Magnet Entertainment Package

Sean^DCT4

Hi all,

I currently have the Eircom 3MB Broadband package which works out at €54.95 p/m
On top of that there's the Eircom line rental + call charges
Then we have NTL for the tv...

I was thinking of going for the Magnet Entertainment Package, which is:

1. 8MB Download
2. 50KB Upload
3. 150GB Monthly Cap (What's not used is added onto next month)
4. 30 TV Channels
5. Free local&national calls

It works out at €83 per month (first two months are €59) with line rental inclusive.


Now what I want to know is what is the broadband (QOS quality of service) like. Is it a 1:1 contention ratio on ADSL2+ ?
If this is the case should you not always get 8MB download providing where you are downloading from has this upload-speed?

please feel free to post feedback if you are a current customer and experiences you have had with Magnet?

Thanks in advance.

Seany

bk

If NTL offers BB in your area, then it would be a better and cheaper option.

NTL TV €20
NTL 6m(10m) BB €40
Blueface VoIP unlimited local and national calls at any time €20
Total €80

You can then get rid of the line rental and the BB is free for the first three months and NTL often give the TV service free for the first 12 months (saves €20pm).

You can of course opt for a slower speed for cheaper or for an extra €5 get 60 digital channels and for €10 get 120 digital channels.

With Magnet the TV service will take your bandwidth, so expect your 8M BB to be more like 3 - 4m.

Magnet use IPTV for TV, that means that you will likely only be able to watch one channel at a time, you won't be able to record a different channel like you can with NTL at the moment and it is likely that you won't be able to get a second TV in the house.

Also the TV service is reported to be not very good with a picture and sound quality inferior to NTL and reports say that when you use the phone it can cause the TV to break up.

adrian.s

My impression is that Magnet seem somewhat expensive. I've just moved into a new house where they offer fibre to home and the offer is 20 euro a month for 2MB with TV and phone service as described above for 6 months. Interestingly enough, they still insist on charging line rental once this offer runs out despite not having to use an eircom line for the service. That's a little bit annoying to say the least.

Was hoping to get NTL Broadband, but surprisingly enough they can't deliver it into the estate (despite having the clearest TV picture I've ever seen from them!). I'm keeping the TV service though, reports on Magnets TV service seem to indicate it's not very good at this point in time (at least in the fibre enabled homes I know of).

Any way, I'm supposedly getting connected tomorrow, can post update on the service if anybody is interested.

A.

Sean^DCT4

Nice posts there lads. Keep the good info comin.

I can get NTL BB in my area so at this point in time I definitely am thinking of going with them.

I'm more interested in the better BB package than phone/TV deals but i'd obvioulsy would rather improve what I currently have.

There is however a 40GB cap on the NTL 6MB package which is 10GB more than my current one with Eircom.

Although, if wat BK says is true, then by watching TV with Magnet this will eat away at the 150GB cap with Magnet.. ?

paulm17781

Not sure about Magnet, mixed reviews here. Generally I've heard the service isn't great.

Your biggest waste is on Eircom. Can you get NTL or Smart?

Smart is €35 p/m including line rental

Magnet use the 8 mb bandwidth for tv so if you watch tv and surf, both will be affected. NTL do not do this.

bk

Sean^DCT4 wrote:

I can get NTL BB in my area so at this point in time I definitely am thinking of going with them.

If you can get NTL BB, then I'd go with them, it is far superior, as is the TV service.

Sean^DCT4 wrote:

There is however a 40GB cap on the NTL 6MB package which is 10GB more than my current one with Eircom.

True but NTL don't really enforce that cap, many people report doing up to 100GB per month with no problems. NTL have only ever contacted a few people who consistently went over 100GB per month and just asked them to reduce thier usage for the benefit of other users. So I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Sean^DCT4 wrote:

Although, if wat BK says is true, then by watching TV with Magnet this will eat away at the 150GB cap with Magnet.. ?

That is a very good question, I actually don't know the answer to that, worth checking with Magnet. I had assumed that the TV wasn't included in the cap. If it was included then the cap would be useless, TV eats up bandwidth at about 4Mb/s. You would fly through that cap over a few days.

If your interest is BB, then NTL is definitely better. With Magnet you are likely to only get about 4Mb/s when you use TV. With NTL you will get 6Mb/s and the 6Mb/s products seem to be actually 10Mb/s, some people are reporting they are actually getting about 9.8Mb/s down, NTL are just advertising it at 6Mb/s, probably they can only guarantee that speed.

Also NTL has been around much longer and has a very good reputation for BB, I have 3Mb/s for over a year now and it is rock solid stable, with little or no downtime, much better then the DSL I had in the past.

