Magnet chatter

Sniipe

tk123 wrote:

I know the Mark you were talking to - he's not a salesman(he laughed when i showed him the post:v: ) he's an agent in a call centre that covers a bunch of different services including Magnet. The 1890 num is a information line - the agents use a knowlegebase/script written by Magnet to answer your questions...

hehe! Bastarb I have reconnected my telephone line with eircom. Have to wait for my a/c number from Eircom... in the post. Bit dissapointed to hear that Eircom didn't release the line for 2 months; is that because you had broadband on it?

Grayarea

I ordered Magnet TV (2 rooms) + BB in November 05.

We got a call in mid December letting us know that Eircom were not doing any more LLU until January.

In mid January they called back and asked me to cancel my BB with Eircom so that the order could be processed. They also informed my that they could not migrate my number 9which I had asked for) and offered me two months of full sky package for free in compensation (which I took).

Last week go a call saying they had the line details from Eircom and to phone them when it went dead.

The line was dead last night, and first thing this morning they called me (I did not get a chance to call them they were that quick) and arranged a install 10pm monday morning.

If every company in the telco segment operated like Magnet do, we would all be much happier!

PS will report back on Monday afternoon, from my home PC!

cgarvey

Yes, but the flipside is that IBB were nice to their customers at the start! At least Magnet are a bit more sensible with their rollout plans than Smart were. Sure LLU is at fault, but Smart should've know this and been realistic about it, as I've said before.

.cg

Grayarea

Hi all,

Yesterday morning at 9:15 the equipment turned up, ten minutes later the installer called to confirm our location.

At 10:00 the installer arrived and I was part way through unpacking the gear, first issue, only one STB was included even though I ordered two.

Hooked up modem and it synced up no problem, line test showed a “great line” and then internal wiring was installed and tested.

PC connected up OK (very fast), but you need one Ethernet port per device so with two STBs and a phone I only have one free port (4 port 2wire managed switch), so I have had to get a second switch to connect up my xbox and second PC.

First STB was installed and worked with small but noticeable freezeing / pixellation.

Second STB (that the installer had in his van!) installed and was very pixelated.

Phone did not work reliably.

At this point it seems that someone in north main pulled my connection. So after talking to Magnet on and off yesterday and this morning they tell me that it (the line) must have been unplugged at the exchange and this will take between 1 and 2 days to resolve.

I have to say that Magnet have been very good at keeping me informed, but so far things are not going well.

Initial impression of the STB from limited time with it, channel switch about 1 second, EPG very slow, picture quality when clear and no problems is very good. Made in china for an English company manual dated in 2003.

Later,

cgarvey

Pixelation all the time, or not (you seem to suggest both!)? I presume the router does QoS to give priority to TV/phone, in which case it'd be interesting to see what speeds you get watching 2 different channels and making a phone call!

.cg

Sponge Bob

and do you still have your phone number Grayarea as well as a 'new' Magnet one ??

bk

Grayarea wrote:

Initial impression of the STB from limited time with it, channel switch about 1 second, EPG very slow, picture quality when clear and no problems is very good. Made in china for an English company manual dated in 2003.

Maybe they are using second hand Homechoice boxes, since Homechoice have now moved to MPEG4 tech. THe problems you describe are the same problem many Homechoice customers have suffered from in the past.

Grayarea

Sponge Bob wrote:

and do you still have your phone number Grayarea as well as a 'new' Magnet one ??

My old number is engaged any time I tried it, so no. New number is unobtainable ATM.

Grayarea

cgarvey wrote:

Pixelation all the time, or not (you seem to suggest both!)? I presume the router does QoS to give priority to TV/phone, in which case it'd be interesting to see what speeds you get watching 2 different channels and making a phone call!

.cg

Yes, one STB very bad, other STB is good but not great.

Yes it will be interesting to see how things work out once it is fixed.

Grayarea

bk wrote:

Maybe they are using second hand Homechoice boxes, since Homechoice have now moved to MPEG4 tech. THe problems you describe are the same problem many Homechoice customers have suffered from in the past.

If they are second hand then they have been refurbised as all plastic windows etc came with protective sheet attached.

I believe they are new, but maybe a bulk buy for end of line hardware.

I will post name and model later.

Later,

cormac_byrne

It's an AmiNET 110 box (mpeg2), I got connected yesterday, phone works!

