Has anyone in ROI connected to Clicksilver

PiE

Christ is right (never thought I'd hear myself say that), we shouldn't have to "make do" with what we get, which at the moment is a hideously sub-par service. I'm downloading at 1.6k/s now at 1:50am, well past peak hour...

I think I remember reading in the thread about eircom's wholesale bitstream service, people were worried about eircom setting the contention at "point x" instead of "point z" which would make the service considerably slower. Now I'm too lazy to go looking for the exact quotes but I'd wager a bet those fears well well-founded.

That suggests that it ain't UTV, Esat or any of the resellers faults, but it's still their problem. Damnit bring some muscle to the table lads and force eircom to do something

Nyum Nyum

Last night (1am onwards) I got a steady speed of 25kb/s from an Iceland server (Linux ISO of course).

Tried it now and it was 40kb/s.

jonski

.Can anyone confirm/deny this ?

Below is not fact , just a question.........just in case it is taken as fact that is not my intention.



I don't know if I heard or read somewhere that the contention ratio aspect of these broadband services could be the problem.


If I remember correctly ( not very techie minded me) say , you are with UTV and on their 48 : 1 you are not just sharing that with other UTV ppl but also with esat , eircom , netsource and any other service provider .

Now a lot of ppl stayed away from netsource because of the lack of cap leading to warez monkeys d/l 24/7 and hogging the bandwith , but if the above is the case then you are sharing with them any way


Anyone with info plz comment ,

John.


i posted this on the UTV newsgroup and got no reply as yet.

swoofer

Jonksi

If this is in fact the case then we are f****d for a few years as people join up the service will get worse and worse!! This can't be right!

Where did u learn about this? I thought each provider bought their own "PIPE" and this was where the problems if the pipe was too small.

gb--

jonski

As i already said in my last post this is not a fact more of a question , only reply to it if you can either confirm or deny it for definite plz dont spread the rumour .With my lack of tech knowledge this could be complete bull****.

jonski

from newsgroups:

The contention ratio is at an exchange level ... so anyone (user, or
reseller) using Eircom's or Esat's kit will be hit with the same ratios


Q:So does that mean i could be sharing with some one from esat or netsource

A:Yup ... it depends on how many folk are on broadband using your exchange.

jonski

Q:This means so that we could be sharing with the warez monkeys on netsource ?
>defeating to whole purpose of going with a capped service for better ping ?


A:The contention is at the exchange level .... once your connection is piped
to us it uses our external bandwidth and this is were you'd see a service
being hammered by warez, etc as the more users an ISP gets onboard with BB,
the more capping and QoS (quality of service) measures they'd need to
employ.

Iwould like to tell ye all what this means , but i don't know .
i rekon it means , no we won't be affected by other service provider users ?

John.

brettmirl

I rang UTV Tech Support today and the guy there told me that there was an "issue" with the "South servers for Clicksilver".

He got me to change the following on my Internet Options:

TOOLS>Internet Options>Connection>
Click settings for the UTV Clicksilver dial up>
In the box "Proxy Server" click the button that says: 'Use a proxy server.....'
Input the following numbers to the address: 194.46.8.9 and in the port space put 8080

This apparently forces your pc to go direct to the Belfast server.

Since i did this my net connection has improved dramatically.....prior to doing this i was attaining slower speeds than i was on my 56k modem

This info may or may not be of use - but there is no harm in sharing it

Martin-UTVi

At this stage I think we have ruled out our own network. We have plenty of spare capacity and speed tests from our ROI servers are reporting back everything ok. We had suspected that perhaps our transparent cache was affecting web speeds and took it out of service. This was not the case however so it has gone back into service.

We're waiting for the results of some tests to come back and will keep you all informed. As has been hinted earlier in this thread, it is more than likely something out of our control at the exchange level Difficult to see how on earth it could possibly be congestion at such an early stage of DSL rollout.

ozmo

Originally posted by jonski
from newsgroups:

The contention ratio is at an exchange level ... so anyone (user, or reseller) using Eircom's or Esat's kit will be hit with the same ratios

Q:So does that mean i could be sharing with some one from esat or netsource
A:Yup ... it depends on how many folk are on broadband using your exchange.

I have rang Eircom 1800 512128 and 1890 260260 and
I have spoken to tech support at UTV...

And no-one knows - although they state that they would be surprised that everyone was in the same pot.
A knowledgable guy at 1890 260260 said he was almost certain that every providor leased their own 2meg line and how they provisioned it was their business.