Blaster99

It should perhaps be pointed out that about 95% of the complaints about Magnet or IPTV is from people who've probably never seen Magnet's IPTV in action and prefer cable or satellite for their own reasons. I don't recall seeing any complaints of note from actual Magnet users.

To answer a question above, yes Magnet's service is uncontended. A question worth asking is if you're getting an 8Mbps package and your line can do more than 8Mbps, do you get guaranteed 8Mbps for broadband and the TV takes up spare line capacity?

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

It should perhaps be pointed out that about 95% of the complaints about Magnet or IPTV is from people who've probably never seen Magnet's IPTV in action and prefer cable or satellite for their own reasons. I don't recall seeing any complaints of note from actual Magnet users.

They are around here. That is the only info I have on Magnet.

Blaster99 wrote:

A question worth asking is if you're getting an 8Mbps package and your line can do more than 8Mbps, do you get guaranteed 8Mbps for broadband and the TV takes up spare line capacity?

Again from what I have read here. It is 8Mbps total. Everything comes from that.

watty

Blaster99 wrote:

It should perhaps be pointed out that about 95% of the complaints about Magnet or IPTV is from people who've probably never seen Magnet's IPTV in action and prefer cable or satellite for their own reasons. I don't recall seeing any complaints of note from actual Magnet users.

To answer a question above, yes Magnet's service is uncontended. A question worth asking is if you're getting an 8Mbps package and your line can do more than 8Mbps, do you get guaranteed 8Mbps for broadband and the TV takes up spare line capacity?

1) There arn't many Magnet customers
2) The broadband *IS* good
3) The TV is out of the BB 8M
4) If you not close to exchange 6M
5) One IPTV stream uses about 1/2 the BW.
6) Most people in Ireland have low expectaion of TV quality from years of poor analog Cable, fringe BBC or RTE reception or analog MMDS.

jimmycrackcorm

I wouldn't think that the tv comes out of the 8mb broadband. The iptv requires 4mb and you can rent an additional decoder for another room so it does make sense to leave nothing for BB in that case. They use ADSL2+ which can support up to 24mb.

I was tempted to switch except they don't have sky one - no simpsons / star trek etc.

paulm17781

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

I wouldn't think that the tv comes out of the 8mb broadband. The iptv requires 4mb and you can rent an additional decoder for another room so it does make sense to leave nothing for BB in that case.

Two people here said that TV quality reduces when surfing.

Blaster99

Sure, but their lines probably couldn't do more than something like 6Mbps so that doesn't conclusively say anything. I suppose it's a fairly theoretical question as very few people will have lines capable of more than 6Mbps. Unless there's a technical limitation with their kit, it wouldn't make any sense to include the TV part in the paid-for bandwidth.

I wouldn't be so sure about the quality problems. I know it's not quite the same thing, but I've watched a couple of large dual-layer DVD's compressed down to single-layer with a bitrate of about 2-3Mbps recently and the quality was better than NTL Digital.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

Sure, but their lines probably couldn't do more than something like 6Mbps so that doesn't conclusively say anything. I suppose it's a fairly theoretical question as very few people will have lines capable of more than 6Mbps.

I'm not sure if you're backing my point or arguing here. Fact of it is TV quality reduced when surfing you can use semantics all you like but it is the same point. NTL 6mb will work well with NTL TV. Magnet won't.

Blaster99

I'm not backing your point.

watty

Blaster99 wrote:

Sure, but their lines probably couldn't do more than something like 6Mbps so that doesn't conclusively say anything. I suppose it's a fairly theoretical question as very few people will have lines capable of more than 6Mbps. Unless there's a technical limitation with their kit, it wouldn't make any sense to include the TV part in the paid-for bandwidth.

The IPTV comes out of what ever bandwidth you get. No mirrors, smoke or magic

Blaster99 wrote:

I wouldn't be so sure about the quality problems. I know it's not quite the same thing, but I've watched a couple of large dual-layer DVD's compressed down to single-layer with a bitrate of about 2-3Mbps recently and the quality was better than NTL Digital.

Well 2-3Mbps compression looks rubbish compared with the satellite channels I watch. I don't think the NTL/Chorus digital quality is the same everywhere. While the Chorus Digital I have ever seen is poorer than the same channels on Satellite (if examined closely), it is much better than 2..3Mbps re-encoded MPEG.

There must be some places with terrible bad NTL digital

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

I'm not backing your point.

Thank God you clarified that. :rolleyes:

cormac_byrne

I'm a magnet customer on an older package 3M/512. for the first week the TV did cause the download to slow, but then they flicked a switch or something (impossible to get tech info out of them) and it stopped happening.

If you want 8MB + TV your phoneline needs to support 12 MB as the TV needs 4MB. If say your line only supported 10MB then the TV could reduce your download, and definitely would if you were trying to stream 2 channels.

