3gb limit on Eircom DSL and other questions

Sloth

Heya, just as this is my first post I thought I'd introduce myself (feel free to skip down to my actual question if you want ).
I've been playing online games now for over 3 years and have had to watch people fly ahead of me in my personal favourite Ultima Online. The fact that everybloodyone else can be on during the day time and enjoy lag free gaming at a flat rate has me fuming with jealousy nearly every day so as you can imagine when I heard about the upcoming reduction in dsl prices here I was thrilled. I was informed by ntl that it would be another 2 years before I'd be able to get cable where I live (which is crazy since I only live a few miles from the city centre)


Now heres the crux of the issue. I've read on the site that theres a 3gb monthly limit on downloads. What I'm wondering is how the hell can it tell the difference between normal web browsing and games as opposed to downloading a program? Also 3gb seems incredibly stingy to me and probably won't cut the mustard in terms of how much stuff I want/deserve to be able to
download. Does the 3gb limit bother the rest of you or is it only me that sees it as a potential problem?

Other questions I'm hoping you can answer:
Will Eircom DSL be Xbox Live/Gamecube broadband compatible?
Is 256k really good enough? (in england anything below 512 isn't classified as broadband).

That's it for the moment, hopefully this spew of general annoyance regarding our situation is mildly comprehensible

Mark_irl

The 3gb limit includes all data transfered during web browsing and game playing, not just downloading files.

MagicBusDriver

Its not a huge problem, Eircom have not charged anyone yet for going over it. It just makes you nervous when the bill arrives. Other ISP might take up the wholesale product so I would expect that there will be flat rate offerings.

Ardmore

Originally posted by Sloth
I've read on the site that theres a 3gb monthly limit on downloads.

i-Stream Solo has a 3GB "download allowance" included in your monthly package. There's no limit to how much you can download, but eircom "reserve the right" to charge you 3.7c/MB for downloads in excess of your "download allowance". As far as anyone knows, nobody has ever been charged for using more than their allowance, but it's only a matter of time before they do.

The proposed new service is supposed to have a 4GB "download allowance".

What I'm wondering is how the hell can it tell the difference between normal web browsing and games as opposed to downloading a program?

What difference? There is no difference. If a byte of data reaches your machine, you've downloaded it. (semantics aside, don't plan on running any P2P stuff on this).

Also 3gb seems incredibly stingy to me and probably won't cut the mustard in terms of how much stuff I want/deserve

Deserve? My heart bleeds for you.

Is 256k really good enough? (in england anything below 512 isn't classified as broadband).

256? All of eircoms broadband offerings are 512k or above (though the proposed new offering will be rate adaptive, so that people further from the exchange might not get the full whack).

Eircom announced their intentions for the new broadband product 2 months ago, though they didn't bother getting approval from the regulator before they announced it.

LFCFan

Originally posted by Ardmore
Deserve? My heart bleeds for you.

I think if you're gonna be paying rediculous amounts of your money for Broadband then yes, you do deserve to be able to download what the hell you like(within reason of course).

Ardmore

Originally posted by LFCFan
I think if you're gonna be paying rediculous amounts of your money for Broadband then yes, you do deserve to be able to download what the hell you like(within reason of course).

If you sign a contract for a service that includes a 4GB "download allowance" then you deserve 4GB.

LFCFan

Originally posted by Ardmore
If you sign a contract for a service that includes a 4GB "download allowance" then you deserve 4GB.

that's true and there's not a hope in hell that I'd ever sign up for any of the crap offerings from €ircon or €shat. Unfortunatly people don't have much choice in this country when it comes to broadband. You may have to sign a 1 year contract with a cap, but it doesn't make it alright, does it.

Sloth

Ok well I was getting all my info from the guy at the other end of the phone in Eircom HQ or wherever it is that those helpline guys are.
Basically I was told that the residential rate was at the €55 mark and that gave you a 256 minimum connection (which will presumably be closer to the 512 mark) with a 3gb allowance. I was then also told that web browsing and games did not count towards your allowance. This is also then confirmed on the Eircom site which states:
"The monthly fee covers charges for transporting traffic across the Internet within specified monthly limits (download allowance). This excludes fees that may be applied to access sites or additional services eircom may seek to charge for in the future"
How that works out exactly I'm not sure but I plan to use the internet for about 40 hours a week. Will that mean that I'll be miles over the limit or will I be ok?

