Irish Broadband / IBB: what a freakin joke

NAZI

1. Their service does not work at all for me
2. They do not answer my support e-mails
3. If I ring their sales/support team they can't help me (they promise to ring me back but never do.)
4. I returned my modem to them after trying to get them to collect it for a number of weeks
5. They won't refund my money

HEY IBB, GUESS WHAT? I'M DOING A CHARGEBACK

With IBB I get the feeling I'm on some kind of reality show (of the candid camera variety.)

Scruff

hmmm..i was fully intent on getting bb from IBB but after seeing so many posts from people wanting to get their money back i'm not so sure anymore.....

what transmitter were you on? was it ripwave or breeze home?

ballooba

IBB support will never ring you back. Seems to be their policy.

You have to ring them back.

http://www.whirlpool.net.au has solved any problems i have apart from my dodgy USB connection but IBB are swapping for ehternet on thursday.

madden

Hey i got ibb about 1 year ago because eircom wern't available at the time i had no choce, originally i got the 512kb service and i was happy with the performance, there were a few hicups but everything worked fairly well.
then i upgraded to the 1mbit service for 84 euro, it was great so i then upgraded to the 2mbit and i have that now for a few months its fairly expensive but still you get alot more service (upload/dl no caps)than eircom for cheaper overall i'm delighted with the service and the support i've always recieved call backs.

my experiance with ibb has been great :P I've recommended them to 5 other people who signed up and have heard no complaints from them.

Kepp up the good work IBB

Canaboid

I was an IBB customer for 6 monthes on Breeze 512kb. From day one it never worked properly, huge latency and poor download speeds. They did attempt to fix it on a number of occaisions but they seemed at a loss to isolate the problem. I ended up getting a refund and going with another provider.

Their VL business product seems to be fairly good but Breeze and (from what I've read here) Ripwave are appalling.

Phibsboro

Just to add to this, I have have had a couple of issues with IBB and have found their support to be quite good on each ocassion - they rang me back, responded to emails etc. The last time I called at cica 8pm and someone answered! (they used to be only 9-5, not sure if this has officially changed?)

The thing with IBB is this - it either works well or it doesn't. I know that seems to be stating the obvious but I suspect that most of the people with ongoing issues should never have been allowed sign up in the first place cos they were borderline signal-wise. Once it works, it seems to putter along quite nicely. Having said that, I was put on the VL equip from day one and that definitely helps apparently.

Finally, if you look at other threads it would appear they are usually quite good at refunding if you end up getting a s***e signal all the time.

Considering the benefits (cheap, 512 up and down, no cap), I am on balance delighted with my IBB broadband and am actively considering moving up to 1meg...

C

ballooba

Phibsboro, I am just on the edge of Donnybrook in Leeson St. I am well within range of the RTE transmitter. There is lots of problems you can have with Ripwave even if you are within range. Two that I have encountered are that a) Their equipment can be dodgy and b) you could be within range of two many transmitters.

I haven't heard the second problem mentioned here before but basically it means that if the signal quality or , to a lesser extent from my understanding, the signal strength drop below a certain threshold then your modem cuts its losses and looks for another transmitter.

Now this is where my networking knowledge gets hairy (my networking lecturer in college is a digrace, some of you know who I mean). When you drop one transmitter and pick up another the DHCP server gets confused? Meaning that you have to do an ipconfig /release and then a ipconfig /renew to get it functioning again.

I am within range of three Base Towers, these are Guinness (BTS 246), Three Rock (BTS 130) and finally the only one which works consistently for me RTE (BTS 140). So when my modem drops RTE for whatever reason it either picks up Guinness or Three Rock. It will flute around for a bit getting signal strength between -105 and -94 with Signal Quality between 12 and 18, then it will drop this tower and look for another one. Generally my connection to RTE is Signal Strength between -80 and -70 with Signal Quality between 20 and 23.

Each time it drops RTE it generally takes a while to have a look around and do a bit of window shopping before it goes back to RTE.

Phibsboro

Hi ballooba,

As I said earlier, I have the VL breeze thingy so not too up on ripwave. However, I recently recommended ibb to a friend and he went with ripwave. Hes a non-techie, but he said he had some issues and when he talked to support they said he was dropping his designated mast in favour of another mast (tho the designated mast was by far the closer, hes practically underneath it). He suggests that support then changed his designated mast to the other mast and this solved his problem. Again, hes non-techie so the concepts of designated masts, supports ability to change them, and any connection between that and any subsequent improvement in service may not be correct.

