Ripwave Reviews?

dach

Just moved into a new gaff in "the ranch" which borders inchicore and ballyer- on the IBB coverage map it falls just outside the arc.

Seroiusly considering Ripwave as I have no Eircom line
-any words of warning?

Mutant_Fruit

Try it, you have nothing to lose. If it doesn't work, send it back. Just make sure you ask how long the trialing period is, so that if you do have problems, you know how long you can keep the modem without having to pay anything. If you're at the edge, the odds are you'll have a dubious signal, but its worth a shot.

If you're going to be doing low-latency gaming, just give up on ripwave, best ingame pings you could get off it would be about 150ms i'd say.

dach

cheers mutant,
I wont be really using it for gaming(well, i'm saying that now...)
It's more for web design projects and general browsing from home.
There doesn't seem to be a trial period- you just pay for installation(100EUR) and then it's 30EUR monthly.

Mutant_Fruit

Hrmm, well there is a "cooling off" period (afaik) that lasts 1 week. But definately get that checked out before you pay anything. If you are at the fringes, the signal might be too weak. It really depends on location. The user ripwave managed to get a good (enough) signal from leeson street ( i believe) from the three rock tower, whereas people who are within a 3km of a tower cannot get a signal at all. It all depends.

When you order, just double check the cooling off period, and see what they say. But for your uses, ripwave seems ideal.

dach

SOLD!
much appreciated mutant fruit,
Just hope the next time I post here I won't
be baying for IBB blood.
:r::

machalla

Well its not an encouraging message, but I live in the Inchicore area well inside the coverage arc and tried out ripwave but got nothing from it all. Just a red light (not even flashing). I sent the modem back at IBB's suggestion, they tested it, said it was working and then refunded my money. I asked them to send me out a second modem just to ensure it wasn't a modem issue but I got no response from them (surprise, surprise). I'm near Inchicore village.

I think they harge a €100 setup fee now but I presume that won't apply if you can't get it.

Best of luck anyway.

Ripwave

machalla wrote:

Well its not an encouraging message, but I live in the Inchicore area well inside the coverage arc and tried out ripwave but got nothing from it all. Just a red light (not even flashing).

If it's not flashing, then your modem has "locked on" to the transmitter, and you should be able to connect.

Note that the "amber" light on the 3.5GHz gear is actually pretty red, and some people who think they are getting a red light may actually be getting an amber light.

machalla

Its been more than a month since I had it so you're likely correct. All I know is it couldn't lock onto anything according to the diagnostic/utility software provided with the modem (no connection to base station). It just didn't work was the upshot. Possibly its the area I was in (which has problems with both Vodafone and Meteor mobile reception) although it didn't work even from the top floor window of a two story house that you could see the guiness towers from. Which led me to think it may be a fault with the modem but according to IBB there wasn't any.

Perhaps there may be better luck for dach hopefully.

fiachs

maybe it's (another) dumb question on my part, but what do you mean by low latency gaming? I'm ordering ripwave soon, and I'm hoping to be able to use it to play games online (e.g. warcraft) is this not going to happen? Thanks!

Mutant_Fruit

Low-latency generally means split-second reaction times. I.e. playing counterstrike. In that game, 100ms is all it takes for you to die, so a ping of 200 is no match for a ping of 30 (providing both players are equally skilled).

However with games such as Warcraft (and other similar games, and RPG's like baldur's gate) you don't need split second reactions. A one second lag would probably not be noticeable in warcraft3, whereas in Counter-strike, with one second a skilled player could fill you with bullets, dance around your corpse laughing and finally steal your gun, with time to spare.

fiachs

*phew* THAT's alright then... Thanks again!