Magnet Entertainment Package

watty

Doodlebug wrote:

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.

get Sky for TV or a TV aerial or a once off FTA satellite for TV.

Get adsl (via phone line) for Broadband, or ditch phone line and get Metro from Digiweb if it in your area.

You may have no-one you can get BB from.

Doodlebug

watty wrote:

get Sky for TV or a TV aerial or a once off FTA satellite for TV.

Get adsl (via phone line) for Broadband, or ditch phone line and get Metro from Digiweb if it in your area.

You may have no-one you can get BB from.

Thanks Watty! I'll have a gander at these packages and suss it out.

fintan.moloney

My Magnet Router seems to be receiving 12.5MB/s downstream although the service is not active yet, Im guessing then my Broadband will drop to 4MB/s while watching TV (I presume the TV needs about 8MB/s) or is the 8MB/s for the TV reserved somewhere else?

Grayarea

fintan.moloney wrote:

My Magnet Router seems to be receiving 12.5MB/s downstream although the service is not active yet, Im guessing then my Broadband will drop to 4MB/s while watching TV (I presume the TV needs about 8MB/s) or is the 8MB/s for the TV reserved somewhere else?

The router is limited in the firmware to 12Mb downstream (the original routers was limited to 8Mb).

Each STB requires 4Mb down.

Second line support told me that with the entertainment pack they throttle the BB to 1/4 of the downstream. This seems consistant with the peak download I get 200Kb - 300Kb.

How did you get these figures?

Thanks,

superfly

heres what people in the new Beaupark fibre enabled estate have to say
http://www.beaupark.com/viewtopic.php?t=450

fintan.moloney

I got those figures from the router itself, thats what it says in the 'Connection details' section...so I presume once my STB becomes active it will use up 4MB/s then. 200 - 300k on a supposed 8MB/s line doesn't sound so hot, does it speed up with the STB off?

Also thats interesting if in firmware it is limited to 12Mb/s as that would be consistent with the maximum for ADSL2 speeds whereas ADSL2+ is rated up to 24MB/s and its an ADSL2+ Modem/Router.

watty

You would be able to run an Ethernet cable direct if you were close enough to exchange to get 24Mbps in Ireland. Very distance & line quality dependant

watty

You would be able to run an Ethernet cable direct if you were close enough to exchange to get 24Mbps in Ireland. Very distance & line quality dependant

LizardKing

So any updates on this Magnet Crowd ... My Apartment block has been built with Magnet wired in and I am doing some checking up .. not entirely convinced by them so far ... am hoping they've improved .. I don't think I can get TV from any other source (no dishes allowed in apartment complex)

Tellox

I've got magnet 8meg.
Firstly, the customer support are fairly useless.
Ordered the BB in early jan, given an ETA of around 21 non-working days. Ordered a new line to be installed for it, too.

After 28 days, got a phonecall saying that my line is active, and the pack is on the way... except no eircom engineer had actually called to the house to install the line. The agent on the phone said she'll ring back within the hour.

No calls for about 48hrs, rang back, got told I should have the engineer out within the week.

After about 3 weeks, magnet then starting telling me they have reported the fault on my line to eircom..informed them that I never reported a fault to them, the problem was that the telephone point was never installed in my house. The agent on the other end then started telling me there was definately a fault. So the tech support is a bit piss-poor, in that aspect.

Spoke with multiple supervisors, all of which promised callbacks which never arrived. And eircom engineer arrived near the end of march to examine the "fault". He then said he cant see a problem, so I explained what magnet had done. He mentioned that theyre a useless for this sort of thing, and that he'd come back tommorrow with the tools for installing the line.

So in April, I actually had the new line installed, and got online. The next day,I received a call from a magnet supervisor, who is going to "personally" fix my case. So I told her that would have been fairly useful about 2 months ago, and that it had already been sorted.


As much as its eircoms fault for not sending the engineer in the first place, and reporting back that they had installed the line, Magnet are about as bad for not actually giving a **** about it.

As far as speeds go, they can be jumpy. I got 850kbps last night, and got about 300kbps this morning. Nothing to complain too much about.

The TV is awful. Start downloading a torrent, and the TV will start buffering. Channel selection isnt great, either.

Phone is so-so. Have gotton very bad reception when ringing mobiles. Pretty good for landlines, though.



So, in short;
Broadband; About the fastest you'll get for the price. The contention ratio being 1:1 makes it quite attractive. Speeds can be jumpy. 9/10
Phone; Not great quality, avoid mobile calls. Very cheap to landlines. 6/10
TV; Poor channel selection, shouldnt be turned on when downloading. 3/10
Customer Services/Tech support; The only decent thing is, theyre based in Ireland. 1/10

JNive

bare in mind that your product is ADSL2+ 8mbps/512kbps on eircom copper, whereas the post before you is FTTH 8mbps/8mbps ( Fibre )

LizardKing

So is the Fibre to the home offering any better .. I'm really not convinced and not sure I want to enter a contract with these if the services are going to be so poor.

I sent them an email but am awaiting a response...

Steffano2002

You have FTTH LK? I'd kill to get that...

I have Magnet 4Meg ADSL2+ and I think it's awesome! Download Speeds are good and ping is alright for gaming (wish it was a little better though).

In the nearly 4 months I've had them I only had 1 major issue where I had no service for 3 days (Eircom exchange died...). Apart from that I have to say they are the best ISP I've ever had (had BT and IBB before Magnet)!

LizardKing

Thanks Steffano .. sounds like they are good for BB alright but ..

i'm concerned about the TV / Phone service though.

Steffano2002

LizardKing wrote:

Thanks Steffano .. sounds like they are good for BB alright but...

Indeed they are!

LizardKing wrote:

i'm concerned about the TV / Phone service though.

Me too, that's why I don't use my landline for calls and why I have Sky*...

*I never asked my landlord if I could put the dish up, I just did. I know Sky is not an option for you and that's a real pity... How about an "indoor set-up" at a window or something? I've seen it done before...

cramp

Iam 9 month Magnet customer with 4mb/100gb + unlimited local/ national phone calls + line rental @ 62euro a week..
The service has always been Rock Solid with almost 5mb download speed and i dload up to 200gb a month...(with no warnings fom magnet) and never had any downtime..


Be warned their customer support is VERY POOR!!!!!!!!!!!!

cramp