Interesting nonetheless - could someone with more ripwave knowledge comment?

C

spongebob

Ripwave should roam between masts , find the strongest signal and locl onto it. IBB prevent it from doing so and that explains some of the issues.

They are considering roaming and charging more for it but they may have to allow roaming to everyone or may be awaiting a patch for the s/w in the units or the masts. Dunno.

In Australia the product seems to work better and attract fewer complaints , see this site here where it goes by the brandname Wabbit

http://whirlpool.net.au/

M

BrianD

I received mu modem yesterday and I live on Ranelagh Rd. So far my modem has been on 14 hours and has only momentarily locked on to a signal. I was told to leave it in the window so it could find the strongest signal and then it would automatically lock to that one. When I saw it had locked (after a number of hours) I moved it to the PC and it lost its signal. It has been on all night and not a sausage. I also notice that it causes interference to my monitor.

I am apprehensive about the service now. I don't want to have to standing holding the unit in a funny position so I can get a signal or waiting an hour for it to lock onto a signal if I move it slightly.

Anybody else using Ripwave in Ranelagh?

Ripwave

BrianD wrote:

I am apprehensive about the service now. I don't want to have to standing holding the unit in a funny position so I can get a signal or waiting an hour for it to lock onto a signal if I move it slightly.

I came across this yesterday - minutes from the July 2003 meeting of Sub-Committee on Information Communications Technology of the Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

Mr. Jennings: The range for the Ripwave product can be extended up to ten kilometres with the addition of external antennae that can be removed. An external antenna is connected by suction onto a window to extend the range but there is a limit of about ten kilometres. Other wireless technologies beamed from a hilltop will achieve ranges of up to 20 kilometres and more. We are using licence-exempt spectrum that is regulated to limit the amount of power that we can legally transmit. Using licensed spectrum, such as the 3.5 GigaHertz band, will enable higher power levels and thereby an extended range and better performance.

Mr Jennings is described as "Ruairi Jennings of Irish Broadband".

Anyone heard of suction cups and external antennae from IBB?

BrianD

No, I haven't and it wasn't suggested by their tech support.

My ripwave is going back in its box and will be collected on Monday. Most disappointed! If you are living on Ranelagh Rd. the Ripwave product may NOT be usable!

ballooba

Muck,

They actually go as 'Unwired' in Australia and because the Aussies are Aussies they nicknamed it. That nickname is the 'Wabbit'. I've already infiltrated that discussion forum and am currently chatting with an Unwired representative who gave me lots of juicy gossip.

He says that unwired work closely with Navini and that with the software upgrades soon to be rolled out we should see huge improvements. Navini is actually not that well established a company they just completed third round funding. Looks like their manufacturing is done in some thai blokes outhouse.

BrianD,
I'm on Appian Way and I can see the transmitter from my 'gaff'. Bit falky with the dropouts and my first modem being dodgy but other than that sound. My pron collection has mutiplied since I got it .

spongebob

Balooba, you would probably clean up if you got a fisht of extendible antennas from the Aussies and flogged them around Dublin (or pimped them in here ) . /me is considering getting a job lot of these Nokia sets below for the grimbo

M

Phibsboro

three things ...

1. Do leave it in the same place for a few hours - based on my friend, moving it takes it hours to recover from!

2. Do ring support and get them to check out the situation re what mast you are on

3. I absolutely must have one of those nokia hands free sets for xmas!

C

gline

i had d ripwave near ranelagh aswell, didnt work properly at alll, it was flashing red 50% of the time, IBB told me they would refund, im upgrading to the 1meg proper service,hopefully that will b better, i passed an LOS test, just waiting installation. In my opion, the ripwave service is crap, unless u live 5 stories up r something? The connection was terrible when it was working, and it just dropped every few mins. I wouldnt recommend ipwave at all, i hope the 1 meg lite connection is gud. Anyone living near ranelagh or rathmines have it??? DOes it work well there???

Ardent

I have Ripwave in my apt (1st floor) near the Guinness Storehouse. My main gripe with the modem are that when you turn it on it can take over an hour to lock on to a signal. Also, very annoyingly, it will drop the signal on a regular basis. One it's locked on though, it's not bad. For a couple of weeks there I was around 55k/sec consistently.

The last few of days though, my bandwidth has been all over the place, big spikes in my traffic monitoring program. Anyone else been experiencing this?

ballooba

I'm on second storey and my ripwave works fine.

It is outside the window though .