My line tests somewhere between 6 & 7MB. so I've just barely got enough. Magnet have asked Eircom to replace my line (as we reckon it was installed probably back in the 70's) It's definitely a 'Telecom Eireann' line.

The TV does suffer from pixellation, sometimes worse than others.
(like my Sky disk does in heavy rain)

biggest gripe is the slow channel change and terrible EPG (often shows ot of date info)

paulm17781

cormac_byrne wrote:

If you want 8MB + TV your phoneline needs to support 12 MB as the TV needs 4MB. If say your line only supported 10MB then the TV could reduce your download, and definitely would if you were trying to stream 2 channels.

My line tests somewhere between 6 & 7MB. so I've just barely got enough. Magnet have asked Eircom to replace my line (as we reckon it was installed probably back in the 70's) It's definitely a 'Telecom Eireann' line.

Thanks for clarifying.

Freddie59

bk wrote:

If NTL offers BB in your area, then it would be a better and cheaper option.

NTL TV €20
NTL 6m(10m) BB €40
Blueface VoIP unlimited local and national calls at any time €20
Total €80

You can then get rid of the line rental and the BB is free for the first three months and NTL often give the TV service free for the first 12 months (saves €20pm).

You can of course opt for a slower speed for cheaper or for an extra €5 get 60 digital channels and for €10 get 120 digital channels.

With Magnet the TV service will take your bandwidth, so expect your 8M BB to be more like 3 - 4m.

Magnet use IPTV for TV, that means that you will likely only be able to watch one channel at a time, you won't be able to record a different channel like you can with NTL at the moment and it is likely that you won't be able to get a second TV in the house.

Also the TV service is reported to be not very good with a picture and sound quality inferior to NTL and reports say that when you use the phone it can cause the TV to break up.

Hello bk.:) Isn't the Bluface price €15 per month for Ireland/UK unlimited? - so the price now drops to €75 per month? I currently have NTL Analogue (€20); basic Digital (€10); 1 MEG Broadband (€20); and NTL VOIP (€15) - my total €65 per month........and NO EIRCOM LINE RENTAL!!!!:D

Now remember that Magnet's basic service TV service is not much better than NTL's basic analogue. If I remove Digital from my package the price then drops to €55 per month:eek: :eek:

I would also recommend that the original Poster check the call rates Eircom v Blueface v Magnet. Interesting reading......:p

cormac_byrne

Freddie59 wrote:

Now remember that Magnet's basic service TV service is not much better than NTL's basic analogue. If I remove Digital from my package the price then drops to €55 per month:eek: :eek:

It's been widely reported on here that many people opting for NTL broadband manage to get free analog TV for a year. Blueface minimum is €10 (for 300 mins calls) so that could be a minimum package of €30 (or €35, does NTL start at €20 or €25?)

paulm17781

Freddie59 wrote:

I currently have NTL Analogue (€20); basic Digital (€10); 1 MEG Broadband (€20); and NTL VOIP (€15) - my total €65 per month........and NO EIRCOM LINE RENTAL!!!!:D

Do you mean Blueface VOIP or do you know something I don't know?

eamonnmoore

Sean^DCT4 wrote:

Hi all,

I currently have the Eircom 3MB Broadband package which works out at €54.95 p/m
On top of that there's the Eircom line rental + call charges
Then we have NTL for the tv...

I was thinking of going for the Magnet Entertainment Package, which is:

1. 8MB Download
2. 50KB Upload
3. 150GB Monthly Cap (What's not used is added onto next month)
4. 30 TV Channels
5. Free local&national calls

It works out at €83 per month (first two months are €59) with line rental inclusive.


Now what I want to know is what is the broadband (QOS quality of service) like. Is it a 1:1 contention ratio on ADSL2+ ?
If this is the case should you not always get 8MB download providing where you are downloading from has this upload-speed?

please feel free to post feedback if you are a current customer and experiences you have had with Magnet?

Thanks in advance.

Seany

I currently have magnet and they are a disaster.I live 2kms from the exchange and the line quality with eircom was excellent never had any contention issues.i am pulling the magnet package out because it consistently freezes on the tv broadband is hit and miss and telephone is atrocious,but worse of all they are not responding to my numerous e-mails and telephone calls.crap crap crap.i have sent an e-mail today telling them if they don't come back to me i will publish a letter on every forum and local newspaper about my experiences with them.more my arse more headaches,hassle,downtime.

