Chorus Powernet Wireless Service info

yankinlk

Am i A sucker or is this the bizness?
40 squid a month inc vat
3gb download limit (2p / min above that)
12 month contract

I havent got it ordered cuz im a little sceptical, but i cant afford the isdn ericon charges anymore either...

...is this going to give me crap latency for cs and other online games - i dont surf or download, so im not bothered about that limit too much -

- basically, does anyone know the first thing about this or will i be the guinea pig, **** it cant hurt - except for the 12 month contract - doh.

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212.120.138.69 bayridge cs server

gandalf

Ah sucker.

If you are a heavy internet user then you'll have that 3GB's used in no-time. Then its 2p per minute (my understanding from your mail) which is twice the going rate from Eircon. Also Chorus have a very bad Customer Service rep from the Cable TV side of things.

I understand where your coming from. My ISDN charges are pathetic. The rental is the real killer. Eircon should lower the rental charges on ISDN to the same level as analogue lines at a minimum and if you are a good customer which I certainly am, they should scrap the line rental cost.

If one of the so-called alternative telcos had a clue they'd realise there are a load of people just waiting to change to a better & cheaper alternative.

Gandalf.

yankinlk

im with ya bro - but i really want to know is wireless worth my time? isdn gives me 70 - 90 ping in counter-strike...will wireless give me a better or worse (or unreliable ping) at less per month...

and i just hate givin money to eircon anyway.

so i could cancel my eircon charges - switch to chorus for phone for no monthly fee - pay 1/3 for my internet ( and thats with me surfing less not 24 hours per day for fear of a whopper of a phone bill)

yankinLK

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212.120.138.69 bayridge cs server

Moriarty

Apparently chorus are using wireless dsl technology for powernet, so id reckon pings of 30-40 wouldnt be too far out for average pings, if they have their equipment setup right.

Its also 2p per meg not per minute over 3gb per month. That could lead to big time costs if you download mp3's etc, or even if you play a fair amount of CS.

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Moriarty
moriarty@gamersfm.com

Clover

they say south side only . they sent me this

Hi Matt,

Our Internet service will be made available to the Southside
of Dublin only via Wireless network at the end of
April this year. In order to receive Powernet you will need
to have a direct line of sight to the base station
at Three Rock transmitter in Dublin.

Please find enclosed Powernet information as
requested.

Best regards,

Liza.

<<PowerNet pricing.doc>> <<PowerNet from Chorus.doc>>

[-FI-]Barra

hi
i am living in cork and am also interested in powernet i also think it sounds pretty good and i am on isdn and as u all said the price is fierce every month,,although i play cs a lot and dont download much else so roughly how much cs could i play before goin over the 3GB a month limit also this is the reply ii got from them!!

Hi Finbarr,


You will have an always on connection to the Internet with
Powernet. However there is an acceptable
usage policy with it. You will just pay £40 for the always
on connection per month but if you tend to go
over the dowload limit of 3GB pr month you will have to
tender a volume charge of 2p per MB after that.
this fees are all VAT inclusive. These will be the only
fees you will have to pay. If you do not go over the
GB limit, you will receive a bill for the sum of £40 only.
Powernet is a completely seperate package to the
TV and Phone services.

Kind regards,

Liza.

Kali

i reckon that 3gb a month is actually quite a fair limit, I mean as a fairly heavy modem user I only reach about 1.4Gb a month.
and tbh unless your big into music or warez then your not even gonna be breaking the 2.5Gb margin.

Where this latest term "wireless dsl" came from I don't know.. surely that makes no sense? considering its not even based on a DSL standard according to wdslconsortium.com
anyway they state that the interface should support QoS (Quality Of Service) basically meaning a guaranteed bandwidth.

and as for their minimum 12 month contract.. thats ****** and if their service isn't up to scratch you may opt out, its your consumer right, and there should be a trial period included anyway.

yankinlk

good point!
i love this country! in the states if they said 12 month contract youd have 50 lawyers on your ass for breaking it.

i am scheduled for thursday to have the lads install me powernet at work and home ... ill keep ya informed of developments.

no more eircon!!!!

i am in limerick not dublin by the way

Nero

Heh .... What sort of throughput do you get on this Chorus powernet thingy i.e. real speed (above 64k) or snail speed (below 64k)

Stonemason

Well yanklink ive been trying to get it but there giving me **** ache over it.If you can get it i personaly would go for it as for 3 gigs ill say this last time i checked after playing cs for 6 hours non-stop id run up only 16megs incoming data.Do da maffs hehehe coz i cant be arsed


Stone

Skeptic1

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by yankinlk:
good point!

i am scheduled for thursday to have the lads install me powernet at work and home ... ill keep ya informed of developments.

</font>

yankinlk

How did it go with this?

Coyote

well you will use more that that
3.2K a sec (1.6 dl rest upload)
if they chage for bandwiht used
99% of the time that is up + down
so you would use 3K a sec
3K X 60 sec X 60 min = 10800K a hour
that is 10.5mb a hour.
so in 6 hours you would need to send 60mb+

Coyote

[-FI-]Barra

to answer dat guys question Chorus Powernet,,they told me with the explanation bout powernet they would have 512k speeds i dont know if they this will be atainable or r they bull****ing ,,but i say if u can get near enough speeds of this i think it is worth it heh worst is u cant play cs non stop but it give u 1 over on eircom and lets face it isdn is way too expensive

tribble

Give him about 6 years...

