Leap Broadband (exists and works, wow!)

spongebob

Have heard nothing in here about Leap for a month or so.

Have they any plans to expand?

How happy are their customers?

M

strat

misleading topic ?

vinnyfitz

Originally posted by StrataGIST
misleading topic ?

I hope not. I would like to know the answer to Muck's question also.

spongebob

Yo!

I wished to praise the living for a change instead of joining in (or starting) the bEEtching about vapourware operators. Thought it worthy of its own thread too.

Leap exist and work in central Dublin only AFAIK

I would simply like to hear how things are going because at least one of their customers is a regular here....as is one of the founders.

M

Coyler

I've been on it now for about a month at 512kb/s. No complaints whatsoever. Infact the service I've got was and still is exceptional. They had it installed in 4 days of the first phone call.
The ping to Irish servers are'nt great because there tied into the NTL (I Think) network which is U.K. based. However I do get a solid ping of 40ms to barrysworld, Jolt, Blueyonder et al and a constant 60Kb download. And there's no issue with caps or the amount of computers you share the connection with( A SMC Barricade 7004ABR2 routing to 2 PCs and 2 Macs if anyone is interested).
As far as there coverage goes(I'm out by Milltown by the way), when I last talked with them they seemed to be expanding relatively quickly so it might be worth a call. There certainly knowledgeble and will be able to answer any of your questions. As for me, I'm thinking of upgrading to the Business 3 model.

Coyler

spongebob

....could be sorted out with an inex connection anyway. In time no doubt.

Isn't it odd to hear a happy Irish broadband customer posting in here ....although there is at least one in Limerick too.

M

Dustaz

errr, i thought they were still trialling that product?

If not, how much is it per month?

Cond0r

Prices here

Fallschirmjager

well what is this with (( a month...BEN DUNNE HAS A LOT TO ANSWER FOR I SWEAR!!!


well i suppose its better then eircom as their is no cap (if iread it right).


yet another small step on the way...

Gaz

We use leap for our internet in work, i asked our tech contact on the posibilities of home use and she said they are doing tests in the next few weeks and if sucsessful they hope to offer broadband wo all of dublin.

Lets wait and see !!!

Dustaz

Leap gets my thumbs up anyway.

They are a live service, with a lot of advantages over eircoms product. No cap, Fixed IP and best of all, the speeds quoted on the website are Symmetrical ! As a result, leaps entry offering has a higher upload speed than any of eircoms DSL solutions.

According to leap, they hope to have the whole of south dublin covered by the end of the summer. That would be good news indeed seeing as that is half of eircoms current target market.

ando

Originally posted by Dustaz
According to leap, they hope to have the whole of south dublin covered by the end of the summer. That would be good news indeed seeing as that is half of eircoms current target market.

well woopiee .... :mad:

another broadband company completely ignores north dublin

Dustaz

Give it time.

Or do you think theres a big 'ignore the knackers on DNS' broadband conspiracy too?

crawler

ntl Peer into INEX http://www.inex.ie/

segadreamcast

Originally posted by ando


well woopiee .... :mad:

another broadband company completely ignores north dublin

I have to agree >.< ridiculous bias

LoBo

what's the story with leap? I couldn't find info on a quick look at their site about what sort of broadband offering it is (ie, cable.. dsl).. anyone know? if its wireless, how reliable etc is this? what hardware costs are involved?

pricewise, its on the same level as Eircom's dsl offering (albeit with no cap) ...

can we not just join the UK and get decent competitive pricing then? :P

Coyler

As far as the technology goes it's a variant on the 802.11 standard and its certainly seems to be reliable. Haven't had any downtime and there doesn't seem to be any serious packet loss while gaming. As far as coverage goes I seem to remember that they had coverage as far as Drumcondra, but like I said in my previous post you may want to call them. At least when I called them I got most helpful and savvy operator who bent over backwards to sort me out.
Oh and by the way I don't work for them. I know I'm gushing but I can't help but walk about with a permanent smile at the moment. Sorry

Coyler

Sorry forgot to add that the setup charges are roughly €100. Can't find the bill at the mo but its around that region.

Kenshin

Originally posted by Coyler
Sorry forgot to add that the setup charges are roughly €100. Can't find the bill at the mo but its around that region.