Blaster99

Freddie59 wrote:

Hello bk.:) Isn't the Bluface price €15 per month for Ireland/UK unlimited? - so the price now drops to €75 per month? I currently have NTL Analogue (€20); basic Digital (€10); 1 MEG Broadband (€20); and NTL VOIP (€15) - my total €65 per month........and NO EIRCOM LINE RENTAL!!!!:D

Now remember that Magnet's basic service TV service is not much better than NTL's basic analogue. If I remove Digital from my package the price then drops to €55 per month:eek: :eek:

I would also recommend that the original Poster check the call rates Eircom v Blueface v Magnet. Interesting reading......:p

If you use Broadtalk and one of the free VoIP providers, you can save yourself that €15 as well.

billy the squid

When magnet works it works brilliantly for me. At present I can get nearly 9mb/s download and TV quality does not degrade for me when I use the internet.

Changing from any other company to magnetis a nightmare though. and when something breaks down with magnet, you end up with no phone TV or internet for days on end. They promise to call you back with updates but never do. Their customer service is horrendous.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

If you use Broadtalk and one of the free VoIP providers, you can save yourself that €15 as well.

Not for unlimited UK / Ireland calls.

Freddie59

paulm17781 wrote:

Do you mean Blueface VOIP or do you know something I don't know?

Sorry Paulm!:o That should, of course, have read Blueface!:D

Freddie59

cormac_byrne wrote:

It's been widely reported on here that many people opting for NTL broadband manage to get free analog TV for a year. Blueface minimum is €10 (for 300 mins calls) so that could be a minimum package of €30 (or €35, does NTL start at €20 or €25?)

NTL's base BB (1 Meg) is now €19.99. http://www.ntl.ie/athome/internet_cable.html

Grayarea

Blaster99 wrote:

It should perhaps be pointed out that about 95% of the complaints about Magnet or IPTV is from people who've probably never seen Magnet's IPTV in action and prefer cable or satellite for their own reasons. I don't recall seeing any complaints of note from actual Magnet users.

To answer a question above, yes Magnet's service is uncontended. A question worth asking is if you're getting an 8Mbps package and your line can do more than 8Mbps, do you get guaranteed 8Mbps for broadband and the TV takes up spare line capacity?

Are you a magnet user or an employee?

I have had this package from early February and it is to be honest very disappointing.

The problems I have had include;

Broadband my well be uncontested but it is throttled, on the entertainment package you will never get much above 200K per second, this I had confirmed from a second line tech yesterday.

The EPG does not work in any meaningfull way. Magnet cannot give a time to fix either.

Untill yesterday 2 STB did not work together. I got a new modem with upgraded firmware which has fixed this issue.

The VOIP phone that is supplied by default will not give good upstream voice quality unless nothing else is using the system (that means no STBs or broadband). The adapter that lets you use a standard DECT handset fixes this, but it took Magnet over a month to get me one, with repeated calls and no satisfactory order tracking.

Magnet also remotly maintain your router/switch and reset it without prior notice, the upshot of which is that all STBs have to be reset manually before they work again, this is an absolute nightmare if you record anything.

The front line support do not understand the system they are supporting and frequently give very misleading statments about how a problem is progressing.

I am giving Magnet the benefit of the doubt as they are very new, but my first month and a half has been pretty unhappy period for me.

Later,

Sniipe

I have magnet lite (4mb option) - I had Eircom (2mb) back home and now have NTL (now 3mb).
NTL are by far the best provider.
The magnet line I have in Dublin hasn't got a great latency in comparisson to either eircom 2mb and definately not NTL (3mb).
I will say that on torrents downloads for current stuff, I can get 200kbps which I think is really good (but I haven't used this on Eircom or NTL line).
While downloading I cannot use the telephone properly.

If ur into gaming go for NTL, if ur into the full package then the NTL with a VOIP provider is definately the way to go.

Doodlebug

Disappointing (but very useful) overall impressions of Magnet here. I was seriously considering it, but I think I'll wait a while and see if they get their customer support act together before jumping in with phone, TV & BB!

What is the next best solution for TV/BB/Phone (Mid-west so no NTL)?

Currently on Eircom BB (20GB limit) 40 euro, Eircom Phone 40 euro, TV (Chorus analogue - they can't supply digital in my area, but they can do it down the road!) 28 euro pm.

V1llianous

I have the Magnet Entertainment Value package.

I did have quite a few problems at first but all seem to be sorted now 2 months down the line.

I had 2 modems which were faulty (1 was DOA), and also line issues which are now resolved.

I do agree that the customer support is flaky, in fact I stored the numbers of people who were assisting me (2nd level) and just rang them directly back as support weren't calling me. On the upside, I have had this since January and paid for just 1 month.

B/band is slightly above advertised download rate for me. Upload is about the same. If you are uploading fast phone service does seem to get worse (don't know if that is just me). TV is pretty poor - not much pixelation any more but EPG is still an hour behind or not accurate since clocks changed. No teletext or subtitles available either which is not great. The only reason I got the TV was for a spare room as I have Sky anyway so not too bad.