Clearwire to aquire IBB

gerryo · 26-12-2006 11:42am #1

Read this in the Business & Money section of the Sunday Times (Decmeber 24th 2006). Seems that Clearwire are poised to aquire IBB, negotiations are ongoing & the sale is expected to be concluded in early Febuary.

Good news or not for IBB customers?

vermont · 26-12-2006 12:20pm

Well it's not exactly a lovely purchase for Clearwire; they'll be taking on IBB's big debt and will probably have to offload at least half its staff. NTR can't wait to see the back of IBB...

Don't really see how customers would be adversely affected though.

Asok · 26-12-2006 12:36pm

They could put in place their traffic shaping policies from clearwire.....fun for the IBB subs

dub45 · 26-12-2006 3:09pm

That would seem to be bad news as again it will lessen competion in the bb area not alone by removing one provider but Clearwires policies do not suit a lot of users so it will reduce the wireless options available.

green123 · 26-12-2006 3:22pm

Asok wrote:

They could put in place their traffic shaping policies from clearwire..

what does this mean ?

Asok · 26-12-2006 4:18pm

Well clearwire tend to "Throttle" most p2p type applications and occasionally voip.

damien · 26-12-2006 7:38pm

I've heard from two sources that it's a done deal but one always needs a third to be sure it is legit. They have a good enough customer base and it might be good for the majority of customers who don't use the service for p2p. For the bittorrent users though, start moving to Digiweb.

Sponge Bob · 26-12-2006 11:01pm

This will make clearwire the number 3 isp overnight in terms of customers, maybe number 2 after eircom AND bigger than BT.

It will do nothing for competition or service. Its bye bye breeze residential I would think and especially bye bye ripwave as they need the spectrum

IBB have been for sale for quite a while now .

DemonOfTheFall · 27-12-2006 1:36am

Does Ripwave really have that many subscribers sponge bob ? That is a lot of people suffering with always on 56k!

Redisle · 27-12-2006 1:45am

ah crap i dont want this to happen! im on ibb breeze 3mb and i dont see this as being a good move... clearwire will block all my p2p and make gaming and voip crap by traffic shaping... and ive just discovered zudeo(new software by azureus for downloading legal videos,all bbc tv shows are on it and lots of ads in hd.. example i downloaded the hd gears of war ad... looks pretty dam cool in hd!).

Hopefully this deal dosent go through because ibb are doing pretty good on their own now,perfect service, great customer service(i had a problem on a thursday they sent some1 on friday).... clearwire will obviously do stupid things like enforce download caps or traffic shape.......

cmdrpaddy · 27-12-2006 2:59am

If IBB start traffic shaping I'm pretty screwed. I've had my IBB connection for 3 years now and they recently upgraded the hardware and the connection speed from 0.5MB to 2MB and I've been downloading like a fiend (in the last 2 months my up+down total is over a terabyte). I'd be very disappointed if they started traffic shaping.:(

gerryo · 27-12-2006 12:46pm

Asok wrote:

Well clearwire tend to "Throttle" most p2p type applications and occasionally voip.

This is a big concern, IBB have business customers who will not like any form of traffic shaping,port blocking or caps. Depends on whether Clearwire want to keep it "as is" or decides to impose new rules.

Nephew · 27-12-2006 3:37pm

If they start enforcing caps and screw with torrents they can wave this customer goodbye

eth0_ · 27-12-2006 7:33pm

How can Clearwire afford to do this? Aren't the haemorrhaging customers (good enough for them, with their piece of sh*t service!)?

ntlbell · 27-12-2006 8:16pm

eth0_ wrote:

How can Clearwire afford to do this? Aren't the haemorrhaging customers (good enough for them, with their piece of sh*t service!)?

It goes something like this.

Block every port possible.

Save a fortune on transit costs.

Use savings to purchase IBB.

Block every port possible

Save a fortune on transit costs.

Rinse wash repeat.

