which broadband option?

Señor Juárez

irish broadband are out, failed the LOS test and i was getting messed around with the ripwave...


so my two feasible options are: Eircom DSL and IOL BB.

what are the pings like on the two? eircom is €55 a month, IOL is €50.

it is possible that I would need a fixed IP in the distant future, do both companies allow this? do they charge extra?

has anyone else been billed for breaking the caps? 4gig on eircom and 8gig on IOL.

also, what are the installation waiting times like?

oh, and is Netsource a definite no-no??

machalla

If you are a residential customer rather than a business then Netsource is out. They no longer take residential customers.

I saw on a thread here somewhere that you can get a fixed ip from Eircom if you pay an extra €50 (once off charge I believe).

IOL not sure.

Pingwise Eircom is the best followed by ESAT/IOL, UTV (in no particular order). I am told that for the future Eircom will continue to remain the best pingwise.

UTV charge 1.5c for each mb over cap whereas eircom charge 3c. Not sure who is charging for going over cap.

Hope thats some help. There were a few threads here recently on choosing broadband so have a look back through the forum.

sci0x

If you are from South Dublin go for Irish Broadband the wireless broadband provider for €30 a month.

Señor Juárez

read the first line of my post.

failed LOS test. Ripwave seemed to not work.

sci0x

Ok, in that case i agree with machalla, go for Eircom bcoz of their pings and also bcoz Eircom is offering home users who are willing to install their DSL modem themselves, a free DSL connection worth €99, a free modem worth €145.20 with the first month's line rental free of charge (worth €54.45). This results in a total saving of €298.67 in the first year of subscribing to broadband. Eircom has also reduced the wholesale rate for DSL by €157.30.

Señor Juárez

you see, IOL DSL has free installation, free modem, free first month, 8 gig cap, €50 a month thereafter.

(i dont give a crap about the modem, i will of course be replacing it with a decent ethernet solution)

Davey Devil

Don't listen to sci0x, he must be off his rocker, go with iol or utv.

suppafly

just on what u said there marclar, about the modem. The modem that eircom r offering is a combi modem, usb and ethernet. Now i don't really no much at all about modems so i'm wondering what is the difference between the 2. USB and ethernet cuz i was leaning the way of eircom cuz of the ethernet modem(cuz afaik IOL don't give u one) as i heard they're better than usb and in the new future i want to connect another computer to use the line. So to summarise that mess up i would like to know what the difference between USB and Ethernet modems is (performance, connectivity and anything else) and if the combi one that eircom offer is decent. thanks

Señor Juárez

i thought that eircom only do the stingray (USB blue yoke) for residential customers?

suppafly

no. My dad was on the phone with the guy for over 30mins and asking him all this and he said it was a combi modem. Also can someone provide a link to where IOL have their new deal(the one that was previously qouted in this thread), thanks

sci0x

Originally posted by Davey Devil
Don't listen to sci0x, he must be off his rocker, go with iol or utv.

Yeah i was off my rocker, however i have come to my senses after looking at what the others have to offer.

Esat BT with its IOL Broadband product are promising nine per cent saving over Eircom for monthly DSL line rental and a doubling of the download limit over Eircom, with Esat offering an 8Gbyte download limit as opposed to Eircom's 4Gbyte cap.

machalla

If you can get UTV then go with them.

Unlike the other 8gb candidates they have an 8Gb Download cap only (unlike IOL who include uploads in that).

Also they are the cheapest of the lot at €47.50 a month.

I have been told by people who should know that of all the RADSL options available the one least likely to be a pile of crap in the future is Eircoms. Funny how controlling the network gives you these subtle advantages.

I'm switching from Netsource to UTV.

Jim

do you have to switch to utv's telephone service to avail of their radsl service?

machalla

To my knowledge yes you do. No great loss as they are by all accounts cheaper.

Señor Juárez

well, thats a slight disadvantage. As i am getting this in my parent's house, they would have no interest whatsoever in changing to UTV just because of a slight saving, so ill have to stick with IOL then.

IOL BB is just the home version of esat DSL, am i correct?

if so, can i easily upgrade from an IOL home connection to an esat business line? if they are all the one company, that is

machalla

I imagine you can if you tell them you area sole trader or its for a business connection as I think they only offer the business connection to business users. Haven't talked to them though so others on the board here will know better.

Changing over to UTV is no big thing phone wise. You get a bill from UTV instead of Eircom (I think they bill line rental on the same bill now).

The only disadvantage of IOL BB is that the 8Gb cap applies to both downloads and uploads whereas UTV applies only to downloads.

Someone here mentioned that Eircom will be upping their cap to 6Gb in January.

I know UTV have a 3 month contract, whereas IOL I'm not sure. Shorter contract is good if you need to break away from poor service.

Señor Juárez

2 month contract sounds good.

ya see, i have no idea if I would be charged for cap breaking, as it rarely seems to happen. i was intending to set up a web radio station perhaps from my home connection, and at 32k/sec constant, thats 12 gigs in uploads per month already....


btw whats the link for UTV DSL?

many home users have business lines, im quite sure that Esat welcome the extra dosh. I do know that Strat has an Esat DSL connection to his place.

sci0x

Originally posted by marclar
btw whats the link for UTV DSL?

