alternatives to eircom - phone and broadband

Hells_Belle

So Eircom tells me it takes 28 days to lay in a new phone line and that they can't guarantee we'll be able to have broadband once the line is in.

Uh, thanks for that.

So what are my options if speed is of the essence? I cannot wait for a month to have phone and Internet because I work from home. Who's quick with the installs? Can I get cable? Fixed wireless? City WiFi?

We can do VOIP for phone in a crunch; the broadband is really the thing...

rymus

given that IBB is essentially pants nowadays (according to the folks over in the broadband forum anyway) you may want to consider nova networks www.novanetworks.ie I think or amocom www.amocom.com. Come to think of it actually, nova is probably the best bet. I think amocom are expensive in comparison. Course all this depends on you having line of sight to the transmitters. I think Nova's city transmitter is up in Collin's Barracks. I wouldnt mind a nice symmetric 1mbit connection...

netron

i'll be after the same thing when i move back to Cork in about a months time. 28 days sounds excessive - was there a phone line in place already in your property? is it a brand new house maybe?

parasite

smart and bt both do unbundled lines in some exchanges in the city centre, i'm not sure if you have to get the line from eircom at first, or if you can go straight to smart/bt

that said, seemingly all telecoms companies act slowly and incompetently, so you'll be guaranteed some downtime at least

Hells_Belle

netron wrote:

i'll be after the same thing when i move back to Cork in about a months time. 28 days sounds excessive - was there a phone line in place already in your property? is it a brand new house maybe?

There was a line in place - I had to buy a new phone in Cork and plug it into the wall and call 1505 or whatever the Eircom number is so they could "test the line." Despite the fact there was obviously a working line, Eircom told me a week later that because there had been no phone service to the flat since 1999 (students who rented it before us presumably used mobiles?) a new line would have to be installed. 28 days is apparently just how long the engineering waiting list is.

After we've had the line installed, they can then test it for suitablility for broadband, which only has a 5 day lead time.

So if, unlike us, you're moving into a place with a working phone line and current Eircom service, they should be able to switch your phone service on within 24 hours and give you broadband 5 working days after that. Assuming you have everything in place (which we sadly don't) I don't think that's too bad...

Novanetworks is looking good! Thanks for that. I have no idea if we're in the line of site, and no idea how long till they can deliver the €139 worth of kit and installation, but I will ring them first thing in the morning before our plane leaves.

If it's a while until they can install, it looks like we'll have to rely on the city's wifi network and hope hope hope we're in the 1.5 km region covererd...

netron

do you need a Gmail account , so that you can , at least, have email access to Nova etc via an internet cafe say?

i can send you an invite.


that eircom stuff sounds like a right joke - i'll probably go with nova as well. they sound like far less hassle (i've mailed them about it)


word of warning - the city's wifi network you refer to is NOT free. you need bitbuzz.com vouchers - usually given out free if you buy a pint or coffee in the Bodega and other places. But the vouchers, if you want to buy them, are NOT cheap. check out nova's coverage on novanetworks.ie - and send them a mail asking about if your new place is covered by them.

Hells_Belle

netron wrote:

do you need a Gmail account , so that you can , at least, have email access to Nova etc via an internet cafe say?

i can send you an invite.

Aww, thank you! We're all hooked up with Gmail and webmail for our domain accounts, though - we're pretty portable people

word of warning - the city's wifi network you refer to is NOT free. you need bitbuzz.com vouchers - usually given out free if you buy a pint or coffee in the Bodega and other places. But the vouchers, if you want to buy them, are NOT cheap.

OK, wait a minute - I was talking about this:

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/050824/218/fqdph.html

...the Council's city wifi network rolled out with Smart, not a traditional wifi hotspot at a hotel or coffee place. It sounds like it's e10 a day, which would be worth it for us to be able to have even a rudimentary connection immediately. This is different than the Bitbuzz voucher system tied to specific locations, yes?

dahamsta

Eircom are lying to you - the line can most likely be reactivated - but since you're in a rush, and it'll take a year to get a muppet from ComReg to actually follow through on your behalf, I'd concur with rymus.

A colleague of mine in the networking business just set himself up with Nova. He built some of their network, so I'd look on that as a recommendation.

adam

netron

...the Council's city wifi network rolled out with Smart, not a traditional wifi hotspot at a hotel or coffee place. It sounds like it's e10 a day, which would be worth it for us to be able to have even a rudimentary connection immediately. This is different than the Bitbuzz voucher system tied to specific locations, yes?

10 euro a day can quickly add up, especially if you are a home worker.
- thats nearly 300 euro a month. Not cheap.

nova are looking good to me anyway , esp. after dahamsta's recommendation above. i'd give them a shot.

Hells_Belle

netron wrote:

10 euro a day can quickly add up, especially if you are a home worker.
- thats nearly 300 euro a month. Not cheap.

nova are looking good to me anyway , esp. after dahamsta's recommendation above. i'd give them a shot.

