my search for broadband

brian_ire

hi, i'm new. i'm also young and a bit naive. this morning was the morning when i was going to get broadband. i got a cup of tea and a bit of toast and made myself comfortable, i knew it was going to be a long day as i planned to ring every broadband provider in my area and check which had the best product. this is my day:

Eircom: the best option was to go for the big duck and work my way down. as i would soon learn this was one lame duck, not the methaphorical lame duck either, but a duck which was actually lame. i got on to the first sales rep who informed me that I-Stream Starter was the best product for me. fair enuf, so i asked for some info about it, 4Gb cap, EUR495 to get connected and online. however the first sales rep wasn't that confident about exact details as i started askin more questions. so on to the tech support. here i got the shock of my life, the speed of this product is 512KB/s

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> 256KB/s depending on how far i lived away for the exchange. that wasn't the shock tho'.. this was; the contention ratio is 48:1. luckly i had my trusty calculator beside me, "so in the extreme case there is a chance of the speed going at 5.3KB/s, thats 10 times slower than my modem at the moment" i responded with disbelief in my voice. his resonse was "yes thats true". my good good god, EUR495 for the chance of going 10 times slower than my rusty old 56K modem. i was visibily shaken but i continued my questioning. "why is there a 4GB cap i asked" unfortunately Tech supp man was unable to answer. i had now progressed to level 3 of the infamous 'eircom pass the buck game'. anyway back at sales i was told that they were unable to tell me why there was a cap and they would get me a 'product manager' who would call me back. score.. level 4 but like when you accidently staple your tongue to a wall, i was stuck. it's now 8.45pm... i still await a call back, i will post the response if i ever get one.

NTL HOME: As they provide me with a cable tv service they were the next obvious choice. i live in cabinteely, NTL isn't avavilable here yet tho' but they are planning on rolling it out soon, but i couldn't get a definite answer to when. short and sweet, but fair.

ESAT BT: at the moment im an IOL Nolimits subscriber, a dying breed, but i felt a bit of consumer loyalty coming on as i rang up there sales dep. "we haven't reached cabinteely yet" was the answer to the obvious question, ok but i have a few questions. she seemed relectant, but as a customer care rep i understood it wasn't her job to answer questions, but fair play to her cuz she gave it a go. 4GB cap, EUR211.15 to get connected and online, 256KB/s speed "and the contention ratio i asked" "contention ratio?" she replied "yes" i replied. "hang on" she replied....she put me on hold, the top weapon in a CC rep's arsenal. she returned "what do you mean by a contention ratio?" here i was on my day off explanin to a customer care rep at ESAT BT what a contention ratio was. in fairness to the poor girl, she had no idea, but when i asked to be put on to someone who would know, she told me that ESAT BT dont give out that kind of information. that's nice of them i thought, sure why keep the customers informed, they're only the ones going to buy the product.

Irish Broadband: No phone call to these as their signal doesn't reach cabinteely as i was informed from a promt email for their sales dep

Irish WISP: It was looking bad at this stage, but after lunch, came a ray light in the deep dark depression that is the irish broadband market. so i rang them up, i was just on the outskirts of their signal but i could always have a LOS(line of sight) test for free to see if i could get their signal. jaysus that's grand i thought, so i inquired more; 12GB cap, EUR 308 to get connected and online, constant speed of 450KB/s bursting occasionally i felt i was on to a winner but i need time to think over my options. i'm the impatient type so after about an hour i was back on the fone to Irish WISP asking when i could get it installed, the guy wans't that sure if i would have a LOS and said he would come out and have a look and if he thought i did he'd send out an engineer to do a an actual LOS test. "i'll be out to you in about 20mins" he said. good god this is service i thought. sure enuf 20mins later he arrived, he brought bad news that there was little chance of me getting a signal, but fair play to them. at least there is one fast an effeicent broadband provider in this country.

what a day, it looks like i'll have to do with my 56k connection for the moment, my only other option is to go with eircom, who are offering me realistic speeds of around 56K/s for EUR495, thanks but not thanks.