Occasional pixelation on screen, v slow channel change 1 -2 secs, horrible EPG.

Grayarea

cormac_byrne wrote:

It's an AmiNET 110 box (mpeg2), I got connected yesterday, phone works!

Occasional pixelation on screen, v slow channel change 1 -2 secs, horrible EPG.

Have to agree the EPG (when it was working) was very poor.

Well some good news, the modem was up when I got home, ipphone works, primary stb is fine. PC bandwidth is horrible I get only 512Kb download and 300-400Kb up.

EPG does not work at all, and I am not getting any of the channels other than the basic package.

Step in the right direction

Later,

Grayarea

Latest update.

EPG will not be working for a week or two. This is to the extent that channels are named incorrectly. This makes it very difficult to use.

Two STB still cause pixelation issues when both are powered on.

I have had about 1 day of use in the last 4, Magnet reset my switch without any notice at all, very annoying as the STB and phone then have to be indiviualy reset to get them working again.

I came home on Tuesday to a working system, but it had failed on Wednesday when Magnet had altered something on there end. It did not work again till Thursday afternoon.

The agents on the phone are very helpfull but often don't really understand the service they are supporting.

Later,

Easy Rider

Does anyone here have magnet and are using fiber optic cables?

I bought an apartment a while back and it will be ready in the next couple of weeks...every room has a magnet point hooked up to fiber optic cables (apart for bathroom and kitchen).....

I guess this should help with speed etc....I have an XBOX360 set-up for wireless, my Imac is wireless and my laptop....so I really need a wireless router from them....do they charge extra for this?

In the complex I bought Magnet are offering, broadband, 30 tv channels and free local and national calls for 20 euro for the first 6 months, so I might as well give it a go...

Also on the site it says +24 euro line rental, is this included in the rate they quote?

Grayarea

I expect that the fibre should solve some of the problems I am having.

The 2wire router they install is wireless.

Later,

cutepape

I got my Magnet yesterday, flawless installation!
Everything worked like a charm.

Tested to download a FreeBSD ISO from SUNET in sweden ( their Backbone is the biggest in sweden ), whent like a rocket compared to my old IBB that couldnt keep at max speed the whole time.

I had to wait a looong time for this.. mainly Eircoms fault since they totally f***ed up my order, my address, my account number... you name it!

Off Topic:
One thing that that I was so suprised about here was the contention ratio that everyone has. When I moved to Ireland 2 years ago, a 0.5Mbit with 4Gb Cap was around €50 a month. Contention ratio of 1:41.. INSANE!!

Before I moved, I had a 10Mbit both directions, no contention ratio ( 1:1 ) and paid €30 a month for that. No Cap what so ever.
10Mbit = 1.25MB/sec. up and down at the same time.

Nowdays my buddies back home in Sweden has 100Mbit down and 10Mbit up. Still no contention ratio.

So the speed is more dependent on the what the reciever/sender on the other side have.

The problem here is that we lack a good infrastructure for electronic communication. If the governmnet (correct me if wrong) had helped our broadband companies to build a good fiber infrastructure within and between the cities, we would be flying away.

Anyway.. Magnet has been verry helpfull and so far I only have good to say about them. First impressions on the speed is really good and I look forward
to see what the next months will show.

bk

cutepape wrote:

The problem here is that we lack a good infrastructure for electronic communication. If the governmnet (correct me if wrong) had helped our broadband companies to build a good fiber infrastructure within and between the cities, we would be flying away.

It is indirectly the governments fault. In fact there is a very large amount of fibre running between cities, around cities and towns (Metro projects) and to other countries (including 1/3rd of all fibre running between Europe and the US), in fact Ireland is one of the most highly fibered countries in Europe and in fairness most of it was paid for by the Irish government.

No the problem is with the "last mile", Eircom has a monopoly on most of the telephone lines running to each home and business in Ireland and they have used this monopoly to criple the rollout of Broadband in Ireland.

You can indirectly blame the government for leaving Eircom get away with this by not having strong enough regulation of the market and for not splitting up Eircom when they had the chance.

cutepape

bk:

Well, it seems like they have started to take away Eircoms monopoly bit by bit now. I realldy do hope that companies like Magnet and Smart manage to stay in the game an put some pressure on Eircom.

BTW.. Im still impressed with magnet.. download works like a charm.
No regrets at all...

bk

cutepape wrote:

bk:

Well, it seems like they have started to take away Eircoms monopoly bit by bit now. I realldy do hope that companies like Magnet and Smart manage to stay in the game an put some pressure on Eircom.