Irishpimpdude · 28-12-2006 10:04pm

Maybe they are already as im still getting low speeds with torrents!

optiplexgx270 · 28-12-2006 10:11pm

HAHA - Now im glad they disconnected me

ntlbell · 28-12-2006 11:31pm

Irishpimpdude wrote:

Maybe they are already as im still getting low speeds with torrents!

It looks like they have definitley started trialing something.

ntlbell · 28-12-2006 11:33pm

optiplexgx270 wrote:

HAHA - Now im glad they disconnected me

Why did they disconnect you?

antodeco · 28-12-2006 11:34pm

hmmm, well if the deal hasnt gone through yet, they legally cant start messing around with the network.

ntlbell · 28-12-2006 11:45pm

antodeco wrote:

hmmm, well if the deal hasnt gone through yet, they legally cant start messing around with the network.

IBB can mess around with the network all they like.

optiplexgx270 · 28-12-2006 11:58pm

ntlbell wrote:

Why did they disconnect you?

Well after 18months and 2Tb later my connection misteriously vanished and they promptly (next day) came out to "fix it" but no joy so took it away. Installer said it was strange but did hear they were disconnecting the heavy downloaders but he wouldnt know who they were. Ah well - Lets see what UTV do

ntlbell · 29-12-2006 12:04am

optiplexgx270 wrote:

Well after 18months and 2Tb later my connection misteriously vanished and they promptly (next day) came out to "fix it" but no joy so took it away. Installer said it was strange but did hear they were disconnecting the heavy downloaders but he wouldnt know who they were. Ah well - Lets see what UTV do

Haha classic.

No contracts hassel free is right.

irlrobins · 29-12-2006 1:30am

I see IBB offer DSL now too.

antodeco · 29-12-2006 1:44am

ntlbell wrote:

IBB can mess around with the network all they like.

Apologies, I thought they meant Clearwire messing around with IBB's network!

gerryo · 29-12-2006 3:17am

antodeco wrote:

hmmm, well if the deal hasnt gone through yet, they legally cant start messing around with the network.

I'd be real interested in what Clearwire will do after they aquire IBB (assuming the deal goes through). I don't think they'd get away with changing terms & conditions (i.e., introduce caps, block ports, etc) yet still charge the same for the service.

IBB's service works OK (mostly), so Clearwire saying service degredation is due problems associated with the merger just won't cut it. You can't expect customers who signed up for 12 month contracts to stick around if the goalposts have been moved.

Same goes for early exit penalties, can these be enforced if the T's & C's have been radically altered?

thefinalstage · 29-12-2006 3:48am

gerryo wrote:

I'd be real interested in what Clearwire will do after they aquire IBB (assuming the deal goes through). I don't think they'd get away with changing terms & conditions (i.e., introduce caps, block ports, etc) yet still charge the same for the service.

IBB's service works OK (mostly), so Clearwire saying service degredation is due problems associated with the merger just won't cut it. You can't expect customers who signed up for 12 month contracts to stick around if the goalposts have been moved.

Same goes for early exit penalties, can these be enforced if the T's & C's have been radically altered?

Nope,as that is not what you signed up for.

CuLT · 29-12-2006 11:59am

You guys really need to stop saying stuff is "illegal" left, right and center.

Is there a clause in the contract saying that no traffic shaping will occur? The last time I checked, no such clause existed. Same goes for the cap, I don't recall "unlimited trafficking" being part of the actual contract.

ntlbell · 29-12-2006 12:38pm

CuLT wrote:

You guys really need to stop saying stuff is "illegal" left, right and center.

Is there a clause in the contract saying that no traffic shaping will occur? The last time I checked, no such clause existed. Same goes for the cap, I don't recall "unlimited trafficking" being part of the actual contract.

I didn't even know IBB customers were tied into any sort of contract at all?

CuLT · 29-12-2006 2:27pm

ntlbell wrote:

I didn't even know IBB customers were tied into any sort of contract at all?

I know I signed one when I had IBB.

irlrobins · 29-12-2006 2:38pm

CuLT wrote:

I know I signed one when I had IBB.

Pretty sure we did too.

Clearwire to aquire IBB

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