Sloth

I've had the same experience. Is it just me or does a decent broadband provider always seem the same distance off in the future all of the time? I've been told that I should be within IBB's reach once their set up in Blanch but thats a whole two months away and the old patience isn't the best these days.

MagicBusDriver

Don`t get hung up by contention ratios. In pratice in doubt they will be a factor.

The self-install has an install fee of €100 plus the cost of a modem, €85+ gives a connection charge of €185+

Other broadband supplier may not have a cap such as VIA or UTVIP. Also eircom has never charged anyone for going over its caps. It annoying but still not a major issue if you dont use p2p. IT Direct ADSL equipment prices

zz03

Originally posted by MagicBusDriver

The self-install has an install fee of €100

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Irish joke?!

zz..

Venom

Its no joke. You have to pay yourself 100 yoyo's if you do it yourself

spongebob

Well most self installs internationally come with an ACTIVATION fee ....something like €0 to €40 in the UK

Then you need to buy a €15 filter to split out the analogue phone line.

If Eircons fee includes Activation and they Include the filter in the package they will only be around 2-3 times more costly than the European average.....as usual

andrew163

I should be within IBB's reach once their set up in Blanch but thats a whole two months away

are IBB are settin up in blanchardstown in 2 months??

Nitrox

Originally posted by andrew163
are IBB are settin up in blanchardstown in 2 months??

Ask any ISP who are currently not covering your area and they will say 2 months, just the standard answer arround here, so dont trust it untill you see it!!

kamobe

Ask any ISP who are currently not covering your area and they will say 2 months, just the standard answer arround here, so dont trust it untill you see it!!

Yeah, I remember NTL there a year or two ago saying roughly the same thing to me (here in Blanchardstown D15)....

BKtje

Unfortunately nothing new but i was surprised at this

"so in the extreme case there is a chance of the speed going at 5.3KB/s, thats 10 times slower than my modem at the moment"

Modems can do 53KB/s now? Jesus who needs broaband
Thats not what im surprised about tho, its the fact the guy on the other end actually agreed with you.

modem is theortically 56Kilobits which is about 7KiloBytes a second.

ISDN is 64Kilobits which is 7.5KiloBytes.

DSL depends on what you get, however its is really unlikely all the people with the product will be on at once and thus make the product that slow. You'd hope that if it was ever nearing that they'd invest in more bandwidth.
The 512k product would at its upper limit give you 64KB/s.
The 256k product give you half that.

8bits in a byte is the moral of my post and that eircom need to hire new tech staff if they dont know this.

That an eircom tech support didnt know the difference between a Kb and a KB is astonishing. Maybe hes never had been on 56k and all eircom employees get free 8mb dsl. Would explain a few things

Serbian

I think he meant kilobits. Anyway, sounds like a pretty hectic day for you. I think many people here share your frustration with the ineffectiveness of the few companies who do actually supply a broadband service. As for ESAT's contention ration, I remember seeing on the site 24:1 but I can't seem to find the link now, but that's probably around the right figure. If you think about it, it works out the same as Eircom, half the contention for half the speed.

[EDIT] I found a mention of the contention ration on www.adslnow.ie who, as far as I know, are resellers of the ESAT BT product. They say it is 20:1.

brian_ire

modem is theortically 56Kilobits which is about 7KiloBytes a second.

sorry my apologies, i stand corrected, i new it couldn't be true, but they guy did agree with me. i still can't get over the fact that EAST BT hadn't heard of a contention ratio, i planned to ring them again this evening and see if they had discovered what it is yet but i just hadn't the chance

Capt'n Midnight

8 bit's in a byte ? - don't forget the stop & start bits too...
And the CRC's and ACK's etc - 56K is what the modem can get - but you loose some in overhead - you might even gain in compression unless you are using zip's / images / mp3 - well most things really

Cabinteely ? - might be a chance of 11Mb
http://www.irishwan.org/board/showthread.php?s=&postid=4792#post4792