It would look that way from all the advertising, but the reality is that Eircom has crippled the LLU process in such a way that the mass movement of customers to LLU is very difficult.

Until the LLU process is fixed, Eircom has little to worry about.

Grayarea

Latest update;

More tweaking at Magnet end and two STBs now nearly working OK (minor breakup / pixelation). A single STB works fine on its own.

EPG still a dead dog though.

Still ... moving in the right direction.

Later,

paulm17781

When Magnet were trialling their LLU service I was considering ditching NTL & Blueface. Glad I didn't now!

Newbizowner

can the magnet entertainment option - ie braodband, calls and tv be used if you are running a small business at home?
Also they say on teh site, that the full suite will be in my area in two months, is this to be believed - dont want to hang for someone that won't materialise?

Grayarea

Latest update;

Things are going the wrong way again!

Got home on Friday night to find that two STBs were causing each other to freeze very badly again. I was away for the weekend, but this morning things were better with only small freezes happenening, but still along way from the heady days of last week

Guess I will have to phone them again this morning.

Later,

Sponge Bob

cutepape wrote:

The problem here is that we lack a good infrastructure for electronic communication. If the governmnet (correct me if wrong) had helped our broadband companies to build a good fiber infrastructure within and between the cities, we would be flying away.

They did help the companies but the fibre is largely in the ground, unused, for the past 5 years.

V1llianous

I have had the service installed for the past 5 weeks.

Had a few weeks of teething problems with the line (very crackely and breaking up) but they replaced the ATA which was faulty and seems ok (hopefully only changed this morning).

Broadband is grand through Ethernet. My Wireless connection kept on dropping every 5 minutes, so will have to check it now ATA is sorted.

TV is grand most of the time, occasionally pixelated. The EPG appears to be working better now. I don't use the TV much as have Sky. (Was told that Sky box should work fine through ATA, if not they can supply an individual ATA for it).

HTH

paulm17781

V1llianous wrote:

(Was told that Sky box should work fine through ATA, if not they can supply an individual ATA for it).

That is a blatant lie. Sky boxes use a modem (I believe) a modem will not work through an ATA as a modem needs an analogue signal. IIRC people tried using sky through an ATA and it fails.

V1llianous

Well whenever I need to use it I will test it.

I did do a telephone line test on the Sky box and it knew a line was connected. Any change of news and I'll let ye know.

paulm17781

V1llianous wrote:

Well whenever I need to use it I will test it.

I did do a telephone line test on the Sky box and it knew a line was connected. Any change of news and I'll let ye know.

Perhaps I'm wrong, I have never tested it. I'm pretty certain other people here did though.

V1llianous

paulm17781 wrote:

That is a blatant lie. Sky boxes use a modem (I believe) a modem will not work through an ATA as a modem needs an analogue signal. IIRC people tried using sky through an ATA and it fails.

I finally got around to testing this tonight.

I have a Prem+ season ticket and wanted a reminder for Saturday's game. I tried it without phone line connected and it prompted me to connect it. I connected it and it queried the purchase, said the cost was €0.00 (as I have season ticket) and added it all in. I think this is a fairly comprehensive test because it only missed one part if I was paying a fee. So it does work - yay !

cormac_byrne

V1llianous wrote:

I finally got around to testing this tonight.

I have a Prem+ season ticket and wanted a reminder for Saturday's game. I tried it without phone line connected and it prompted me to connect it. I connected it and it queried the purchase, said the cost was €0.00 (as I have season ticket) and added it all in. I think this is a fairly comprehensive test because it only missed one part if I was paying a fee. So it does work - yay !

I wouldn't be so sure.

Connecting an ATA will definitely make the sky box think there is a phone line connected and stop nagging you. but whether it can establish a connection is an entirely different matter.

I don't think that it would necessarilly dial out to establish the cost.

There's a similar problem with connecting an analog fax machine to an ATA, it can be done, but won't work very reliably. (according to Aaron in Blueface)

Even if the Sky box can't establish a connection to Sky and you want to book a paying event, it will allow you to go ahead. As long as it thinks a phone is connected it will presume it will be able to connect later.

You can book up to 50 events like this. Then get a massive bill if it is ever lucky enough to connect.

That was the logic behind the battery device scam that promised free sky movies.