Stonemason

And so it begins next theyll tell you you cant have it coz you have brown hair its a thursday and unfortunatly your pole is over 3 feet tall and they might have probs later on.Not trying to put you off it just came as a disapointment to me that i couldnt get it coz of a hight regulation [which was bs btw]


Stone

yankinlk

update = no update.

waiting on paperwork, blah blah blah.

no sign of an engineer yet.

po0k

Barra, stall the ball there.
the 512kiloBYTESpersecond is the total bandwidth available at any one time, in Ireland.
I too entered into e-mail correspondance with Chorus and Liza told me it was so.
Its not a wireless DSl service, just Wireless. I forget what its called but it has a range of around 11km, and you ahould get speeds of 64kBITSsps - 128 kBITSps.
There are other flavours of it too.
Chorus also do it over the cable tv system but they need to upgrade youur line first and have to send out a technician to survey the site.
Of course they still don't have the capacity for new customers so these techs are told to tell you that the area is not sutiable and that u can't get it.
that is a fact. It was mentioned on these very boards a while back too. I forget who posted it , but he/she knows who he/she is........I hope
[VTi]SyxPak

---

No-one ever suspects the Duck

Play Counterstrike.
Meet interesting people.
Kill them.
All of them.

SantaHoe

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Stonemason:
after playing cs for 6 hours non-stop id run up only 16megs incoming data</font>

Just curious, but wouldn't you be downloading more if you were using rate 10000 and a faster server update rate?
3 Gig limit sounds a bit pants TBH.

Moriarty

SyxPak, you got the kilobits & kilobytes mixed up

All connections are measured in kilobits, eg 512kb, 33kb etc etc. To get a rough average of the actual speed you will get, you divide by 9 or 10. So a 512kb line will give you about 55-60k/sec, and a 33kb modem will give you around 3.2-3.3k/sec.

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Moriarty
moriarty@gamersfm.com

Stonemason

santa it shouldnt make a difference how fast a connection you have all the download is is chatter from the server and your own machine server says are you still there your pc says yup [this is a very simplyfied version of what happens hehehe].Just coz you have more bandwidth doesnt make the server talk to you more.But if i rember right there are settings in either dial-up or in game where you can force the server to increase the amount of chatter the purpose being to reduce lag.Dont quote me on that though as im not 100% on this and im sure there are some wiser bods on these boards who can explain it better hehe.

Stone

Stephen

You can set the data rate in an FPS game. Most modem users use between 3000 and 4000 (ie about 3.5kb/sec). When you've got a high bandwidth connection you use a higher rate (10000+) for a more stable connection. This rate will be sending three times more data than the default. you see?

[-FI-]Barra

well i av isdn and i get a good ping with it but eircom are burning a hole in my pocket and often came near to eatin 3p cans of tomatoes a week so 40 quid 3Gb a month will do for me as it woeks out at 4 hours of cs a day per month so it sounds good to me

SantaHoe

Yes thank you munch

po0k

Moriarty, I know I might not have been the epitmoy of clarity fust there, but what I ment by the 512 was the total bandwidth available to the WHOLE powernet network.....
I too e-mailed Liz at Chorus and she was my source. I will have to check my sved e-mail , cos it was a while ago, but I'm nearly sure....
As for the connection ie: from you to the ISP, I THINK but am not SURE, thats its somewhere in the region of 128-256kilobitspersec, or 128-256kbps if you happen to like abbreviations, though they become a barrier to clarity and should be stamped out when Voice recognition gets better....
l33t my hole......
btw....at....lol.....ffs...faf(funny-as-phuck) all these started it, games have a lot to answer for in the fall of literature....
Waaaay off the point.
Correct me if I'm wrong please, sjhare to knowledge.
But I <again stressing this> I'm right here, but as I said I need to check it.
Might post the e-mails later if I find em...

---

No-one ever suspects the Duck

Play Counterstrike.
Meet interesting people.
Kill them.
All of them.

spod

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Moriarty:
SyxPak, you got the kilobits & kilobytes mixed up

All connections are measured in kilobits, eg 512kb, 33kb etc etc. To get a rough average of the actual speed you will get, you divide by 9 or 10. So a 512kb line will give you about 55-60k/sec, and a 33kb modem will give you around 3.2-3.3k/sec.


</font>

Seemingly Choruse fupped up withe their forms, it's 3GigaBytes not bits.

That's according to a mail I read on the iiu list, but I guess call chorus to confirm it.

bbt

nope spod your right,
that was my mail i sent iiu

i rang and finally got thru to a "nice" woman caroline..was helpful

she told me that they had had fuskered up on the GB , Gb comparison.