UTV

BKtje

IOL BB is just the home version of esat DSL, am i correct

No, im afraid your wrong. IOL BB is done over Eircom's exchanges through Eircom's DSLAMS. This is RADSL and not ADSL which is the business product.
Basically IOL 'rent' from eircom the hardware. The only difference between IOL's broadband and Eircom's is how they are routed(apart from the obious such as price, cap etc)*

This means that like with the Eircom product (and UTV), interleaving is on (although set to low) which dis improves ping times which are critical to gaming. (how much it affects it depends on who you speak to)

if so, can i easily upgrade from an IOL home connection to an esat business line? if they are all the one company, that is

Again im afraid not. You would first need to be on one of the 40 exchanges that Esat do their Business products from. Even if you are you would have to re-pay the install fee's as they would have to take you from Eircom's hardware and put onto their own hardware. For all intents and purpose's they are different companies.
Esat Business also dont have a self install so you will be forced to pay the full amount (approx €130) unless you get a discount (like me )

Another difference i have noticed is that you don't actually have to hit the connect button with Esat Business (ie no username/pass). Your pc will auto connect without having to verify anything. I'm not sure why that is, think ill ask it in a new thread.

If you have any more question feel free to ask as im sure someone here can answer them for you.


*Grossly simplifying of course.

j0hnny

i'm currently on esat bt iol bb and i find great and they just increased the cap to 8gb

elexes

Originally posted by j0hnny
i'm currently on esat bt iol bb and i find great and they just increased the cap to 8gb

did they auto maticaly put ur cap up r did you have to go ask them ?

suppafly

where do iol bb have there new offering ask its not on there bb site?

MickFarr

NTL is the best option. 600kbps (downloading at 70KBps constant) 20:1 contention ratio. Might not be in your area yet, you should ring and find out.

Señor Juárez

nah, i cant get NTL cable.

Rang em a year and a half ago. they told me that my area would probably be installed by them within a year.

Then a year later, i ring em, ask them what the story is? they tell me that the area would be installed within the next 18 months.

BTW, is there an uncapped eircom DSL home product?

suppafly

Originally posted by MickFarr
NTL is the best option. 600kbps (downloading at 70KBps constant) 20:1 contention ratio. Might not be in your area yet, you should ring and find out.

NTL is only in a small part of dublin and afaik know they aren't going to be expanding out for a while.

well my dad ordered eircom dsl. I think its the new deal they have out, the one with the free modem and stuff, hope its good. Does anyone know is it 256k up and 128k? hopefully it is cuz i ant a good ping for gaming. Also just wondering about the cap, how much would playing online games(CS and BF1942) about 2hrs everynight and lets say 3/4hr on the weekend. how much of the cap does this use up?

Señor Juárez

you would be fine, 2 hours uses nothing really...

if you are ultra paranoid, get DUmeter, itll show you how much has been transferred.

Stormfox1020

one hour of solid gaming probably takes up around 30-40Mb, it all depends on what game ur playing, some take up less some take up more. but i doubt u will exceed the cap even if u did game for 3-4hrs per day.

Töpher

1 hour of CS and SOCOM, over same connection, at same time, uses about 20-25MB, and pings are great too, I get pings of about 60 while SOCOM (doesnt show ping) runs perfectly smoothly for my brother. So i figure 1 hour of CS would be about 15-20MB? No idea about BF1942, i can't afford it! One day, one day!

suppafly

I ask this before but ddn't really get and answer so can someone plz tell me the difference in performance(and whatever else) between usb and ethernet modems, and if the eircom combi modem is any good. also Einstürzende if u get into virgin u can get bf1942 for €24.99(€50 everywhere else), i just got it there today for that price.

Señor Juárez

USB modems are crappy, avoid em at all costs. a USB modem adds 10 to your ping when compared with an ethernet one.

also with ethernet, you are connecting it directly to your network, so having multiple PC's online is very simple.

Ripwave

Originally posted by suppafly
I ask this before but ddn't really get and answer so can someone plz tell me the difference in performance(and whatever else) between usb and ethernet modems

From a throughput point of view, there is absolutely no difference - 512K DSL is well within the limitations of USB. USB drivers do take more resources that ethernet drivers (ethernet drivers date from the days when 256K(!!!) of RAM in a system was not unusual, so they're lean and mean). Any additional overhead though, is a lot less that the variability people see day to day in their connectivity, so it's pretty much irrelevant.

The main difference between ethernet and USB is flexibility - you can plug a lot more things into ethernet than USB. I don't know if it's changed, but even 3 or 4 months ago, you couldn't easily install the UTV modem on a linux box, because there weren't any linux drivers available. And even if you just want to run a Windows XP box, using a €100 NAT firewall will protect you from MSBlaster type worms, but you need ethernet to plug them in, USB won't do.