But noone seems to know for certain.. or knows where you owuld find out.. Really increadable really.

ozmo.

christ

So Martin you're trying to tell us that it is out of your hands that i just downloaded this page at 313 B/s at 1:53AM in the morning? And i suppose "something out of your control" is the reason my l/p didn't work all day today? It's probably also "out of your control" that your members section for clicksilver on your website still isn't working. Look, we waited long enough and are paying enough to expect a level of service a damn sight higher than what we're receiving. I don't care who you blame for this, UTV is directly responsible to its customers for the service they provide, it's as simple as that.

Martin-UTVi

I don't care who you blame for this, UTV is directly responsible to its customers for the service they provide, it's as simple as that.

You will get no argument from us on this issue. We're currently pushing to discover where the problem lies and get something rectified. We've been told (although I'm waiting for a call this morning to confirm) that backhaul bandwidth is being increased on Wednesday (tomorrow), and hope that will help. There are tickets outstanding with Eircom regarding this issue and I've also had it confirmed that this issue is affecting most DSL users regardless of the ISP they are using.

your members section for clicksilver on your website still isn't working

This is currently being worked on and should be ready soon. If you need anything in particular, then please email support@u.tv or call us on 1890 926111.

Paddy20

Good on ya Martin-UTVi. I personally blame Eircom plus their dirty Rat and lets not leave Eircons American investors out of this?..

Paddy20.;)

PiE

Clicksilver's been a lot better today. Whatever you did seems to be working Martin :]

jonski

Originally posted by PiE
Clicksilver's been a lot better today. Whatever you did seems to be working Martin :]

not mine , mine is as slow as 56k ,

oh yeah , I forgot it is 56k ,cause I still havent got my clicksilver yet.

oh well , hopefully tomorrow they will have news for me ...any news ..except bad news.

John.

Páid

I'm in the same boat (waiting for Clicksilver). I was told that I'd been provisioned last Thursday but no modem so far after 7 weeks

So I decided to contact €ircom this evening to see what they say about order time and performance. This is the transcript.


=============================================
New Conference with i-stream
from e-channel
Tuesday, 29 July 2003 20:22:42 GMT+01:00
=============================================

i-stream : Welcome to eircom ie Web Chat , How can I help you?

You : Can you tell me how long it takes to have dsl installed?

i-stream : it takes about 15 working days

You : What if I order through a reseller?

i-stream : i would say it takes the same as its the same workers doing the work on the exchanges

You : I hear there are currently problems with it. Speeds lower than a dial up modem in the evenings? Is this true?

i-stream : no dail up you will get max 56k on dsl you will get min 256k and max 512k

i-stream : so they are faster than dial up

You : You can connect at minimum 256k but throughput speeds experienced by users recently is supposed to be less than that of a 56k modem in the evenings. Are you saying there are no problems with it at the moment?

i-stream : nothing has been reported to us about that

You : Thanks.

i-stream : no problem

=============================================
DEPARTED CONFERENCE
=============================================


YEA RIGHT, NO PROBLEM ME ARSE.

iano

The Clicksilver service is much much improved today.

Downloads are good, http and ftp.

Can we keep it like this please? (Martin?) Or has some capacity just been added that will be quickly gobbled up and the situation return to the way it was (for me, just about better than 56k modem)?

Keep the communication going via the newsgroup and boards. It's the not knowing that is a killer.

Is there any prospect of Irish traffic transferring locally at inex rather than through the uk or usa? Everything seems to route out through Energis (ex. Nevadatele.com). It seems everyone else is at inex (EsatBT, Eircom Net, HEAnet, COLT Internet, NETSOURCE, AT&T, MCI Ireland, Cable & Wireless and NTL Ireland according to their latest press release).

Nyum Nyum

For the last few days Clicksilver has been excellent

Da Man

If you're contacting support and your problem is "I heard that some people are having problems with x y z", you don't really expect them to do anything other than tell you to sod off, do you?

I got i-stream starter installed in 10 days, by the way.

Páid

My point is that they give preferential treatment to Eircom customers like installing I-Scream in 10 days and Clicksilver in 7 weeks.

Is it not common knowledge that there have been problems with RADSL recently?

To Quote PiE from this very thread ......

Everyone using the bistream RADSL is having the exact same problem, be it UTV, Esat, Netsource or whoever. Check the Broadband forum for proof.

It seems to go a little something like this:

Mornings: Full Speed
Afternoons: Half Speed
Evenings: Crawling Speed
After 1am: Full Speed

PiE

Well those problems seem to be fixed now (by UTV anyway).