Oh, I agree... I'm calling them first thing in the morning; I'm just saying that if it takes Nova 7 days to get to our house, we can use the city's WiFi for a week and that would be OK with us as we desperately need to have a working internet connection from somewhere - anywhere - ASAP.

netron

Hells_Belle wrote:

Oh, I agree... I'm calling them first thing in the morning; I'm just saying that if it takes Nova 7 days to get to our house, we can use the city's WiFi for a week and that would be OK with us as we desperately need to have a working internet connection from somewhere - anywhere - ASAP.

go to the Bodega and ask for a bitbuzz voucher.
worth a try. you'll need to buy a coffee though , but then again, you'll probably be doing that anyway.


in fairness to bitbuzz, i got some vouchers off them after i mentioned on a mailing list that the Bodega had run out of vouchers and i was asking where i could get free wifi for the price of a coffee. bitbuzz chap mailed me and sent me a few 30 minute online vouchers. sound out.

might be worth sending bitbuzz a mail and letting them know about your situation, and then see what happens.

the other place to try is the Kylemore cafe in Merchants Quay - they're bitbuzz as well and its the same deal - buy a coffee, get a 30 minute voucher.

Illkillya

I'll second that about Nova Networks - by far the best in Cork imo. When I was trying to get broadband, Irishbroadband wouldn't even talk to me (and from what I'm reading on the broadband forums it seems I was lucky ) Leap was too expensive / business only and I doubt they would have covered me anyway... Amocom was a bit of a disaster, their quality is poor, their service poor and their prices high.

Nova have a few transmitters covering most of the city - its on their website http://www.novanetworks.ie/coverage/

netron

thats good to know - i'm moving over in a months time. thanks!

i also need broadband FAST when i move over - remote working and all that.

dahamsta

netron wrote:

might be worth sending bitbuzz a mail and letting them know about your situation, and then see what happens.

Ask for Alex, tell him Adam from IEDR-FORUM says Hi. He'll probably try to charge you double but it's worth a shot.

adam

netron

or adam from CLUG

dahamsta

That Adam fella gets around alright.

Hells_Belle

Right, ordered from Nova - two weeks until installation! The bloke was very nice as well. I tried to convey how desperate we are, and he said if they've a cancellation they'll try to put me in earlier

dahamsta

Thinking of ordering with Nova meself now actually - BT are still absolute cack at billing - and switching voice over to Blueface. However I live in an apartment building so I need to get the lads out to do a LoS test, to see where the antennae'll need to go. So let us know how you get on.

adam

Hells_Belle

dahamsta wrote:

However I live in an apartment building so I need to get the lads out to do a LoS test, to see where the antennae'll need to go. So let us know how you get on.

OK, so short answer: not well. The folks at Nova (mostly a guy called Dave) did really well by us, scheduling an installer about 5 days earlier than quoted when I begged for quicker access to broadband. That was very nice of him.

Sadly, the guy turned up at 11 am, and we have no LoS, so we're just out of luck on that one.

Luckily I had also scheduled broadband installation from Eircom earlier in the week (we were so desperate, it was really down to who could install earlier) so I didn't have to start the clock all over with Eircom. The bad news is that the date Eircom gave me (20 September) is more than 2 weeks from when I rang.

So, we're on dial-up for now. And running up one hell of a bill, I imagine. Very frustrating all around.

dahamsta

Thanks for the update HB.

Paladin

Chorus rolling out in certain areas of Cork city. Worth checking out.

dahamsta

Paladin wrote:

Chorus rolling out in certain areas of Cork city. Worth checking out.

Be more productive to check out a shot to the head. Chorus are thieves.

Hells_Belle

We tired Chorus. I was OK with being ripped off (we're going to be paying Eircom e89 a month anyway) as long as they could just GET ME BROADBAND arrrgh the desperation...

Anyway, we're out of their rollout area for now. They said to ring back in 3 months. Even Eircom is better than that.

gibbon75

I live just off Patrick Street.I've signed up with Smart Telecom:
free line rental and broadband(2Mbit/128kbit) is €35/month.For €40 you can get 2Mbit/256kbit.No download cap,no install fee.
I'm on the Cork Central phone exchange,it will go alive wtih Smart on September 23.
You can check the availability of your phone exchange on their website.
Just type in your phone number...
If it says your exchange is in their future plan,just send an email and they can give you an estimated date.
I think this a good offer.

din0saur

What about Digiweb or Magnet

Digiweb deploys 3Mbps cable/wireless broadband
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5363

Magnet claims a market first with ADSL2+
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5418

netron

i've moved to Cork and ordered a Nova Networks install on their website on September 18th.
No email correspondence back from them as to when i'll get an engineer out to install it.

Called Digiweb as a backup , but they said that their Metro service will take about 6 to 8 weeks to install.

jank

Im with UTV at the moment but im considering to go with BT as they have a much better deal all round imo.

UTV is very inconsistent and the 8GIG cap is seriously starting to piss me off.