Irish (lack of) broadband and XBox live...

ozpass

A few questions regarding BB in Ireland and XBox Live:

1) Does anyone have BB and subscribe to XBox live?
2) Would Eircom's new offering be up to scratch as regards XBox live?
3) Does the higher latency on Eircom's offering rule it out (as compared to Esat for example)?
4) Would Satellite BB be useless for the same reason?

Cheers guys.

Dustaz

2. No, it would be fine for xbox live

3. It would just mean your latency would be higher than esats latency (altho with the new offer from eircom, the ping MIGHT come down)

4. Satellite would be totally useless for games. The distance the signal needs to travel means your latency (ping) would be in the region of 900ms or more

as for #1, I dont think xbox live is available here. ill refer you to my collegue shinji

Shinji

1) Er yeah, but not in Ireland

2) Yes - but Microsoft have not officially announced plans to launch Live in Ireland, so you'd be on an unsupported service and would have to import a Live starter kit.

3) No. Eircom's latency isn't THAT much higher as far as I can gather, and it's certainly within the acceptable range of Live's tolerance. However there won't be any Irish servers so your gameplay won't be as smooth as for users in the UK.

4) Yes. Satellite broadband has a basic latency of over a thousand milliseconds.

santalives

Microsoft a couple of months ago actually wanted to test how xbox live would work in ireland, however due to the lack of dsl in ireland they were unable to tect it properly as far as i remember, which is a bit of a pain in the ass. but for halo over live i think i can wait.

ozpass

Thanks guys, exactly what I was looking for!

Now I've just got to buy a house within acceptable distance of an enabled exchange (which is happening this July).

How disappointing that my Mum could (technically*) be playing XBox live now whilst I'm bound to wait. *sigh*


*The chances of my Mum actually buying an XBox and hooking it up to Live are somewhat less than f*** all- but she could if she wanted to.

Kevok

Halo isn't compatible with Xbox live.

However you can play it online by networking your xbox to your pc and using gamespy tunnel or xboxconnect.

Señor Juárez

what you could try is www.irishbroadband.ie

they have pings of 15-20 on irish infrastructure
and something like 25-30 to london servers

thats wats on their site neway. they are cheaper than esat and eircom, but it is a pain to pay for the installation if you have already splashed out for adsl gear

ozpass

Tragically I live in Cork and IrishBroadband only offer their service to a limited area in Dublin. We're only just having sewers installed in Cork city centre, so I'm not too hopeful...:(

Señor Juárez

all is not lost. i have heard that if they get sufficient interest in a certain area, they will certainly considir eventually putting up transmitters. even outside dublin, in places like limerick and cork

The Cigarette Smoking Man

You can get the xbox live kit from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000083XHP/ref=sr_aps_videogames_1_1/202-8614566-4167812

shabbyroad

before you all go off ordering Xbox Live kits you need to make sure that you have a credit card with an address in a country where the service has launched.
If you don't have this then the kit will be pretty useless.

There are of course workarounds but they involve having people in those countries (UK , USA for example) setting up an account for you and you then send them the money every month.

it's a pity that it's not yet available here because it's brilliant (especially the communicator facility).

Tom

All you need is a valid postcode, you can still subscribe with a credit card, use an Irish address but give a UK postcode.

You will not be charged until March 2004 as the kit includes the first year sub. With luck it will be officially available here by then and you can change your billing address.

jonski

did I hear /read wrong today or is xboxlive not asctually being launched till this friday , that was my understanding anyways.

Tom

It is offically launched on Friday but it has been in Beta testing for nearly two months now and has been running like a dream...

CivilServant

For those of you who can't wait. There's always xbconnect It's got a lot going for it. First it's free, second you CAN play Halo online and third it's not microsoft. There's plenty more good reasons to play ...

Have not tried it myself but when eircom/esat get off their butts, it'll be the first thing I do!

Tom

I happened to be in Virgin in the Square today and they were selling the XBox live kit even though it is not offically launched here.