But it is still suspicious how there weren't any eircon customers reporting speed issues or delays in getting connected when everyone else was...

/me dons "I WANT TO BELIEVE" cap.

Páid

If you could prove it, it would be anti-competitive behaviour.

How would I find out the following data for the last however many RADSL enablings at my exchange.

• ISP
• Date of Order
• Date of Delivery

Can I request the information from COMREG ?

Yoda

A year ago on 2002-09-09 I transferred my €400-a-year domain and web hosting with Esat to the €100-a-year service offered by Utv. Their excellent customer service inspired me to sign up for UTVip telephony and all by 2002-09-17. My phone bills in general were considerably lower than comparable Eircom phone bills. On 2003-06-25 I signed up for UTVip XL, which was activated on 2003-07-01. Apart from an extremely bad experience with the "dialler" software they offered for OS X (which trashed the system software of two of my computers), the service has been flawless.

Now my first bill was high. It was wa-a-a-ay high. I used 240 hours in a month, and with the 180-hour cap (which I know UTV has to offer at this time because they pay Eircom for the privilege), and that worked out to lots and lots more than the €25-a-month for the 180 hours.

Naturally I signed up for ClickSilver on 2003-07-31. I received notification from UTV that I had passed prequalification on 2003-08-06. (1 week) My account was activated on 2003-08-18 (that's yesterday, 12 days more). I rang yesterday and it seems that there was a minor hiccup, they thought I was supplying my own modem (though I was charged €99 not the €69 that one is charged if one supplies one's own) so I didn't receive the modem today. I expect to receive it tomorrow.

I have high expectations because the service provided me by this company has always been courteous and excellent.

So. If this works out, my bill will be €50 a month for 24-hour broadband which will doubtless be better than the 45Kbps that I've got now, plus the €20 or whatever a month for the line. So that's €70. Then of course my partner's Eircom line will be cancelled, since with OS X we can share the broadband easily, and we'll divide the bill, so we'll both have broadband for €35 a month.

I can't see a downside. I will post again though with my experiences.

Hugh_C

Originally posted by Yoda
since with OS X we can share the broadband easily, and we'll divide the bill, so we'll both have broadband for €35 a month.

I'm also an OS X user and am contemplating which provider to go with... So naturally I'm interested in seeingpostings from Mac folk.

How will you share the broadband? Using a router?

H

Yoda

Hughchal, I can't tell you yet. So far I'm not up and running.

The modem came today on time just as predicted. Unfortunately, there seems to be something wrong with my line. It has passed, and the ADSL light glows constantly meaning I've got a nice ADSL connection. But there is some sort of fault in that I can't connect to UTV.

UTV's excellent technical support speng ages with me trying various things; they have now determined that it is a fault which Eircom must correct. Likely my ADSL was turned on but I was not "pointed" to UTV in whatever way needs to have been done.

Alas, I have no broadband yet, but I am patient. It's taken years already. Another week won't matter too much.

dathi1

I want to connect a client of mine up on Clicksilver. I've already contacted eircom for DSL and they said its nopt available in this area (Dublin 6w). On UTV's site the manual online line check facility says that the phone number is ok?

should i go ahead and order with UTV?

PiE

Yep, you might as well try. It won't cost you anything if it turns out you can't get it.

Limey

Still waiting on my connection to UTV BB, correction still waiting on confirmation that I can get Broadband, what if I can't? 3 months waiting on a yes or no answer [19 July] .

I don't want to blame UTV, on the two occasions that I spoke to their customer services, I found them very polite and helpful, but, my contract [or my money I should say] isn't with eircom, at this moment it's with UTV, if Eircom aren't doing their end of things, that's UTV's problem, not mine.

The last thing I heard was Eircon had "lost" my details, how on earth could they "lose" my details when my phoneline are with the buggers? In the meantime UTV have not received confirmation that I have passed or failed the final line test.

Put me out of my misery someone please, YES or NO?

signed: One really unhappy surfer:(

Yoda

I forgot to follow up. Shortly after my last post to this thread I got a D-Link ADSL Router, which connected me immediately to broadband, and serves both the computers in our house. Sometimes the speed seems slower than one might wish, but the 24-hour always-on is far more important to me, so I don't mind.

elsoldemayo

I initally ordered on the 21st of September. Received a mail from UTV the next day asking if I minded waiting until the 26th so I could avail of the free install etc. No problem.
I didn't really expect to hear much for a couple of weeks, but I received a mail saying my a/c was activated on the 2nd of October. Modem arrived the next day and everything was up and running within a half hour.