What I'm really wondering is whether or not I should go ahead with i-stream (my line past the tests) or whether I should sit on my hands and wait for a better offer to come along?

Blade

I was then also told that web browsing and games did not count towards your allowance

Emmm I don't think this is correct as they can't differentiate the type of data going through, well they can but it's a lot of hassle! Try get this in writing from them if an employee said this to you

This is also then confirmed on the Eircom site which states:
"The monthly fee covers charges for transporting traffic across the Internet within specified monthly limits (download allowance). This excludes fees that may be applied to access sites or additional services eircom may seek to charge for in the future"

Your getting confused about this. What they're talking about is that it excludes access to pay web sites that have nothing to do with eircom, like you paying to access a porn site or something

zz03

Originally posted by Blade




Your getting confused about this. What they're talking about is that it excludes access to pay web sites that have nothing to do with eircom, like you paying to access a porn site or something

Surely they are talking about additional services which might be provided *by eircom* at a future point in time? Like watching movies or pay as you play games?

As an aside given that a single movie would use up the entire eircom download allowance for a month one assumes that it won't count for traffic charges. If and when such a service materialises.

zz..

Sloth

Heh yeah ok I get you. I also now officially give up those information lines as all the people on the other end seem to be clueless dimwits who couldn't tell an ADSL line from a printer cable.

Anyways I think I'm pretty much left with one question now:
Do I wait for a better deal or go ahead and get i-stream?

LFCFan

Originally posted by Sloth
Heh yeah ok I get you. I also now officially give up those information lines as all the people on the other end seem to be clueless dimwits who couldn't tell an ADSL line from a printer cable.

Anyways I think I'm pretty much left with one question now:
Do I wait for a better deal or go ahead and get i-stream?

If you get i-Stream you're locked into a 1 year contract paying rediculous amounts of money and then in a few months when other operators start offering ADSL based on €ircon's wholesale prices you'll be kicking yourself. I'd say wait and hope you can get it off someone like UTVip instead of giving €ircon any more money than you have to.

Sloth

How long a wait are we talking about before other companies set up their service? If it's anything over 6 months I'm going to go ahead with i-stream. What I really want is to have the bb connection during the summer months as after that I pretty much (theoretically) have to hit the books. Any rough guesses on how long it'll take the competition to get going?

Ardmore

Originally posted by Sloth
How long a wait are we talking about before other companies set up their service? If it's anything over 6 months I'm going to go ahead with i-stream. What I really want is to have the bb connection during the summer months as after that I pretty much (theoretically) have to hit the books. Any rough guesses on how long it'll take the competition to get going?

eircom isn't allowed to offer the service for 21 days after they agree a wholesale price with the regulator, to give others a chance to put a product offering together during that time. But it's unlikely that anyone other operators will have an offering available in that time frame, and they're already up to their eyeballs trying to finalise flat-rate dial-up packages based on FRIACO anyway, so I'd guess that it's more likely to be 2 or 3 months at the earliest.

Sloth

2 or 3 months eh? That's just about within my tolerance levels.

Ardmore

Originally posted by Sloth
2 or 3 months eh? That's just about within my tolerance levels.

Do note that my advice is worth precisely what you paid for it

SkepticOne

I think Ardmore might be a little optimistic. My fear is that this 54 euro DSL is little more than words on Eircom's part designed to influence policy makers, a mere carrot being dangled in front of Ahern and ComReg.

Ardmore

Originally posted by SkepticOne
I think Ardmore might be a little optimistic. My fear is that this 54 euro DSL is little more than words on Eircom's part designed to influence policy makers, a mere carrot being dangled in front of Ahern and ComReg.

I'll bet you a tenner that by the end of April, at least one person will have posted to this forum from using eircoms RADSL service.

We have heard details of this service from numerous different sources. It's not just bumpf from the eircom propaganda department.