I got a call from a nice little girl in the "We'll take your name and details" department this morning asking if I had any other questions, and I said well, yea, whats the quality of service like, and don't gimme the "chorus strives to....bull****" she said she had seen it working and thought it was fster than a dial up...take that with how ever big a pinch of salt you want...

cheers

bBt

[-FI-]Barra

i am seriously considerin gettin it,,is there any1 else seriously thinkin bout gettin it as if it faster dan 64k ill be happy and with the flat rate u cant go wrong but does evey1 think tis a **** idea to get it?

(no mocking me emails plz?

Kali

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by bbt:
she said she had seen it working and thought it was fster than a dial up...take that with how ever big a pinch of salt you want...
</font>

yeah sure they give all their employees a demonstration so they know what they're talking aboot

Skeptic1

I spoke to Liz as well. Here's the deal:

512 kilobits per second (maximum) bandwidth.

This is shared bandwidth. The actual bandwidth you will actually get will depend on the dedicated bandwidth serving your node and also the activity of other users within your node. This is much the same for cable modem systems around the world (although Powernet is also offered as a wireless service).

3 gigabyte download for £40 with an additional + £0.02 per additional megabyte. This should be OK for normal surfing and gaming.

This is the only deal that approaches the idea of "broadband" currently being offered in Ireland now that NTL are nolonger offering cablemodem services (except to existing cablemodem subscribers) and xDSL is still unavailable.

What we don't know is how much bandwidth you will actually get in practice. We don't know their contention ratio. We also don't know their latency.

Does anyone actually have have this service? I've heard no comment about it on any message board, newsgroup or mailing list. You would expect some comment. Maybe they have a problem rolling it out.

If you can get it, it seems like a reasonable deal. I'm still a bit skeptical.


[This message has been edited by Skeptic1 (edited 02-04-2001).]

Kali

hmmm didn't realise it was shared out.
512 is a very small to be doing that with and it seems to me more a backbone (localloop) bandwidth issue on their behalf.

Still I can't imagine that the number of users in line of one transmitter is too high, but I'd definitly be wary of entering into a contract if there was.

As I said above if it _is actually_ wireless dsl they are peddling then it should have QoS, but I'm less likely to believe that it has after reading the above.

They most likely won't give out the information but I'd reccomend asking how many users are already connected to the transmitter.

Moriarty

Kali, it isnt shared in the sense your thinking about (if i understand you right )

What happens is there is say 4x 2meg lines linked into one local 'node'. When anyone starts to use their connection, they eat away at that 8meg bandwidth upto their max of 512k. So basically, you usually wont have a problem. This effects every other type of broadband in the same way (cable modems & dsl, except satellite of course).

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Moriarty
moriarty@gamersfm.com

spod

Is this marketing snakeoil or has anyone actually managed to get this yet?

And no seeing an in house demo doesn't count?

I'm starting to think this is sort of like the uk alta vista unmetered dial up fiasco...

Skeptic1

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by spod:
Is this marketing snakeoil or has anyone actually managed to get this yet?

And no seeing an in house demo doesn't count?

I'm starting to think this is sort of like the uk alta vista unmetered dial up fiasco...</font>

Like NTL, they are required roll out digital services. However, since NTL backed out of it (and got away with it), chorus may try and withdraw the offer some time in the future.

On the subject of shared bandwidth. This is the standard way of delivering cable modem services. Say 50 houses are in a 'node'. The total bandwidth is something less than 512k * 50. If not too many others are using their maximum capacity, it means that you may get 512kbps. However if a load of others are downloading big files, then everyone including those downloading get less than 512kbps. In countries with cablemodem and dsl services (and it's a lot of countries now) people find that during peak hours their available band width drops considerably. In some cases it goes down to about 56kbps, the same as an ordinary modem. However the latency is always lower and it's still an "always on" connection. In a properly balanced system it should not go below 200kbps. This is still a lot better than ISDN. And of course it's flat rate.

yankinlk

...THE UPDATE?.....
yes, i am still waiting...papers signed...faxed thru.....any day now...any day now they will come walking up my driveway....hoo.hooo....hoooooo...i just cant tell u...im as giddy as a schoolgirl......

Kali

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Moriarty:
Kali, it isnt shared in the sense your thinking about (if i understand you right )</font>

thats ok.

yankinlk

Update: Week two
..and so it begins...it's monday a full week from my papersigning. Not much accomplisehd last week at all. Bit of advice for you. One of those numbers chorus is advertising is not chorus at all, but a marketing company. If you spoke with Liza then you spoke with the marketing company.

DO NOT SIGN UP WITH THE MARKETING company. Basically they will tell you its now in Chorus' hands, and surprise! when you ring Chorus they will tell you that it's in the marketing companies hands. Liza is a very heplful very pleasant person and she really went out of her way to help me...

Then when i ring chorus itself, the woman (i wont give her name) is curt, matter of fact, and downright (p|ss off i dont get commission you loser) unhelpful.

So, i will update at the end of the week, really this is the week i expect anything to happen if it's going to. and as the eircom isdn bill is looming in my future, id like to have the old wireless in so i can take - oh as many years to pay them as its gonna take to get adsl from them ;P

yankinlk

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212.120.138.69 bayridge cs server