That's not too expensive, does that cover the necessary equipment+installation?
I'm going to email them now and ask them if they've got coverage in my area.

Actually, I live in an apartment block, so I don't know if I'll be able to get a wireless connection from inside my apartment

LoBo

LoT - is that robin?

I might also email them... despite a slight feeling that wireless isn't as good - eg higher pings for online gaming, despite downloads being as good.

also as I said above their pricing is no better than eircon's...

Coyler

These are the ping you get to barrysworld. Now if I can only get good at the gaming side of things I'd be flying. Oh and yes the setup charges includes the installation+equipment.

Meh

Originally posted by LoBo
I might also email them... despite a slight feeling that wireless isn't as good - eg higher pings for online gaming, despite downloads being as good.

It's only satellite wireless that has the higher pings. I think I read that Eircom's i-stream uses a DSL implementation that allows greater distance from the exchange, at the expense of higher latency.
So this product will probably give you better pings than i-stream.

Dustaz

Meh is correct, You should get a better ping with leap than with eircoms dsl.

Lobo, read up to the previous posts for the other advantages over i-stream

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Originally posted by crawler
ntl Peer into INEX http://www.inex.ie/

They do, but that doesn't necessarily mean all their local traffic goes down it. None of their cable modem customers use the INEX peering - all their traffic goes through the UK.

Also with Via Networks - if you do a traceroute to a Via IP from Oceanfree/Eircom.net the traceroute will tell you that it's going through the INEX, but it's only going through the INEX one way - it comes back through the UK.

Kenshin

Originally posted by LoBo
LoT - is that robin?

I might also email them... despite a slight feeling that wireless isn't as good - eg higher pings for online gaming, despite downloads being as good.

also as I said above their pricing is no better than eircon's...

Yeah Colm, it's me
I'm really busy at work here.... *cough*
(Testing LotR on the XBox... waiting for a new build...)

Anyway, with the new wireless companies that seem to appearing around the place, I hope they introduce competitive prices...

I have a question: How much bandwidth is shared between how many people at an exchange? It would be scary to think that if a couple of users were running Kazaa 24/7 I would get crappy pings all day long...

Scruff

Is SOHO the residential product or whats it mean?
If it is the residential product, how hard is it to set up so that everyone (3 in this case) on a home network could get access to the internet over this boradband connection?

Dustaz

soho = Small Office/Home Office
Yeh, that would be the residential one.


It wouldnt be hard to share the connection. Not sure if its allowed under the terms and conditions.


LoT: Since there is no copper lines involved, theres no exchanges involved. There are potentially contention issues however. When i asked the guy on the phone he said there was virtually no contention problems due to the fact its still quite a small operatation.

Maybe someone else knows how bad contention effects can be on a wireless network compared to dsl and cable networks?

DeVore

It is allowed (I should know, I'm using it to type this).

Its latency to Barrysworld is a rock solid 50-60 ping (with my leet q3 config!)

They have no problem with you sharing it amongst flatmates (in fact they helped us do that) and its completely unmetered (otherwise I'd be BROKE now haha).

I did post all this here before... sheesh
(cf: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55432)

DeV.

d0gb0y

Why haven't i heard of these before:mad:
but now I know and will find out tomorrow if its available in my area.
***com get nothin off me anymore...hopefully
screw ***com, who would want to stay with those fecks after what they have made us pay for 1980's connections

Dustaz

They seem to be covering South dublin atm (near the centre)

Kenshin

Originally posted by Dustaz
They seem to be covering South dublin atm (near the centre)

Damn, I wish I lived closer to the centre...
I got this reply from Leap today:

Time: 31-7-2002-4:12
: Right now we do not have coverage in Kiliney. We may have coverage there in 6-8 weeks as we are testing a new technology that would give us greater reach. We will be making announcements as and when we are servicing your area.

Best regards,

Charlie.

Thank you,

LEAP Sales Department

It took them 2 hours to reply, which is pretty good...
I wonder what this "new technology" is that he mentions.... could be promising I guess

El_MUERkO

I emailed them enquiring about the Phibsboro, Dublin 9 area, so far they havent got back to me.

Gaz

As far as i know the new technology they are testing is so that they dont require direct line of sight , with this new tech they can bounce the wireless signal.

