tolerant connection, I would not be suggesting wireless (in the form that IBB use).