Means more people will be able to use it.

thegills

Lads. Perhaps Leap can add to this.
Leap acquired Formus's assets which included 4 base stations. I think Park House, RTE Donnybrook, Alexander Quay are three of them so Phibsboro should be covered by Park House. I presume they are busy acquiring more sites.

STaN

doesnt look like dublin 15 is in luck here

i live right beside the entrance to the pheonix park in castleknock, would it reach 10miles?

Saruman

Im a little further still Palmerstown (dub 20) It would be great if i could get it!!

LoBo

still waiting to hear back from them about an enquiry I made yesterday about availability in Dun Laoghaire area. Anyone asked them about this and heard yes/no ? Apart from LoT who's in the Killiney area

El_MUERkO

I sent a mail on Tuesday and got put on a helpdesk thing with no reply yet. I'm going to try ring them a an hour.

LoBo

just got my response from Leap about availability of their service in Dun Laoghaire:

At the moment the Leap Broadband serivce is limited to D2, 4, 6 and the surrounding areas in the city. It will be some months before we are servicing your area, however the roll out may be accelerated. We will be making announcements as and when there are significant developments in this regard.

Hope its 'accelerated' alright - i'm very interested in this service based on what people who use it have said in this thread. 24/7 unmetered broadband that works that well... I will pay €100 per month for it. Hell it costs us more per month with our 56k dialup and we're not always on we're clockwatching....

Even if the UK get it for less than half that price... it would still be a huge step in the right direction. Go on Leap - roll out your service!

Colm

Kenshin

Originally posted by LoBo
just got my response from Leap about availability of their service in Dun Laoghaire:

Hope its 'accelerated' alright - i'm very interested in this service based on what people who use it have said in this thread. 24/7 unmetered broadband that works that well... I will pay €100 per month for it. Hell it costs us more per month with our 56k dialup and we're not always on we're clockwatching....

Even if the UK get it for less than half that price... it would still be a huge step in the right direction. Go on Leap - roll out your service!

Colm

Yeah 512 / 512 Kb/s with no cap is awesome, but I don't know if it's worth paying €100 a month for. I guess it's ok for you, as all your family uses the net... But I live on my own atm, and I'm still on the IOL No Limits flatrate for £20/month...

The response you got seems a bit more pessimistic than the one I got

I encourage everyone that lives near Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey, etc to send them an email, so they see that there are alot of potential customers in the area

The address is sales@leap.ie

mdf

B]Kiliney.[/B]

Would you trust anyone for DSL who couldn't spell where you live????

phoenix2181

I've just signed up, rang the guy who was very helpful & knew his stuff & they will installing @ the end of the month...... so I'l be the first person in the cabinteely area

spongebob

Simple.

no silly promises made that I know of and no promises broken..........

Leap have so far seemed to do, properly, what they said they were going to and around the time when they said they would do it, not years later. This is why I started the thread.

In the vapourware heaven that is Irish Broadband this should be acknowledged as more or less a first.

They are the only game in Dublin bar €ircon and a little patch of south Dublin that has NTL Cable.

M

DeVore

They are excellent imho.

In fact, SO nice and friendly and helpful that I actually DONT want you all to get it so they they can remain my little private ISP.

They tend to do what they say they will and they are even concerned about latency issues and routing (in fact I was gobsmacked then the person I was talking to KNEW that the routing should have gone through the Inex and that its was an incorrect routing table. This was the person who answered the phone! ! ! )

Anyway, I think they are just brill because they gave me affordable broadband. God bless Leap.
(a 50 ping in q3 to Barrysworld doesnt hurt much either )


DeV.

Felix Randel

I'd Just like to say i was in contact with leap yesterday, they are extremely nice people, they do have a certain amounth of coverage on the nort of the city, in the area just accross the water. I know this because upon questioning them about the areas they were in i found out that i could in fact get the service. Not expecting this I handn't the money together to get the service at this point in time but i do hope to do so within a few months.

STaN

When asked when leap will be servicing dublin west (blanchardstown, castleknock, cabra, dublin 15, 7) they replied:

Charlie.

Right now the service is available in D2, 4, and 6. It will be some time possibly the end of the year before we are servicing your area. This roll out may be accelerated however and we will be making announcements on our web site and in the media regarding the same.

regards,

Charlie.

At least is better than never :rolleyes:

/me gets isdn till then

corkey

Clondalkin D.22??